Freedom\'s Battle - Mahatma Gandhi
SPEECH AT MUZAFFARABAD
Before a crowded meeting of Mussalmans in the Muzaffarabad, Bombay, held
on the 29th July 1920, speaking on the impending non-co-operation which
commenced on the 1st of August, Mr. Gandhi said: The time for speeches
on non-co-operation was past and the time for practice had arrived. But
two things were needful for complete success. An environment free from
any violence on the part of the people and a spirit of self-sacrifice.
Non-co-operation, as the speaker had conceived it, was an impossibility
in an atmosphere surcharged with the spirit of violence. Violence was an
exhibition of anger and any such exhibition was dissipation of valuable
energy. Subduing of one's anger was a storing up of national energy,
which, when set free in an ordered manner, would produce astounding
results. His conception of non-co-operation did not involve rapine,
plunder, incendiarism and all the concomitants of mass madness. His
scheme presupposed ability on their part to control all the forces of
evil. If, therefore, any disorderliness was found on the part of the
people which they could not control, he for one would certainly help the
Government to control them. In the presence of disorder it would be for
him a choice of evil, and evil through he considered the present
Government to be, he would not hesitate for the time being to help the
Government to control disorder. But he had faith in the people. He
believed that they knew that the cause could only be won by non-violent
methods. To put it at the lowest, the people had not the power, even if
they had the will, to resist with brute strength the unjust Governments
of Europe who had, in the intoxication of their success disregarding
every canon of justice dealt so cruelly by the only Islamic Power
in Europe.
In non-co-operation they had a matchless and powerful weapon. It was a
sign of religious atrophy to sustain an unjust Government that supported
an injustice by resorting to untruth and camouflage. So long therefore
as the Government did not purge itself of the canker of injustice and
untruth, it was their duty to withdraw all help from it consistently
with their ability to preserve order in the social structure. The first
stage of non-co-operation was therefore arranged so as to involve
minimum of danger to public peace and minimum of sacrifice on the part
of those who participated in the movement. And if they might not help an
evil Government nor receive any favours from it, it followed that they
must give up all titles of honour which were no longer a proud
possession. Lawyers, who were in reality honorary officers of the Court,
should cease to support Courts that uphold the prestige of an unjust
Government and the people must be able to settle their disputes and
quarrels by private arbitration. Similarly parents should withdraw their
children from the public schools and they must evolve a system of
national education or private education totally independent of the
Government. An insolent Government conscious of its brute strength,
might laugh at such withdrawals by the people especially as the Law
courts and schools were supposed to help the people, but he had not a
shadow of doubt that the moral effect of such a step could not possibly
be lost even upon a Government whose conscience had become stifled by
the intoxication of power.
He had hesitation in accepting Swadeshi as a plank in non-co-operation.
To him Swadeshi was as dear as life itself. But he had no desire to
smuggle in Swadeshi through the Khilafat movement, if it could not
legitimately help that movement, but conceived as non-co-operation was,
in a spirit of self-sacrifice, Swadeshi had a legitimate place in the
movement. Pure Swadeshi meant sacrifice of the liking for fineries. He
asked the nation to sacrifice its liking for the fineries of Europe and
Japan and be satisfied with the coarse but beautiful fabrics woven on
their handlooms out of yarns spun by millions of their sisters. If the
nation had become really awakened to a sense of the danger to its
religions and its self-respect, it could not but perceive the absolute
and immediate necessity of the adoption of Swadeshi in its intense form
and if the people of India adopted Swadeshi with the religious zeal he
begged to assure them that its adoption would arm them with a new power
and would produce an unmistakable impression throughout the whole world.
He, therefore, expected the Mussalmans to give the lead by giving up all
the fineries they were so fond of and adopt the simple cloth that could
be produced by the manual labour of their sisters and brethren in their
own cottages. And he hoped that the Hindus would follow suit. It was a
sacrifice in which the whole nation, every man, woman and child could
take part.
RIDICULE REPLACING REPRESSION
Had His Excellency the Viceroy not made it impossible by his defiant
attitude on the Punjab and the Khilafat, I would have tendered him
hearty congratulations for substituting ridicule for repression in order
to kill a movement distasteful to him. For, torn from its context and
read by itself His Excellency's discourse on non-co-operation is
unexceptionable. It is a symptom of translation from savagery to
civilization. Pouring ridicule on one's opponent is an approved method
in civilised politics. And if the method is consistently continued, it
will mark an important improvement upon the official barbarity of the
Punjab. His interpretation of Mr. Montagu's statement about the movement
is also not open to any objection whatsoever. Without doubt a government
has the right to use sufficient force to put down an actual outbreak
of violence.
But I regret to have to confess that this attempt to pour ridicule on
the movement, read in conjunction with the sentiments on the Punjab and
the Khilafat, preceding the ridicule, seems to show that His Excellency
has made it a virtue of necessity. He has not finally abandoned the
method of terrorism and frightfulness, but he finds the movement being
conducted in such an open and truthful manner that any attempt to kill
it by violent repression would not expose him not only to ridicule but
contempt of all right-thinking men.
Let us however examine the adjectives used by His Excellency to kill the
movement by laughing at it. It is 'futile,' 'ill-advised,'
'intrinsically insane,' 'unpractical,' 'visionary.' He has rounded off
the adjectives by describing the movement as 'most foolish of all
foolish schemes.' His Excellency has become so impatient of it that he
has used all his vocabulary for showing the magnitude of the ridiculous
nature of non-co-operation.
Unfortunately for His Excellency the movement is likely to grow with
ridicule as it is certain to flourish on repression. No vital movement
can be killed except by the impatience, ignorance or laziness of its
authors. A movement cannot be 'insane' that is conducted by men of
action as I claim the members of the Non-co-operation Committee are. It
is hardly 'unpractical,' seeing that if the people respond, every one
admits that it will achieve the end. At the same time it is perfectly
true that if there is no response from the people, the movement will be
popularly described as 'visionary.' It is for the nation to return an
effective answer by organised non-co-operation and change ridicule into
respect. Ridicule is like repression. Both give place to respect when
they fail to produce the intended effect.
THE VICEREGAL PRONOUNCEMENT
It may be that having lost faith in His Excellency's probity and
capacity to hold the high office of Viceroy of India, I now read his
speeches with a biased mind, but the speech His Excellency delivered at
the time of opening of the council shows to me a mental attitude which
makes association with him or his Government impossible for
self-respecting men.
The remarks on the Punjab mean a flat refusal to grant redress. He would
have us to 'concentrate on the problems of the immediate future!' The
immediate future is to compel repentance on the part of the Government
on the Punjab matter. Of this there is no sign. On the contrary, His
Excellency resists the temptation to reply to his critics, meaning
thereby that he has not changed his opinion on the many vital matters
affecting the honour of India. He is 'content to leave the issues to the
verdict of history.' Now this kind of language, in my opinion, is
calculated further to inflame the Indian mind. Of what use can a
favourable verdict of history be to men who have been wronged and who
are still under the heels of officers who have shown themselves utterly
unfit to hold offices of trust and responsibility? The plea for
co-operation is, to say the least, hypocritical in the face of the
determination to refuse justice to the Punjab. Can a patient who is
suffering from an intolerable ache be soothed by the most tempting
dishes placed before him? Will he not consider it mockery on the part of
the physician who so tempted him without curing him of his pain?
His Excellency is, if possible, even less happy on the Khilafat. "So far
as any Government could," says this trustee for the nation, "we pressed
upon the Peace Conference the views of Indian Moslems. But
notwithstanding our efforts on their behalf we are threatened with a
campaign of non-co-operation because, forsooth, the allied Powers found
themselves unable to accept the contentions advanced by Indian Moslems."
This is most misleading if not untruthful. His Excellency knows that the
peace terms are not the work of the allied Powers. He knows that Mr.
Lloyd George is the prime author of terms and that the latter has never
repudiated his responsibility for them. He has with amazing audacity
justified them in spite of his considered pledge to the Moslems of India
regarding Constantinople, Thrace and the rich and renowned lands of Asia
minor. It is not truthful to saddle responsibility for the terms on the
allied Powers when Great Britain alone has promoted them. The offence of
the Viceroy becomes greater when we remember that he admits the justness
of the Muslim claim. He could not have 'pressed' it if he did not admit
its justice.
I venture to think that His Excellency by his pronouncement on the
Punjab has strengthened the nation in its efforts to seek a remedy to
compel redress of the two wrongs before it can make anything of the
so-called Reforms.
FROM RIDICULE, TO--?
It will be admitted that non-co-operation has passed the stage ridicule.
Whether it will now be met by repression or respect remains to be seen.
Opinion has already been expressed in these columns that ridicule is an
approved and civilized method of opposition. The viceregal ridicule
though expressed in unnecessarily impolite terms was not open to
exception.
But the testing time has now arrived. In a civilized country when
ridicule fails to kill a movement it begins to command respect.
Opponents meet it by respectful and cogent argument and the mutual
behaviour of rival parties never becomes violent. Each party seeks to
convert the other or draw the uncertain element towards its side by pure
argument and reasoning.
There is little doubt now that the boycott of the councils will be
extensive if it is not complete. The students have become disturbed.
Important institutions may any day become truly national. Pandit Motilal
Nehru's great renunciation of a legal practice which was probably second
to nobody's is by itself an event calculated to change ridicule into
respect. It ought to set people thinking seriously about their own
attitude. There must be something very wrong about our Government--to
warrant the step Pundit Motilal Nehru has taken. Post graduate students
have given up their fellowships. Medical students have refused to appear
for their final examination. Non-co-operation in these circumstances
cannot be called an inane movement.
Either the Government must bend to the will of the people which is being
expressed in no unmistakable terms through non-co-operation, or it must
attempt to crush the movement by repression.
Any force used by a government under any circumstance is not repression.
An open trial of a person accused of having advocated methods of
violence is not repression. Every State has the right to put down or
prevent violence by force. But the trial of Mr. Zafar Ali Khan and two
Moulvis of Panipat shows that the Government is seeking not to put down
or prevent violence but to suppress expression of opinion, to prevent
the spread of disaffection. This is repression. The trials are the
beginning of it. It has not still assumed a virulent form but if these
trials do not result in stilling the propaganda, it is highly likely
that severe repression will be resorted to by the Government.
The only other way to prevent the spread of disaffection is to remove
the causes thereof. And that would be to respect the growing response of
the country to the programme of non-co-operation. It is too much to
expect repentance and humility from a government intoxicated with
success and power.
We must therefore assume that the second stage in the Government
programme will be repression growing in violence in the same ratio as
the progress of non-co-operation. And if the movement survives
repression, the day of victory of truth is near. We must then be
prepared for prosecutions, punishments even up to deportations. We must
evolve the capacity for going on with our programme without the leaders.
That means capacity for self-government. And as no government in the
world can possibly put a whole nation in prison, it must yield to its
demand or abdication in favour of a government suited to that nation.
It is clear that abstention from violence and persistence in the
programme are our only and surest chance of attaining our end.
The government has its choice, either to respect the movement or to try
to repress it by barbarous methods. Our choice is either to succumb to
repression or to continue in spite of repression.
TO EVERY ENGLISHMAN IN INDIA
Dear Friend,
I wish that every Englishman will see this appeal and give thoughtful
attention to it.
Let me introduce myself to you. In my humble opinion no Indian has
co-operated with the British Government more than I have for an unbroken
period of twenty-nine years of public life in the face of circumstances
that might well have turned any other man into a rebel. I ask you to
believe me when I tell you that my co-operation was not based on the
fear of the punishments provided by your laws or any other selfish
motives. It was free and voluntary co-operation based on the belief that
the sum total of the activity of the British Government was for the
benefit of India. I put my life in peril four times for the sake of the
Empire,--at the time of the Boer war when I was in charge of the
Ambulance corps whose work was mentioned in General Buller's dispatches,
at the time of the Zulu revolt in Natal when I was in charge of a
similar corps at the time of the commencement of the late war when I
raised an Ambulance corps and as a result of the strenuous training had
a severe attack of pleurisy, and lastly, in fulfilment of my promise to
Lord Chelmsford at the War Conference in Delhi. I threw myself in such
an active recruiting campaign in Kuira District involving long and
trying marches that I had an attack of dysentry which proved almost
fatal. I did all this in the full belief that acts such as mine must
gain for my country an equal status in the Empire. So late as last
December I pleaded hard for a trustful co-operation, I fully believed
that Mr. Lloyd George would redeem his promise to the Mussalmans and
that the revelations of the official atrocities in the Punjab would
secure full reparation for the Punjabis. But the treachery of Mr. Lloyd
George and its appreciation by you, and the condonation of the Punjab
atrocities have completely shattered my faith in the good intentions of
the Government and the nation which is supporting it.
But though, my faith in your good intentions is gone, I recognise your
bravery and I know that what you will not yield to justice and reason,
you will gladly yield to bravery.
_See what this Empire means to India_
Exploitation of India's resources for the benefit of Great Britain.
An ever-increasing military expenditure, and a civil service the most
expensive in the world.
Extravagant working of every department in utter disregard of India's
poverty.
Disarmament and consequent emasculation of a whole nation lest an armed
nation might imperil the lives of a handful of you in our midst.
Traffic in intoxicating liquors and drugs for the purposes of
sustaining a top heavy administration.
Progressively representative legislation in order to suppress an
evergrowing agitation seeking to give expression to a nation's agony.
Degrading treatment of Indians residing in your dominions, and
You have shown total disregard of our feelings by glorifying the Punjab
administration and flouting the Mosulman sentiment.
I know you would not mind if we could fight and wrest the sceptre form
your hands. You know that we are powerless to do that, for you have
ensured our incapacity to fight in open and honourable battle. Bravery
on the battlefield is thus impossible for us. Bravery of the soul still
remains open to us. I know you will respond to that also. I am engaged
in evoking that bravery. Non-co-operation means nothing less than
training in self-sacrifice. Why should we co-operate with you when we
know that by your administration of this great country we are lifting
daily enslaved in an increasing degree. This response of the people to
my appeal is not due to my personality. I would like you to dismiss me,
and for that matter the Ali Brothers too, from your consideration. My
personality will fail to evoke any response to anti-Muslim cry if I were
foolish enough to rise it, as the magic name of the Ali Brothers would
fail to inspire the Mussalmans with enthusiasm if they were madly to
raise in anti-Hindu cry. People flock in their thousands to listen to us
because we to-day represent the voice of a nation groaning under iron
heels. The Ali Brothers were your friends as I was, and still am. My
religion forbids me to bear any ill-will towards you. I would not raise
my hand against you even if I had the power. I expect to conquer you
only by my suffering. The Ali Brothers will certainly draw the sword, if
they could, in defence of their religion and their country. But they and
I have made common cause with the people of India in their attempt to
voice their feelings and to find a remedy for their distress.
You are in search of a remedy to suppress this rising ebullition of
national feeling. I venture to suggest to you that the only way to
suppress it is to remove the causes. You have yet the power. You can
repent of the wrongs done to Indians. You can compel Mr. Lloyd George to
redeem his promises. I assure you he has kept many escape doors. You can
compel the Viceroy to retire in favour of a better one, you can revise
your ideas about Sir Michael O'Dwyer and General Dyer. You can compel
the Government to summon a conference of the recognised lenders of the
people, duly elected by them and representing all shades of opinion so
as to devise means for granting _Swaraj_ in accordance with the wishes
of the people of India. But this you cannot do unless you consider
every Indian to be in reality your equal and brother. I ask for no
patronage, I merely point out to you, as a friend, as honourable
solution of a grave problem. The other solution, namely repression is
open to YOU. I prophesy that it will fail. It has begun already. The
Government has already imprisoned two brave men of Panipat for holding
and expressing their opinions freely. Another is on his trial in Lahore
for having expressed similar opinion. One in the Oudh District is
already imprisoned. Another awaits judgment. You should know what is
going on in your midst. Our propaganda is being carried on in
anticipation of repression. I invite you respectfully to choose the
better way and make common cause with the people of India whose salt you
are eating. To seek to thwart their inspirations is disloyalty to
the country.
I am,
Your faithful friend,
M. K. GANDHI
ONE STEP ENOUGH FOR ME
Mr. Stokes is a Christian, who wants to follow the light that God gives
him. He has adopted India as his home. He is watching the
non-co-operation movement from the Kotgarh hills where he is living in
isolation from the India of the plains and serving the hillmen. He has
contributed three articles on non-co-operation to the columns of the
Servant of Calcutta and other papers. I had the pleasure of reading them
during my Bengal tour. Mr. Stokes approves of non-co-operation but
dreads the consequences that may follow complete success _i.e.,_
evacuation of India by the British. He conjures up before his mind a
picture of India invaded by the Afghans from the North-West, plundered
by the Gurkhas from the Hills. For me I say with Cardinal Newman: 'I do
not ask to see the distant scene; one step enough for me.' The movement
is essentially religious. The business of every god-fearing man is to
dissociate himself from evil in total disregard of consequences. He must
have faith in a good deed producing only a good result: that in my
opinion is the Gita doctrine of work without attachment. God does not
permit him to peep into the future. He follows truth although the
following of it may endanger his very life. He knows that it is better
to die in the way of God than to live in the way of Satan. Therefore who
ever is satisfied that this Government represents the activity of Satan
has no choice left to him but to dissociate himself from it.
However, let us consider the worst that can happen to India on a sudden
evacuation of India by the British. What does it matter that the Gurkhas
and the Pathans attack us? Surely we would be better able to deal with
their violence than we are with the continued violence, moral and
physical, perpetrated by the present Government. Mr. Stokes does not
seem to eschew the use of physical force. Surely the combined labour of
the Rajput, the Sikh and the Mussalman warriors in a united India may be
trusted to deal with plunderers from any or all the sides. Imagine
however the worst: Japan overwhelming us from the Bay of Bengal, the
Gurkhas from the Hills, and the Pathans from the North-West. If we not
succeed in driving them out we make terms with them and drive them at
the first opportunity. This will be a more manly course than a hopeless
submission to an admittedly wrongful State.
But I refuse to contemplate the dismal out-look. If the movement
succeeds through non-violent non-co-operation, and that is the
supposition Mr. Stokes has started with, the English whether they remain
or retire, they will do so as friends and under a well-ordered agreement
as between partners. I still believe in the goodness of human nature,
whether it is English or any other. I therefore do not believe that the
English will leave in a night.
And do I consider the Gurkha and the Afghan being incorrigible thieves
and robbers without ability to respond to purifying influences? I do
not. If India returns to her spirituality, it will react upon the
neighbouring tribes, she will interest herself in the welfare of these
hardy but poor people, and even support them if necessary, not out of
fear but as a matter of neighbourly duty. She will have dealt with Japan
simultaneously with the British. Japan will not want to invade India, if
India has learnt to consider it a sin to use a single foreign article
that she can manufacture within her own borders. She produces enough to
eat and her men and women can without difficulty manufacture enough to
clothe to cover their nakedness and protect themselves from heat and
cold. We become prey to invasion if we excite the greed of foreign
nation, by dealing with them under a feeling dependence on them. We must
learn to be independent of every one of them.
Whether therefore we finally succeed through violence or non-violence in
my opinion, the prospect is by no means so gloomy as Mr. Stokes has
imagined. Any conceivable prospect is, in my opinion, less black than
the present unmanly and helpless condition. And we cannot do better than
following out fearlessly and with confidence the open and honourable
programme of non-violence and sacrifice that we have mapped for
ourselves.
THE NEED FOR HUMILITY
The spirit of non-violence necessarily leads to humility. Non-violence
means reliance on God, the Rocks of ages. If we would seek His aid, we
must approach Him with a humble and a contrite heart.
Non-co-operationists may not trade upon their amazing success at the
Congress. We must act, even as the mango tree which drops as it bears
fruit. Its grandeur lies in its majestic lowliness. But one hears of
non-co-operationists being insolent and intolerant in their behaviour
towards those who differ from them. I know that they will lose all their
majesty and glory, if they betray any inflation. Whilst we may not be
dissatisfied with the progress made so far, we have little to our
credit to make us feel proud. We have to sacrifice much more than we
have done to justify pride, much less elation. Thousands, who flocked to
the Congress pandal, have undoubtedly given their intellectual assent to
the doctrine but few have followed it out in practice. Leaving aside the
pleaders, how many parents have withdrawn their children from schools?
How many of those who registered their vote in favour of
non-co-operation have taken to hand-spinning or discarded the use of all
foreign cloth?