THE SELECTED WORKS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Vol-5 : Voice of Truth

SECTION IV : ONE WORLD

Chapter-25: Different Races are Different Branches of One Tree

In the eyes of God who is the Creator of all, His creatures are all equal. Had He made any distinctions of high or low between man and man, they would have been visible as are the distinctions between say, an elephant and an ant. But He has endowed all human beings impartially with the same shape and the same natural wants.

Harijan, 22-12-33, p. 2

It is wrong, it is sinful to consider some people lower than ourselves. On God’s Earth, nobody is low and nobody is high. We are all His creatures; and just as in the eyes of parents all their children are absolutely equal, so also in God’s eyes all His creatures must be equal.

Harijan, 5-1-34, p. 8

In spite of the differences of races and religions, we shall learn to tolerate and respect one another and consider all human beings as children of one God and, therefore, brothers and sisters of one another. God is the Creator of all life; all His creatures are, therefore, equal in His eyes. Humanity is a gigantic tree having innumerable branches and leaves, and the same life throbs through them all. The realization of unity in diversity is implies in the removal of untouchability.

Harijan, 1-12-33, p. 6

“What sort of relations would you favour between two races?”

The closest possible. But while I have abolished all distinction between and an African and an Indian, that does not mean that I do not recognize the difference like them. The different races of mankind are like different branches of tree-once we recognize the common parent stock from which we are sprung, we realize the basic unity of the human family, and there is no room left for enemies and unhealthy competition.

Harijan, 18-2-39, p. 12

I do not believe... that an individual may gain spiritually and those who surround him suffer... I believe in the essential unity of man and... of all that lives. Therefore I believe that if one man gains... the whole world gains with him and, if one man falls, the whole world falls to that extent. I do not help opponents without at the same time helping myself and my co-workers.

Young India, 4-12-24, p. 398

One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole.

Young India, 27-1-27, p. 31

Unseen it (South Africa’s white man’s policy) holds the seeds of a world war.

Harijan, 24-3-46, p. 52

Does real superiority (of the whites) requires outside props in the shape of legislation?

Harijan,24-3-46, p.52

Is a civilization worth the name which requires for its existence the very doubtful prop of racial legislation and lynch law?

Harijan, 30-6-46, p. 204

One day the black races will rise like the avenging Attila against their white oppressors, unless someone presents to them the weapon of Satyagraha.

Harijan, 19-5-46, p. 134

...It will be a dark blot on the history of the white civilization if lynch law is allowed to have its course in South Africa. I hope that the South African Government and the civilized conscience of mankind will not allow that.

Harijan, 30-6-46, p. 206

This new caste (system) is worse than the ancient but dying institution of India which has some redeeming features, even while it is dying. But the new civilized edition has none. It shamelessly proclaims that white civilization requires the erection of legal barriers in order to protect itself against Asiatics and Africans.

Harijan, 2-6-46, p. 157

Those who agree that racial inequality must be removed and yet do nothing to fight the evil are impotent. I cannot have anything to say to such people. After all the underdogs will have to earn their own salvation....

The solution is largely in India’s hands. If everything is all right in India internally, she is likely to play an effective part in straightening up affairs...

If the UNO fails to deal justly with the South African-Indian dispute, the UNO will lose its prestige. I have no doubt that the UNO can prosper only if it is just.

Harijan, 26-10-47, p. 385

Do they forget that the greatest of the teachers of mankind were all Asiatics and did not possess a white face? These, if they descended on earth and went to South Africa, will all have to live in the segregated areas and be classed as Asiatics and coloured people unfit by law to be the equals of whites.

Harijan, 30-6-46, p. 204

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