Non-Violent Resistance

by Mahatma K Gandhi

  The Congress Pledge

  The second question is 'Under Swaraj how many seats will Mussalmans have in the legislatures?' What answer can I return to such a question? If I were Viceroy of India I should say to the Mussalmans, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis &c., 'Take what you like, the balance will go to the Hindus.' It is true that the Sanatani Hindu will never let me become Viceroy. The fact is that I am unfit to do such accounting. But it should be sufficient to know that the Congress has pledged itself not to accept any communal solution that does not satisfy the parties concerned. I am bound by that pledge. For the Congress all are one. They are all Indians and therefore their freedom is guaranteed. No more can be expected by any community.

  Civil resistance will merely give the power to the nation to assert her will. But when the time comes for its assertion, the document embodying the will will have to be sealed by all the communities. Thus without the co-operation of all communities, there is no independence.

  But what should we do meanwhile? We must at least be true to the salt we eat. Her starving millions are the salt of India's earth. To be true to them we must free the salt from a tax which they have to pay equally with the rich and in the same proportion as the rich. In our ignorance we have been paying this inhuman imposition. Having realized our folly we will be traitors to the starving millions, if we submit to the exaction any longer.

  Who can help liking this poor man's battle? The cruel tax is no respecter of persons. It is therefore as much the interest of the Mussalman as of the Hindu to secure its abolition. This is a fight undertaken in the name of God and for the sake of the millions of paupers of this country.

  Young India, 3-4-'30

  110. BARBAROUS

  The threatened has after all happened. I congratulate the Government on having commenced arrests in right earnest of Salt tax resisters at least in Gujarat. They have arrested Sjt. Manilal Kothari and all his companions, so also Sjt. Amritlal Sheth and his companions, Dr. Chandulal Desai of Broach Sevashram and his companions. They have arrested Darbar Gopaldas, Sjt. Fulchand, Sjt. Ravishankar the intrepid reformer who has weaned the brave but ignorant Rajputs of Kheda from many an error. They have arrested Ramdas Gandhi, Keshavbhai Ganeshji, Chimanlal Pranshankar and others. All this the Government had the right to do. But they had no right to do what they did today at the village Aat four miles from Dandi. The police tried by force to snatch salt from the civil resisters. This they had no right to do, if they were representing a civilized Government. There was no provocation offered. The resisters were not running away. Their names could have been taken. But they insulted these brave men and through them the nation by touching their sacred persons without warrant and without just cause. One of the resisters by name Ukabhai Rama of Bardoli was slightly injured on the wrist. I admit that the police went unarmed to the scene of action. They will probably admit that there never was the slightest occasion for carrying arms, for the people were obviously and absolutely peaceful. Nevertheless this laying hands on the people for the purpose of seizing the salt they were carrying was morally wrong, and even wrong I fancy according to English common law. But I do not know what powers are given by a statute that makes a crime of undefined cowardice.

  This first drawing of blood, however little, brought down practically the whole of the village to the scene. Women were just yet to take no part in the act of civil disobedience, nor were the men of the village expected as yet to do so. But they, men and women (some with babies in arms), immediately they heard that salt was being forcibly seized and that one of the volunteers was injured, rushed out, and men on one side and women on the other descended to the channel and began to dig out the salt. As soon as I heard of the attempt at forcible seizure from the persons of the resisters, Monday being my day of silence, I wrote on a piece of paper that Shrimati Sarojini Devi and Sjt. Abbas Tyabji should go, and if the police did not desist they should also dig out salt and challenge them to seize it from their hands. But I charitably assume that the police had seen their mistake before these friends reached the scene and had not the heart to touch a whole villageful of people including women. The Satyagrahis, however, would not be satisfied without my presence although I might not speak. They wanted me evidently to see with my own eyes how they had behaved and with what zest the whole village was participating in the struggle. Ukabhai Rama was brought to me with the salt rescued. I went. For me it was a soul-stirring sight. The forcible seizure served a good purpose. It brought life to the whole village. Nevertheless, for the sake of the Government and for the sake of keeping the salt war on the gentlemanly plane, I wish this ugly incident had not happened.

  Legal procedure may be a cumbersome business for the Government. But since they have begun well let them not end ill. Let it be a pure trial of strength between them and the people. If they will resort to terrorism and if I am not mistaken, they will find the people, men as well as women, ready for any ordeal they may prepare for them. Salt in the hands of Satyagrahis represents the honour of the nation. It cannot be yielded up except to force that will break the hand to pieces. Ukabhai as he was describing the action of the police said, 'God gives strength to a Satyagrahi to defend what is entrusted to him.' Let the people defend the salt in their possession till they break in the attempt, but they should do so without malice, without anger, without an angry word. The police have the easiest way open to them of taking possession of the salt. Let them arrest the civil resisters, and they can take possession of the salt for they have possession of their persons. But it can become forfeit only after conviction, not before.

  Young India, 10-4-'30

  111. THE INHUMAN TAX

  Every new experience gained of the incidence of the Salt tax shows it to be more inhuman than it appeared at first. Living and moving as I am in the midst of the salt area in Gujarat, I find that villages have been ruined because of the prohibition of salt manufacture by the villagers. The only use the people can make of the land is to extract salt from it which nature deposits in abundance from month to month. This was the poor man's staple industry in these parts. Now all this land lies fallow. Dandi itself has a tragic history. It is a beautiful seaside place. It takes its name from the fact that it was a place for a diva dandi, i.e. a lighthouse. Now it is a deserted village. A European and then Indians tried against nature to reclaim the soil for cultivation. As I walk about the otherwise beautiful peace-giving shore and listen for the heavenly music of the gentle waves, I see about me wasted human effort in the shape of dilapidated embanked fields without a patch of vegetation. These very fields immediately the hateful salt monopoly is gone, will be valuable salt pans from which villagers will extract fresh, white sparkling salt without much labour, and it will give them a living as it did their ancestors.

  Mahadev Desai has already shown that the Government communique that this salt is injurious to health is a wicked falsehood. In spite of the inhuman regulations, the people round about this area have used none but the salt that nature provides here in abundance. They do not seem to have felt any the worse for it. Thousands all over this area have been during the past week eating this salt with impunity. I hear that in Konkan people have all these years used what they regard as Swadeshi salt in . contradistinction to the taxed salt which they regard as sarkari or 'foreign', although in the first instance it was yielded by India's earth and seas. The recipe which I publish in this issue has been prepared by two careful men who have graduated in science. According to it every household can prepare its own salt without any expense whatsoever. One boy has merely to fetch a lotaful of salt water and it has merely to be strained or filtered and put near the fire in a shallow pan and treated in accordance with the recipe, and the householders have every day's supply of salt much cleaner and healthier than the sarkari or 'foreign' dirty salt to be had in the bazars. Let the salt Satyagrahis (and they are to be counted in their tens of thousands now) not waste a single grain of Swadeshi salt. Law or no law there is now no excuse for any one to eat the bazar salt. Swadeshi s
alt must be introduced even where there are no salt beds. It can be easily transported in small quantities from place to place. Let the Government prosecute tens of thousands of men and women or if they dare, send their officials to search their persons and brutally force it from them. Let them say: 'The Salt law allows it.' I have already shown that the Salt regulations are as inhuman as the tax itself. If the history of the administration in the early stages of these regulations were known, it would be found that these inhuman regulations were as inhumanly administered in order to deprive the people of their natural calling and compel them to take the blood-stained sarkari salt. Let the reader know that even palanquins bearing pardanashin women were searched in order to prevent the transport of illicit salt. If today we have to bear hardships in the attempt to have this iniquitous tax removed, we are but doing a modicum of penance for our past neglect and shameful submission to the impost. The reader will thus see that it is not merely the tax, heavy as it is, that is offensive. It has not one redeeming feature about it. The revenue it brings is not the only cost to the nation. The cost to the nation is probably twenty crores per year besides the loss of an equal amount of salt which is wantonly destroyed or prevented from being gathered.

  Young India, 17-4-'30

  112. A SURVEY

  The mass manifestation in Gujarat has exceeded all expectations. Bombay and its suburbs have done no less. And the reports slowly coming to me at this out of the way place from all over India are fully encouraging. It is the matter of the keenest joy to me to see Maharashtra united once more and Sjt. N. C. Kelkar and his friends joining the struggle. Sjt. Kelkar's and Sjt. Aney's resignations are events of great importance in the struggle. Bengal is the most tempestuous province in all India. It is pulsating with life. Its very factions are symptomatic of its great awakening. If Bengal responds in the right style it is likely to overshadow every other province. I do not know that any province, even Maharashtra, can claim the credit that Bengal can for voluntary sacrifice. If its emotional side is its weakness, it is also its greatest strength. It has the capacity for reckless abandon to non-violence, if such use of language is permissible. Sjt. Sen Gupta's action in response to the wanton assault on the students' meeting has evoked the sentiment above expressed. The sentence of Dr. Suresh Bannerji and others pales into insignificance before the possibilities of the move on the part of the Bengal students and the savage counter move on the part of the police. I know what the Calcutta Commissioner of Police will say, if he sees these lines. I hear him saying 'But you do not know my Bengal.' Well, I know his Bengal more than he ever will. His Bengal is the creation of the Government. If the Government will cease to molest Bengal and not keep India from her cherished goal, Bengal will be as gentle as the greatest province of India. If Bengal is seething with the violent spirit, it is because of her sufferings.

  But I expect Bengal's imagination to come to her assistance and to realize that non-violence is the trump-card. All the suffering must be dedicated to the Goddess of Ahimsa.

  Soon after the Jalianwala massacre, I used to express and reiterate the hope that next time in no part of India must people run away on bullets being discharged against them, and that they must receive them in their chests with arms folded and with courageous resignation. That testing time seems to be coming faster than I had expected. And if we are to train ourselves to receive the bullet wounds or bayonet charges in our bare chests, we must accustom ourselves to standing unmoved in the face of cavalry or baton charges. I know that it is easier said than done. Nevertheless, I must say it if we are ever to complete our training in mass non-violence. That mass non-violence is a perfect possibility has been sufficiently demonstrated during the past eight days. Mahadev Desai has given a realistic account of the brutal treatment of volunteers in the Dholera salt bed and the volunteers suffering the brutality with meek heroism. What thousands in Bombay did when the police acted with rashness and harshness if also with comparative considerateness can be studied from a condensed translation published in this issue of a graphic description sent to me by Pt. Mukund Malaviya. His report is in the main corroborated by Dahyabhai, Sardar Vallabhbhai's son, who was also an eyewitness.

  Perinbai and her companions as also Kamaladevi acted with rare courage and calmness. But they would allow me to say that they would have done better to remain outside the venue of the men's fight. For women to be in the midst of such danger as they put themselves in was against the rule of chivalry. Any way that time is not yet. Let them by all means manufacture salt in their thousands. But they may not remain deliberately in crowds which they know are likely to be charged. I have in all humility suggested to them an exclusive field in which they are at liberty and are expected to show their best qualities. There is in that field enough scope for adventure and heroism.

  To revert, if then we are to stand the final heat of the battle, we must learn to stand our ground in the face of cavalry or baton charges and allow ourselves to be trampled under horses' hoofs or bruised with baton charges. An armed crowd could stand firm and retaliate if there were such charges. We, if we would learn the lesson of non-violence, should show greater courage by standing our ground without anger, without retaliation. Then a reincarnation of Dyer will find us ready for receiving bullets in the bare breast.

  People have already begun to defend their salt pans. If we have evolved that sufficient amount of courage, it must be done methodically and regularly. As soon as the police come to charge us and break through the living wall, women should, if the police give the opportunity, stand aside and let their men be wounded. They do so all the world over in armed conflict; let them do so in a conflict in which one party deliberately chooses to remain unarmed.

  When there are no men left to fight the battle of free salt, if they have courage let them take up the work deserted by men. But I have no doubt that men will give a good account of themselves in this struggle.

  I have already examined elsewhere the argument that the police must use force if people will not surrender the contraband salt in their possession. Here I would only remind these critics that even from confirmed thieves they do not take stolen property by force except after they are brought under arrest and then too never if they are not to be brought to trial. The property still remains the thief's until he is convicted and the court adjudges the property not to be his. That the salt regulations make the policeman the arresting officer, prosecutor and judge all rolled into one is no answer to my charge of barbarity in respect of the procedure adopted by the authorities.

  Young India, 17-4-'30

  113. THE BLACK REGIME

  The past week has not been one of unmixed joy. It has seen the disturbances in Calcutta and Karachi. And now comes the sad news from Chittagong. It shows that in spite of the striking demonstration of non-violence all over the country, there is still violence in the air and cities are the storehouses of it. Calcutta and Karachi can be distinguished from Chittagong. The first two appear to have been mad outbursts of the moment. Chittagong seems to be a deliberate planning. Whatever they were, they are most regrettable and interfere with the growth of the movement which is otherwise shaping itself marvellously well and gaining fresh momentum from day to day. I can only appeal to those who believe in violence not to disturb the free flow of the non-violent demonstration. Whether they listen or not, this movement will go on. Violence is bound to impede the progress towards independence. I am unable to demonstrate how it will impede. Those who survive the struggle will know how.

  Meanwhile Satyagrahis must continue their activity with redoubled vigour. We must deal with the double-edged violence ranged against us. For me popular violence is as much an obstruction in our path as the Government violence. Indeed I can combat the Government violence more successfully than the popular. For one thing, in combating the latter, I should not have the same support as in the former. Then again one motive in the latter being as honourable as that of the Satyagrahis, the method to be employed has to be somewhat different from that e
mployed in regard to Government violence.

  I hope that as in Karachi, so in Calcutta and Chittagong, there were Satyagrahis attempting to check mob violence. Brave young Dattatreya Mane who is said to have known nothing of Satyagraha and being an athlete had merely gone to assist in keeping order, received a fatal bullet wound, Meghraj Revachand, 18 years old, has also succumbed to a bullet wound. Thus did seven men, including Jairamdas, receive bullet wounds. Jairamdas's injury gave me unmixed joy. It is the injury to leaders that would bring relief. The law of sacrifice is uniform throughout the world. To be effective it demands the sacrifice of the bravest and the most spotless. And Jairamdas is of the bravest and the cleanest. I therefore could not help wiring when I heard of Jairamdas's wound that a wound in the thigh was better than prison and wound in the heart better still.

  Whilst therefore I tender my sympathy to the parents of the two brave lads who lost their lives, my inmost desire is to congratulate them for the finished sacrifices of their sons, if they would accept my congratulations. A warrior's death is never a matter for sorrow, still less that of a Satyagrahi warrior. One of the lessons that a nation yearning for freedom needs to learn is to shed several fears of losing title, wealth, position, fear of imprisonment, of bodily injury and lastly death.

  Accounts from all over India tell the same tale of growing fearlessness. The Bihar letter published elsewhere in this issue makes soul-stirring reading.

  One thing we must get rid of quickly. Lawless physical violence must be stopped even if it is to be through forcing the Government to use its guns. And this can be done non-violently.

  I give only one out of several samples of indecent assaults by the police at Viramgam: