SECTION I : Selected Letters

Gandhi Letter 68 : To Pandit Malaviyaji

Yeravda Central Prison,
24th February, 1933

I had your telegram asking me whether you could release the correspondence for publication. As I had done so 48 hours before the receipt of your telegram I did not send a wire in reply, thinking that you must already have seen the notice of the publication.
Since then I had no time to dictate a reply to you, as Harijan takes up practically all my time up to Thursday evening.
I hope you are getting regularly your copy of the Harijan. I do not know whether you at all get the time to look at it. Now that the world knows the difference of outlook between you and me as to these Bills, I would like you to review the whole position in the light of what you yourself have suggested.
You say that it is possible by discussion between Sanatanists and reformers to arrive at a compromise without the aid of legislation. I taxed myself as to how this could be, even assuming that there was complete agreement between Sanatanists and reformers that public temples should be thrown open to Harijans. Even that agreement cannot supersede the law which lays down that Harijans cannot enter public temples.
I therefore cannot get away from the very real moral difficulty that unless we get the law altered, we are not in a position to keep the pledge given in the Bombay resolution. We cannot plead helplessness under cover of this law, of which I knew nothing at the time I drew up the resolution about temples. I suppose that you do know that the original draft was prepared by me. True, several changes were made after, but no change was made so as to alter the substance of my draft.
I wish therefore that for the sake of the very religion which you and I hold dearer than life itself, you will examine the moral difficulties I have presented here. And let me repeat, if it is at all necessary, what I have said in my article in Harijan that this latest difference in viewpoint between you and me does not, in the slightest degree, diminish my regard or affection for you,

Your sincerely,
M. K. GANDHI

To
PANDIT MALAVIYAJI

From a photostat: S.N. 20348