Burning The Doll - Speeches by Indira Gandhi
A little later I had my first encounter with conscience and duty. Being an only child, I liked to play by myself but I had to have my mother within my range of vision and hearing. One evening she had a visitor, a relative returning from Paris who had brought an exquisite embroidered dress for me. Mummy smilingly returned it saying that we now wore only handspun and handwoven material, khadi. The visitor could not understand this, and glancing at my mother's clothes - the only khadi available then was thick and rough as sacking - she could not help noticing that wherever her skin had rubbed against the sari it had become sore and red. She burst out, "l think you have all gone mad but you are an adult, and if you want to be ill, I suppose it is your business, but you certainly have no right to make the child suffer and I have brought this gift for her." "Come here, Indu," called my mother. "Aunty has brought you a foreign frock. It is very pretty and you ca