Young India, 21-7-'20
51. THE FIRST OF AUGUST
It is hardly likely that before the 1st August there will be on the part of His Majesty's Ministers promise of a revision of the peace terms and the consequent suspension of the inauguration of non-co-operation. The first of August next will be as important an event in the history of India as was the 6th of April last year. The sixth of April marked the beginning of the end of the Rowlatt Act. No one can consider the Rowlatt Act can possibly live in the face of the agitation that has only been suspended—never given up. It must be clear to any one that the power that wrests justice from an unwilling Government in the matter of the Punjab and the Khilafat will be the power that will secure repeal of the Rowlatt Act. And that power is the power of Satyagraha whether it is known by the name of civil disobedience or non-co-operation.
Many people dread the advent of non-co-operation, because of the events of last year. They fear madness from the mob and consequent repetition of last year's reprisals almost unsurpassed in their ferocity in the history of modern times. Personally I do not mind Governmental fury as I mind mob fury. The latter is a sign of national distemper and therefore more difficult to deal with than the former which is confined to a small corporation. It is easier to oust a Government that has rendered itself unfit to govern than it is to cure unknown people in a mob of their madness. But great movements cannot be stopped altogether because a Government or a people or both go wrong. We learn and profit through our mistakes and failures. No general worth the name gives up a battle because he has suffered reverses, or which is the same thing, made mistakes. And so we must approach non-co-operation with confidence and hope. As in the past, the commencement is to be marked by fasting and prayer—a sign of the religious character of the demonstration. There should also be on that day suspension of business, and meetings to pass resolutions praying for revision of the peace terms and justice for the Punjab, and inculcating non-co-operation until justice has been done.
The giving up of titles and honorary posts should also commence from the first of August. Doubt has been expressed as to the sufficiency of notice regarding surrender of titles and honorary posts. It is however quickly dispelled by bearing in mind that the first of August marks the commencement of the surrender of titles. It is not the only day on which surrender has to take place. Indeed I do not expect a very large response on the first day. A vigorous propaganda will have to be carried on and the message delivered to every title-or post-holder and the argument presented to him proving the duty of such surrender.
But the greatest thing in this campaign of non-co-operation is to evolve order, discipline, co-operation among the people and co-ordination among the workers. Effective non-co-operation depends upon complete organization. Thousands of men who have filled meetings throughout the Punjab have convinced me that the people want to withdraw co-operation from the Government but they must know how. Most people do not understand the complicated machinery of the Government. They do not realize that every citizen silently but none-the-less certainly sustains the Government of the day in ways of which he has no knowledge. Every citizen therefore renders himself responsible for every act of his Government. And it is quite proper to support it so long as the actions of the Government are bearable. But when they hurt him and his nation, it becomes his duty to withdraw his support.
But as I have said, every citizen does not know how to do so in an orderly manner. Disorderliness comes from anger, orderliness out of intelligent resistance. The first condition therefore of real success is to ensure entire absence of violence. Violence done to persons representing the Government or to persons who don't join our ranks, i.e., the supporters of the Government, means in every case retrogression in our case, cessation of non-co-operation and useless waste of innocent lives. Those, therefore, who wish to make non-co-operation a success in the quickest possible time will consider it their first duty to see that in their neighbourhood complete order is kept.
Young India, 28-7-'20
52. WHO IS DISLOYAL?
Mr. Montagu has discovered a new definition of disloyalty. He considers my suggestion to boycott the visit of the Prince of Wales to be disloyal, and some newspapers taking the cue from him have called persons who have made the suggestion 'unmannerly'. They have even attributed to these 'unmannerly 'persons the suggestion of 'boycotting the Prince'. I draw a sharp and fundamental distinction between boycotting the Prince and boycotting any welcome arranged for him. Personally I would extend the heartiest welcome to His Royal Highness if he came or could come without official patronage and the protecting wings of the Government of the day. Being the heir to a constitutional monarch, the Prince's movements are regulated and dictated by the ministers, no matter how much the dictation may be concealed beneath diplomatically polite language. In suggesting the boycott therefore the promoters have suggested boycott of an insolent bureaucracy and dishonest ministers of His Majesty.
You cannot have it both ways. It is true that under a constitutional monarchy, the royalty is above politics. But you cannot send the Prince on a political visit for the purpose of making political capital out of him, and then complain that those, who will not play your game and, in order to checkmate you, proclaim a boycott of the Royal visit, do not know constitutional usage. For the Prince's visit is not for pleasure. His Royal Highness is to come, in Mr. Lloyd George's words, as the 'ambassador of the British nation', in other words, his own ambassador in order to issue a certificate of merit to him and possibly to give the ministers a new lease of life. The wish is designed to consolidate and strengthen a power that spells mischief for India. Even as it is, Mr. Montagu has foreseen that the welcome will probably be excelled by any hitherto extended to Royalty, meaning that the people are not really and deeply affected and stirred by the official atrocities in the Punjab and the manifestly dishonest breach of official declarations on the Khilafat. With the knowledge that India was bleeding at heart, the Government of India should have told His Majesty's ministers that the moment was inopportune for sending the Prince. I venture to submit that it is adding insult to injury to bring the Prince and through his visit to steal honours and further prestige for a Government that deserves to be dismissed with disgrace. I claim that I prove my loyalty by saying that India is in no mood, is too deeply in mourning to take part in any welcome to His Royal Highness, and that the ministers and the Indian Government show their disloyalty by making the Prince a cat's paw of their deep political game. If they persist, it is the clear duty of India to have nothing to do with the visit.
Young India, 4-8-'20
53. NON-VIOLENCE AND SWADESHI
Before a crowded meeting of Mussalmans in the Muzaffarabad at Bombay held on the 29th July, 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 though 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.
Matchless Weapon
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, so arranged 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 upheld 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.
Swadeshi
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 their 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 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.
Young India, 4-8-'20
54. PROGRAMME FOR SATYAGRAHA
[From a letter written by Gandhiji to Hakim Ajmal Khan from Sabarmati Jail, dated 12th March, 1922.]
A staunch Mussalman, you have shown in your own life what Hindu-Muslim unity means.
We all now realize, as we have never before realized, that without that unity we cannot attain our freedom, and I make bold to say that without that unity the Mussalmans of India cannot render the Khilafat all the aid they wish. Divided, we must ever remain slaves. This unity, therefore, cannot be a mere policy to be discarded when it does not suit us. We can discard it only when we are tired of Swaraj. Hindu-Muslim unity must be our creed to last for all time and under all circumstances.
Nor must that unity be a menace to the minorities—the Parsees, the Christians, the Jews or the powerful Sikhs. If we seek to crush any of them, we shall some day want to fight each other.
I have been drawn so close to you chiefly because I know that you believe in Hindu-Muslim unity in the full sense of the term.
This unity, in my opinion, is unattainable without our adopting non-violence as a firm policy. I call it a policy because it is limited to the preservation of that unity. But it follows that thirty crores of Hindus and Mussalmans, united not for a time but for all time, can defy all the powers of the world and should consider it a cowardly act to resort to violence in their dealings with the English administrators. We have hitherto feared them and their guns in our simplicity. The moment we realize our combined strength, we shall consider it unmanly to fear them and, therefore, ever to think of striking them. Hence am I anxious and impatient to persuade my countrymen to feel non-violent, not out of our weakness but out of our strength. But you and I know that we have not yet evolved the non-violence of the strong. And we have not done so, because the Hindu-Muslim union has not gone much beyond the stage of policy. There is still too much mutual distrust and consequent fear. I am not disappointed. The progress we have made in that direction is indeed phenomenal. We seem to have covered in eighteen months' time the work of a generation. But infinitely more is necessary. Neither the classes nor the masses feel instinctively that our union is necessary as the breath of our nostrils.
For this consummation we must, it seems to me, rely more upon quality than quantity. Given a sufficient number of Hindus and Mussalmans with almost a fanatical faith in everlasting friendship between the Hindus and the Mussalmans of India, we shall not be long before the unity permeates the masses. A few of us must first clearly understand that we can make no headway without accepting non-violence in thought, word and deed for the full realization of our political ambition. I would, therefore, beseech you and the members of the Working Committee and the All-India Congress Committee to see that our ranks contain no workers who do not fully realize the essential truth I have endeavoured to place before you. A living faith cannot be manufactured by the rule of majority.
To me the visible symbol of all-India unity and, therefore, of the acceptance of non-violence as an indispensable means for the realization of our political ambition is undoubtedly the charkha, i.e. khaddar. Only those who believe in cultivating a non-violent spirit and eternal friendship between Hindus and Mussalmans will daily and religiously spin. Universal hand-spinning and the universal manufacture and use of hand-spun and hand-woven khaddar will be a substantial, if not absolute, proof of real unity and non-violence. And it will be a recognition of a living kinship with the dumb masses. Nothing can possibly unify and revivify India as the acceptance by all India of the spinning wheel as a daily sacrament and khaddar wear as a privilege and a duty.
Whilst, therefore, I am anxious that more title-holders should give up their titles, lawyers law-courts, scholars Government schools or colleges, Councillors the Councils, and the soldiers and the civilians their posts, I would urge the nation to restrict its activity in this direction only to the consolidation of the results already achieved and to trust its strength to command further abstentions from association with a system we are seeking to mend or end.
Moreover, the workers are too few. I would not waste a single worker today on destructive work when we have such an enormous amount of constructive work. But perhaps the most conclusive argument against devoting further time to destructive propaganda is the fact that the spirit of intolerance which is a form of violence has never been so rampant as now. Co-operators are estranged from us; they fear us. They say that we are establishing a worse bureaucracy than the existing one. We must remove every cause for such anxiety. We must go out of our way to win them to our side. We must make Englishmen safe from all harm from our side. I should not have to labour the point, if it was clear to every one as it is to you and to me that our pledge of non-violence implies utter humility and goodwill even towards our bitterest opponent. This necessary spirit will be automatically realized, if only India will devote her sole attention to the work of construction suggested by me.
I flatter myself with the belief that my imprisonment is quite enough
for a long time to come. I believe in all humility that I have no ill-will against any one. Some of my friends would not have to be as non-violent as I am. But we contemplated the imprisonment of the most innocent. If I may be allowed that claim, it is clear that I should not be followed to prison by anybody at all. We do want to paralyze the Government considered as a system—not, however, by intimidation, but by the irresistible pressure of our innocence. In my opinion it would be intimidation to fill the jails anyhow. And why should more innocent men seek imprisonment till one considered to be the most innocent has been found inadequate for the purpose.
My caution against further courting of imprisonment does not mean that we are now to shirk imprisonment. If the Government will take away every non-violent non-co-operator, I should welcome it. Only it should not be because of our civil disobedience, defensive or aggressive. Nor, I hope, will the country fret over those who are in jail. It will do them and the country good to serve the full term of their imprisonment. They can be fitly discharged before their time only by an act of the Swaraj Parliament. And I entertain an absolute conviction that universal adoption of khaddar is Swaraj.
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