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
My friend objects to my statement that non-co-operation is not
anti-Government, because he considers that refusal to serve it and pay
its taxes is actually anti-Government. I respectfully dissent from the
view. If a brother has fundamental differences with his brother, and
association with the latter involves his partaking of what in his
opinion is an injustice. I hold that it is brotherly duty to refrain
from serving his brother and sharing his earnings with him. This happens
in everyday life. Prahalad did not act against his father, when he
declined to associate himself with the latter's blasphemies. Nor was
Jesus anti-Jewish when he declaimed against the Pharisees and the
hypocrites, and would have none of them. In such matters, is it not
intention that determines the character of a particular act? It is
hardly correct as the friend suggests that withdrawal of association
under general circumstances would make all government impossible. But it
is true that such withdrawal would make all injustice impossible.
My correspondent considers that the Government of India having done all
it possibly could, non-co-operation could not be applicable to that
Government. In my opinion, whilst it is true that the Government of
India has done a great deal, it has not done half as much as it might
have done, and might even now do. No Government can absolve itself from
further action beyond protesting, when it realises that the people whom
it represents feel as keenly as do lakhs of Indian Mussalmans in the
Khilafat question. No amount of sympathy with a starving man can possibly
avail. He must have bread or he dies, and what is wanted at that
critical moment is some exertion to fetch the wherewithal to feed the
dying man. The Government of India can to-day heed the agitation and
ask, to the point of insistence for full vindication of the pledged word
of a British Minister. Has the Government of India resigned by way of
protest against the threatened, shameful betrayal of trust on the part
of Mr. Lloyd George? Why does the Government of India hide itself behind
secret despatches? At a less critical moment Lord Hardiage committed a
constitutional indiscretion, openly sympathised with South African
Passive Resistance movement and stemmed the surging tide of public
indignation in India, though at the same time he incurred the wrath of
the then South African Cabinet and some public men in Great Britain.
After all, the utmost that the Government of India has done is on its
own showing to transmit and press the Mahomedan claim. Was that not the
least it could have done? Could it have done anything less without
covering itself with disgrace? What Indian Mahomedans and the Indian
public expect the Government of India to do at this critical juncture is
not the least, but the utmost that it could do. Viceroys have been known
to tender resignations for much smaller causes. Wounded pride brought
forth not very long ago the resignation of a Lieutenant Governor. On the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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