It is wrong to fast for selfish ends, e.g., for increase in one's own salary. Under certain circumstances it is permissible to fast for an increase in wages on behalf of one's group.
Ridiculous fasts spread like plague and are harmful. But when fasting becomes a duty it cannot be given up. Therefore, I do fast when I consider it to be necessary and cannot abstain from it on any score. What I do myself I cannot prevent others from doing under similar circumstances. It is common knowledge that the best of good things are often abused. We see this happening every day.
Harijan, 21-4-'46
152. TO THE WOMEN OF INDIA
The impatience of some sisters to join the good fight is to me a healthy sign. It has led to the discovery that however attractive the campaign against the Salt tax may be, for them to confine themselves to it would be to change a pound for a penny. They will be lost in the crowd, there will be in it no suffering for which they are thirsting.
In this non-violent warfare, their contribution should be much greater than men's. To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then indeed is woman less brute than man. If by strength, is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her man could not be. If non-violence is the law of our being, the future is with woman.
I have nursed this thought now for years. When the women of the Ashram insisted on being taken along with men something within me told me that they were destined to do greater work in this struggle than merely breaking salt laws.
I feel that I have now found that work. The picketing of liquor shops and foreign cloth shops by men, though it succeeded beyond expectations up to a point for a time in 1921, failed because violence crept in. If a real impression is to be created, picketing must be resumed. If it remains peaceful to the end, it will be the quickest way of educating the people concerned. It must never be a matter of coercion but conversion, moral suasion. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?
Prohibition of intoxicating liquors and drugs and boycott of foreign cloth have ultimately to be by law. But the law will not come till pressure from below is felt in no uncertain manner.
That both are vitally necessary for the nation, nobody will dispute. Drink and drugs sap the moral well-being of those who are given to the habit. Foreign cloth undermines the economic foundations of the nation and throws millions out of employment. The distress in each case is felt in the home and therefore by the women. Only those who have drunkards as their husbands know what havoc the drink devil works in homes that once were orderly and peace-giving. Millions of women in our hamlets know what unemployment means. Today the Charkha Sangha covers over one hundred thousand women against less than 10,000 men.
Let the women of India take up these two activities, specialize in them, they would contribute more than men to national freedom. They would have access of power and self-confidence to which they have hitherto been strangers.
Their appeal to the merchants and buyers of foreign cloth and to the liquor dealers and addicts to the habit cannot but melt their hearts. At any rate the women can never be suspected of doing or intending violence to these four classes. Nor can Government long remain supine to an agitation so peaceful and so resistless.
The charm will lie in the agitation being initiated and controlled exclusively by women. They may take and should get as much assistance as they need from men, but the men should be in strict subordination to them.
In this agitation thousands of women literate and illiterate can take part.
Highly educated women have in this appeal of mine an opportunity of actively identifying themselves with the masses and helping them both morally and materially.
They will find when they study the subject of foreign cloth boycott that it is impossible save through khadi. Mill-owners will themselves admit that mills cannot manufacture in the near future enough cloth for Indian requirements. Given a proper atmosphere, khadi can be manufactured in our villages, in our countless homes. Let it be the privilege of the women of India to produce this atmosphere by devoting every available minute to the spinning of yarn. The question of production of khadi is surely a question of spinning enough yarn. During the past ten days of the march under pressure of circumstances I have discovered the potency of the takli which I had not realized before. It is truly a wonder worker. In mere playfulness my companions have without interrupting any other activity spun enough yarn to weave 4 square yards per day of khadi of 12 counts. Khadi as a war measure is not to be beaten. The moral results of the two reforms are obviously great. The political result will be no less great. Prohibition of intoxicating drinks and drugs means the loss of twenty-five crores of revenue. Boycott of foreign cloth means the saving by India's millions of at least sixty crores. Both these achievements would monetarily be superior to the repeal of the Salt tax. It is impossible to evaluate the moral results of the two reforms.
"But there is no excitement and no adventure in liquor and foreign cloth picketing," some sisters may retort. Well, if they will put their whole heart into this agitation they will find more than enough excitement and adventure. Before they have done with the agitation, they might even find themselves in prison. It is not improbable that they may be insulted and even injured bodily. To suffer such insult and injury would be their pride. Such suffering if it comes to them will hasten the end.
If the women of India will listen and respond to my appeal, they must act quickly. If the all-India work cannot be undertaken at once, let those provinces which can organize themselves do so. Their example will be quickly followed by the other provinces.
Young India, 10-4-'30
153. WOMEN IN CONFERENCE
The conference of women on Sunday last at Dandi became a Congress as I had wanted it to be. Thanks to the Government prohibition against the Baroda territory cars plying between Navasari and Dandi, many had walked the full 12 miles to Dandi. The following resolutions were unanimously adopted:
1. This conference of the women of Gujarat assembled at Dandi on 13th April 1930 having heard Gandhiji, resolves that the women assembled will picket liquor and toddy shops of Gujarat and appeal to the shop-keepers and the shop-goers to desist from plying their trade or drinking intoxicating liquors as the case may be, and will similarly picket foreign cloth shops and appeal to the dealers and the buyers to desist from the practice of dealing in or buying foreign cloth as the case may be.
2. This conference is of opinion that boycott of foreign cloth is possible only through khadi and therefore the women assembled resolve henceforth to use khadi only and will so far as possible spin regularly and will learn all the previous processes and preach the message of khadi among their neighbours, teach them the processes up to spinning and encourage them to spin regularly.
3. This conference appoints the following Executive Committee{12} with power to draw up a constitution and to amend it from time to time and add to their number.
4. This conference hopes that women all over Gujarat and the other provinces will take up the movement initiated at this conference.
I regard this extension of the Swaraj movement as of the highest importance. I need not reiterate the argument already advanced in these pages. Mithubehn has already commenced operations. She is not the woman to let the grass grow under her feet. The idea is for twenty to twenty-five women to go in one batch and plant themselves near each liquor shop and come in personal contact with every visitor to the liquor or toddy shops, and wean them from the habit. They will also appeal to the shop-keepers to give up the immoral traffic and earn their livelihood through better means.
Foreign cloth shops are to be treated in the same way as liquor shops as soon as there are enough trained women volunteers. Though the same committee will carry on the two boycotts it will necessarily have two branches. It will be open to
any woman to offer her services for only one branch of work, nor is it necessary that every worker should belong to the Congress. Only this must be clearly understood, that the work is part of the Congress programme and has tremendous political results if it has also equally great moral and economic consequences.
Those who will belong to the foreign cloth boycott branch should realize that without the constructive work of khadi production the mere boycott will be a mischievous activity. Its very success without the production of khadi will prove the ruin of the national movement for independence. For the millions will take it up in simple faith. But they will curse us if they discover that they have no cloth to wear or the cloth they can get is too dear for their purse. The formula therefore is: Discard foreign cloth and make your own khadi and wear it. Already there is a dearth of khadi. Most of the khadi workers are in the salt campaign. Therefore the production has suffered a temporary check.
But there need never be any dearth of cloth the moment the country gets disabused of the superstition that it must buy cloth to cover its nakedness. It would be on a par with some one saying that we must starve if we cannot get Manchester or Delhi biscuits. Even as we cook our food and eat it so can we, if we but will it, make our own cloth and wear it. We did it only a hundred years ago and we can relearn the trick now. All the vital processes are almost too simple to learn. At this supreme crisis, this turning point in the nation's history, we must not hesitate and nurse idleness. I do not need to restate the argument about our mills. Even if every mill were genuinely Swadeshi and even if all became patriotic, they could not supply all our wants. Whichever way we look at it, whether we like it or not, we cannot escape khadi if we are to achieve independence through non-violent means and if we are to achieve the boycott of foreign cloth on which we began concentration in 1920.
Young India, 17-4-'30
154. MEN'S PART
[The following is a free rendering of extracts from my speech delivered before men just after the women's conference at Dandi on 13th instant.—M. K. G.]
I have just finished the women's conference. You will like to know what part we men may take in the women's movement. In the first place, we men may not meddle with the women's picketing of liquor and foreign cloth shops. If we do, we are likely to make a hash of it as we did in 1921. We can assist them in a variety of ways. The two classes of picketing have been designed to provide them with a special and exclusive field of activity. We can help by making the acquaintance of liquor and toddy dealers and interviewing them personally and asking them to give up the traffic now that the nation is going through the throes of a new birth. One can help also by showing greater and more delicate respect towards our women. Such general levelling up of the atmosphere will act upon the liquor dealer and also the foreign cloth dealer and buyer and the drinker, as neither will then be able to resist the appeal made to the heart by the gentle sex. In my opinion, these are virtues in which women excel men. Ahimsa is pre-eminently such a virtue. Woman exercises it naturally and intuitively when man reaches it through a laborious analytical process. Women left to themselves are likely quicker to reach the goal than if we men were to meddle with their picketing though we may help them with advice and guidance whenever they need them. Dr. Sumant Mehta and Sjt. Kanjibhai have already undertaken that task.
But there is the constructive activity of the women, i.e. manufacture of khadi. This is an activity which requires the assistance of every man, woman and child. We must all learn how to pick cotton, gin it, card it and spin it. These are all easy processes easily learnt if we have the will. It is no more difficult to learn than it is to cook or swim. Believe me there will be no boycott of foreign cloth, if we do not learn to manufacture khadi in our homes. The problem of khadi manufacture is the problem of every one becoming his or her own spinner. This natural and universal distribution of one simple process solves the whole of the problem of cloth supply. We have enough weavers in the land, we have not enough spinners. And when we have yarn spun from day to day by millions of hands, we men must approach the weavers and get them to weave it. This requires some organizing in the beginning. But it will be done as soon as we have made up our minds, as we have about the Salt tax.
So much for what we may and ought to do. Now for what we may never do. I have complaints from correspondents in Bombay that the forcible seizing of foreign caps from other people's heads has begun as happened in 1921. I do not know to what extent this is true. But whatever the extent, it must not be repeated. We may not use compulsion even in the matter of doing a good thing. Any compulsion will ruin the cause. I feel that we are within reach of the goal. But all the marvellous work done during this week of self-purification will be undone if the movement is vitiated by the introduction of compulsion. This is a movement of conversion, not of compulsion, even of the tyrant. We can offer Satyagraha against those whom we know as our friends or associates when they will not do a good thing or when they break promises. If you have the strength and the purity, you can offer Satyagraha, say by fasting, against your associates when they do not listen to a good thing. If I had the strength and the purity I should do so today against the nation. I confess I have not developed it to the extent required. It is not a mechanical art. Something within you impels you to it and then no one on earth can prevent you. I have no such impelling force as yet. If you have it, you can do it. I did it in 1921 when Bombay went mad. I did it in 1917 when the mill hands who had made a promise in the name of God were about to break it in a moment of weakness. In each case the act was spontaneous and its effect was electrical.
But this was a process of conversion. The exercise of compulsion by our men simply unnerves me and unfits me for service. This time whatever happens, the struggle has to go on. There is no turning back. But that is one thing and my capacity for service is another. I can promise not to suspend the movement but I have no capacity for promising not to die or collapse through sickness or weakness during the struggle. I admit that I am utterly weak in the face of any violence on our part and when I hear of any such thing, a doctor examining my pulse would at once detect a ruffle in the heart beat. It really takes a few moments, a waiting on God for help before I regain the normal beat of the heart. I cannot help this weakness of mine. Rather do I nurse it. This sensitiveness keeps me fit for service and true guidance, and keeps me humble and ever reliant on God. He only knows when I may become so upset and disconcerted by some violent act of ours as to declare a perpetual or temporary fast. It is the last weapon of a Satyagrahi against loved ones. If India continually takes resolutions in the name of God about non-violence, khadi, untouchability, communal unity and what not and as often denies God by breaking them,—India that has in her infatuation for me made me a Mahatma,—I do not know when God within may provoke me to offer the final Satyagraha against her who has loved me not wisely but too well. May the occasion never arise; but if it does, may God give me the strength and the purity to undertake that final sacrifice.
Young India, 17-4-'30
155. NOTES
The Frontier Provinces
When I marched to Dandi, friends in the Frontier Provinces had offered to send some volunteers to help me. I sent them thanks in appreciation of their offer but did not avail myself of it. How nice perhaps it would have been if they had not actively participated in the movement. Those who not being sure of perfect non-violence being observed, do not take an active part in the struggle, are most assuredly helping it. Those who wanting to serve take part in it and violence results, as happened at Peshawar, are as assuredly harming the movement. That the people in Peshawar meant well I have no doubt. They are perhaps more impatient (if such a thing were possible) than I am to win freedom. But nobody can get freedom today in this land except through non-violence. We cannot get India's freedom through the way of violence; we are within reach of it, if we would but keep up non-violence to the end. The way lies not through the burning of armoured cars and taking the lives of administrators of the Government machinery; i
t lies through disciplined organized self-suffering. I deeply regret the occurrences in Peshawar. Brave lives have been thrown away without the cause itself being served.
Boycott and Picketing
There is a great deal of bartering among us. The position taken up by foreign cloth merchants is but a symptom of that spirit. They want to give up foreign cloth trade only if they can do so without suffering any loss. But patriotism does not admit of barter. People are expected like Dattatreya to face death, like Kachhalia in South Africa to face compulsory insolvency, like the late Gopabandhu Das and others, not known to fame, to face poverty, and like the widow of Viththalbhai of Ambheti to suffer the death of nearest and dearest ones. Therefore the reluctance of foreign cloth merchants to suffer losses, in my opinion, betrays want of real patriotism.
But the Delhi merchants contend that the local Congress Committee has bound itself to stop picketing under certain conditions. If that be so, the promise has to be fulfilled at any cost. If the word of a Congressman or a Congress organization cannot be relied upon, we shall ultimately lose the battle. Satyagraha means insistence on truth. Breach of promise is a base surrender of truth. I have therefore advised the parties that if they cannot agree as to the text of the promise, if any, to refer the matter to arbitration.
I understand, too, that in Delhi, they have resorted to mixed picketing. I have suggested that it should be confined only to women. It does not matter if picketing is suspended for want of sufficient women pickets. Every occasion for violence must be avoided. Men can produce, by careful propaganda and production of khadi, an irresistible atmosphere for the boycott. But picketing where-ever it is done must be confined to women.
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