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 can wear it if you like. But, first, think of the big fire where we burnt our foreign things. Would you like to wear this dainty thing when the rest of us are wearing khadi?" The temptation was very strong- my eyes shone with desire - I stretched out a small hand to touch the dress but even before my hand reached it I found myself saying "Take it away - I shan't wear it." "But why not, don't you like nice things?" the visitor teased. "l do... I do... but..., and I repeated all the arguments I had overheard from the elders' talk, when she said: "All right, Miss Saint, how is it that you have a foreign doll?" It was an idle remark, thoughtlessly made. Adults so often look upon children as playthings - not understanding what is hidden by the lack of power of expression. I was passionately fond of the doll. I could not think of it - or indeed of anything - as lifeless. Everything was given a name and immediately developed its own personality - the doll was my friend, my child.
For days on end - or was it weeks? it doesn't matter, it seemed an eternity - I was overwhelmed by the burden of decision the struggle went on between love for my doll, pride of owning such a lovely thing, and what I thought to be my duty towards my country. Never fond of food, I found ic even more irksome then, and sleep came only out of exhaustion. My mother thought I was sick for something and so I was. At last I made my decision and, quivering with tension, I took the doll up on the roof-terrace and set fire to it. Then tears came as if they would never stop and for some days I was ill with a temperature. To this day I hate striking a match.
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