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
To sum up, we thank you for the spirit of your letter, to which we have
tried to respond in the same spirit. We are with you in the desire for
an India genuinely free to develop the best that is in her and in the
belief that best is something wonderful of which the world to-day
stands in need.
We are ready to co-operate with you and with every other man of any race
or nationality who will help India to realize her best. Are you going to
insist that you can have nothing to do with us if we receive a
government grant (i.e., Indian money), for an Indian School. Surely some
more inspiring battle cry than non-co-operation can be discovered. We
have ventured quite frankly to point out three items in your present
programme, which seem to us likely to hinder the attainment of your true
ideals for Indian greatness. But those ideals themselves command our
warm sympathy, and we desire to work, so far as we have opportunity, for
their attainment. In fact, it is only thus that we can interpret our
British citizenship.
Yours sincerely,
(Sd.) H.A. POPLEY,
(Sd.) G.E. PHILLIPS.
Bangalore,
November 15, 1920.
RENUNCIATION OF MEDALS
Mr. Gandhi has addressed the following letter to the Viceroy:--
It is not without a pang that I return the Kaisar-i-Hind gold medal
granted to me by your predecessor for my humanitarian work in South
Africa, the Zulu war medal granted in South Africa for my services as
officer in charge of the Indian volunteer ambulance corps in 1906 and
the Boer war medal fur my services as assistant superintendent of the
Indian volunteer stretcher bearer corps during the Boer war of
1899-1900. I venture to return these medals in pursuance of the scheme
of non-co-operation inaugurated to-day in connection with the Khilafat
movement. Valuable as those honours have been to me, I cannot wear them
with an easy conscience so long as my Mussalman countrymen have to
labour under a wrong done to their religious sentiment. Events that have
happened during the past month have confirmed me in the opinion that the
Imperial Government have acted in the Khilafat matter in an
unscrupulous, immoral and unjust manner and have been moving from wrong
to wrong in order to defend their immorality. I can retain neither
respect nor affection for such a Government.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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