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
It is a great pleasure to me to renew your acquaintance for reasons that
I need not give you. I expect great things from Trichinopoly, Madura and
a few places I could name. I take it that you have read my address on
the Madras Beach on non-co-operation. Without taking up your time in
this great assembly, I wish to deal with one or two matters that arise
out of Mr. S. Kasturiranga Iyongar's speech. He says in effect that I
should have waited for the Congress mandate on Non-co-operation. That
was impossible, because the Mussulmans had and still have a duty,
irrespective of the Hindus, to perform in reference to their own
religion. It was impossible for them to wait for any mandate save the
mandate of their own religion in a matter that vitally concerned the
honour of Islam. It is therefore possible for them only to go to the
Congress on bended knees with a clear cut programme of their own and ask
the Congress to pronounce its blessings upon that programme and if they
are not so fortunate as to secure the blessings of the National Assembly
without meaning any disrespect to that assembly, it is their bounden
duty to go on with their programme, and so it is the duty of every Hindu
who considers his Mussalman brother as a brother who has a just cause
which he wishes to vindicate, to throw in his lot with his Mussalman
brother. Our leader does not quarrel with the principle of
non-co-operation by itself, but he objects to the three principal
details of non-co-operation.
COUNCIL ELECTIONS
He considers that it is our duty to seek election to the Councils and
fight our battle on the floor of the Council hall. I do not deny the
possibility of a fight and a royal fight on the Council floor. We have
done it for the last 35 years, but I venture to suggest to you and to
him, with all due respect, that it is not non-co-operation and it is not
half as successful as non-co-operation can be. You cannot go to a class
of people with a view to convince them by any fight--call it even
obstruction--who have got a settled conviction and a settled policy to
follow. It is in medical language an incompatible mixture out of which
you can gain nothing, but if you totally boycott the Council, you create
a public opinion in the country with reference to the Khilafat wrong and
the Punjab wrong which will become totally irresistible. The first
advantage of going to the Councils must be good-will on the part of the
rulers. It is absolutely lacking. In the place of good-will you have got
nothing but injustice but I must move on.
LAWYERS' PRACTICE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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