Selected Letters of Gandhi : Part-1

TO ASHRAM SISTERS


Chapter-12: Contact with Labourers

Bhadrapada vadi

I am sure you have understood why I want you to make contacts with the labourers at the Ashram. To collect a few coppers from each of them for the relief fund is merely an occasion for making them kinsmen. You should work for mutual good understanding and share one another’s joys and sorrows. You need not give much of your time for this. What is wanted is a change of heart. We should aim at feeding them with the kind of food we eat, and clothing them with the same dress as we wear. We should wish that they had a share in all the good things that we like and obtain for ourselves, and work for such a consummation.
Do not be frightened by the wide implication of these views of mine. There are always two meaning to everything, one wider and the other narrower. We shall not be put out if we understand the wider implications but start with the narrower.