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
The universally pronounced adverse judgment upon the report and the
despatches rests upon far more painful revelations. Look at the
manifestly laboured defence of every official act of inhumanity except
where condemnation could not be avoided through the impudent admissions
made by the actors themselves; look at the special pleading introduced
to defend General Dyer even against himself; look at the vain
glorification of Sir Michael O'Dwyer although it was his spirit that
actuated every act of criminality on the part of the subordinates; look
at the deliberate refusal to examine his wild career before the events
of April. His acts were an open book of which the committee ought to
have taken judicial notices. Instead of accepting everything that the
officials had to say, the Committee's obvious duty was to tax itself to
find out the real cause of the disorders. It ought to have gone out of
its way to search out the inwardness of the events. Instead of patiently
going behind the hard crust of official documents, the Committee allowed
itself to be guided with criminal laziness by mere official evidence.
The report and the despatches, in my humble opinion, constitute an
attempt to condone official lawlessness. The cautious and half-hearted
condemnation pronounced upon General Dyer's massacre and the notorious
crawling order only deepens the disappointment of the reader as he goes
through page after page of thinly disguised official whitewash. I need,
however, scarcely attempt any elaborate examination of the report or the
despatches which have been so justly censured by the whole national
press whether of the moderate or the extremist hue. The point to
consider is how to break down this secret--be the secrecy over so
unconscious--conspiracy to uphold official iniquity. A scandal of this
magnitude cannot be tolerated by the nation, if it is to preserve its
self-respect and become a free partner in the Empire. The All-India
Congress Committee has resolved upon convening a special session of the
Congress for the purpose of considering, among other things, the
situation arising from the report. In my opinion the time has arrived
when we must cease to rely upon mere petition to Parliament for
effective action. Petitions will have value, when the nation has behind
it the power to enforce its will. What power then have we? When we are
firmly of opinion that grave wrong has been done us and when after an
appeal to the highest authority we fail to secure redress, there must be
some power available to us for undoing the wrong. It is true that in the
vast majority of cases it is the duty of a subject to submit to wrongs
on failure of the usual procedure, so long as they do not affect his
vital being. But every nation and every individual has the right and it
is their duty, to rise against an intolerable wrong. I do not believe in
armed risings. They are a remedy worse than the disease sought to be
cured.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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