Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

Caste is a state of mind. It is a disease of mind. The teachings of the Hindu religion are the root cause of this disease. We practice casteism and we observe Untouchability because we are enjoined to do so by the Hindu religion. A bitter thing cannot be made sweet. The taste of anything can be changed. But poison cannot be changed into nectar.

A Sudra [lowest caste untouchable], though emancipated by his master, is not released from servitude; since that is innate in him, who can set him free from it?

Caste may be bad. Caste may lead to conduct so gross as to be called man's inhumanity to man. All the same, it must be recognized that the Hindus observe Caste not because they are inhuman or wrong-headed. They observe Caste because they are deeply religious.

Untouchability is a hydra-headed monster.

Hinduism dies if untouchability lives, and untouchability has to die if Hinduism is to live.

Untouchability is a many-headed monster and forms, some of them so subtle as not to be easily detected.

No stone should be left unturned to bring home to the family members that untouchability is a sin and a blot on Hinduism.

If untouchability is an integral part of Hinduism, the latter is a spent bullet.

Untouchables are treated as if less than beasts …. Untouchability for me is more insufferable than British rule. If Hinduism hugs Untouchability, then Hinduism is dead and gone.

Nothing can be more repugnant to the individualism and love of freedom of the British race than the Hindu caste system, under which every man is born into a particular water-tight compartment from which he cannot emerge except through death and rebirth …

People are not wrong in observing Caste. In my view, what is wrong is their religion, which has inculcated this notion of Caste. If this is correct, then obviously the enemy, you must grapple with is not the people who observe Caste, but the Shastras which teach them this religion of Caste.

Hinduism has sinned in giving sanction to untouchability.

Untouchability, I hold, is a sin, if Bhagavadgita is one of our Divine Books.

My fight against untouchability is a fight against the impure in humanity.

While all men are born as equals, to say that Brahmins alone are the highest and all others are low as Pariah (the Untouchables) or Panchama is sheer nonsense. It is roguish to say so. It is a big hoax played on us.

Untouchability is a terrible reality.

To remove untouchability is a penance that caste Hindus owe to Hinduism and to themselves.

I regard untouchability as such a grave sin as to warrant divine chastisement.

The untouchability of Hinduism is probably worse than that of the modern imperialists.

Untouchability is a blot on Hinduism. It is a canker eating into its vitals.

There is a scene in Richard Attenborough's biopic where Gandhi argues with his wife because she refuses to clean their latrine. She says it is the work of untouchables; he tells her there is no such thing. Gandhi's tactics of encouraging brotherly love across caste boundaries and urging Indians to clean their own latrines had failed miserably.

Brahmins do not have the right to call themselves Indians … If India has to become a modern nation, … It has to establish an egalitarian relationship between Brahmins and the lower castes.

A Brahmana shall be compelled to pay a fine of one thousand panas if he has intercourse with … females of those two lower castes; for offending with a … Sudra female a fine of one thousand.

A once-born man (a Sudra), who insults a twice-born man with gross invective, shall have his tongue cut out; for he is of low origin. If he arrogantly teaches Brahmanas their duty, the king shall cause hot oil to be poured into his mouth and into his ears

Caste in India is the first and last reality.