For the next few days, Zhou lived in Calcutta, where he spent his days discussing literature and national liberation with these progressive Indian writers. The reason why he didn't leave was not because he wanted to communicate with his Indian counterparts, but because he stayed here and waited for Chang Kaishen and Song Meiling.

After inspecting the Khyber Pass Fortress, Chang Kaishin returned to New Delhi with his attaché, where he met with the leader of the Congress Party, Jawaharlal Nehru, the chairman of the Indian Green Church Alliance, Jinnah (the father of the country), and the leader of the Indian women's community, Mrs. Nadu, and so on.

The next step was to meet Mahatma Gandhi.

In order to show respect, Chang Kaishen wanted to personally visit Mumbai according to the understanding of the Chinese. Gandhi, on the other hand, wanted to go to New Delhi to meet with Chang Kaishin in person, as the Indians understood.

When the British Governor in India learned of this, he immediately wrote to Soong Meiling, saying that if the old Chiang and his wife went to Bombay, the Governor would be in a very awkward position. Later, Churchill sent a telegram to Chiang Lao, asking him not to go against the will of the governor-general, otherwise the situation of the Sino-British alliance uniting all India to fight against Japan would be damaged.

In desperation, the three parties compromised—Lao Chiang chose to meet Gandhi in Calcutta.

Gandhi's journey was huge, with thousands of Indians seeing off in Mumbai, hundreds of low-caste and untouchable supporters, and hundreds of thousands of escorts along the way. He arrived in a third-class train car, and tens of thousands of Kolkata citizens spontaneously organized to greet him, directly paralyzing the railway station.

Chang Kaishen was completely shocked by the crazy scene, and said to Song Meiling and Zhou Hexuan beside him: "It is worthy of being a Mahatma, and it has won the hearts of the people!" ”

Hundreds of low-caste and untouchable entouragemen spontaneously opened the way for Gandhi. They were like fanatics defending the Pope, humble, lowly and unyielding to death, and if anyone wanted to do Gandhi harm, they could only step on the corpses of these people.

"Mahatma! Mahatma! Mahatma! ”

Shouts from inside and outside the station rang out one after another, with the high-caste people standing and waiting, the low-caste kneeling and prostrating, and the untouchables lying on the ground from afar to make the Hajj.

The British and Indian military and police were like facing a great enemy, but they did not even dare to raise their guns. In fact, even if there is an accident, do not dare to shoot, otherwise it will inevitably cause even more chaos.

Seeing this scene, Zhou Hexuan was in a responsible mood and didn't know how to evaluate it at all. He used to look down on Gandhi and thought he was too cowardly, but now he didn't dare to underestimate him in any way - non-violent non-cooperation has reached such an extent that it is sometimes more terrible than violent resistance, and its organization and influence have surpassed most violent revolutions in the world.

Let's put it this way, if Britain dared to raise the price and tax of a certain cloth without authorization, then Gandhi would stand up and call for the whole people to spin the cloth, and refuse to buy and use the cloth of the British. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, even tens of millions of people responded, they marched, they went on strike, and they persevered to the end despite the British suppression, and the economic damage and social chaos that the British simply could not face.

You kill you, I'll do mine, I'll stretch my neck for you to kill, but I just won't cooperate with you.

Let's use another analogy, it is like a robber who occupies a peasant's house and asks the peasant to grow vegetables and plough the land for boiling water for cooking. Under normal circumstances, the peasants would be patient, and if they were overpressed, they would do nothing, lying on the ground and letting the robbers beat and kill. Unless the robbers want to completely destroy the family, they must choose to compromise and give in, which is really an extremely strange way to resist.

"Mr. Gandhi!"

"Mr. Jiang!"

The two shook hands warmly outside the station, and both were very touched by each other's behavior. Lao Chiang took his wife to the station to greet him in person, while Gandhi rode all the way to the third-class carriage, at least showing great respect.

"This must be Mr. Zhou, the Nobel laureate, right?" Gandhi smiled.

Zhou Hexuan greeted: "Hello, Mr. Gandhi. ”

After greeting everyone, we took the car to the best hotel in the city. Gandhi's followers also went, but instead of staying at the hotel, they sat or lay guard outside the hotel's gates. Asceticism is a practice for them and a stance to express determination.

The process of exchange was actually boring, and each expressed respect and support for each other's peoples, and expressed their desire to unite against imperialism.

Zhou Hexuan was most interested in Gandhi's views on the caste system, and he couldn't help but ask, "Mr. Gandhi, what do you think about the caste system?" ”

"Ahem!" Chang Kaishen coughed, he felt that this question was too sensitive.

Gandhi replied with a smile: "The caste system has a certain legitimacy, and it is not the caste system that restricts the development of India, but the untouchable system." I think that the untouchability system should be abolished, and once the untouchable class is eliminated, the caste system can be purified. ”

This answer surprised Zhou Hexuan, because he had the impression that Gandhi was openly respecting the untouchables, but secretly looking down on the untouchables.

"Do you think the untouchability system can be abolished?" Zhou Hexuan asked again.

Gandhi smiled and said, "I'm a pariah, and I can still be respected." ”

Gandhi certainly could not have been a pariah, and many times he was considered a second caste, Kshatriya, but in terms of surname he should have been more like a third caste, Vaishyas. "Gandhi" originally meant "food merchant", Vaishyas were the class engaged in commercial trade, and the Kshatriya class was mostly princes, nobles, warriors, and officers.

Of course, it is also possible that Gandhi's family had already been upgraded, after all, his father had been the prime minister of a princely state in India – a position more in line with the Kshatriya caste.

Gandhi said he was a pariah because when he went to London to study, the locals threatened to expel him from his caste. A disagreement arose, with the Gandhi family still viewing Gandhi as a Kshatriya and his fellow villagers believing that Gandhi had become a pariah.

Gandhi continued: "The non-violent non-resistance movement is external, and the abolition of the untouchability system is internal. Persisting in external resistance and self-improvement internally is the only way for the Indian nation to become strong. We cannot drive away the oppression of the British colonizers and still oppress our own people. This is not right and extremely ignorant. ”

"That's true." Zhou Hexuan agreed.

After coming to India for so many days, Gandhi was the most sensible Indian Zhou Hexuan had ever come into contact with. At least his idea touches on the very root of Indian society, which is to abolish untouchability!

In fact, Gandhi had not thought about abolishing untouchability before 1932 and was in conflict with the future "father of the Indian constitution" who came from a pariah background. Gandhi not only compromised, but was persuaded by the other side, and openly demanded that the British colonial government grant the Dalits local suffrage – perhaps not for the benefit of the untouchables, but rather as a diversion from the colonial government's attention to the nonviolent movement by liberating the untouchables, and to some extent succeeded.

In any case, Gandhi did just that, and he also referred to the untouchables as "sons of God" and characterized the profession of toilet cleaning as a sacred rite. After Gandhi's death, toilet cleaning remained "sacred" because it was given sacred attributes by Gandhi, but toilet cleaning untouchables were still discriminated against.

Gandhi also persuaded temples across the country to open their doors to the untouchables, and the temples agreed, but the untouchables were still unable to enter. Just as Gandhi gave the untouchables the power to be civil servants, but the untouchables still couldn't be civil servants, the strong caste system gradually became an unspoken rule that only a few of the untouchables could come out on top.

At the end of last year, Gandhi published the "Building Programme for India", in which he called on Greens and Hindus to unite and work together to abolish untouchability, improve the status of women, and gradually solve rural problems and education problems.

It can be said that these ideas of Gandhi touched on all the fundamental problems of Indian society. If it can be solved, then India will inevitably develop into a superpower.

Nehru, the leader of the Congress Party, inherited Gandhi's ideas and put Gandhi's "Construction Program" into practice. This process was bound to encounter great resistance, so Nehru chose to expand externally, relying on military power to increase his prestige.

Among them was the encroachment on the territory of New China, and the founding fathers were hung up and beaten. Nehru's prestige was shattered, and India's domestic forces took the opportunity to fight back, resulting in the failure of India's rural reforms, and the reversal of other reforms, not to mention the inability of his successors.

As a result, the various problems of Indian society were what they were when the country was founded, and what they are still decades later.

After two hours of in-depth exchanges, Zhou Hexuan's impression of Gandhi changed greatly. This man was indeed a wise man and a warrior, and the leader of the Congress party, Nehru, was more like Gandhi's fan, both of whom had a deep understanding of Indian society, but reality forced Nehru to take the wrong means - he actually wanted to consolidate his rule by bullying New China.

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