Freedom's Battle: Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present SituationGandhi, Mahatma
Religion
Freedom's Battle: Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation
Gandhi, Mahatma
British -- India; India -- Politics and government -- 1919-1947; Nonviolence
I ask further, is it unconstitutional for me to say to the British
Government 'I refuse to serve you?' Is it unconstitutional for our
worthy Chairman to return with every respect all the titles that he has
ever held from the Government? Is it unconstitutional for any parent to
withdraw his children from a Government or aided school? Is it
unconstitutional for a lawyer to say 'I shall no longer support the arm
of the law so long as that arm of law is used not to raise me but to
debase me'? Is it unconstitutional for a civil servant or for a judge to
say, 'I refuse to serve a Government which does not wish to respect the
wishes of the whole people?' I ask, is it unconstitutional for a
policeman or for a soldier to tender his resignation when he knows that
he is called to serve a Government which traduces his own countrymen? Is
it unconstitutional for me to go to the 'krishan,' to the agriculturist,
and say to him 'it is not wise for you to pay any taxes if these taxes
are used by the Government not to raise you but to weaken you?' I hold
and I venture to submit, that there is nothing unconstitutional in it.
What is more, I have done every one of these things in my life and
nobody has questioned the constitutional character of it. I was in Kaira
working in the midst of 7 lakhs of agriculturists. They had all
suspended the payment of taxes and the whole of India was at one with
me. Nobody considered that it was unconstitutional. I submit that in the
whole plan of non-co-operation, there is nothing unconstitutional. But
I do venture to suggest that it will be highly unconstitutional in the
midst of this unconstitutional Government,--in the midst of a nation
which has built up its magnificent constitution,--for the people of
India to become weak and to crawl on their belly--it will be highly
unconstitutional for the people of India to pocket every insult that is
offered to them; it is highly unconstitutional for the 70 millions of
Mohamedans of India to submit to a violent wrong done to their religion;
it is highly unconstitutional for the whole of India to sit still and
co-operate with an unjust Government which has trodden under its feet
the honour of the Punjab. I say to my countrymen so long as you have a
sense of honour and so long as you wish to remain the descendants and
defenders of the noble traditions that have been handed to you for
generations after generations, it is unconstitutional for you not to
non-co-operate and unconstitutional for you to co-operate with a
Government which has become so unjust as our Government has become. I am
not anti-English; I am not anti-British; I am not anti any Government;
but I am anti-untruth--anti-humbug and anti-injustice. So long as the
Government spells injustice, it may regard me as its enemy, implacable
enemy. I had hoped at the Congress at Amritsar--I am speaking God's
truth before you--when I pleaded on bended knees before some of you for
co-operation with the Government.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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