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
Now Peshawar to Jamrud is a matter of a few miles. It was clearly the
duty of the military not to attempt to pull out the ticketless
Mahajarins for the sake of a few annas. But they actually attempted
force. Intervention by the rest of the party was a foregone conclusion.
An altercation ensued. A British officer was attacked with a spade.
Firing and a death of a Mahajarin was the result. Has British prestige
been enhanced by the episode? Why have not the Government put tactful
officers in charge at the frontier, whilst a great religious emigration
is in progress? The action of the military will pass from tongue to
tongue throughout India and the Mussalman world around, will not doubt
be unconsciously and even consciously exaggerated in the passage and the
feeling bitter as it already is will grow in bitterness. The
_Communique_ says that the Government are making further inquiry. Let us
hope that it will be full and that better arrangements will be made to
prevent a repetition of what appears to have been a thoughtless act on
the part of the military.
And may I draw the attention of those who are opposing non-co-operation
that unless they find out a substitute they should either join the
non-co-operation movement or prepare to face a disorganised subterranean
upheaval whose effect no one can foresee and whose spread it would be
impossible to check or regulate?
III. THE PUNJAB WRONGS
POLITICAL FREEMASONRY
Freemasonry is a secret brotherhood which has more by its secret and
iron rules than by its service to humanity obtained a hold upon some of
the best minds. Similarly there seems to be some secret code of conduct
governing the official class in India before which the flower of the
great British nation fall prostrate and unconsciously become instruments
of injustice which as private individuals they would be ashamed of
perpetrating. In no other way is it possible for one to understand the
majority report of the Hunter Committee, the despatch of the Government
of India, and the reply thereto of the Secretary of State for India. In
spite of the energetic protests of a section of the Press to the
personnel of the committee, it might be said that on the whole the
public were prepared to trust it especially as it contained three Indian
members who could fairly be claimed to be independent. The first rude
shock to this confidence was delivered by the refusal of Lord Hunter's
Committee to accept the very moderate and reasonable demand of the
Congress Committee that the imprisoned Punjab leaders might be allowed
to appear before it to instruct Counsel. Any doubt that might have been
left in the mind of any person has been dispelled by the report of the
majority of that committee. The result has justified the attitude of the
Congress Committee. The evidence collected by it shows what lord
Hunter's Committee purposely denied itself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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