For the past thirty years, I have been preaching and practicing satyagraha. The principles of satyagraha, as I know it to-day, constitute gradual evolution.1
Satyagraha differs from Passive Resistance as the North Pole from
the South. The latter has been conceived as a weapon of the weak and does not
exclude the use of physical force or violence for the purpose of gaining one's
end, whereas the former has been conceived as a weapon of the strongest and
excludes the use of violence in any shape or form.
On the political field, the struggle on behalf of the people
mostly consists in opposing error in the shape of unjust laws. When you have
failed to bring the error home to the law-giver by way of petitions and the
like, the only remedy open to you, if you do not wish to submit to error, is to
compel him by physical force to yield to you or by suffering in your own person
by inviting the penalty for the breach of the law. Hence satyagraha largely
appears to the public as Civil Disobedience or Civil Resistance. It is civil in
the sense that it is not criminal.
The law-breaker breaks the law surreptitiously and tries to avoid
the penalty; not so the civil resister. He ever obeys the laws of the state to
which he belongs, not out of fear of the sanctions, but because he considers
them to be good for the welfare of society. But there come occasions, generally
rare, when he considers certain laws to be so unjust as to render obedience to
them a dishonour. He then openly and civilly breaks them and quietly suffers
the penalty for their breach. And in order to register his protest against the
action of the law-givers, it is open to him to withdraw his co-operation from
the state by disobeying such other laws whose breach does not involve moral
turpitude.
In my opinion, the beauty and efficacy of satyagraha are so great
and the doctrine so simple that it can be preached even to children. It was
preached by me to thousands of men, women and children commonly called
indentured Indians with excellent results.
The spirit of non-violence necessarily leads to humility. Non-violence
means reliance on God, the Rock of Ages. If we would seek His aid, we must
approach Him with a humble and a contrite heart. Non-co-cooperationists may not
trade upon their amazing success at the Congress. We must act, even as the
mango tree which droops as it bears fruit. Its grandeur lies in its majestic
lowliness.
Non-co-operation is not a movement of brag, bluster, or bluff. It
is a test of our sincerity. It requires solid and silent self-sacrifice. It
challenges our honesty and our capacity for national work. It is a movement
that aims at translating ideas into action. And the more we do, the more we
find that much more must be done than we had expected. And this thought of our
imperfection must make us humble.
A non-co-operation strives to compel attention and to set an
example not by his violence, but by his unobtrusive humility. He allows his
solid action to speak for his creed. His strength lies in his reliance upon the
correctness of his position. And the conviction of it grows most in his opponent
when he least interposes his speech between his action and his opponent.
Speech, especially when it is haughty, betrays want of confidence and it makes
one's opponent sceptical about the reality of the act itself. Humility
therefore is the key to quick success. I hope that every non-co-operationist
will recognize the necessity of being humble and self-restrained. It is because
so little is really required to be done and because all of that depends
entirely upon ourselves that I have ventured the belief that Swaraj is
attainable in less than one year.
I am sorry that I find a nervous fear among some Hindus and
Mohammedans that I am undermining their faith, and that I am even doing
irreparable harm to India by my uncompromising preaching of non-violence. They
seem almost to imply that violence is their creed. I touch a tender spot if I
talk about extreme non-violence in their presence. They confound me with texts
from the Mahabharata and the Koran eulogizing or permitting violence. Of the
Mahabharata I can write without restraint, but the most devote Mohammedan will
not, I hope, deny me the privilege of understanding the message of the Prophet.
I make bold to say that violence is the creed of no religion and that, whereas
non-violence in most cases is obligatory in all, violence is merely permissible
in some cases. But I have not put before India the final form of non-violence.
The non-violence that I have preached from Congress platforms is non-violence
as a policy. But even policies require honest adherence in thought, word and
deed. If I believe that honesty is the best policy, surely whilst I so believe,
I must be honest in thought, word and deed; otherwise I become an impostor.
Non-violence being a policy means that it can upon due notice be given up when
it proves unsuccessful or ineffective. But simple morality demands that, whilst
a particular policy is pursued, it must be pursued with all one's heart. It is
simple policy to march along a certain route, but the soldier who marches with
an unsteady step along that route is liable to be summarily dismissed. I become
therefore incredulous when people talk to me sceptically about non-violence or
are seized with fright at the very mention of the word non-violence. If they do
not believe in the expedient of non-violence, they must denounce it but not
claim to believe in the expedient when their heart resists it. How disastrous
it would be, if, not believing in violence even as an expedient, I joined, say
a violence party and approached a gun with a perturbed heart ! The reader will
believe me when I say that I have the capacity for killing a fly. But I do not
believe in killing even flies. Now suppose I joined an expedition for
fly-killing as an expedient. Will I not be expected, before being permitted to
join the expedition, to use all the available engines of destruction, whilst I
remained in the army of fly-killers? If those who are in the Congress and the
Khilafat committees will perceive this simple truth, we shall certainly either
finish the struggle this year to a successful end, or be so sick of
non-violence as to give up the pretention and set about devising some other
programme.
I hold that Swami Shraddhanandji has been needlessly criticized
for the proposition he intended to move. His argument is absolutely honest. He
thinks that we, as a body, do not really believe in non-violence even as a
policy. Therefore, we shall never fulfil the programme of non-violence.
Therefore, he says, let us go to the councils and get what crumbs we may. He
was trying to show the unreality of the position of those who believe in the
policy with their lips, whereas they are looking forward to violence for final
deliverance. I do say that, if Congressmen do not fully believe in the policy,
they are doing an injury to the country by pretending to follow it. If violence
is to be the basis of future government, the councilors are undoubtedly the
wisest. For it is through the council that, by the same devices by which the
present administrators rule us, the councilors hope to seize power from the
former's hands. I have little doubt that those who nurse violence in their
bosoms will find no benefit from the lip-profession of non-violence. I urge,
therefore, with all the vehemence at my command, that those who do not believe
in non-violence should secede from the Congress and form non-co-operation and
prepare to seek election or rejoin law courts or Government colleges as the
case may be. Let there be no manner of doubt that Swaraj established by
non-violent means will be different in kind from the Swarak that can be
established by armed rebellion. Police and punishments there will be, even
under such Swaraj. But there would be no room for brutalities such as we
witness to-day both on the part of the people and the Government. And those,
whether they call themselves Hindus or Mussulmans, who do not fully believe in
the policy of non-violence, should abandon both non-co-operation and
non-violence.
For me, I am positive that neither in the Koran nor in the
Mahabharata is there any sanction for and approval of the triumph of violence.
Though there is repulsion enough in Nature, she lives by attraction. Mutual
love enables Nature to persist. Man does not live by destruction. Self-love
compels regard for others. Nations cohere, because there is mutual regard among
the individuals composing them. Some day we must extend the national law to the
universe, even as we have extended the family law to form nations - a larger
family. God has ordained that India should be such a nation. For so far as reason
can perceive, India cannot become free by armed rebellion for generations.
India can become free by refraining from national violence. India has now
become tired of rule based upon violence. That to me is the message of the
plains. The people of the plain do not know what it is to put up an organized
armed fight. And they must become free, for they want freedom. They have
realized that power seized by violence will only result in their greater
grinding.
Such, at any rate, is the reasoning that has given birth to the
policy, not the dharma, of non-violence. And even as a Mussulman or a Hindu,
believing in violence, applies the creed of non-violence in his family, so are
both called upon without question to apply the policy of non-violence in their
mutual relations and in their relation to other races and classes, not
excluding Englishmen. Those who do not believe in this policy and do not wish
to live up to it in full, retard the movement by remaining in it.
When a person claims to be non-violent, he is expected not to be
angry with one who has injured him. He will not wish him harm; he will wish him
well; he will not swear at him; he will not cause him any physical hurt. He
will put up with all the injury to which he is subjected by the wrong-doer. Thus
non-violence is complete innocence. Complete non-violence is complete absence
of ill-will against all that lives. It therefore embraces even subhuman life,
not excluding noxious insects or beasts. They have not been created to feed our
destructive propensities. If we only knew the mind of the Creator, we should
find their proper place in His creation. Non-violence is therefore in its
active form good will towards all life. It is pure Love. I read it in the Hindu
scriptures, in the Bible, in the Koran.
Non-violence is a perfect state. It is a goal towards which all
mankind moves naturally though unconsciously. Man does not become divine when
he personifies innocence in himself. Only then does he become truly man. In our
present state, we are partly men and partly beasts and in our ignorance and
even arrogance say that we truly fulfil the purpose of our species, when we
deliver blow for blow and develop the measure of anger required for the
purpose. We pretend to believe that retaliation is the law of our being,
whereas in every scripture we find that retaliation is nowhere obligatory but
only permissible. It is restraint that is obligatory. Retaliation is indulgence
requiring elaborate regulating. Restraint is the law of our being. For highest
perfection is unattainable without highest restraint. Suffering is thus the
badge of the human tribe.
The goal ever recedes from us. The greater the progress, the
greater the recognition of our unworthiness. Satisfaction lies in the effort,
not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.
Therefore though I realize more than ever how far I am from that
goal, for me the Law of Complete Love is the law of my being. Each time I fail,
my effort shall be all the more determined for my failure.
I know my own limitations only too well. I know that any such
attempt is foredoomed to failure. To expect a whole mass of men and women to
obey that law all at once is not to know its working. But I do preach from the
Congress platform the deductions of the law. What the congress and the Khilafat
organizations have accepted is but a fragment of the implications of that law.
Given true workers, the limited measure of its application can be realized in
respect of vast masses of people within a short time. But the little measure of
it to be true must satisfy the same test as the whole. A drop of water must
yield to the analyst the same results as a lakeful. The nature of my
non-violence towards my brother cannot be different from that of my
non-violence to the universe. When I extend the love for my brother to the
whole universe, it must still satisfy the same test.
A particular practice is a policy when its application is limited
to time or space. Highest policy is therefore fullest practice. But honesty as
policy while it lasts is not anything different from honesty as a creed. A
merchant believing in honesty as a policy will sell the same measure and
quality of cloth to the yard as a merchant with honesty as a creed. The
difference between the two is that, while the political merchant will leave his
honesty when it does not pay, the believing one will continue it, even though
he should lose his all.
The political non-violence of the non-co-operator does not stand
this test in the vast majority of cases. Hence the prolongation of the struggle.
Let no one blame the unbending English nature. The hardest fibre must melt in
the fire of Love. It cannot be dislodged from that position because I know it.
When British or other nature does not respond, the fire is not strong enough,
if it is there at all.
Our non-violence need not be of the strong, but it has to be of
the truthful. We must not intend harm to the English or to our co-operating
countrymen, if and whilst we claim to be non-violent. But the majority of us
have intended harm, and we have refrained from doing it because of our weakness
or under the ignorant belief that mere refraining from physical hurt amounted
to a due fulfillment of our pledge. Our pledge of non-violence excludes the
possibility of future retaliation. Some of us seem unfortunately to have merely
postponed the date of revenge.
Let me not be misunderstood. I do not say that the policy of
non-violence excludes the possibility of revenge when the policy is abandoned.
But it does most emphatically exclude the possibility of future revenge after a
successful termination of the struggle. Therefore, whilst we are pursuing the
policy of non-violence, we are bound to be actively friendly to English
administrators and their co-operators. I felt ashamed when I was told that in
some parts of India it was not safe for Englishmen or well-known co-operators
to move about safely. The disgraceful scenes that took place at a recent Madras
meeting were a complete denial of non-violence. Those who howled down the
chairman because he was supposed to have insulted me, disgraced themselves and
their policy. They wounded the heart of their friend and helper, Mr. Andrews.
They injured their own cause. If the chairman believed that I was scoundrel, he
had a perfect right to say so.
We must try patiently to convert our opponents. If we wish to
evolve the spirit of democracy out of slavery, we must be scrupulously exact in
our dealings with opponents. We may not replace the slavery of the Government
by that of the non-co-operationists. We must concede to our opponents the
freedom we claim for ourselves and for which we are fighting. The stoutest
co-operationist will bend to the stern realities of practice if there is real
response from the people.
But there is a non-violent boycott which we shall be bound
practice, if we are to make any impression. We must not compromise with what we
believe to be an untruth, whether it resides in a white skin or a brown. Such
boycott is political boycott. We may not receive favours from the new
councilors. The voters, if they are true to their pledge, will be bound to
refrain from making use of the services of those whom they have declined to
regard as their representatives. They must ratify their verdict by complete
abstention from any encouragement of the so-called representatives.
The public will be bound, if they are non-co-operationists, to
refrain from giving these representatives any prestige by attending their
political functions or parties.
I can conceive the possibility of non-violent social ostracism
under certain extreme conditions, when a defiant minority refuses to bend to
the majority, not out of any regard for principle, but from sheer defiance or
worse. But that time has certainly not arrived. Ostracism of a violent
character, such as the denial of the use of public wells is a species of
barbarism, which I hope will never be practiced by any body of men having any
desire for national self-respect and national uplift. We will free neither
Islam nor India by processes of coercion, whether among ourselves or against
Englishmen.
Non-co-operation being a movement of purification is bringing to
the surface all our weaknesses as also excesses of even our strong points.
Social boycott is an age-old institution. It is coeval with caste. It is the
one terrible sanction exercised with great effect. It is based upon the notion
that a community is not bound to extend its hospitality or service to an
excommunicate. It answered when every village was a self-contained unit, and
the occasions of recalcitrancy were rare. But when opinion is divided, as it is
to-day, on the merits of non-co-operation, when its new application is having a
trial, a summary use of social boycott in order to bend a minority to the will
of the majority is a species of unpardonable violence. If persisted in, such
boycott is bound to destroy the movement. Social boycott is applicable and
effective when it is not felt as a punishment and accepted by the object of
boycott as a measure of discipline. Moreover, social boycott to be admissible
in a campaign of non-violence must never savour of inhumanity. It must be
civilized. It must cause pain to the party using it, if it causes inconvenience
to its object. Thus, depriving a man of the services of a medical man, as is
reported to have been done in Jhansi, is an act of inhumanity tantamount in the
moral code to an attempt to murder. I see no difference in murdering man and
withdrawing medical aid from a man who is on the point of dying. Even the laws
of war, I apprehend, require the giving of medical relief to the enemy in need
of it. To deprive a man of use of an only village well is notice to him to quit
that village. Surely, non-co-operators have acquired no right to use that
extreme pressure against those who do not see eye to eye with them. Impatience
and intolerance will surely kill this great religious movement. We may not make
people pure by compulsion. Much less may we compel them by violence to respect
our opinion.2 It is utterly against the spirit of democracy we
want to cultivate.
There are no doubt serious difficulties in our way. The temptation
to resort to social boycott is irresistible when a defendant, who submits to
private arbitration, refuses to abide by its award. Yet it is easy to see that
the application of social boycott is more than likely to arrest the splendid
movement to settle disputes by arbitration which, apart from its use as a
weapon in the armoury of non-co-operation, is a movement fraught with great
good to the country. People will take time before they accommodate themselves to
private arbitration. Its very simplicity and inexpensiveness will repel many
people even as palates jaded by spicy foods are repelled by simple
combinations. All awards will not always be above suspicion. We must therefore
rely upon the intrinsic merits of the movement and the correctness of awards to
make themselves felt.
It is much to be desired if we can bring about a complete
voluntary boycott of law courts. That one event can bring about Swaraj. But it
was never expected that we would reach completion in any single item of
non-co-operation. Public opinion has been so far developed as to recognize the
courts as signs not of our liberty but of our slavery. It has made it
practically impossible for lawyers to practice their profession and be called
popular leaders.
Non-co-operation has greatly demolished the prestige of law courts
and to that extent of the Government. The disintegrating process is slowly but
surely going on. Its velocity will suffer diminution if violent methods are
adopted to hasten it. This Government of ours is armed to the teeth to meet and
check forces of non-violence. How can a handful of Englishmen resist a
voluntary expression of opinion accompanied by the voluntary self-denial of
thirty crores of people?
I hope, therefore, that non-co-operation workers will beware of
the snares of social boycott. But the alternative to social boycott is
certainly not social intercourse. A man who defies strong clear public opinion
on vital matters is not entitled to social amenities and privileges. We may not
take part in his social functions such as marriage feasts, we may not receive
gifts from him. But we dare not deny social service. The latter is a duty.
Attendance at dinner parties and the like is a privilege which it is optional
to withhold or extend. But it would be wisdom to err on the right side and to
exercise the weapon even in the limited sense described by me on rare and
well-defined occasions. And in every case the user of the weapon will use it at
his own risk. The use of it is not as yet in any form of a duty. No one is
entitled to its use, if there is any danger of hurting the movement.
Popular imagination has pictured satyagraha as purely and simply
civil disobedience, if not in some cases even criminal disobedience. The latter
is the very opposite of satyagraha. The former, i.e. civil disobedience, is
undoubtedly an important branch but by no means always the main part of
satyagraha. To-day, for instance, on the question of Rowlatt legislation civil
disobedience has gone into the background. As satyagraha is being brought into
play on a large scale in the political field for the first time, it is an
experimental stage. I am therefore ever making new discoveries. And my error in
trying to let civil disobedience take the people by storm, appears to me to be
Himalayan because of the discovery I have made, namely, that he only is able
and attains the right to offer civil disobedience who has known how to offer
voluntary and deliberate obedience to the laws of the state in which he is living.
It is only after one has voluntarily obeyed such laws a thousand times that an
occasion rightly comes to him civilly to disobey certain laws. Nor is it
necessary for voluntary obedience that the laws to be obeyed must be good.
There are many unjust laws which a good citizen obeys so long as they do not
hurt his self-respect or the moral being, and when I look back upon my life, I
cannot recall a single occasion when I have obeyed a law whether of society or
the state because of the fear of punishment. I have obeyed bad laws of the
society as well as of the state, believing that it was good for me and the
state or the society to which I belonged to do so, and I feel that having
regularly and in a disciplined manner done so, the call for disobedience to a law
of society came when I went to England in 1888, and to a law of the state in
South Africa when the Asiatic Registration Act come to the conclusion that
civil disobedience, if it has to be renewed, shall be offered in the first
instance only by me as being the fittest to do so, and the duty of fellow
satyagrahis will be to assimilate for the time being the first essential just
mentioned of civil disobedience. In the instruction I have drawn up, I have
suggested that civil disobedience by the others should not be taken up for at
least one month after I have been taken charge of by the Government. And then
too by one or two chosen satyagrahis , chosen in the sense above mentioned, and
only if it is found that no violence has been offered after my incarceration by
the satyagrahis so-called or others acting in co-operation with them. The next
duty then is for the remaining satyagrahis themselves to observe perfect calm
and quiet and to see that others do likewise. You will, therefore, see to it
that after I have offered civil disobedience, if I do, there is no hartal, no
public meetings and no demonstrations of any kind whatsoever so as to give
excitement. And I feel sure that if perfect peace is observed after my
incarceration, Rowlatt legislation will go, by reason of that very fact. But it
is quite likely that the Government may remain perfectly obstinate. In that
event, under the conditions I have already mentioned, it will be open to the
satyagrahis to offer further civil disobedience and continue to do so till
every satyagrahi has rendered a good account of himself.3
The Growth of Congress
The communal riots in Allahabad - the headquarter of the Congress,
and the necessity of summoning the assistance of the police and even the
military show that the Congress has not yet become fit to substitute the
British authority. It is best to face this naked truth, however unpleasant it
may be.
The Congress claims to represent the whole of India, not merely
those few who are on the Congress register. It should represent even those who
are hostile to it and who will even crush it, if they can. Not until we make
good that claim, shall we be in a position to displace the British Government
and function as an independent nation.
This proposition holds good whether we seek to displace British
rule by violent action or non-violent.
Most probably by the time these lines appear in print, peace will
have been established in Allahabad and the other parts. That, however, will not
take us further in our examination of the fitness of the Congress as an
organization ready to displace British authority in its entirety.
No Congressman will seriously doubt that the Congress is not at
the present moment capable of delivering the goods if it was called upon to do
so. If it was capable, it would not wait for the call. But every Congressman
believes that the Congress is fast becoming such a body. The brilliant success
at Haripura will be cited as the most conclusive proof of the fact.
The riots and certain other things I can mention should make us
pause and ask ourselves whether the Congress is really growing from strength to
strength. I must own that I have been guilty of laying that claim. Have I been
over-hasty in doing so?
It is my conviction that the phenomenal growth of the Congress is
due to its acceptance and enforcement, however imperfect, of the policy of
non-violence. Time has arrived to consider the nature of Congress non-violence.
Is it non-violence of the weak and the helpless, or of the strong and the
powerful? If it is the former, it will never take us to our goal and, if long
practiced, may even render us for ever unfit for self-government. The weak and
helpless are non-violent in action because they must be. But in reality they
harbor violence in their breasts and simply await opportunity for its display.
It is necessary for Congressmen individually and collectively to examine the
quality of their non-violence. If it does not come out of real strength, it
would be best and honest for the Congress to make such a declaration and make
the changes in its behaviour.
By this time, i.e. after seventeen years' practice of
non-violence, the Congress should be able to put forth a non-violent army f
volunteers numbering not a few thousands but lacs who would be equal to every
occasion where the police and military are required. Thus, instead of one brave
Pashupatinath Gupta who died in the attempt to secure peace, we should be able
to produce hundreds. And non-violent army acts unlike armed men, as well in
times of peace as of disturbances. They would be constantly engaged in
constructive activities that make riots impossible. Theirs will be the duty of
seeking occasions for bringing warring communities together, carrying on peace
propaganda, engaging in activities that would bring and keep them in touch with
every single person, male and female, adult and child, in their parish or
division. Such an army should be ready to cope with any emergency, and in order
to still the frenzy of mobs should risk their lives in numbers sufficient for
the purpose. A few hundred, may be a few thousands, such spotless deaths will
once for all put an end to the riots. Surely a few hundred young men and women
giving themselves deliberately to mob fury will be any day a cheap and braver
method of dealing with such madness than the display and use of the police and
the military.
It has been suggested that when we have our independence riots and
the like will not occur. This seems to me to be an empty hope, if in the course
of struggle for freedom we do not understand and use the technique of
non-violent action in every conceivable circumstance. To the extent that the
Congress ministers have been obliged to make use of the police and the
military, to that extent, in my opinion, we must admit our failure. That the
ministers could not have done otherwise is unfortunately only too true. I
should like every Congressman, I should like the working committee, to ask
themselves why we have failed, if they think with me that we have.
(Harijan, 26th March 1938)
Satyagraha and Nazism
One must feel happy that the danger of war has been averted for
the time being. Is the price paid likely to be too great? Is it likely that
honour has been sold? Is it a triumph of organized violence? Has Herr Hitler
discovered a new technique of organizing violence which enables him to gain his
end without shedding blood? I do not profess to know European politics. But it
does appear to me that small nationalities cannot exist in Europe with their heads
erect. They must be absorbed by their larger neighbours. They must become
vassals.
Europe has sold her soul for the sake of a seven-days' earthly
existence. The peace Europe gained at Munich is a triumph of violence; it is
also its defeat. If England and France were sure of victory, they would
certainly have fulfilled their duty of saving Czechoslovakia or of dying with
it. But they quailed before the combined violence of Germany and Italy. But
what have Germany and Italy gained? Have they added anything to the moral
wealth of mankind?
In penning these lines my concern is not with the great powers.
Their height dazes me. Czechoslovakia has a lesson for me and us in India. The
Czechs could not have done anything else when they found themselves deserted by
their two powerful allies. And yet I have the hardihood to say that, if they
had known the use of non-violence as a weapon for the defence of national
honour, they would have faced the whole might of Germany with that of Italy
thrown in. They would have spared England and France the humiliation of suing
for a peace which was no peace; and to save their honour they would have died
to a man without shedding the blood of the robber. I must refuse to think that
such heroism, or call it restraint, is beyond human nature. Human nature will
only find itself when it fully realizes that to be human it has to cease to be
beastly or brutal. Though we have the human form, without the attainment of the
virtue of non-violence, we still share the qualities of our remote reputed
ancestor, the orang-outang.
(Harijan, 8th October 1938)
If I have called the arrangement with Herr Hitler 'peace without
honour'. It was not to cast any reflection on British or French statesmen. I
have no doubt that Mr. Chamberlain could not think of anything better. He knew
his nation's limitations. He wanted to avoid war, if it could be avoided at
all. Short of going to war, he pulled his full weight in favour of the Czechs.
That it could not save honour was no fault of his. It would be so every time
there is a struggle with Herr Hitler or Signor Mussolini.
It cannot be otherwise. Democracy dreads to spill blood. The
philosophy for which the two dictators stand calls it cowardice to shrink from
carnage. They exhaust the resources of poetic art in order to glorify organized
murder. There is no humbug about their word or deed. They are ever ready for
war. There is nobody in Germany or Italy to cross their path. Their word is
law.
It is different with Mr. Chamberlain or Mr. Daladier. They have
their Parliaments and chambers to please. They have parties to confer with.
They cannot maintain themselves on a perpetual war footing, if their language
is to have a democratic accent about it.
Science of war leads one to dictatorship pure and simple. Science
of non-violence can alone lead one to pure democracy. England, France and
America have to make their choice. That is the challenge of the two dictators.
Russia is out of the picture just now. Russia has a dictator who
dreams of peace and thinks he will wade to it through a sea of blood. No one
can say what Russian dictatorship will mean to the world.
It was necessary to give this introduction to what I want to say
to the Czechs and through them to all those nationalities which are called
'small' or 'weak'. I want to speak to the Czechs because their plight moved me
to the point of physical and mental distress, and I felt that it would be
cowardice on my part not to share with them the thoughts that were welling up
within me. It is clear that the small nations must either come or be ready to
come under the protection of the dictators or be a constant menace to the peace
of Europe. In spite of all the goodwill in the world England and France cannot
save them. Their intervention can only mean bloodshed and destruction such as
has never been seen before. If I were a Czech, therefore, I would free these
two nations from the obligation to defend my country. And yet I must live. I
would not be a vassal to any nation or body. I must have absolute independence
or perish. To seek to win in a clash of arms would be pure bravado. Not so, if
in defying the might of one who would deprive me of my independence I refuse to
obey his will and perish unarmed in the attempt. In so doing, though I lose the
body, I save my soul, i.e. my honour.
This inglorious peace should be my opportunity. I must live down
the humiliation and gain real independence.
But, says a comforter, 'Hitler knows no pity. Your spiritual
effort will avail nothing before him.'
My answer is: 'You may be right. History has no record of a nation
having adopted non-violent resistance. If Hitler is unaffected by my suffering,
it does not matter. For I shall have lost nothing worth. My honour is the only
thing worth preserving. That is independent of Hitler's pity. But as a believer
in non-violence I may not limit its possibilities. Hitherto he and his likes
have built upon their invariable experience that men yield to force. Unarmed
men, women and children offering non-violent resistance without any bitterness
in them will be a novel experience for them. Who can dare say it is not in
their nature to respond to the higher and finer forces? They have the same soul
that I have.'
But says another comforter, 'What you say is all right for you.
But how do you expect your people to respond to the novel call? They are
trained to fight. In personal bravery they are second to none in the world. For
you now to ask them to throw away their arms and be trained for non-violent
resistance seems to me to be a vain attempt.'
'You may be right. But I have a call I must answer. I must deliver
my message to my people. This humiliation has sunk too deep in me to remain
without an outlet. I, at least, must act up to the light that has dawned on
me.'
This is how I should, I believe, act if I was a Czech. When I
first launched out on satyagraha, I had no companion. We were thirteen thousand
men, women and children against a whole nation capable of crushing the
existence out of us. I did not know who would listen to me. It all came as in a
flash. All the 13,000 did not fight. Many fell back. But the honour of the
nation was saved. New history was written by the South African satyagraha.
A more apposite instance, perhaps, is that of Khansaheb Abdul
Gaffar Khan, the servant of God as he calls himself, the pride of Afghan as the
Pathans delight to call him. He is sitting in front of me as I pen those lines.
He has made several thousands of his people throw down their arms. He thinks he
has imbibed the lesson of non-violence. He is not sure of his people. I have
come to the Frontier province, or rather he has brought me, to see with my own
eyes what his men here are doing. I can say in advance and at once that these
men know very little of non-violence. All the treasure they have on earth is
their faith in their leader. I do not cite these soldiers of peace as at all a
finished illustration. I cite them as an honest attempt being made by a soldier
to convert fellow-soldiers to the ways of peace. I can testify that it is an
honest attempt, and whether in the end it succeeds or fail, it will have its
lessons for satyahrahis of the future. My purpose will be fulfilled, if I
succeed in reaching these men's hearts and making them see that, if their
non-violence does not make them feel much braver than the possession of arms
and the ability to use them, they must give up their non-violence, which is
another name for cowardice, and resume their arms, which there is nothing but
their own will to prevent them from taking back.
I present Dr. Benes with a weapon not of the weak but of the
brave. There is no bravery greater than a resolute refusal to bend the knee to
an earthly power, no matter how great, and that without bitterness of spirit
and in fullness of faith that the spirit alone lives, nothing else does.
(Harijan, 15th October 1938)
Passive Resistance and
Anti-Semitism
Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my
views about the Arab-Jew question in Palestine and the persecution of Jews in
Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture to offer my views on this
very difficult question.
My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately
in South Africa. Some of them became lifelong companions. Through these friends
I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have been the
untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians
and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious sanction
has been invoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment
meted out to them. Apart from the friendships, therefore, there is the more
common universal reason for my sympathy for the Jews.
But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice.
The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The
sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have
hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of
the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn
their livelihood?
Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England
belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to
impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine to-day cannot be
justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that
of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the
proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as
their national home.
The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the
Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French in
precisely the same sense that Christians born in France are French. If the Jews
have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave
the other parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double
home where they can remain at will? This cry for the national home affords a
colourable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews.
But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel
in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone.
And he is doing it with religious zeal. For, he is propounding a new religion
of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity
becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an
obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with
unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of
and for humility, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a
whole race would be completely justified. But I do not believe in any war. A
discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is, therefore, outside my horizon
or province.
But if there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime
as is being committed against the Jews, surely there can be no alliance with
Germany. How can there be alliance between a nation which claims to stand for
justice and democracy and one which is the declared enemy of both? Or is
England drifting towards armed dictatorship and all it means?
Germany is showing to the world how efficiently violence can be
worked when it is not hampered by any hypocrisy or weakness masquerading as
humanitarianism. It is also showing how hideous, terrible and terrifying it
looks in its nakedness.
Can the Jews resist this organized and shameless persecution? Is
there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected
and forlorn? I submit there is. No person who has faith in a living God need
feel helpless or forlorn. Jehovah of the Jews is a God more personal than the
God of the Christians, the Mussulmans or the Hindus, though as a matter of
fact, in essence, He is common to all and one without a second and beyond
description. But as the Jews attribute personality to God and believe that He
rules every action of theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If I were a Jew
and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany
as my home even as the tallest gentile German might, and challenge him to shoot
me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to
discriminating treatment. And for doing this I should not wait for the
fellow-Jews to join me in civil resistance, but would have confidence that in
the end the rest were bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews
were accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than
now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and
joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside
Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare
hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength.
The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the
Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if
the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I
have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah
had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the
God-fearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a
waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.
It is hardly necessary for me to point out that it is easier for
the Jews than for the Czechs to follow my prescription. And they have in the
Indian satyagraha campaign in South Africa an exact parallel. There the Indians
occupied precisely the same place that the Jews occupy in Germany. The
persecution had also a religious tinge. President Kruger used to say that the
White Christians were the chosen of God and Indians were inferior beings
created to serve the Whites. A fundamental clause in the Transvaal constitution
was that there should be no equality between the Whites and coloured races
including Asiatics. There, too, the Indians were consigned to ghettoes
described as locations. The other disabilities were almost of the same type as
those of the Jews in Germany. The Indians, a mere handful, resorted to
satyagraha without any backing from the world outside or the Indian Government.
Indeed the British officials tried to dissuade the satyagrahis from their
contemplated step. World opinion and the Indian Government came to their aid
after eight years of fighting. And that too was by way of diplomatic pressure,
not of a threat of war.
But the Jews of Germany can offer satyagraha under infinitely
better auspices than the Indians of South Africa. The Jews are a compact,
homogeneous community in Germany. They are far more gifted than the Indians of
South Africa. And they have organized world opinion behind them. I am convinces
that, if someone with courage and vision can arise among them to lead them in
non-violent action, the winter of their despair can in the twinkling of an eye
be turned into the summer of hope. And what has to-day become a degrading
man-hunt can be turned into a calm and determined stand offered by unarmed men
and women possessing the strength of suffering given to them by Jehovah. It
will be then a truly religious resistance offered against the godless fury of
dehumanized man. The German Jews will score a lasting victory over the German
gentiles in the sense that they will have converted the latter to an
appreciation of human dignity. They will have rendered service to fellow-Germans
and proved their title to be the real Germans as against those who are to-day
dragging, however unknowingly, the German name into the mire.
And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they
are going about things in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical
conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must
look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter
it under the shadow of the British gun.
A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or
the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They
should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart who
rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha in front of the Arabs and
offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a
little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in their favour in
their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the
Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is,
they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no
wrong to them.
I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the
way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable
encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right
and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of
overwhelming odds.
Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by
choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth. Every
country is their home, including Palestine, not by aggression but by loving
service. A Jewish friend has sent me a book called The Jewish Contribution to
Civilization by Cecil Roth. It gives a record of what the Jews have done to
enrich the world's literature, art, music, drama, science, medicine,
agriculture, etc. Given the will, the Jew can refuse to be treated as the
outcast of the West to be despised or patronized. He can command the attention
and respect of the world by being man, the chosen creation of God, instead of
being man who is fast sinking to the brute and forsaken by God. They can add to
their many contributions the surpassing contribution of non-violent action.
(Harijan, 26th November 1938)
I do not think that the sufferings of Pastor Niemoeller and others
have been in vain. They have preserved their self-respect intact. They have
proved that their faith was equal to any suffering. That they have not proved
sufficient for melting Herr Hitler's heart merely shows that it is made of
harder material than stone. But the hardest metal yields to sufficient heat.
Even so must the hardest heart melt before sufficiency of the heat of
non-violence. And there is no limit to the capacity of non-violence to generate
heat.
Every action is a resultant of a multitude of forces even of a
contrary nature. There is no waste of energy. So we learn in the books on
mechanics. This is equally true of human actions. The difference is that in the
one case we generally know the forces at work, and when we do, we can
mathematically foretell the resultant. In the case of the human actions, they
result from a concurrence of forces, of most of which we have no knowledge. But
our ignorance must not be made to serve the cause of disbelief in the power of
these forces. Rather is our ignorance a cause for greater faith. And
non-violence being the mightiest force in the world and also the most elusive
in its working, it demands the greatest exercise of faith. Even as we believe
in God in faith, so have we to believe in non-violence in faith.
(Harijan, 7th January 1939)
Satyagraha as a means of
National Defence
In the course of the conversation with the members of the
working-committee, I discovered that their non-violence had ever gone beyond
fighting the British Government with that weapon. I had hugged the belief that
Congressmen had appreciated the logical result of the practice of non-violence
for the past twenty years in fighting the biggest imperialist power in the
world. But in great experiments like that of non-violence, hypothetical
questions have hardly any play. I myself used to say in answer to questions
that when we had actually acquired independence we would know whether we could
defend ourselves non-violently or not. But to-day the question is no longer
hypothetical. Whether there is on the part of the British Government a
favourable declaration or not, the Congress has to decide upon the course it
would adopt in the event of an invasion of India. For though there may be no
settlement with the Government, the Congress has to declare its policy and say
whether it would fight the invading host violently or non-violently.
So far as I can read the working committee's mind after a fairly
full discussion, the members think that congressmen are unprepared for
non-violent defence against armed invasion.
This is tragic. Surely the means adopted for driving an enemy from
one's house must, more or less, coincide with those to be adopted for keeping
him out of the house. If anything, the latter process must be easier. The fact,
however, is that our fight has not been one of non-violent resistance of the
strong. It has been one of passive resistance of the weak. Therefore there is
no spontaneous response in our hearts, at this supreme moment, to an undying
faith in the efficacy of non-violence. The working committee, therefore, wisely
said that they were not ready for the logical step. The tragedy of the
situation is that, if the Congress is to throw in its lot with those who
believe in the necessity of armed defence of India, the past twenty years will
have been years of gross neglect of the primary duty of Congressmen to learn
the science of armed warfare. And I fear that history will hold me, as the
general of the fight, responsible for the tragedy. The future historian will
say that I should have perceived that the nation was learning not non-violence
of the strong but merely passivity of the weak, and that I should have,
therefore, provided for Congressmen's military training.
Being obsessed with the idea that somehow or other India will
learn true non-violence, it would not occur to me to invite my co-workers to
train themselves for armed defence. On the contrary, I used to discountenance
all sword-play and the display of stout lathis. Nor am I even now repentant for
the past. I have the unquenchable faith that, of all the countries in the
world, India is the one country which can learn the art of non-violence, that
if the test were applied even now, there would be found, perhaps, thousands of
men and women who would be willing to die without harbouring malice against
their persecutors. I have harangued crowds and told them repeatedly that they
might have to suffer much, including death by shooting. Did not thousands of
men and women brave hardships during the salt campaign equal to any that
soldiers are called upon to bear? No different capacity is required from what
has been already evinced, if India has to contend against an invader. Only it
will have to be on vaster scale.
One thing ought not to be forgotten. India unarmed would not
require to be destroyed through poison gas or bombardment. It is the Maginot
Line that has made the Siegfried Line necessary. And vice versa. Defence of
India by the present methods has been necessary because she is an appendage of
Britain. Free India can have no enemy. And if her people have learnt the art of
saying resolute 'No' and acting up to it, I daresay no one would want to invade
her. Our economy would be so modeled as to prove no temptation for the
exploiter.
But some Congressmen will say: 'Apart from the British, India has
so many martial races within her border that they will want to put up a fight
for the country which is as much theirs as ours.' This is perfectly true. I am
therefore talking, for the moment, only of Congressmen. How would they act in
the event of an invasion? We shall never convert the whole of India to our
creed unless we are prepared to die for it.
The opposite course appeals to me. Already, the bulk of the Army
is manned by the Mussulmans of the North, Sikhs and Gurkhas. If the masses of
the South and Centre wish to become militarized, the Congress, which is
supposed to represent them, will have to enter into competition with the
former. The Congress will then have to be party to an enormous military budget.
There may be all these things without the Congress consent. It will make all
the difference in the world whether the Congress is party to them or not. The
world is looking for something new and unique from India. The Congress will be
lost in the crowd, if it wears the same old outworn armour that the world is
wearing to-day. The Congress has a name because it represents non-violence as a
political weapon par excellence. If the Congress helps the Allies as a
representative of non-violence, it will give to the Allied cause a prestige and
a power which will be invaluable in deciding the ultimate fate of the war. But
the members of the working committee have honestly and bravely not made the
profession of such non-violence.
My position is, therefore, confined to myself alone. I have to
find out whether I have any fellow-traveller along the lonely path. If I am in
the minority of one, I must try to make converts. Whether one or many, I must
declare my faith that it is better for India to discard violence altogether
even for defending her borders, For India to enter into the race for armaments
is to court suicide. With the loss of India to non-violence the last hope of
the world will be gone. I must live up to the creed I have professed for the
last half-century, and hope to the last breath that India will make
non-violence her creed, preserve man's dignity, and prevent him from reverting
to the type from which he is supposed to have raised himself.
(Harijan, 14th October 1939)
An Appeal to Every
Briton
In 1896 I addressed an appeal to every Briton in South Africa on
behalf of my countrymen who had gone there as labourers or traders and their
assistants. It had its effect. However important it was from my viewpoint, the
cause which I pleaded then was insignificant compared with the cause which
prompts this appeal. I appeal to every Briton, wherever he may be now, to
accept the method of non-violence instead of that of war, for the adjustment of
relations between nations and other matters. Your statesmen have declared that
this is a war on behalf of democracy. There are many other reasons given in
justification. You know them all by heart. I suggest that, at the end of the
war, whichever way it ends, there will be no democracy left to represent
democracy. This war has descended upon mankind as a curse and a warning. It is
a curse inasmuch as it is brutalizing man on a scale hitherto unknown. All
distinctions between combatants and non-combatants have been abolished. No one
and nothing is to be spared. Lying has been reduced to an art. Britain was to
defend small nationalities. One by one they have vanished, at least for the
time being. It is also a warning. It is a warning that, if nobody reads the
writing on the wall, man will be reduced to the state of the beast, whom he is
shaming by his manners. I read the writing when the hostilities broke out. But
I had not the courage to say the word. God has given me the courage to say it
before it is too late.
I appeal for cessation of hostilities, not because you are too
exhausted to fight, but because war is bad in essence. You want to kill Nazism.
You will never kill it by its indifferent adoption.
Your soldiers are doing the same work of destruction as the
Germans. The only difference is that perhaps yours are not as thorough as the
Germans. If that be so, yours will soon acquire the same thoroughness as
theirs, if not much greater. On no other condition can you win the war. In
other words, you will have to be more ruthless than the Nazis. No cause,
however just, can warrant the indiscriminate slaughter that is going on minute by
minute. I suggest that a cause that demands the inhumanities that are being
perpetrated to-day cannot be called just.
I do not want Britain to be defeated, nor do I want her to be
victorious in a trial of brute strength, whether expressed through the muscle
or the brain. Your muscular bravery is an established fact. Need you
demonstrate that your brain is also as unrivalled in destructive power as your
muscle? I hope you do not wish to enter into such an undignified competition
with the Nazis. I venture to present you with a nobler and braver way, worthy
of the bravest soldier. I want you to fight Nazism without arms, or, if I am to
retain the military terminology, with non-violent arms. I would like you to lay
down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will
invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of your
beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these
but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy
your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you
will allow yourselves man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will
refuse to owe allegiance to them.
This process or method, which I have called non-violent
non-co-operation, is not without considerable success in its use in India. Your
representatives in India may deny my claim. If they do, I shall feel sorry for
them. They may tell you that our non-co-operation was not wholly non-violent,
that it was born of hatred. If they give that testimony, I will not deny it.
Had it been wholly non-violent, if all the non-co-operators had been filled
with goodwill towards you, I make bold to say that you who are India's masters
would have become her pupils and, with much greater skill than we have,
perfected this matchless weapon and met the German and Italian friends' menace
with it. Indeed the history of Europe during the past few months would then
have been written differently. Europe would have been spared seas of innocent
blood, the rape of so many small nations, and the orgy of hatred.
This is no appeal made by a man who does not know his business. I
have been practicing with scientific precision non-violence and its
possibilities for an unbroken period of over fifty years. I have applied it in
every walk of life, domestic, institutional, economic and political. I know of
no single case in which it has failed. Where it has seemed sometimes to have
failed, I have ascribed it to my imperfections. I claim no perfection for
myself. But I do claim to be a passionate seeker after Truth, which is but
another name for God. In the course of that search, the discovery of
non-violence came to me. Its spread is my life mission. I have no interest in
living except for the prosecution of that mission.
I claim to have been a lifelong and wholly disinterested friend of
the British people. At one time I used to be also a lover of your empire. I
thought that it was doing good to India. When I saw that in the nature of
things it could do no good, I used, and am still using, the non-violent method
to fight imperialism. Whatever the ultimate fate of my country, my love for you
remains, and will remain, undiminished. My non-violence demands universal love,
and you are not a small part of it. It is that love which has prompted my
appeal to you.
May God give power to every word of mine. In His name, I began to
write this, and in His name, I close it. May your states men have the wisdom
and courage to respond to my appeal. I am telling His Excellency the Viceroy
that my services are at the disposal of His Majesty's Government, should they
consider them of any practical use in advancing the object of my appeal.
(Harijan, 6th July 1940)
By writing that 'Appeal to Every Briton' I have invited upon my
head and extra load of work which without God's help I would be ill able to
bear. If it is His will that I should shoulder it, He will give me the strength
to carry on.
When I decided to confine myself mostly to writing in Gujarati or
Hindustani, I had no notion that I would have to write the appeal. It came to
me like a flash, and the courage to write it came with it. I had resisted till
then all pressure from English and American friends to give guidance. But I
could not see my way. Now, having addressed that appeal, I must follow up the
reactions to it. A large amount of correspondence is pouring in upon me. Save
for one angry telegram, I had nothing but friendly criticism from Englishmen
and even appreciation from some.
I was grateful to H. E. the Viceroy for forwarding my offer to His
Majesty's Government. The correspondence with regard to it the readers have
already seen or will see in this issue. Though no better response to the appeal
was to be expected, I cannot help saying that it was the knowledge of the
determination to carry the war to a victorious end that had prompted my appeal.
No doubt the determination is natural and worthy of the best British tradition.
Nevertheless the awful slaughter that the determination involves, should induce
a search for a better and braver way to achieve the end. For peace has its
victories more glorious than those of war. The non-violent method would have
meant no abject surrender. It would have confounded all modern tactics of war,
indeed rendered them of no use. The new world order, which all dream of, would
surely have been found. I hold a new order to be impossible, if the war is
fought to a finish or mutual exhaustion leads to a patched-up peace.
Let me, therefore, examine the argument advanced in a letter
received from a friend. Here it is:
'Two English friends, who admire you, say your appeal to every
Briton cannot have any effect just now. It is impossible to expect the man in
the street to do a complete volte face with any degree of understanding -
indeed it is impossible for the understanding to do, as you say, without a
heart-belief in non-violence. The time to mould a new world on your lines will
be after the war. They realize your way is the right one, but they say it needs
endless preparation and instruction and big leadership - none of which they
possess. Regarding India, they say the attitude of the present authority is
deplorable. Long ago India should have been declared as independent as Canada,
and her people should be allowed to work out their own constitution. But what
they are extremely perplexed about now is that you want absolute independence
straight away, and the next step you will take is "no further help to
Britain in the prosecution of war, surrender to Germany, and opposition to her
by non-violent means". You must explain what you mean in more detail so as
to remove this misunderstanding. This is an honest reaction.'
The appeal was intended to produce the effect now. It could not
come out of the mathematical calculation. If the conviction could have come,
action was an easy matter. The mass mind responds under pressure. That the
appeal has not produced the intended result shows that either my word has no
power or that God has a purpose of which we have no knowledge. The appeal has
come from an anguished heart. I could not suppress it. It was not written for
the moment. I am quite sure that it enunciates a truth of eternal value.
If the ground is not prepared from now, there may be no time left
after a dismal termination of the war for evolving a new order. Whatever the
order, it will be in no response to a conscious or unconscious effort from now.
Indeed the effort began before my appeal I hope that it has stimulated it,
perhaps given it a definite direction. I suggest to the non-official leaders
and moulders of British opinion, if they are convinced of the truth of my
position, to work for its adoption. Compared to the big issue raised in my appeal,
the question of Indian independence pales into insignificance. But I hold with
the two Englishmen that the British Government's attitude is deplorable. The
two friends are wholly wrong in the deduction they have drawn from the assumed
recognition of India's independence. They forget that I am out of the picture.
Those who are responsible for the working committee's last resolution have
meant free India's co-operation with Britain. With them, there is no question
of surrender to Germany or non-violent opposition.
But I must here tarry on Indian independence and its implications,
tempting though the subject is.
The cuttings and correspondence before me say that the Congress
rejections of my advice to abstain from preparation for military defence of
India precludes me from making the appeal to Britain or from expecting a
favourable response. The argument is plausible, but only plausible. The critics
say that, if I have failed with my people, I have no right to expect Britain
whilst she is in the midst of a life and death struggle to listen to me. I am a
man with a mission. India's millions have never tasted the bitters of war as
British have. Britain, if she is to fulfil her declared purpose, needs a
radical change in her policy. I feel that I know the change that is needed. My
inability to persuade the working committee is irrelevant to the theme under
discussion. There is no analogy between India's case and Britain's. I am,
therefore, wholly unrepentant, I maintain that in issuing my appeal I have
acted wholly as a lifelong friend of Britain.
A writer, however, retorts: 'Address your appeal to Hitler.' In
the first place, I did write to Herr Hitler. My letter was published in the
Press some time after I addressed it. In the second place, there can be no
meaning in my appeal to Herr Hitler to adopt non-violence. He is marching from
victory to victory, I can only appeal to him to desist. That I have done. But
to Britain, which is just now on the defensive, I can present the really
effective weapon of non-violent non-co-operation. Let my method be rejected on
merits, not by bringing inapt analogies or untenable arguments. The issue
raised by me, I venture to think, is of universal importance. The usefulness of
non-violent methods seems to be granted by all the critics. They gratuitously
assume the impossibility of human nature, as it is constituted, responding to
the strain involved in non-violent preparation. But that is begging the
question. I say, 'You have never tried the method on any scale. In so far as it
has been tried, it has shown promising results.'
(Harijan, 21sth July 1940)
A friend quotes from a letter received from an English friend:
'Do you think that Mahatma's appeal to every Briton is going to
produce right reactions in the mind or heart of a single Briton? That appeal
has probably created more ill-will than anything else recently. We live in
astonishing and critical times, and it is frightfully difficult to decide what
should be done. At any rate we should try to avoid obvious dangers. So far as I
can see, Mahatma's unadulterated policy must inevitably lead to disaster for
India. How far he himself intends following it I do not know, for he has a
wonderful way of adapting himself to his material.'
Well, I happen to know that many more than one single heart have
been touched by my 'Appeal to Every Briton'. I know that many English friends
were anxious for me to take some such step.
But I do not want to take comfort from the approbation, however
pleasing in itself, of English friends. What is of value for me is to know that
at least one Englishman thinks as stated in the extract. Such knowledge should
put me on my guard. It should make me more careful, if possible, in the
selection of the words I use to express my thought. But no displeasure even of
the dearest friends can put me off the duty I se clearly in front of me. And
this duty of making the appeal was so peremptory that it was impossible for me
to put it off. As certain as I am writing this, the world has to come to the
state to which I have invited Britain. Those who will be witnesses of that
happy and not far-off event will recall my appeal with gladness. I know that
the appeal has hastened its advent.
Why should a single Briton resent an appeal to him to be braver
than he is, to be better than he is in every respect? He may plead inability,
but he cannot be displeased by an appeal to his nobler nature.
Why should the appeal breed any ill-will at all? There is no cause
given for it by the manner or the matter of the appeal. I have not advised
cessation of fight. I have advised lifting it to a plane worthy of human
nature, of the divinity man shares with God Himself. If the hidden meaning of
the remarks is that by making the appeal I have strengthened Nazi hands, the
suggestion does not bear scrutiny. Herr Hitler can only be confounded by the
adoption by Britain of the novel method of fighting. At one single stroke he
will find that all his tremendous armament has been put out of action. A
warrior lives on his wars whether offensive or defensive. He suffers a
collapse, if he finds that his warring capacity is unwanted.
My appeal is not from a coward to brave people to shed their
bravery, nor is it a mockery from a fair-weather friend to one in distress. I
suggest to the writer to re-read my appeal in the light of my explanation.
One thing Herr Hitler, as every critic, may say: I am a fool
without any knowledge of the world or human nature. That would be a harmless
certificate which need excite neither ill-will nor anger. It would be harmless
because I have earned such certificates before now. This one would be the
latest of the many editions, and I hope not the last, for my foolish
experiments have not yet ended.
So far as India is concerned, my unadulterated policy can never
harm her, if she adopts it. If India as a whole rejects it, there can be no
harm accruing except to those who may foolishly pursue it. The correspondent
has lighted upon my strong point when he says: 'Mahatma has a wonderful way of
adapting himself to his material.' My instinctive knowledge of my material has
given me a faith which cannot be moved. I feel within me that the material is
ready. My instinct has not betrayed me once. But I must not build much upon
past experience. 'One step enough for me.'
(Harijan, 28th July 1940)
Ahimsa and Himsa
If we turn our eyes to the time of which history has any record
down to our own time, we shall find that man has been steadily progressing
towards ahimsa. Our remote ancestors were cannibals. Then came a time when they
were fed up with cannibalism and they began to live on chase. Next came a stage
when man was ashamed of leading the life of a wandering hunter. He therefore
took to agriculture and depended principally on mother earth for his food. Thus
from being a nomad he settled down to civilized stable life, founded villages
and towns, and from member of a family he became member of a community and a
nation. All these are signs of progressive ahimsa and diminishing himsa. Had it
been otherwise, the human species should have been extinct by now, even as many
of the lower species have disappeared.
Prophets and avatars have also taught the lesson of ahimsa more or
less. Not one of them has professed to teach himsa. And how should it be
otherwise? Himsa does not need to be taught. Man as animal is violent, but as
spirit is non-violent. The moment he awakes to the spirit within he cannot
remain violent. Either he progresses towards ahimsa or rushes to his doom. That
is why the prophets and avatars have taught the lessons of truth, harmony,
brotherhood, justice, etc. -all attributes of ahimsa.
And yet violence seems to persist, even to the extent of thinking
people like the correspondent regarding it as the final weapon. But, as I have
shown, history and experience are against him.
If we believe that mankind has steadily progressed towards ahimsa,
it follows that it has to progress towards it still further. Nothing in this
world is static, everything is kinetic. If there is no progression, then there
is inevitable retrogression. No one can remain without the eternal cycle,
unless it be God Himself.
The present war is the saturation point in violence. It spells to
my mind also its doom. Daily I have testimony of the fact that ahimsa was never
before appreciated by mankind as it is to-day. All the testimony from the West
that I continue to receive points in the same direction. The Congress has
pledged itself to ahimsa however limited. I invite the correspondent and
doubters like him to shed their doubts and plunge confidently into the sacred
sacrificial fire of ahimsa. Then I have little doubt that the Congress will
retrace its step. 'It is always willing.' Well has Pritan, our poet, sung:
Happiest are those that plunge in the fire,
The lookers-on are all but scorched by flames.
(Harijan, 11th August 1940)
Fasting in Non-violent
Action
If the struggle which we are seeking to avoid with all our might
has to come, and if it is to remain non-violent as it must in order to succeed,
fasting is likely to play an important part in it. It has its place in the
tussle with authority and with our own people in the event of wanton acts of
violence and obstinate riots, for instance.
There is a natural prejudice against it as part of a political
struggle. It has a recognized place in religious practice. But it is considered
a vulgar interpolation in politics by the ordinary politician though it has
always been resorted to by prisoners in a haphazard way with more or less
success. By fasting, however, they have always succeeded in drawing public
attention and disturbing the peace of jail authorities.
My own fasts have always, as I hold, been strictly according to
the law of satyagraha. Fellow satyagrahis too in South Africa fasted partially
or wholly. My fasts have been varied. There was the Hindu-Muslim unity fast of
twenty-one days in 1924, started under the late Maulana Mohomed Ali's roof in
Delhi. The indeterminate fast against the MacDonald Award was taken in the
Yeravda Prison in 1932. The twenty-one days' purificatory fast was begun in the
Yeravda prison and was finished at Lady Thakersey's, as the Government would
not take the burden of my being in the prison in that condition. Then followed
another fast in the Yeravda prison in 1933 against the Government refusal to
let me carry on anti-untouchability work through Harijan (issued from prison)
on the same basis as facilities had been allowed me four months before. They
would not yield, but they discharged me when their medical advisers thought I
could not live many days if the fast was not given up. Then followed the
ill-fated Rajkot fast in 1939. A false step taken by me thoughtlessly during
that fast thwarted the brilliant result that would otherwise certainly have
been achieved. In spite of all these fasts, fasting has not been accepted as
recognized part of satyagraha. It has only been tolerated by the politicians. I
have, however, been driven to the conclusion that fasting unto death is an
integral part of satyagraha programme, and it is the greatest and most
effective weapon in its armoury under given circumstances. Not every one is
qualified for undertaking it without a proper course of training.
I may not burden this note with an examination of the
circumstances under which fasting may be resorted to and the training required
for it. Non-violence in its positive aspect as benevolence (I do not use the
word love as it has fallen into disrepute) is the greatest force because of the
limitless scope it affords for self-suffering without causing or intending any
physical or material injury to the wrong-doer. The object always is to evoke
the best in him. Self-suffering is an appeal to his better nature, as
retaliation is to his baser. Fasting under proper circumstances is such an
appeal par excellence. If the politician does not perceive its propriety in
political matters, it is because it is a novel use of this very fine weapon.
To practice non-violence in mundane matters is to know its true
value. It is to bring heaven upon earth. There is no such thing as the other
world. All worlds are one. There is no 'here' and no 'there'. As Jeans has
demonstrated, the whole universe including the most distant stars, invisible
even through the most powerful telescope in the world, is compressed in an
atom. I hold it therefore to be wrong to limit the use of non-violence to cave
dwellers and for acquiring merit for a favoured position in the other world.
All virtue ceases to have use if it serves no purpose in every walk of life. I
would therefore plead with the purely political-minded people to study
non-violence and fasting as its extreme manifestation with sympathy and
understanding.
(Harijam 26th July 1942)
- Extracts from Young India. Vol. I by M.
K. Gandhi (Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedebad)
- In Young India of 9th March 1922,
commenting on a letter received by him from a well-known resident of Feni
in the Noakhali district alleging that the Congress Volunteer Corps had
become an organization for bad characters, that the whole country
thereabout was under it and that these were guilty of extortion, terrorism
and humiliating rowdyism, Mr. Gandhi wrote asking the Congress Committee
to inquire.
- 'An inquiry therefore is a simple matter.
Meanwhile, as I know that publication is also half the remedy, I gladly
place the columns of Young India at the disposal of those who can send authentic
instances of intimidation, coercion, assaults, social boycott by or on
behalf of non-co-operators whether Congressmen or Khilafatists. Indeed
every Congressman is a Khilafatist, and every Khilafatist is a
Congressman, but since we have two organizations in the country I appeal
to both to be merciless in exposing our own wrong-doing. I could find a
thousand excuses for the wrong-doing of the administrators if only because
we impute to them nothing better, whereas we claim to be immaculate so far
as non-violence and honesty are concerned. We shall bring the struggle to
a successful issue far more quickly by being strict with ourselves. There
is no excuse whatsoever for intimidation, coercion, assault or social
boycott on our part. I would urge the correspondents, who may send me
letters of complaints, to be brief, strictly accurate and to write in a
clear hand on one side of the paper only. It is not an easy matter to go
through the heavy correspondence pouring in from day to day. Compliance
with this simple request will ensure quicker attention. Correspondents
will take care to avoid vague generalizations. Specific details as in the
Nokhali letter are absolutely necessary to inspire belief and to assist
Inquiry.
- Extract from Young India, Vol. III by M.
K. Gandhi (Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedebad)