Segaon to Sevagram

 

1

Gandhi settling down at Segaon

April 30, 1936, Gandhi came to  Segaon and stayed near the well in Guva garden.Miraben made a makeshift arrangement for his stay , “a hut out of bamboo mats; a moveable latrine  ; a provisional bathroom”. He left for his South Indian tour on May 8 and returned to Wardha on June 14.  He walked from  Maganvadi  to  Segaon on June 16  . It was raining heavily on the way .  He commenced his stay at his hut which was under construction. The work of the first residence was entrusted to Balwantsinha  and the road to Munnalal Shah  under the guidance of Mirabahen .

2

Letter to Vijaya N. Patel

June 17, 1936

 Chi. Vijaya, Well,

I am in Segaon, though residential arrangements are yet to come. The work cannot be completed on account of the rains. I would be prepared to put you up at Maganwadi or in the Mahila Ashram if you came over. You can visit me from there. Even Ba has not yet come to stay with me. You will have to wait if you must stay with me.

 Blessings from BAPU

3.

Letter To Agatha Harrison Segaon, Wardha, June 18, 1936

My dear Agatha,

This is from my new abode—a proper village which may be defined as a place with no post-office, no store for food-stuffs of quality, no medical, comforts and difficult of access in the rainy season. I could add many more adjectives but these should be enough for the time being. This is not to say that I am suffering any discomfort. I have told you this to let you understand the nature of [the] task before me.

Love. BAPU

4.

Letter to Muriel Lester

 June 18, 1936

 My dear Muriel,

Well, I am at last in Segaon in the cottage Jamnalalji has built for me. I do not know what the future has in store for me. But for the moment my headquarters are in Segaon. The postal address must be Wardha. There is no post-office here. You cannot but a stamp here as you cannot but many things.

Yours

 BAPU

5.

Letter to Amrit Kaur

Segaon, Wardha, June 19, 1936

My hut has thick mud-walks, twice the breadth of ordinary brick-wall. The mud is rain-proof. I think you will fall in love with the hut and the surroundings.

 6.

 Letter To Lilavati Asar

 June 19, 1936

Chi. Lilavati,

 Don’t you be in a hurry. Mahadev has personally seen how difficult it is to accommodate anyone here just now. Should we not at least have a bathroom and a latrine? These just do not exist. The rains continue, workmen do not turn up as required, and even the mason does not appear so that the culvert is half built. Now I doubt whether we shall have things done within the next month or two.

Blessings from BAPU 

7.

Letter to Amrit Kaur Segaon, Wardha, July 12, 1936

The cottage here is a picture. I have just now a young sadhu.

 He is a great bhajani, singer of bhajans of his own composition. He will be with me for a month. I occupy one corner, he occupies another, the third is occupied by Munnalal, a co-worker. The first accommodates a plank bedstead which you have seen. That corner will be taken up by Ba, if she comes, and you. So, you will prepare yourself for the proper village life. No privacy except in the bathroom which you will share with me. You must shudder to think of the fate that awaits you. You will enjoy the newness. There is no noise in spite of the seemingly crowded state of the room. All round is open and beautiful. Fresh breeze blowing throughout the day. It is quite cool. Perfect walks all over. When you come for two nights you will tell me what changes you will want.

8.

Letter to  Gangabehn Vaidya

Chi. Gangabehn,

The room is large enough, 29 x 14, with a 7’verandah running all round. In one corner of the verandah is a small kitchen and in another a bathroom for me. The walls are made of mud. The entire building is constructed with purely local materials. All around in this season our eyes rest on green fields.

Mirabehn lives by herself in a hut smaller than this room, about a mile and a half from here.

Blessings from BAPU

9.

Letter to Pyarelal Segaon,

Wardha, July  12, 1936

Right now Tukde Maharaj is keeping me company. He will be staying for a month. He has an endless treasure of bhajans. All of them sound beautiful. Come if you feel you want to listen to them. For the rest I am just getting acquainted with him. I see that much service can be had from him. People have great faith in him. Others living with me at present are Munnalal, Balwantsinha and Lilavati. Ba is planning to come. Now that Devdas has gone to Delhi, she may come.

Blessings from BAPU

10

Letter to Prabhavati

 July 13  , 1936

CHI. Prabha,

 Ba came here last evening with Manu. A sadhu also has come to spend a month with me. We are all in the same hut. The sadhu is known by the name Tukdoji Maharaj.

 Blessings from BAPU

 

11 

Population of Segaon

Living in Segaon with its population of 600, I do not find a great disparity between the earnings of different tradesmen including Brahmins.

Harijan, 18-7-1936

12

Letter to Sahebji Maharaj

Segaon, Wardha, July 22, 1936

I appreciate your kind wish that I should revisit Dayal Bagh if it be only to see your new dairy. I should love to do so. But my present sadhana lies in not leaving Segaon. I want to feel my feet in this little village and be constantly in it for 3 seasons. I know that there will be at least 3 breaks during the time. I do not want to add to the list. But I can say this that I need no inducement to go to Dayal Bagh.

Yours sincerely,

 M. K. GANDHI

13.

Tukdoji Maharaj and Mahatma eating food  cooked by a  Harijan

Discussion with Visitors 

[Before August 1, 1936]

The sadhu or the Buva 
(Tukdoji Maharaj) who is for the moment a member of the family has for visitors a number of devotees. They are frankly surprised that the sadhu is not only associating with the Mahatma but eats under his roof food cooked by a Harijan boy....

Harijan, 1-8-1936

14.

Why Bapu Started Shaving by himself?

Govind  generally  prepared  Bapu’s  food.  One  day,  he  asked  permission  to  go  to  Wardha.  Bapu  asked  him  why. He  replied  that  he  wanted  to  get  his  hair  cut.  Bapuji  asked him  why  he  could  not  get  it  done  in  the  village  itself,  to which  he  replied  that  there  was  no  Harijan  barber,  and  a caste-barber  was  not  prepared  to  shave  him  as  he  was  a Harijan.  Bapuji  then  decided  that  he  too  would  not  have  his  shave  at  the  hands  of  caste-barbers,  who  refused  to shave  Harijans.  From  that  day  onwards  Bapuji  stopped being  shaved  by  Segaon  barbers  and  started  shaving  him¬ self.  His  hair  was  cut  either  by  me  or  by  Munnalal  when it  became  necessary.

 

Balwantsinha

Under the Shelter of Bapu

15 

Letter to Raojibhai M. Patel Segaon, Wardha, August 3, 1936

At Segaon, too, I am having a cow.

16

Letter to Amritlal V. Thakkar

Segaon, Wardha, August 12, 1936

Surely, some day you are going to look at things at Segaon....  Tukdoji occupies the corner in front of me, Khan Saheb the one beside me; Munnalal by Tukdoji’s side. Rajkumari’s bed is between me and Tukdoji. On the wooden stand before her rests a rustice medicine box which is nothing but a used fruit-case and other odds and ends. Ba, Lilavati and Manu accommodate themselves where they can. Again, we have quite a different scene at night. Isn’t ‘houselessness’ one of the distinguishing characteristics of a bhakta? At any rate, am I not indulging in all sorts of pranks, trying to play the bhakta? Whatever it may be to others, Segaon is to me an inexhaustible source of joy. Yesterday the last corner fell vacant—for the present at least. Munnalal’s of course is permanent.

BAPU

 

17.

Study of Snakes

That is hardly proper or necessary. We cannot tell a poisonous from a non-poisonous snake and therefore we kill all without discrimination. The bulk of them are non-poisonous, and in many cases it is the fright that kills the victim of snake-bite. The snakes have their place in the agricultural economy of the village, but our villagers do not seem to realize it. They perform a particularly useful function, in that they clear the fields of rats, vermin and other pests. It is best therefore to know the elementary principles of snake-lore and to teach them to the villagers. They must know how to distinguish between a poisonous and a non-poisonous snake, they must know that it is not necessary to kill all snakes, which although they may be poisonous do not usually bite unless they are trodden upon or mishandled, and they must also know that certain snakes at least are useful. With that purpose in view I have decided to have here snakes alive or dead to be shown to the villagers. This one in the jar was caught alive by an inmate of our household. We have a simple device with which it is easy to catch snakes alive without doing them physical injury, and this one was found clinging to a roof in the farmyard over there. I decided to send it on to the Civil Surgeon for examination. He was good enough to examine it. He found that it was a Krait, one of the most poisonous varieties, and so he killed it and sent it back. I decided to preserve it and sent for a glass jar with rectified spirit. We had to wait several hours for the jar to come, and when it did come we found on opening the basket that the snake was alive. It seems to be particularly tenacious of life, and so it lingered on until the third day, when we decided to end its pains by immersing it in water. The fact was that theCivil Surgeon had smashed its brain and stunned it, and as he explained later its spinal cord was intact and therefore it had remained alive. I have now got a cage to keep live specimens in. As you see, the little urchins are already being attracted. I have begun to study snakelore and hope to place before the villagers the broad facts regarding these creatures.

 Harijan, 5-9-1936

 18

 Attack of Malaria

Gandhiji was hospitalized on September 2, 1936.  He was down with malaria  and admitted to WARDHA HOSPITAL on the advice of Dr. JaganathMahodaya .

He came back to Segaon September 12 . In Gandhi’s own expression

“Well, I am at last in dear old Segaon

 

19

Letter to  Jayanti N. Parekh 

 September 22, 1936

I reply to those who write to me, but at present I am curtailing even that kind of correspondence, as I desire as present to bury myself in Segaon and be forgotten. Even if this desire cannot be wholly fulfilled, should I not at least do all I can to realize it? And that is what I am doing. A certain amount of correspondence has therefore come to a stop.

 20

 Why Wardha?

A  Talk with Englishman

“You are a Gujarati, you belong to Gujarat. Why should you have selected a Marathi-speaking part for your work and experiments? And why Wardha of all places?”

I do not belong to Gujarat, I belong to the whole of India. Wardha I selected because it afforded so many facilities for work. There is Jamnalal Bajaj who is interested in my programme of work and my experiments, and he gave me his valuable garden and his garden-house for the Village Industries Association of which I made Wardha the headquarters.

Harijan, 24-10-1936

 

 21

Speech at Municipal GirlsHigh School ,Ahmedabad

My heart is in Segaon

I live in Segaon today where in a population of 600 a little over ten are literate, certainly not more than fifty, very likely less. Of the ten or more who can read, there are scarcely three or four who can understand what they read, and among the women there is not one who is literate. The place is absolutely untouched by Wardha. I would have moved farther away had that been the case. There we have only malaria. But I have an understanding with malaria that it cannot stay on wherever I go. There are many puddles there. But I came across a wealthy person1 who had a road built . ….

Seventy-five per cent of the population are Harijans.    ….

The place is a part of Maharashtra. There is not as much illiteracy as in Gujarat, but Segaon is almost entirely illiterate

22

Letter to Amrit Kaur

On the Train to Bhusaval,

November 3, 1936

Ba’s hut is being built. She went with me from Delhi. She will leave A[hmedabad] today for Bombay and pass about a week with Ramdas who is not keeping extra well. She will be there about a week.

23

Cost of living in Sevagram.

Many in Segaon live on a rupee per month, i.e., only two meals a day costing one pice each.

Letter to Amrit Kaur Segaon, Wardha,

November 7, 1936

 24

 Letter to Amrit Kaur

Segaon, Wardha,

November 12, 1936

Ba came in today. She is happy. Her cottage is making steady progress.

 

 25

 Letter to Amrit Kaur

Segaon, December 6, 1936

Your letters. Agatha  ( Harrison)came in last evening. (C. F.)Andrews is here and so is Carl Heath.

26

Segaon not Shegaon 

Several correspondents address their letters to me to Shegaon. Now Shegaon is a main line station between Bhusaval and Wardha. I am not living in Shegaon. I am living in Segaon near Wardha. It is not a railway station. It has no post-office, and no telegraph office. All letters and telegrams should therefore be addressed to Wardha.

Harijan, 5-12-1936

27

Why am I at Segaon?

Why am I at Segaon? Because I believe that my message will have a better chance of penetrating the masses of India, and maybe through them to the world. I am otherwise not a man capable of shutting myself up. But I am so downright natural that once I feel a call I go forward with it, whatever happens. Mr. Hofmeyer1 of the South African Delegation appreciated my desire not to move out; he did not resent it as price or indifference. Economy of words and action has therefore its value. Only it has to be natural.

Harijan, 12-12-1936

 

28

No Ashram

 I am running no Ashram here and I cannot accommodate here any number of persons I may wish. ……

I keep no ailing persons here, and to those that are already here I have spoken to the effect that they should go either to Wardha or to their villages.

Letter to Amtus Salaam

December 5, 1936 

29

Ba’s cottage 

Ba’s cottage is nearly finished. You will like it except for its somewhat city appearance. It has cost more than my hut. I am sure that at least Rs. 100 could have been saved on it. But I could not control the operations unless I was to give my time which I could not afford.

Letter to Amrit Kaur

Segaon, Wardha,

December 11, 1936

30

Mirabehn’s hut

The construction work on Mirabehn’s hut has been started.

Letter to Balwantsinha

February 20, 1937

31

Letter to Narandas Gandhi

Segaon, Wardha,

March 3, 1937

Chi. Mira is living with me in Segaon. She teaches spinning and carding to five or six children in the village. She will most probably write to you today .

32

Overcrowding in Segaon 

In Segaon, where there was only one hut, several houses have come up now. There seems to be no end to the construction work. The number of residents also is increasing.

Letter to Manilal and Sushila Gandhi

 June 21, 1937

33

Gandhi’s love for cow and calf

One  day,  Bapuji  was  busy  writing  in  the  verandah  of  the  Adinivas.  A  cow  had  delivered  a  calf  the  previous night.  I  took  its  young  one  to  him.  The  calf  escaped  from my  hands  and  jumped  on  to  Bapuji’s  seat.  He  started fondling  it  joyfully,  when  suddenly  it  started  to  urinate. When  I  tried  to  take  it  away,  Bapu  stopped  me  saying, “Let  it  finish.”  I  was  feeling  very  awkward,  but  he  looked on  quite  amused,  and  not  a  bit  embarrassed.

Balwantsinha

Under the shelter of Bapu 

 

 

 

 

34

Khan Saheb occupies your hut. 

Letter to Mirabehn

Segaon, Wardha, June 29, 1937

From this it is clear that Gandhi  was not occupying  Mira Behn’s hut at that time .

35

Jamnalalji's new cottage 

Dr. Batra who is just now living with me suggested his being brought here. He cheerfully consented and is now housed in Jamnalalji's new cottage. It is quite fine.

Letter to Mirabehn

July 27, 1937

36

Wardha National Education Conference Historical Context

Gandhi’s scheme of education was developed in a particular historical context. Under the Government of India Act of 1935, a new status was accorded to the provinces and some powers were transferred to provincial governments. In other words, the Government of India Act of 1935 paved the way for provincial autonomy. Consequently, elections were held for provincial legislatures and in July 1937 Congress governments took office in several provinces, including the United Provinces, Madras, the Central Provinces, Bombay, Bihar, Orissa, and, after some time, in the North-West Frontier Provinces (NWFP). These governments had the opportunity to bring about changes to the prevailing system of education

The year 1937 was the silver jubilee of the Marwadi High School or Navabharat Vidyalaya at Wardha. The management placed before Gandhi the idea of a national-level educational conference to discuss his ideas of education that he was propounding in the columns of Harijan as part of the school’s silver jubilee celebrations. Gandhi readily agreed to the proposal and to preside over the conference. As a result, the Wardha National Education Conference was held on 22-23 October, 1937.

\\

37 

Taking the shape of an Ashram

Gandhi was not in favour of creating an ashram as a community of people away from the village. In fact he wanted to convert the whole village into an ashram. He wanted to stay alone in the village and Kasturba could join if she wanted.

The focus was on constructive activities  aimed at village development.

 But in the course of time, with increase in activities  it was taking the form of an ashram. 

38

To Segaon Workers

June 6, 1938

I have been asked if there are any rules here about anything. There are. For when winding up Sabarmati Ashram I had said that we would from then on be a mobile Ashram and carry with us wherever we went Ashram life and Ashram rules. Prayers, etc., thus stay as before as also the hour of rising. We may certainly introduce changes, excepting in principles, according as circumstances may warrant, as has been done here. We deliberately employ Harijan servants, because we want to serve the Harijans. But though we employ them as servants we have to treat them as our brothers. * * * *

Therefore we must do even menial work that we can do ourselves. If we cannot do some particular work ourselves we may have it done by others. Only work that even others cannot do may we ask Harijans to do.

39

For Segaon Workers

June 12, 1938

I hope, if I keep well, to join in the takli-yajna daily. This yajna is not obligatory for anyone but I think it essential for all inmates of the institution. Takli-yajna is a social and public yajna and the charkha has no place in it. Takli teaches us silent service. The millions can perform the yajna only through takli. The noise of the spinning-wheel is a distraction in the takli-yajna. So those who understand its worth may ply the takli-exclusively. The room we sit in is not arranged properly. Quite a few things there are superfluous. They should be removed after due examination. The case lying near my seat is quite out of place. Every-thing can be accommodated on the box. Our possessionss hould be the very minimum. We should remember that non-possession is one of the eleven vows.

 BAPU

40

 

 Letter to Amrit Kaur

Segaon, October 29, 1939

And idiocy is no bar to people living in Segaon. I thought you had penetration enough to see that this was an asylum for the insane, the infirm, the abnormals and the like.

41

Letter to Mahadev Desai

February 14, 1939

Chi. Mahadev

 Kallenbach is on death-bed. I am just watching God’s greatness. Chesterman arrived yesterday. He is an efficient doctor. Now he has started on his routine. For the sake of Kallenbach he has postponed his departure. Otherwise we had decided to call a specialist from Bombay.

Blessings from BAPU

(Dr. Chesterman was the medical secretary of the English Baptist Mission and had come to India to attend the International Missionary Conference at Tambaram and to visit various mission hospitals.)

  42

 Telephone was installed at Gandhi's hut on December 2, 1939. The number was 41

 

43

Reflections on Segaon

I wanted the solitude of Segaon. It is my experience that I get real inspi ration at the place where I am permanently settled. Normally, however, wherever I stay I have formed a habit of making it my home. However, after the introduction or discovery of satyagraha, I have established ashrams at various places and I practise its disciplines there. I hesitate to call Segaon an ashram. I wanted to lead a solitary life at Segaon. But it has become an ashram without any rules and regulations. New buildings are springing up every day. I have made it into a hospital these days.

I have humorously called Segaon a home for invalids. I am already an invalid in body and mind and I have collected quite a few invalids like myself. I have also compared Segaon to a mad-house. This too is an apt simile. The statement that swaraj can be achieved through the spinning-wheel can come only from the mouth of a madman ! But madmen are not aware of their madness and so I look upon myself as a wise man.

Segaon, January 23, 1940 

  44

Segaon becomes Sevagram

There is Segaon near Wardha where I am trying to be a villager. And there is Shegaon, a station on the main line about 132 miles west of Wardha. The result was that many letters and wires meant for Segaon, Wardha, went to the Shegaon station. In order to avoid this confusion an application was sent to the authorities on behalf of the villagers to change the name of Segaon to Sevagram. It is a name with a meaning. It means a village dedicated to service. The villagers who signed the application did so fully knowing what they were doing. Let us hope they will live up to the meaning of the name they have chosen to give to their village. Correspondents will please bear the change in mind.

Sevagram,

March 5, 1940

Harijan, 9-3-194