Nari Aur Kranti #1

My beloved Atman!

In the life of this country many misfortunes have passed. And the greatest of them, if we wish to consider, is this: for thousands of years we have been a people of belief. We have never really thought, we have never inquired; we kept on accepting like the blind. And this blind acceptance became the sunset of our life. We have been made to understand only this—that whoever believes, knows.

No statement could be more false. By believing, no one ever reaches knowing. And one who truly wishes to know has to begin by not believing. Apart from doubt there is no search for truth. Doubt does disappear, but it disappears only upon finding truth. Those who stop doubting beforehand remain blind; they never reach truth.

But we were taught faith, belief. We were never taught doubt. Therefore the mind of the country has become stuck, has stopped, and has become enslaved.

And remember, chains that bind the body are not so dangerous; chains that bind the soul prove far more dangerous. The soul of this country is enslaved. Perhaps we have become free in body, but to become free in soul will prove very difficult. Without breaking the slavery of the soul, there will be no sunrise in the life of this land. It is about this that I would like to speak to you a little—what are the bases of the soul’s slavery, and how can we break those slaveries.

First: the basis of man’s soul being enslaved is—belief, faith. Whoever trusts and believes blindly becomes a slave forever. One who does not learn how to doubt never sets out on the journey of freedom. What is the meaning of doubt? Doubt means the capacity to raise questions about what is accepted, what we have taken for granted—the capacity to place it before inquiry.

Science did not arise in this country because we did not raise questions. We became very weak in questioning. Once we accepted certain answers, we kept on accepting them. Thousands of years pass—our books do not change. Thousands of years pass—our faiths do not change. Thousands of years pass—and our mind has become like a pond—closed; it rots, but it does not flow. We are no longer like a river; we have become like a closed pond. And life is in flowing, life is in the search for the new each day, life is in the seeking of unknown paths each day.

Certainly, life has dangers, life has risks, and there is the possibility of getting lost upon unfamiliar paths. But it is out of the very possibility of straying on unknown routes that we succeed in creating new roads. The communities that have developed are those communities that doubt. And those that have not developed are the communities that believe. Those who doubted reached the moon; those who believed are no longer even fit to remain upon the earth.

We are a believing people; the entire power of our brain lies asleep. It is never struck; it is never challenged. Neither do our teachers want children to ask; nor do our parents want sons and daughters to ask; nor do our leaders want followers to ask. No one wants questions to be raised. Because questions place the old generation in difficulty. The old generations want silent trust. It is convenient for them, because their knowledge is never brought into doubt.

But if every new generation goes on accepting the old, then the life of new generations ends; it is the old generations that live on under new names. In this country the old generation is very frightened. No mother wants her daughter to ask those questions to which the mother cannot reply.

Just now when I arrived your Principal told me, “Last time you came, you raised such issues that the girls began asking great questions. Please say something today so that no one’s mind falls into doubt.”

I said, “That is impossible. It is impossible, because there is no meaning in my coming if I cannot raise at least a few questions. If I cannot provoke reflection, my coming is futile. I have not come here to kill your mind; I have come to awaken it. And the mind awakens with questions.”

But your teachers will be troubled. I want to trouble them. In fact, I want every single teacher of this country to be in difficulty, and the children to raise so many questions. From their difficulty a way will be found. For when we ask questions, when the teacher is placed in difficulty, when sons ask and the father is cornered, then we must search for answers. The old answers no longer suffice; new answers have to be sought. The very search for new answers is development. If you do not raise questions about the old answers, we remain stuck, content, halted—there is no further movement. Though no one wants to be troubled, life as it is seems comfortable—thus we have accepted countless foolish notions upon which we never raise a question.

For example—since this is a girls’ college, let me raise one. We have accepted that man is superior to woman. No question is raised about it. We have silently believed it.

This is dangerous. In a country where half are women—in all countries women are slightly more than half—if half of humanity considers itself inferior and the other half considers itself superior, development is impossible. And it is a great irony that in a country where woman accepts herself as low, man can never be high—for all men must take birth from woman. Where the mother is degraded, sons cannot be glorious. It is impossible. In truth, unless woman is honored, man can never be honored—because from woman all men are born. Scientists even say that very soon a time may come when perhaps a man will no longer be so necessary for the birth of a child. Even now the need is very little; within twenty years even that may not remain. Woman may be able to give birth directly. Man may become wholly unnecessary.

But we have accepted the meekness of woman. That men accepted it is understandable; but women too have accepted it. They too have agreed inwardly that somewhere they are less than men.

They are certainly different, not even a little less. But there is a difference between difference and inequality. Women are different from men—true. There are many distinctions—also true. But they are not unequal—and certainly not inferior. In some matters, indeed, they have greater capacities than men.

For instance, it is commonly thought that women are physically weak. This is true only to a point. Compared to men, women are physically weaker in one sense—that they do not have as much muscular power. But in another sense they are stronger—they have greater resistance than men. If the same disease afflicts both a man and a woman, the man breaks sooner; the woman breaks later. Women fall ill less often, and throughout the world women’s life-span is greater than men’s. Therefore in marriage we keep a slight difference of age. If the boy is twenty, we choose a girl of sixteen or seventeen. Why? Otherwise the world would be filled with widows. Men die four or five years earlier; women live five years longer.

Woman’s body has greater resistance. Nature has given her this strength because she must carry the child in her womb for nine months—which, if a man had to do, he would refuse to live. To nurture a living being within for nine months requires an immense capacity to endure pain—and she has it. She also has the strength to bear the pain of childbirth. And not only to give birth—raising a child is itself a great struggle. If men were left with the children at night, they would either strangle the children or themselves. Then they would know what an upheaval it is to keep a child asleep through the night. Woman’s capacity to endure pain is greater than man’s.

You will be surprised to know: at birth, one hundred and fifteen boys are born for every hundred girls. At birth boys are fifteen more, girls fifteen less. But by the age of marriage, a hundred girls remain and a hundred boys remain—the fifteen boys are gone. The mortality rate of boys is higher than that of girls. Hence nature has to produce fifteen extra boys, because by the time of marriage fifteen will have died.

In one sense, man is strong—he has muscular strength and can lift a heavier stone. But in another sense, man is weak—he cannot endure great pain. And remember, for this reason the future of woman is brighter than that of man. Muscular work is now done by machines; but the endurance of pain—no machine can do that. Man’s strength is becoming meaningless day by day. No longer must a man lift the stone; a crane lifts it. He need not fell the great tree; the saw does it. The power of man’s muscles has been taken over by machines. Hence in the future there will be little use for man’s strength. He need not wield the sword, nor saw the wood, nor break the rocks. But the strength woman holds is beyond the capacity of machines. Therefore I say to you: in the future woman will grow stronger each day, and man weaker.

Yet men have taught women that women are weak. Women have accepted that they are weak; men have accepted that they are strong.

Not unequal—certainly different. Men, no doubt, have a slightly greater capacity for argumentation than women. They can reason a little more, because they have a slightly lesser capacity for feeling. Women have more feeling. They can love more, be more sensitive, be richer in experience. Man can argue more, do more mathematics.

But on that account neither is low nor high. And perhaps in the long run mathematics is not as precious as love. Perhaps with mathematics a shop can be run, but life cannot. Perhaps mathematics can run a scientific laboratory, but in the laboratory of life mathematics is utterly useless. And we can live without a laboratory, but not without the heart.

Men have explained that women are backward in terms of mind. There is a little truth in it, but there is falsehood too. If we weigh skulls, the woman’s skull weighs less than the man’s. But we have not yet devised a way to measure the heart; otherwise we would find that women have a greater heart than men. The statistics we have made until now are scales to measure men. We created the Intelligence Quotient; we measure a person’s IQ. But his Love Quotient—his LQ—his capacity to love, we have no way to measure. In truth, man is not concerned with that.

Women must demonstrate that intellect is not as valuable as the heart, and that ultimately a human being lives through the heart. Intelligence can at best devise ways to live; but living happens in the heart. Livelihood and life are vastly different. Running a shop is to find means for life. Calculating accounts is to find means. Building a house is to find means. But these are means; they are not the end. In the end one has to live in that house; what is earned in that shop has to be lived; within the enclosure of arithmetic, one has to love beyond measure. That capacity man has far less.

Man has one capacity—the mathematical, intellectual, logical. Woman has one capacity—love, heart, feeling. It is hard to say which is superior. But till now man has kept on insisting that he is superior.

I have heard of a great mathematician, the first to formulate the theory of the average. We are all familiar with it. For example, we can ask: what is the average height in Ludhiana? We could measure everyone’s height, divide by the number of people, and the figure that comes will be the average height—even though not a single person in Ludhiana will be of exactly average height. The average is a falsehood. Nothing is more deceptive than averages. No one will be of average height. Everyone will be of different heights; the sum and division of all yields the average.

The man who first discovered this theory was a Greek mathematician. He became very pleased with himself; his fame spread throughout Greece. One holiday he took his wife and children for a picnic at the riverbank. While crossing the river, his wife said, “Please check properly—the river might be deep—lest some child drown!”

He said, “Wait! I will measure the children’s heights and the average depth of the river.” He took out his foot-rule and measured the river’s average depth. Somewhere it was very deep, somewhere very shallow—six feet here, six inches there. He calculated the average depth. He had five children—one was two feet tall, one three feet, one five feet. He found the average height of the children. Then he said, “Be carefree—their average height is greater than the river’s average depth. No child can drown.”

His wife did not believe it. Few wives believe their husbands. But there was compulsion; she had to accept. The husband is powerful. She suspected these heights and depths! Might some child be lost! But when the husband is such a great mathematician and knows so much about highs and lows, perhaps he knows rightly. The husband went ahead, the children in the middle, the wife behind. Soon the two-foot child began to drown somewhere. The wife shouted, “It seems some error has crept into your mathematics—the child is going under!”

But the husband did not run to save the child from drowning; he ran back to fetch his foot-rule, thinking, “There can be no mistake.”

There can be no mistake—he is the man who knows averages. More or less, the way that mathematician brought his children into trouble, in the same way man’s intellect has brought all humanity into trouble. Intellect alone has proved very dangerous. It is as dangerous as if we created a world in which women were eliminated and only men remained—imagine how absurd that world would be. The reverse would be equally absurd—a world with no men, only women. In truth, man and woman are complementary; together they create a beautiful world. Similarly, intellect and feeling are complementary; together they build a good world.

But the world man has created has been built with the male mind. He has spread mathematics everywhere. Wherever man’s force prevails he installs numbers, and life falls into difficulty.

Go to the military—there we erase men’s names. In the military only numbers remain. If soldier number eleven dies, the news reads: “Number Eleven has fallen.” A notice is posted: “Number Eleven fell.”

How strange! No person is a number. No person can be measured by a number. If a man named Mohanlal dies, he has a wife, a mother, a son. But if Number Eleven dies, there is no wife of Number Eleven, no son. If Mohanlal dies, there is sorrow; if Number Eleven dies, there is no sorrow. Number Eleven can be replaced; another Eleven can be installed. But Mohanlal cannot be replaced. How can another son be given to the one whose son he was? How can another become that son? How can another become the husband to the one whose husband he was? How can another become the brother to the one whose brother he was?

No—but wherever man thinks, he thinks in numbers. If men had their way, they would turn the whole of life into a military—banishing all feeling. Only dry arithmetic would remain.

Woman must rebel in this regard. She must ask: the world man has created is designed solely by the male mind; it is incomplete. Therefore in a world made by men there is nothing but war. If we look at three thousand years of human history, we will be aghast. In three thousand years there have been fourteen and a half thousand wars! Five wars per year. It is hard to find a single day anywhere on earth when some war was not raging and man was not cutting man. In a world made by men there will be aggression, violence—love cannot be. In truth woman has been refused. In a world crafted by woman there will be space for love, for flowers, for music—vina and dance will enter—sword will not remain the sole truth.

But woman is meek. Man has told her she is low—and the irony is, she has accepted it.

In truth, a lie propagated for thousands of years becomes accepted. For thousands of years in India the Shudra thought he was a Shudra—because for thousands of years Brahmins told him, “You are a Shudra.” Before Ambedkar, in five thousand years of the Shudras’ history, not a single valuable man arose among them. This does not mean Shudras lacked intelligence, or that Ambedkar could not have arisen earlier. He could. But Shudras had accepted that none could ever arise among them; they are Shudras, they cannot possess intelligence. Even Ambedkar would not have arisen if the British had not come and shaken the mind of this land a little. When we had to draft India’s constitution, the Brahmin was of no use; that Shudra Ambedkar proved of use—he turned out to be the wisest of the wise. Two hundred years earlier he could not have been born—because Shudras themselves had accepted that they had no intelligence.

Women too have accepted that in some way they are inferior.

Perhaps you will say to me: “No, we do not accept this.” New girls may say, “We do not accept it.”

But the more I study closely, the more I see that we do accept it. The acceptance is very deep, deeply rooted; it is hard to recognize it on the surface.

For example, in a train there is a separate compartment for women. Women may sit in men’s compartments, but men may not sit in the women’s. No woman protests that a separate compartment is an indicator of inferiority—“We will not tolerate it.” What does it mean? It means special protection is required. And what does special protection imply? It is given to those who are weak and low and backward. Women should refuse: we do not want a separate compartment.

All over Europe, and now almost the whole world, we abide by the idea of “ladies first.” But it is a sign of inferiority. If there is a queue for tickets and a girl arrives, people give way and place her in front. Perhaps the girl thinks she has been greatly honored. She does not know that nothing could be more insulting. In truth the men are saying: “You are weak—what competition can there be with you? We step back; stand ahead. To fight with you is useless, for you cannot win anyway—so we place you in front. You are already defeated.”

If someone says, “Ladies first,” women should refuse—“No. The same position that is for men is for women. If we arrived fifth, we will stand fifth. We do not want a special right to stand first.” Special rights are given only to the weak, not to the strong.

But women have accepted—and perhaps, in accepting, have even come to think there is some special honor in it.

It is not an honor; it is dangerous. I even hold that separate colleges for girls, such as yours, are wrong. There should be no separate colleges for girls. As long as we keep men and women apart, we cannot create a good world. As long as we raise men and women separately, we cannot create the condition of equality that should arise between them. As long as we educate women separately, rear them differently, enclose them within separate circles, they will feel weak when they enter the larger male world. Here you will not notice it—here all are girls. But when you enter the world of boys, youth and men, you will find difficulties beginning.

No—every girl from childhood should demand the right to grow alongside boys. She should study with boys, run with boys, swim with boys. Her life is together with boys; she has to grow with them. Only then can we build a world in which the sense of inferiority between woman and man disappears. Otherwise it will not disappear.

Even where boys and girls study together, they sit apart. I taught for many years at a university. In my classes I said, “I will not teach unless boys and girls sit together.” What meaning does co-education have otherwise? Half the seats are occupied by girls, half by boys, and the professor stands between them like a policeman. It is absurd, uncultured. It announces our lack of culture.

A nation that cannot seat its boys and girls together reveals that its mind is very sexualized, diseased with sexuality. A nation that cannot let its boys and girls run together, play together, form friendships—such a nation has deep sickness. We will not be able to cure these diseases so long as, out of fear of them, we go on creating separate spaces.

No—women should refuse: when the world of men and women is together, why separate education? When life is together, separate education is dangerous. When living is together, how can education be apart? And when living is side by side, one cannot remain separate.

There have been dangerous results. As far as I know, throughout India in all cities a girl cannot go out alone. Somewhere someone will shove her, somewhere someone will misbehave, somewhere someone will abuse, somewhere someone will say filthy words. This will continue so long as we keep boys and girls apart. It will not stop. If we wish to end it—and it must end at once, otherwise the energy within woman cannot find full scope for development—if we wish to end it, woman must renounce all her special privileges and stand exactly beside man, where he stands.

This does not mean that woman should become like man. No. Her difference is definite. Her dimensions are different. In her inner life there is some difference from man’s inner life. But the two differences should develop together.

Strange, that after five thousand years of education, culture and religion, we have still not created the possibility of friendship between man and woman. Even today, if a woman is walking with a young man and they tell someone, “We are friends,” the whole street will be startled. Because we do not accept friendship between man and woman. There must be some relationship—without a relationship we do not accept any friendship. She must be a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother. But some relationship must be there.

Have we ever thought that daughter, mother, wife—all are sex relationships! And this country, which calls itself so spiritual, says that apart from sexual relations we do not accept any relationship between man and woman. How sad that for millions of years man and woman have been together on the earth, yet they cannot be friends. Are they two different species of animals? Can there be no friendship? Why are we so afraid, so frightened? Why so much unease?

We raised them separately. So separately that they grow up almost unfamiliar with each other. The current of unfamiliarity becomes so strong that even when a young woman marries a young man, it does not break; it stands between them always. I have seen very few husbands and wives who attain friendship—and I am intimately acquainted with thousands. Husband and wife, I call those who fight and yet live together. Friendship is another matter entirely. To live with someone and fight is one thing; to live with someone in friendship is quite another.

I have heard... a small story comes to mind... A man’s wife died. Beating his chest he cried, “A mountain of sorrow has fallen upon me.” All his friends consoled him, “Do not be disheartened.” But he cried all the more. They thought he had received a great shock. Later her body was placed in a coffin and the bier was lifted. As they carried it out, in the courtyard a neem tree stood—the bier struck it. Suddenly a sound arose from within; it seemed the woman was not dead but alive. The coffin was opened—she was alive. The house filled with joy, but the husband became even more dejected.

Three years later the woman died again. The husband shouted and wept again. When the bier was lifted he said, “Be careful this time—do not let it strike the neem again. Because of your mistake I had to suffer three years.”

They could not understand. “But you are weeping so much!”

He said, “I am weeping now, of course—but I was weeping while living together too.”

It is not that husbands alone are weeping—wives weep even more. We have erected such distances between man and woman that seven circumambulations cannot break them. Such distances that a signature in the registry office cannot break them. Such distances that marrying in any temple—Arya Samaj, Sanatan, or any church—cannot break them. The distances we teach to women and men pursue them all their lives. Whenever they meet, a gap stands between them—and that gap never lets them truly meet.

The greatest misfortune of humanity is that we have not yet bound man and woman in harmony, in concord, in music. And we never will—until we accept their co-living, co-education, co-play, their growing, playing and developing together. Until we remove all distances between man and woman, we shall not succeed in creating musical relationships between them. And remember, until man and woman are bound in a musical relationship, we will keep the human being afflicted with countless diseases.

Mother and father fight all their lives—though no one says it openly. Those who fight at home put on different faces in the evening when they step out. The faces they show others are different, not the real ones. We all have false faces for outside. And women even carry their false faces in their vanity bags—ready to apply wherever needed.

One face is our real face—the one we live with. It is very sad. And one is the smiling face—false smiles—the face outside, powdered and perfumed; it seems fragrant. But the real face is not so fragrant. We become something else in front of others. But our children catch us—the real faces appear before them.

How sad that leading psychologists of the last twenty years suggest that if humanity is to be freed from mental illness, children must be raised away from their parents. It sounds strange: if we want to keep people from going mad, children must be raised apart from mother and father. Because parents live in such turmoil that children are filled with turmoil before they begin to live. All their quarrels enter the minds of the children.

And remember, by the age of four a child learns fifty percent of what he will learn in a lifetime. The remaining fifty percent he learns in the rest of life. By age four, he has become knowledgeable about half of the matters of life. The remaining half is learned thereafter. If he lives to eighty-four, what he learned in four years, he will learn as much more in the remaining eighty. And the first four years he must live watching mother and father. Their conflicts, their struggles, their hatred, their jealousy, their contempt, their tense faces, their sadness, their tears—all are absorbed by the child. He drinks it all. Later he repeats those very things. One may say he has become a built-in computer of his parents. Whatever they did until his fourth year has been installed; now he will repeat it. Boys enact their fathers; girls enact their mothers. Thus the same sad story repeats, repeats. Man sees no way out.

No—if we do not change the relationship between man and woman, then sooner or later the world will decide to take children away from parents. There will be no other way.

Experiments have been done in Israel, with happy results. Many children have been removed from their parents and raised in nurseries. Those raised in nurseries are healthier, sturdier, more cheerful and joyous than those raised by parents.

Astonishing! Our ancient myth—that without parents children cannot grow well—has proved false. But I say: if parents are good, the children raised by them can be far better than nursery-raised children.

But how to have good parents? We keep men and women apart; we maintain distance between them. When a girl is born, the family receives her in one way; when a boy is born, in another. And the irony is that in all this acceptance it is women who have the fundamental hand—ninety percent. At home woman is the complete mistress. Yet if a girl is born, the mother herself welcomes her with sadness; if a boy is born, she dances in joy. I do not know when women will have compassion for the women yet to come. When will their hardness end?

So I say to you: treat your daughters well. Until now mothers have not treated their daughters well. They have given preference to sons. Mothers too are so influenced by men that they do not even realize that injustice is being done to daughters. Injustice everywhere.

There is no need to make a distinction. The world cannot run without sons, nor without daughters. To run the world, both are equally essential. Therefore both deserve equal welcome; distinction between them is dangerous.

Even where we educate girls, we do not educate them so that they may use that education. Girls are educated so they may be able to catch a proper husband. We do not educate girls so that there will be any productive, creative outcome in their lives. We educate them merely to raise their market value. For nothing more do we educate girls.

If for so little a purpose we educate, we waste education. To educate girls to raise their market price is an insult. Their market value is determined by their being girls; to give separate education for this is dangerous.

Today women are being educated all over the world, but on the scale they are being educated, their education is not being used productively. A girl will earn an M.A. and then become a housewife. I do not know what use her education can be. What will it do? In fact, my understanding is that had she been uneducated she might have been a better housewife; once educated she may not even become a good housewife. She was not taught how to be one; and what she was taught has nothing to do with being a good housewife. The education she received gave her a particular preparation which she will wish to use—but as a housewife she will have no chance to use it.

Therefore the modern educated woman is more frustrated, more poisoned with depression, more unhappy than even uneducated women. The preparation we gave her for life... as if we trained a man for twenty years to play the vina, and thereafter gave him no chance to play. He would become very miserable. Those twenty years were for the sake of eventually playing. He prepared and toiled—and when the time to play came, suddenly he discovered there is no need for the vina at all, no meaning in playing it. Those twenty years of education were wasted; if they cannot be used, we have put his life at a dangerous turn. And what he will now have to do—he has no education for that; in that matter he is uneducated. And what he should have done, for which he was educated—he will not be doing it.

A schizophrenic state has arisen in women’s psyche—a split into two parts. One part is educated—which has become unusable; one part is uneducated—which must be used. Hence the educated housewife falls into a worse condition than the uneducated one.

I am not saying women should not be educated. I am saying: along with taking education, women should demand the productive implementation of that education—the right to be active in productive directions. They should say: “Having been educated, we want the full use of our education.”

My understanding is that the day women become productive in the world, we will be able to greatly enrich the world. If half the world does nothing, the other half alone cannot make it prosperous. Women must engage in creation.

But man’s ego is hurt. It is the ego of men that says their wives will not work. Man has always thought the wife must depend upon him. There is a great secret in this. If you wish to keep a woman enslaved, do not allow her economic independence—this is the basic argument. If a woman is to be kept a slave, she must depend upon the man for everything: even for a sari she must depend, for food she must depend. To live, she must depend upon the man.

Therefore a man does not let his woman work. Other men even ask, “Do you make your wife work?” as if it were a shameful thing, as if a woman’s working were bad. The male ego is hurt if his wife works. What does it mean? It means he cannot make her utterly dependent; she is becoming self-reliant. Men want women to be like branches and creepers. Poets too have written—as you have read in your courses—that man is a tree and women are vines that spread upon him. They cannot stand upright; they are not trees.

A lie. Utterly false—women can become trees in their own right. And those who are vines, who can stand only by clinging to men, will remain slaves; they can never be free. How can vines be free? Women too must become trees by their own stature.

This does not mean that friendship cannot exist between two trees. For friendship it is not necessary that one be a creeper.

A recent amusing incident occurred. In America, during the last census, the forms were those of a man’s world—but much has changed in America. The forms were old.

Here too, when the census is taken, they ask: Who is the head of the household? Generally the head has been the husband; his name is written as head.

In America the form to be filled said: Who is the husband and head of the house? In many homes, women have become the head—because they earn more than their husbands. In certain fields women can always earn more than men. In some directions husbands are needless; in those directions there is no limit to women’s earnings. In some directions women can be more productive than men. But the form said: Who is the husband and head?

The head was the wife, but she was not the husband. A great difficulty arose. On that census, absurd entries had to be made. They had to fill: the head is the wife, but she is not the husband; the husband is someone else.

One woman demanded in the American Senate that next time the form should state: whoever is the head should fill in the husband’s place, even if female. And whoever is the non-head should fill in that place, even if the husband must fill where the wife’s name goes. In truth, it is not necessary that “husband” be male in the future; “husband” could be a woman.

What does “husband” mean? You may never have thought: “husband” means master, owner—the head. Therefore women call their husbands “Swami”—lord. Women even write letters to their husbands and sign, “Your slave.” Husbands are delighted. Husbands tell women, “We are God.” And women accept it, “You are God, we are your slaves.”

These dangerous, poisonous notions must be broken. They have no future. Woman must stand in her own dignity. And she will stand only when she demands that her education be productive. You will be educated tomorrow; do not be satisfied with becoming only a wife. To become only a wife after being educated is a great loss to the nation. The money spent upon your education is wasted. Billions squandered—and the power of millions of women wasted that could have been used.

As I said, there are directions that belong especially to women. For instance, I believe most of the work of teaching should pass into the hands of women. Teaching should remain as little as possible in the hands of men. To be male is a hindrance in being a teacher—for many reasons. The work of a teacher is to persuade, to gently bring others to understanding, to coax children into being willing to know certain things. The power of persuasion that resides in women does not exist in men. Men have more power for attack. If aggression is needed, man is necessary. But if persuasion is needed, woman is necessary. Therefore all work of persuasion should pass into women’s hands.

If, at a shop, a man sells a shoe and puts it on another man’s foot, the man can say, “I don’t like it.” If a woman places the shoe upon his foot and says, “Your foot looks beautiful,” it becomes hard to refuse. Hence in all intelligent nations the work of the salesman has been moving into women’s hands; it is slipping away from men. At counters women appear, men recede. He may remain the manager, but no longer the salesman—because it has been found that a woman can persuade the customer more effectively. One can refuse a man; it is difficult to refuse a woman.

Therefore all the work of persuasion—whether in education, at the shop selling goods, in nurseries, or in medicine—should gradually pass into women’s hands. Men should vacate those places. It is astonishing that the capacities of women have not been properly absorbed; they must be absorbed fully. What they can do better than men, they should certainly do. And they should demand that men vacate those spaces.

Naturally, women have little use on the battlefield—and they should not be taken there. I believe that however patriotic a woman may be, when she aims a gun at another’s chest, her hands will tremble. She will forget that the other is an enemy; she will see that he too is a man, he too has a wife, he too has a son.

But we are strange—even when we educate women, we give them NCC training—which is utterly useless and wrong. There is no need at all. It has no place in their lives—and it is not right to make them use it. A woman who becomes capable on the battlefield will cease to be capable of being a mother. A woman who can fire a gun will not be a good wife. Her life will become hard; something within will grow stiff, stony. The compassion, the motherhood, the love within will dry up.

No—the possibilities of a woman’s heart must be absorbed in those directions where they can be useful.

I hold that teaching, medicine, and shop-craft—all this work should pass into women’s hands. In Europe and America, wherever women have tried to express themselves, certain things have indeed passed to them. For example, no large firm today gets its correspondence written by men. All the correspondence of Europe and America is done by women. A woman’s capacity to write letters is deeper than a man’s. In truth, men have not written very good letters—long ones, yes; good ones, no. Their letters turn into account ledgers. Even a woman’s ordinary letters become letters of the heart; they are more effective.

Therefore I say: question the role of woman until now. Doubt it. Raise questions. And if you become educated, demand the right to engage your education in productive directions. This demand will not be met by giving women equal voting rights alone. Equality of vote will change little; equality of status is also needed. And that cannot come until women become economically independent.

One last point, and I will finish.

As far as I have understood, I have experienced that any woman who depends upon a man remains angry with him forever—she must. We can never be pleased with one on whom we depend. Toward the one upon whom we are dependent we are always full of anger. We cannot be friends with our master. For friendship, it is necessary to stand equal. It appears to me that women are filled with anger toward men—their anger comes out in many forms. They must find outlets; it keeps on coming. Love finds it difficult to arise between man and woman because woman is not free. Whomever we wish to make our friend, we must set free.

It is in the interest of men as well that women become completely free, economically too. And it is in the interest of women to be fully free. The day man and woman meet as independent beings, a new dimension, a new chapter of friendly relationship will begin between them. Until this chapter begins, we cannot bring human beings into much happiness and peace.

But man will not be very eager for these changes, because he will have to vacate some spaces. Therefore woman must take a rebellious stance. She must prepare for a revolution. But perhaps woman finds it very difficult to be revolutionary—this is her difficulty. She has never thought in the language of revolution.

You will be surprised to know, woman has scarcely thought at all in this direction—whether her condition could be otherwise; whether her relationship with man could be different; whether her family could be altered. She has not reflected.

I wish that when you grow up—and you will grow, day by day—you do not pour your life into the same mold in which women of the past poured theirs. Raise questions. Difficulties will arise; you will be troubled. Perhaps one or two generations of women will have to pass through a transition and endure much hardship. But even that hardship will be joyous. Sufferings borne for freedom are blissful; even pleasures borne in slavery are not very pleasurable.

Do not keep Sita as your ideal for too long. Begin to doubt. And question a little the misbehavior of Ram too. The day Ram brought Sita back from Lanka, he wanted to test her. He doubted her character, so he had her pass through fire. Sita too could have doubted—for Ram too had been alone all that time; Sita alone was not alone. Sita could have said, “If fire is the test, then let us both pass through it.” But Sita did not doubt. You must doubt in the future—if this is a test, both must pass through it.

And astonishingly, Sita passed through the test—calm, good—but non-revolutionary. Even then, after arriving in Ayodhya, Ram banished her because someone else cast doubt again. A woman who had passed through fire became suspicious again. While pregnant, with a child in her womb, Ram had her abandoned in the forest. Even so, Ram remains worshipped—less by men than by women. I do not see many men in Ram’s temples; some may follow their wives, that is different—otherwise, it is women we see.

No—this question must be asked now. Such misbehavior must not continue. Do not keep Sita as the ideal any more. Or add plus revolution to Sita—then the future woman can be born.

Men will keep on explaining that woman should be like Sita. It is in their interest—their vested interest, their selfishness. It profits them to teach women to become Sitas. But you must teach them: please, do not become like Ram. And if you become like Ram now, woman refuses to be Sita.

I began by saying this land has lived on belief until now. It did not raise living questions upon crucial aspects of life. Consequently we became dead. In your context I have said a little—raise questions. There are a thousand questions; I have only given examples. If we begin to ask, answers will have to be given. And once questions are raised about wrong answers, those answers will have to fall—and new answers can be born.

No—woman is not to be a slave; in the future she is to be a friend. Nor does man need to be God; being human is enough.

But in trying to be God, man cannot even be human; he becomes a devil. And the strategies to make woman into a goddess should end—there is no need to make her a goddess. If a woman of flesh and bone can be truly woman, that is enough. And one who becomes truly woman may perhaps one day become a goddess; but in striving to be a goddess, she may fail to be truly woman. That is what has happened until now. Therefore do not speak of very lofty ideals; we must establish ideals of this earth—ideals fit to be lived here.

Very often those who talk of the sky forget how to live upon the earth. That has happened in this land.

A small story, and I will finish.

I have heard: in Greece, one night, an astrologer was walking, gazing at the stars—he fell into a well. Naturally, he was looking at the stars; the well on the ground could not be seen. He cried a lot, shouted; in a nearby field an old woman was the only one; she came and somehow hauled him out. He was a great astrologer; she was a simple peasant.

The astrologer said to the old woman, “Mother, perhaps you do not know that I am the greatest astrologer in Greece. As much as I know about the moon and stars, perhaps no one on earth knows. If you ever want to know anything about the moon or stars, come to me. Emperors come to ask me; I cannot give time to all. For you, my door will be open.”

The old woman said, “Son, I will never come. Do not keep your door open for me.”

“Why?” he asked.

She replied, “Because one who cannot see the pits on earth—his knowledge of moon and stars cannot be trusted.”

In this country, in talking of the sky, we have lost the earth; we have fallen into every pit. We need to shape this life by the measure of the earth. Therefore, my last word to you: the earth need not be cast in the ideals of the sky; the earth must find its own possible ideals. I also hold that woman, more than man, is always closer to the earth. Man often gets lost in sky-ideals; woman remains nearer to nature, to earth. If woman expresses herself fully, we can make this earth beautiful, healthy, peaceful from war, and joyous.

You have listened to these words with such peace and love—I am very grateful. And in the end I bow to the Lord who dwells within all. Please accept my pranam.