Freedom\'s Battle - Mahatma Gandhi
Mr. Pennington wants me to publish an exact account of what happened on
the 10th April. He can find it in the reports, and if he will patiently
go through them he will discover that Sir Michael O'Dwyer and his
officials goaded the people into frenzied fury--a fury which nobody, as
I have already said, has condemned more than I have. The account of the
following days is summed up in one word, _viz._ 'peace' on the part of
the crowd disturbed by indiscriminate arrests, the massacre and the
series of official crimes that followed.
I am prepared to give Mr. Pennington credit for seeking after the truth.
But he has gone about it in the wrong manner. I suggest his reading the
evidence before the Hunter Committee and the Congress Committee. He need
not read the reports. But the evidence will convince him that I have
understated the case against General Dyer.
When however I read his description of himself as "for 12 years Chief
Magistrate of Districts in the South of India before reform, by
assassination and otherwise, became so fashionable." I despair of his
being able to find the truth. An angry or a biased man renders himself
incapable of finding it. And Mr. Pennington is evidently both angry and
biased. What does he mean by saying, "before reform by assassination and
otherwise became so fashionable?" It ill becomes him to talk of
assassination when the school of assassination seems happily to have
become extinct. Englishmen will never see the truth so long as they
permit their vision to be blinded by arrogant assumption of superiority
or ignorant assumptions of infallibility.
MR. PENNINGTON'S LETTER TO MR. GANDHI
Dear Sir,
I do not like your scheme for "boycotting" the Government of India
under what seems to be the somewhat less offensive (though more
cumbrous) name of non-co-operation; but have always given you credit
for a genuine desire to carry out revolution by peaceful means and am
astonished at the violence of the language you use in describing
General Dyer on page 4 of your issue of the 14th July last. You begin
by saying that he is "by no means the worst offender," and, so far, I
am inclined to agree, though as there has been no proper trial of
anyone it is impossible to apportion their guilt; but then you say
"his brutality is unmistakable," "his abject and unsoldierlike
cowardice is apparent, he has called an _unarmed crowd_ of men and
children--mostly holiday makers--a rebel army." "He believes himself
to be the saviour of the Punjab in that he was able to shoot down
like rabbits men who were _penned_ in an enclosure; such a man is
unworthy to be considered a soldier. There was no bravery in his
action. He ran no risk. He shot without the slightest opposition and
without warning. This is not an error of judgement. It is paralysis
of it in the face of _fancied_ danger. It is proof of criminal
incapacity and heartlessness," etc.
You must excuse me for saying that all this is mere rhetoric
unsupported by any proof, even where proof was possible. To begin
with, neither you nor I were present at the Jallianwalla Bagh on that
dreadful day--dreadful especially for General Dyer for whom you show
no sympathy,--and therefore cannot know for certain whether the crowd
was or was not unarmed.' That it was an 'illegal,' because a
'prohibited,' assembly is evident; for it is absurd to suppose that
General Dyer's 4-1/2 hours march, through the city that very morning,
during the whole of which he was warning the inhabitants against the
danger of any sort of gathering, was not thoroughly well-known. You
say they were 'mostly holiday makers,' but you give nor proof; and
the idea of holiday gathering in Amritsar just then in incredible. I
cannot understand your making such a suggestion. General Dyer was not
the only officer present on the occasion and it is impossible to
suppose that he would have been allowed to go on shooting into an
innocent body of holiday-makers. Even the troops would have refused
to carry out what might then have been not unfairly called a
"massacre."
I notice that you never even allude to the frightful brutality of the
mob which was immediately responsible for the punitive measure
reluctantly adopted by General Dyer. Your sympathies seem to be only
with the murderers, and I am not sanguine enough to suppose that my
view of the case will have much influence with you. Still I am bound
to do what I can to get at the truth, and enclose a copy of some
notes I have had occasion to make. If you can publish an _exact_
account of what happened at Amritsar on the 10th of April, 1919 and
the following days, especially on the 13th, including the
demonstration in favour of General Dyer, (if there was one), I for
one, as a mere seeker after the truth, should be very much obliged to
you. Mere abuse is not convincing, as you so often observe in your
generally reasonable paper,
Yours faithfully,
J. R. PENNINGTON, I.O.S. (Retd.)
35, VICTORIA ROAD, WORTHING, SUSSEX
27th Aug. 1920.
For 12 years Chief Magistrate of Districts in the south of India
before reform, by assassination and otherwise, became so fashionable.
P.S. Let us get the case in this way. General Dyer, acting as the
only representative of Government on the spot shot some hundreds of
people (some of them _perhaps_ innocently mixed up in an illegal
assembly), in the _bona fide_ belief that he was dealing with the
remains of a very dangerous rebellion and was thereby saving the
lives of very many thousands, and in the opinion of a great many
people did actually save the city from falling in the hands of a
dangerous mob.
SOME DOUBTS
Babu Janakdhari Prasad was a staunch coworker with me in Champaran. He
has written a long letter setting forth his reasons for his belief that
India has a great mission before her, and that she can achieve her
purpose only by non-violent non-co-operation. But he has doubts which he
would have me answer publicly. The letter being long, I am withholding.
But the doubts are entitled to respect and I must endeavour to answer
them. Here they are us framed by Bubu Janakdhari Prasad.
(a) Is not the non-co-operation movement creating a sort of race-hatred
between Englishmen and Indians, and is it in accordance with the Divine
plan of universal love and brotherhood?
(b) Does not the use of words "devilish," "satanic," etc., savour of
unbrotherly sentiment and incite feelings of hatred?
(c) Should not the non-co-operation movement be conducted on strictly
non-violent and non-emotional lines both in speech and action?
(d) Is there no danger of the movement going out of control and lending
to violence?
As to (a), I must say that the movement is not 'creating' race-hatred.
It certainly gives, as I have already said, disciplined expression to
it. You cannot eradicate evil by ignoring it. It is because I want to
promote universal brotherhood that I have taken up non-co-operation so
that, by self-purification, India may make the world better than it is.
As to (b), I know that the words 'satanic' and 'devilish' are strong,
but they relate the exact truth. They describe a system not persons: We
are bound to hate evil, if we would shun it. But by means of
non-co-operation we are able to distinguish between the evil and the
evil-doer. I have found no difficulty in describing a particular
activity of a brother of mine to be devilish, but I am not aware of
having harboured any hatred about him. Non-co-operation teaches us to
love our fellowmen in spite of their faults, not by ignoring or
over-looking them.
As to (c), the movement is certainly being conducted on strictly
non-violent lines. That all non-co-operators have not yet thoroughly
imbibed the doctrine is true. But that just shows what an evil legacy we
have inherited. Emotion there is in the movement. And it will remain. A
man without emotion is a man without feeling.
As to (d), there certainly is danger of the movement becoming violent.
But we may no more drop non-violent non-co-operation because of its
dangers, than we may stop freedom because of the danger of its abuse.
REJOINDER
Messrs. Popley and Philips have been good enough to reply to my letter
"To Every Englishman in India." I recognise and appreciate the friendly
spirit of their letter. But I see that there are fundamental differences
which must for the time being divide them and me. So long as I felt
that, in spite of grievous lapses the British Empire represented an
activity for the worlds and India's good, I clung to it like a child to
its mother's breast. But that faith is gone. The British nation has
endorsed the Punjab and Khilsfat crimes. The is no doubt a dissenting
minority. But a dissenting minority that satisfies itself with a mere
expression of its opinion and continues to help the wrong-doer partakes
in wrong-doing.
And when the sum total of his energy represents a minus quantity one may
not pick out the plus quantities, hold them up for admiration, and ask
an admiring public to help regarding them. It is a favourite design of
Satan to temper evil with a show of good and thus lure the unwary into
the trap. The only way the world has known of defeating Satan is by
shunning him. I invite Englishmen, who could work out the ideal the
believe in, to join the ranks of the non-co-operationists. W.T. Stead
prayed for the reverse of the British arms during the Boer war. Miss
Hobbhouse invited the Boers to keep up the fight. The betrayal of India
is much worse than the injustice done to the Boers. The Boers fought and
bled for their rights. When therefore, we are prepared to bleed, the
right will have become embodied, and idolatrous world will perceive it
and do homage to it.
But Messers. Popley and Phillips object that I have allied myself with
those who would draw the sword if they could. I see nothing wrong in
it. They represent the right no less than I do. And is it not worth
while trying to prevent an unsheathing of the sword by helping to win
the bloodless battle? Those who recognise the truth of the Indian
position can only do God's work by assisting this non-violent campaign.
The second objection raised by these English friends is more to the
point. I would be guilty of wrong-doing myself if the Muslim cause was
not just. The fact is that the Muslim claim is not to perpetuate foreign
domination of non-Muslim or Turkish races. The Indian Mussalmans do not
resist self-determination, but they would fight to the last the
nefarious plan of exploiting Mesopotamia under the plea of
self-determination. They must resist the studied attempt to humiliate
Turkey and therefore Islam, under the false pretext of ensuring Armenian
independence.
The third objection has reference to schools. I do object to missionary
or any schools being carried on with Government money. It is true that
it was at one time our money. Will these good missionaries be justified
in educating me with funds given to them by a robber who has robbed me
of my money, religion and honour because the money was originally mine.
I personally tolerated the financial robbery of India, but it would
have been a sin to have tolerated the robbery of honour through the
Punjab, and of religion through Turkey. This is strong language. But
nothing less would truly describe my deep conviction. Needless to add
that the emptying of Government aided, or affiliated, schools does not
mean starving the young mind National Schools are coming into being as
fast as the others are emptied.
Messrs. Popley and Phillips think that my sense of justice has been
blurred by the knowledge of the Punjab and the Khilafat wrongs. I hope
not. I have asked friends to show me some good fruit (intended and
deliberately produced) of the British occupation of India. And I assure
them that I shall make the amplest amends if I find that I have erred in
my eagerness about the Khilafat and the Punjab wrongs.
TWO ENGLISHMEN REPLY
Dear Mr. Gandhi,
Thank you for your letter to every Englishman in India, with its
hard-hitting and its generous tone. Something within us responds to the
note which you have struck. We are not representatives of any corporate
body, but we think that millions of our countrymen in England, and not
a few in India, feel as we do. The reading of your letter convinces us
that you and we cannot be real enemies.
May we say at once that in so far as the British Empire stands for the
domination and exploitation of other races for Britain's benefit, for
degrading treatment of any, for traffic in intoxicating liquors, for
repressive legislation, for administration such as that which to the
Amritsar incidents, we desire the end of it as much as you do? We quite
understand that in the excitement of the present crisis, owing to
certain acts of the British Administration, which we join with you in
condemning, the Empire presents itself to you under this aspect along.
But from personal contact with our countrymen, we know that working like
leaven in the midst of such tendencies, as you and we deplore, is the
faith in a better ideal--the ideal of a commonwealth of free peoples
voluntarily linked together by the ties of common experience in the past
and common aspirations for the future, a commonwealth which may hope to
spread liberty and progress through the whole earth. With vast numbers
of our countrymen we value the British Empire mainly as affording the
possibility of the realization of such an idea and on the ground give it
our loyal allegiance.
Meanwhile we do repent of that arrogant attitude to Indians which has
been all too common among our countrymen, we do hold Indians to be our
brothers and equals, many of them our superiors, and we would rather be
servants than rulers of India. We desire an administration which cannot
he intimated either by the selfish element in Anglo-Indian political
opinion or by any other sectional interest and which shall govern in
accordance with the best democratic principles. We should welcome the
convening of a National assembly of recognized leaders of the people,
representing all shades of political opinion of every caste, race and
creed, to frame a constitution for Swaraj. In all the things that matter
most we are with you. Surely you and we can co-operate in the service of
India, in such matters for example as education. It seems to us nothing
short of a tragedy that you should be rallying Indian Patriotism to
inaugurate a new era of good will under a watchword that divides,
instead of uniting all.
We have spoken of the large amount of common ground upon which you and
we can stand. But frankness demands that we express our anxiety about
some items in your programme. Leaving aside smaller questions on which
your letter seems to us to do the British side less than justice, may we
mention three main points? Your insistence on spiritual forces alone we
deeply respect and desire to emulate, but we cannot understand your
combining into it with a close alliance with those who, as you frankly
say, would draw the sword as soon as they could.
Your desire for an education truly national commands our whole-hearted
approval. But instead of Indianizing the present system, as you could
begin to do from the beginning of next year, or instead of creating a
hundred institutions such as that at Bolpur and turning into them the
stream of India's young intellectual life, you appear to be turning that
stream out of its present channel into open sands where it may dry up.
In other words, you seem to us to be risking the complete cessation, for
a period possibly, of years, of all education, for a large number of
boys and young men. Is it best, for those young men or for India that
the present imperfect education should cease before a better education
is ready to take its place?
Your desire to unite Mohammedan and Hindu and to share with your
Mohammedan brethren in seeking the satisfaction of Mohammedan
aspirations, we can understand and sympathize with. But is there no
danger, in the course which some of your party have urged upon the
Government, that certain races in the former Ottoman Empire might be
fixed under a foreign yoke, for worse than that which you hold the
English yoke to be? You could not wish to purchase freedom in India at
the price of enslavement in the middle East.
To sum up, we thank you for the spirit of your letter, to which we have
tried to respond in the same spirit. We are with you in the desire for
an India genuinely free to develop the best that is in her and in the
belief that best is something wonderful of which the world to-day
stands in need.
We are ready to co-operate with you and with every other man of any race
or nationality who will help India to realize her best. Are you going to
insist that you can have nothing to do with us if we receive a
government grant (i.e., Indian money), for an Indian School. Surely some
more inspiring battle cry than non-co-operation can be discovered. We
have ventured quite frankly to point out three items in your present
programme, which seem to us likely to hinder the attainment of your true
ideals for Indian greatness. But those ideals themselves command our
warm sympathy, and we desire to work, so far as we have opportunity, for
their attainment. In fact, it is only thus that we can interpret our
British citizenship.
Yours sincerely,
(Sd.) H.A. POPLEY,
(Sd.) G.E. PHILLIPS.
Bangalore,
November 15, 1920.
RENUNCIATION OF MEDALS
Mr. Gandhi has addressed the following letter to the Viceroy:--
It is not without a pang that I return the Kaisar-i-Hind gold medal
granted to me by your predecessor for my humanitarian work in South
Africa, the Zulu war medal granted in South Africa for my services as
officer in charge of the Indian volunteer ambulance corps in 1906 and
the Boer war medal fur my services as assistant superintendent of the
Indian volunteer stretcher bearer corps during the Boer war of
1899-1900. I venture to return these medals in pursuance of the scheme
of non-co-operation inaugurated to-day in connection with the Khilafat
movement. Valuable as those honours have been to me, I cannot wear them
with an easy conscience so long as my Mussalman countrymen have to
labour under a wrong done to their religious sentiment. Events that have
happened during the past month have confirmed me in the opinion that the
Imperial Government have acted in the Khilafat matter in an
unscrupulous, immoral and unjust manner and have been moving from wrong
to wrong in order to defend their immorality. I can retain neither
respect nor affection for such a Government.
The attitude of the Imperial and Your Excellency's Governments on the
Punjab question has given me additional cause for grave dissatisfaction.
I had the honour, as Your Excellency is aware, as one of the congress
commissioners to investigate the causes of the disorders in the Punjab
during the April of 1919. And it is my deliberate conviction that Sir
Michael O'Dwyer was totally unfit to hold the office of Lieutenant
Governor of Punjab and that his policy was primarily responsible for
infuriating the mob at Amritsar. Do doubt the mob excesses were
unpardonable; incendiarism, murder of five innocent Englishmen and the
cowardly assault on Miss Sherwood were most deplorable and uncalled for.
But the punitive measures taken by General Dyer, Col. Frank Johnson,
Col. O'Brien, Mr. Bosworth Smith, Rai Shri Ram Sud, Mr. Malik Khan and
other officers were out of all proportional to the crime of the people
and amounted to wanton cruelty and inhumanity and almost unparalleled in
modern times. Your excellency's light-hearted treatment of the official
crime, your, exoneration of Sir Michael O'Dwyer, Mr. Montagu's dispatch
and above all the shameful ignorance of the Punjab events and callous
disregard of the feelings of Indians betrayed by the House of Lords,
have filled me with the gravest misgivings regarding the future of the
Empire, have estranged me completely from the present Government and
have disabled me from tendering, as I have hitherto whole-heartedly
tendered, my loyal co-operation.
In my humble opinion the ordinary method of agitating by way of
petitions, deputations and the like is no remedy for moving to
repentence a Government so hopelessly indifferent to the welfare of its
charges as the Government of India has proved to me. In European
countries, condonation of such grievous wrongs as the Khilafat and the
Punjab would have resulted in a bloody revolution by the people. They
would have resisted at all costs national emasculation such as the said
wrongs imply. But half of India is to weak to offer violent resistance
and the other half is unwilling to do so.
I have therefore ventured to suggest the remedy of non-co-operation which
enables those who wish, to dissociate themselves from the Government and
which, if it is unattended by violence and undertaken in an ordered
manner, must compel it to retrace its steps and undo the wrongs
committed. But whilst I shall pursue the policy of non-co-operation in
so far as I can carry the people with me, I shall not lose hope that you
will yet see your way to do justice. I therefore respectfully ask Your
Excellency to summon a conference of the recognised leaders of the
people and in consultation with them find a way that would placate the
Mussalmans and do reparation to the unhappy Punjab.
_August 4, 1920._
MAHATMA GANDHI'S LETTER TO H.R.H. THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT
The following letter has been addressed by Mr. Gandhi to his Royal
Highness the Duke of Connaught;--
Sir,
Your Royal Highness must have heard a great deal about non-co-operation,
non-co-operationists and their methods and incidentally of me its humble
author. I fear that the information given to Your Royal Highness must
have been in its nature one-sided. I owe it to you and to my friends and
myself that I should place before you what I conceive to be the scope of
non-co-operation as followed not only be me but my closest associates
such as Messrs. Shaukat Ali and Mahomed Ali.
For me it is no joy and pleasure to be actively associated in the
boycott of your Royal Highness' visit--I have tendered loyal and
voluntary association to the Government for an unbroken period of nearly
30 years in the full belief that through that way lay the path of
freedom for my country. It was therefore no slight thing for me to
suggest to my countrymen that we should take no part in welcoming Your
Royal Highness. Not one among us has anything against you as an English
gentleman. We hold your person as sacred as that of a dearest friend. I
do not know any of my friends who would not guard it with his life, if
he found it in danger. We are not at war with individual Englishmen we
seek not to destroy English life. We do desire to destroy a system that
has emasculated our country in body, mind and soul. We are determined to
battle with all our might against that in the English nature which has
made O'Dwyerism and Dyerism possible in the Punjab and has resulted in a
wanton affront upon Islam a faith professed by seven crores of our
countrymen. The affront has been put in breach of the letter and the
spirit of the solemn declaration of the Prime Minister. We consider it
to be inconsistent with our self respect any longer to brook the spirit
of superiority and dominance which has systematically ignored and
disregarded the sentiments of thirty crores of the innocent people of
India on many a vital matter. It is humiliating to us, it cannot be a
matter of pride to you, that thirty crores of Indians should live day in
and day out in the fear of their lives from one hundred thousand
Englishmen and therefore be under subjection to them.
Your Royal Highness has come not to end the system I have described but
to sustain it by upholding its prestige. Your first pronouncement was a
laudation of Lord Wellingdon. I have the privilege of knowing him. I
believe him to be an honest and amiable gentleman who will not willingly
hurt even a fly. But, he has certainly failed as a ruler. He allowed
himself to be guided by those whose interest it was to support their
power. He is reading the mind of the Dravidian province. Here in Bengal
you are issuing a certificate of merit to a Governor who is again from
all I have heard an estimable gentleman. But he knows nothing of the
heart of Bengal and its yearnings. Bengal is not Calcutta. Fort William
and the palaces of Calcutta represent an insolent exploitation of the
unmurmuring and highly cultured peasantry of this fair province.
Non-co-operationists have come to the conclusion that they must not be
deceived by the reforms that tinker with the problem of India's distress
and humiliation. Nor must they be impatient and angry. We must not in
our impatient anger resort, to stupid violence. We freely admit that we
must take our due share of the blame for the existing state. It is not
so much the British guns that are responsible fur our subjection, as our
voluntary co-operation. Our non-participation in a hearty welcome to
your Royal Highness is thus in no sense a demonstration against your
high personage but it is against the system you have come to uphold. I
know that individual Englishmen cannot even if they will alter the
English nature all of a sudden. If we would be equals of Englishmen we
must cast off fear. We must learn to be self-reliant and independent of
the schools, courts, protection, and patronage of a Government, we seek
to end, if it will not mend. Hence this non-violent non-co-operation. I
know that we have not all yet become non-violent in speech and deed. But
the results so far achieved have I assure Your Royal Highness, been
amazing. The people have understood the secret and the value of
non-violence as they have never done before. He who runs may see that
this a religious, purifying movement. We are leaving off drink, we are
trying to rid India of the curse of untouchability. We are trying to
throw off foreign tinsel splendour and by reverting to the spinning
wheel reviving the ancient and the poetic simplicity of life. We hope
thereby to sterilize the existing harmful institution. I ask Your Royal
Highness as an Englishman to study this movement and its possibilities
for the Empire and the world. We are at war with nothing that is good in
the world. In protecting Islam in the manner we are, we are protecting
all religions. In protecting the honour of India we are protecting the
honour of humanity. For our means are hurtful to none. We desire to live
on terms of friendship with Englishmen but that friendship must be
friendship of equals in both theory and practice. And we must continue
to non-co-operate, i.e. to purify ourselves till the goal is achieved.