Page:Masani - Gandhi's story.pdf/64

an Indian home. She ended by saying, “Would not you be wild if you were a girl?”

Gandhiji sympathized with her and smilingly said that he did not have to be a girl to feel strongly against the unfair way Indian women were treated.

Once when he was addressing a gathering he noticed that on one side of the hall there was a large screen behind which the women sat, for in India then many women wore the veil and could not appear in public without it. This is called the purdah. Because of this, Indian women remained backward for they could not mix freely with other people and they could not go to school and college. Therefore, Gandhiji wanted to abolish the veil, and the sight of the screen made him very sad. That day when he spoke to the people who had come there he said, “Why do not our women enjoy the same freedom that men do? Why should they not be able to walk out and have fresh air? What we are doing to our women and what we are doing to the untouchables partly accounts for our weakness, indecision, narrowness and helplessness. Let us then tear down the purdah with one mighty effort.”

He asked the women of India to cast aside their shackles and to raise their heads. On them depended the future of India. They must educate themselves first of all, and they must come out in the world and demand their rights. They must not be just ornaments