Gandhi and AnarchySankaran Nair, C. (Chettur), Sir
History
Gandhi and Anarchy
Sankaran Nair, C. (Chettur), Sir
Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948 -- Political and social views; India -- Politics and government -- 1919-1947
Now let us consider for a moment what the Non-co-operators mean by civil
disobedience in its most developed form. It has been explained by Mr.
Dip Narayan Singh a leading Non-co-operator of Behar. The procedure is
to be as follows;--The chief civil officer in the area selected for its
operation is to be given seven days to hand over the district to the
Non-co-operators. The residents in the area are then to be ordered to
disobey all the orders and laws of the Government and to refuse to pay
taxes, register documents, and so on. At the same time the police
station and courts are to be surrounded and the officials to be told to
deposit their uniforms and other badges of office. The police stations
and courts will then be treated as Swaraj property.
You well see that this bears out to the full declaration made by Mr.
Gandhi, in moving the civil disobedience resolution at the meeting of
the All-India Congress Committee on November 4th, that his programme of
civil disobedience constitutes a civil revolution, which, wherever
practised, will mean the end of the Government's authority and the open
defiance of Government and its laws. Again I would ask, to those who
wish these volunteers to be declared to be lawful wish to see this
programme put into operation without a resort to violence, which will
drench the country in blood?
The Lesson of Chauri Chaura
Even the milder forms of Non-co-operation activity such as
picketing,--which is often claimed by the Non-co-operators to be
peaceful pastime though even this claim is no longer maintained by Mr.
Gandhi as I shall show in a moment--result in wild orgies of violence as
we have been painfully reminded again, within the last few days by the
horrible crime at Chauri Chaura in the United Provinces. This outbreak,
in which 21 police men and chaukidars were violently beaten to death was
deliberately organised, we are told, in the report from the
Commissioners, by the volunteers, and if picketing results in orgies of
murder and destruction of this kind what are likely to be results of
attempts to put into operation the full pledged programme of Civil
Disobedience to which I have already referred?
But it seems, as I have already remarked that Mr. Gandhi no longer
maintains that all picketing is peaceful, for writing in his newspaper,
"Young India" a short time ago, he says that in connection with the
proposal for a round table conference his suggestion was that all
picketing, except bona-fide peaceful picketing should be suspended
pending the result of the conference. Clearly then, in Mr. Gandhi's
opinion picketing is of two kinds, bona fide peaceful picketing on the
one hand, and picketing which is not bona fide and peaceful on the
other. Very well then, Mr. Gandhi knows that picketing is not peaceful.
He must know that the more drastic forms of civil disobedience, which he
is now determined to embark upon, must lead to violence.
The Issue
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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