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FRAGMENTS OF A PRISONER S INY
culture is based on the doctrine of equality of everything before God. Don't women have souls ? Besides, the appeal to natural distinctio is a double-edged sword. It would be equally reasonable to defend the cloctrine of “White Man's Burden" with this appcal. If the male is entitled to protect the female thanks to the biological distinction, is it not cqually reasonable for the white race to have a similar claim on the strength of the colour of their skin ?
But there seem to be women in India, (marring her holiness with their Western perversity) who are not to be fouled by patriarchal pro tection or romantic deception. The President of the meeting, presumably to the horror of the distinguished preachers of the Indo-German ideals of womanhood, insisted that "it cannot be denied that women are kept in all sorts of bondage”. With a subtle irony, which must have sounded as pleasing flattery to the egoistic cvangelists, sho said : “If all men were modern Rishis, there would be no women's movement."
We no longer nocd dig into the neglected store of ancient wisdom in find the Indian ideal of womanhood. We can find it in the accursed West itself, as represente, for example, by the Germany of the Kaiser or of Hitler. The imperial lord of the Germans placed before women the ideals of the Kirche, Kueche, Kinder—respectively meaning, Church (religion), house-keeping 154
