Those who have not grasped the subtle meaning of passive resistance will call the Akali Sikhs cowards. They will say: “Well, the reason why the Akalis did not return the blows of the police was because they were afraid; and it was cowardice and not courage that made them submit to such insults as the pulling of their sacred hair and so forth. A truly brave person, who has a grain of salt in him, will answer the blows of the enemy under those conditions and fight in the defense of his honor until he is killed.” Although we do not agree with the first part of our objecting friend’s argument, we shall admit the truth of his statement that it takes a brave man to defend his honor at the risk of death itself. Yet we hold that the Akali who, while defending his national rights, voluntarily allowed himself to be beaten to death without thoughts of malice or hatred in his heart against anybody was a more courageous person than even the hero of our objecting friend. Why? To use Gandhi’s illustration: “What do you think? Wherein is courage required--in blowing others to pieces from behind a cannon or with a smiling face approaching a cannon and being blown to pieces? Who is the true warrior--he who keeps death as a bosom-friend or he who controls the death of others? Believe me that a man devoid of courage and manhood can never be a passive resister.” Let us stretch the point a little further in order to make it more clear. During the martial law days at Amritsar in 1919, the commanding officer ordered that all persons passing through a certain lane, where previously an Englishwoman had been assaulted by a furious mob, should be made to crawl on the bellies. Those living in the neighborhood had submitted to this humiliation at the point of British bayonets. Later, when Mahatma Gandhi visited the lane, he is reported to have made a speech from the spot which may be summarized thus: “You Punjabees, who possess muscular bodies and have statures six feet tall; you, who call yourselves brave, submitted to the soul-degrading crawling order. I am a small man and my physique is very weak. I weigh less than a hundred pounds. But there is no power in this world that can make _me_ crawl on my belly. General Dyer’s soldiers can bind my body and put me in jail, or with their military weapons they can take my life; but when he orders me to crawl on my belly I shall say: ‘Oh foolish man, don’t you see, God has given me two feet to walk on? Why shall I crawl on my knees, then?’” This is an instance of passive resistance. Under these circumstances, would you call Gandhi a coward? You must remember this distinction between a coward and a passive resister: a coward submits to force through fear; while a passive resister submits to force _under protest_. In our illustration of the crawling order those persons who had submitted to the order because they were afraid of the punishment involved if they disobeyed it were cowards of the first degree. But