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Ancestral calling
Gandhi: “The law of Varna teaches us that we have each one of us to earn our bread by following the ancestral calling. It defines not our rights but our duties.”
BRA:
When can a calling be deemed to have become an ancestral calling, so as to make it binding on a man? Must a man follow his ancestral calling even if it does not suit his capacities, even when it has ceased to be profitable? Must a man live by his ancestral calling even if he finds it to be immoral? If everyone must pursue his ancestral calling, then it must follow that a man must continue to be a pimp because his grandfather was a pimp, and a woman must continue to be a prostitute because her grandmother was a prostitute. Is the Mahatma prepared to accept the logical conclusion of his doctrine? To me his ideal of following one's ancestral calling is not only an impossible and impractical ideal, but it is also morally an indefensible ideal.
Why does the Mahatma cling to the theory of everyone following his or her ancestral calling? He gives his reasons nowhere.
Everybody wants social stability, and some adjustment must be made in the relationship between individuals and classes in order that stability may be had. But two things, I am sure, nobody wants are (i) a static relationship, something that is unalterable, something that is fixed for all times, and (ii) mere adjustment without social justice.
Can it be said that the adjustment of social relationships on the basis of caste—i.e,. on the basis of each to his hereditary calling—avoids these two evils? I am convinced that it does not. Far from being the best possible adjustment, I have no doubt that it is of the worst possible kind, inasmuch as it offends against both the canons of social adjustment—namely, fluidity and equity.
Gandhi: “The law of Varna teaches us that we have each one of us to earn our bread by following the ancestral calling. It defines not our rights but our duties.”
BRA:
When can a calling be deemed to have become an ancestral calling, so as to make it binding on a man? Must a man follow his ancestral calling even if it does not suit his capacities, even when it has ceased to be profitable? Must a man live by his ancestral calling even if he finds it to be immoral? If everyone must pursue his ancestral calling, then it must follow that a man must continue to be a pimp because his grandfather was a pimp, and a woman must continue to be a prostitute because her grandmother was a prostitute. Is the Mahatma prepared to accept the logical conclusion of his doctrine? To me his ideal of following one's ancestral calling is not only an impossible and impractical ideal, but it is also morally an indefensible ideal.
Why does the Mahatma cling to the theory of everyone following his or her ancestral calling? He gives his reasons nowhere.
Everybody wants social stability, and some adjustment must be made in the relationship between individuals and classes in order that stability may be had. But two things, I am sure, nobody wants are (i) a static relationship, something that is unalterable, something that is fixed for all times, and (ii) mere adjustment without social justice.
Can it be said that the adjustment of social relationships on the basis of caste—i.e,. on the basis of each to his hereditary calling—avoids these two evils? I am convinced that it does not. Far from being the best possible adjustment, I have no doubt that it is of the worst possible kind, inasmuch as it offends against both the canons of social adjustment—namely, fluidity and equity.