Non-Violent Resistance Read online

  Q. But there was no such pledge in that campaign as is prescribed here?

  A. Certainly there was. Every Satyagrahi was bound to resist all those laws which he considered to be unjust and which were not of a criminal character, in order to bend the Government to the will of the people.

  Q. I understand your vow contemplates breaking of laws which a Committee may decide.

  A. Yes, my Lord. I want to make it clear to the Committee that that part of the vow was meant to be a restraint on individual liberty. As I intended to make it a mass movement, I thought the constitution of some such Committee as we had appointed was necessary, so that no man should become a law unto himself, and, therefore, we conceived the plan that the Committee would be able to show what laws might be broken.

  Q. We hear that doctors differ, and, even Satyagrahis might differ?

  A. Yes, I found it so to my cost.

  Q. Supposing a Satyagrahi was satisfied that a particular law was a just law and that the Committee did not obey this law, what is a Satyagrahi to do?

  A. He is not bound to disobey that law. We had such Satyagrahis in abundance.

  Q. Is it not rather a dangerous campaign?

  A. If you will conceive the campaign as designed in order to rid the country of violence, then you will share with me the same concern for it; I think that at any cost a movement of this character should live in the country in a purified state.

  Q. By your pledge are you not binding a man's conscience?

  A. Not according to my interpretation of it. If my interpretation of the pledge is found to be incorrect, I shall mend my error if I have to start the movement again. (Lord Hunter—No, no, Mr. Gandhi, I do not pretend to advise you.)

  I wish I could disabuse the Committee of the idea that it is a dangerous doctrine. It is conceived entirely with the object of ridding the country of the idea of violence.

  Lord Hunter here briefly detailed the circumstances preceding the passage of the Rowlatt Act, the widespread general Indian opposition to the Act etc., and asked Mr. Gandhi to describe the essence of his objection to the legislation.

  A. I have read the Rowlatt Committee's report to the end and the legislation foreshadowed in it, and I came to the conclusion that the legislation was not warranted by the facts produced by the Committee. I thought it was very restrictive of human liberty and that no self-respecting person or nation could allow such legislation. When I saw the debates in the Legislative Council, I felt that the opposition to it was universal. When I found the agitation against it, I felt that for me as a self-respecting individual and a member of a vast Empire, there was no course left open, but to resist that law to the utmost.

  Q. So far as the objects of that legislation are concerned, have you any doubt that they are to put down revolutionary and anarchical crimes?

  A. They are quite laudable objects.

  Q. Your complaint, then, must be as regards the methods adopted?

  A. Entirely.

  Q. The method is, I understand, that greater power has been given to the executive than they enjoyed before. A. That is so.

  Q. But is it not the same power that the executive enjoyed under the Defence of India Act?

  A. That is true, but that was essentially an emergency measure designed to secure the co-operation of everybody in order to put down any violence that may be offered by any section of the community in connection with the successful carrying on of the war. It was assented to with the greatest reluctance. The Rowlatt legislation is of a different character altogether, and now the experience of the working of the former Act has strengthened my objections to the Rowlatt Act.

  Q. Mr. Gandhi, the Rowlatt legislation is only to operate if the local Government is satisfied that there is anarchy.

  A. I would not, as a legislator, leave that power in the hands of an executive whom I have known to run mad in India at times.

  Q. Then really, your objection comes to this, that the Government of India, in the prosecution of a laudable object, adopted a wrong method. Therefore, is not the proper method of dealing with that, from a constitutional point of view, to endeavour to get the legislation remedied by satisfying Government of the inexpediency of it?

  A. I approached on bended knees Lord Chelmsford. and pleaded with him and with every English officer I had the pleasure of meeting, and placed my views before them, but they said they were helpless, and that the Rowlatt Committee's recommendations had to be given effect to. We had exhausted all the methods open to us.

  Q. If an opponent differs from you, you cannot satisfy him all of a sudden. You must do it by degrees. Is it not rather a drastic way of attempting it by refusing to obey the law?

  A. I respectfully beg to differ from Your Lordship. If I find that even my father has imposed upon me a law which is repugnant to my conscience, I think it is the least drastic course that I could adopt, to respectfully tell him that I cannot obey it. By that course I do nothing but justice to my father, and, if I may say so without any disrespect to the Committee, I have myself followed that course with the greatest advantage and I have preached that ever since. If it is not disrespectful to say so to my father, it is not so to a friend and for that matter to my Government.

  Lord Hunter: In the prosecution of your Satyagraha movement against the Rowlatt legislation you resolved upon a general hartal throughout India. That hartal was to be a day when no business was to be done and people were generally to indicate by their attitude that they disapproved of the Government's action. A hartal means a general cessation throughout the whole country. Would it not create a very difficult situation?

  A. Cessation for a great length of time would create a difficult situation.

  Mr. Gandhi here explained how the observance of the hartal in some part of the country on the 30th March, and all over the country on the 6th April came about not on account of any miscalculation, but on account of the people in one part coming to know of the Viceregal assent to the Act earlier than the people in other parts.

  Q. You agree that the abstention from work should be entirely voluntary?

  A. Yes, entirely voluntary, in the sense that persuasion on the day of the hartal would not be allowed, whereas persuasion by means of leaflets and other propaganda work on the other days would be perfectly legitimate, so long as no physical force was employed.

  Q. You disapprove of people interfering with tongas on the day of the hartal?

  A. Certainly.

  Q. You would not object to the police interfering in the case of such a disapprovable interference on the people's part?

  A. I would not if they acted with proper restraint and forbearance.

  Q. But you agree that on the day of the hartal it was highly improper to jostle with other people and stop tongas?

  A. From a Satyagrahi standpoint I would hold it to be criminal.

  Lord Hunter: Your leading lieutenant in Delhi, Swami Shraddhananda—Mr. Gandhi interrupting: I would not call him my lieutenant, but an esteemed coworker.—Did he write you a letter on the subject, and indicate to you that after what had occurred in Delhi and the Punjab, it was manifest that you could not prosecute a general hartal without violence inevitably ensuing?

  A. I cannot recall the contents of that letter. I think he went much further and said that it was not possible that the law-breaking campaign could be carried on with impunity among the masses. He did not refer to hartal proceeding. There was a difference of opinion between me and Swami Shraddhananda when I suspended civil disobedience. I found it necessary to suspend it because I had not obtained sufficient control, to my satisfaction, over the people. What Swami Shraddhananda said was that Satyagraha could not be taken as a mass movement. But I did not agree with his view and I do not know that he is not converted to my view today. The suspension of civil disobedience was as much necessary as prosecution for offences against law. I would like the Committee to draw a sharp distinction between hartal and civil disobedience. Hartal was designed to strike the imagination of the peopl
e and the Government. Civil disobedience was a discipline for those who were to offer disobedience. I had no means of understanding the mind of India except by some such striking movement. Hartal was a proper indication to me how far I would be able to carry civil disobedience.

  Q. If there is a hartal side by side with the preaching of Satyagraha would it not be calculated to promote violence?

  A. My experience is entirely to the contrary. It was an amazing scene for me to see people collected in their thousands—men, women and even little children and babies marching peacefully in procession. The peaceful hartals would not have been at all possible if Satyagraha was not preached in the right way.

  But as I have said a hartal is a different thing from civil disobedience in practice.

  * * *

  Lord Hunter: Now, the only matters that we have got to deal with here are as regards Ahmedabad itself. In Ahmedabad, as we have been told, you enjoy great popularity among the mill workers?

  Mr. Gandhi: Yes.

  Lord Hunter: And your arrest seems to have caused great resentment on their part and led to the very unfortunate actions of the mob on April 10, 11 and 12 in Ahmedabad and Viramgam?

  Mr. Gandhi: Yes.

  Lord Hunter: So far as those incidents are concerned you have no personal knowledge of them?

  Mr. Gandhi: No.

  Lord Hunter: I don't know whether there is anything that you can communicate to us in connection with those events to help us to form an opinion.

  Mr. Gandhi: I venture to present the opinion that I considered that the action of the mob, whether at Ahmedabad or at Viramgam, was totally unjustified, and I think that it was a sad thing that they lost self-control. But, at the same time, I would like to say that the people among whom, rightly or wrongly, I was popular, were put to a severe test by Government. They should have known better. I do not say that the Government committed an unpardonable error of judgment and the mob committed no error. On the contrary, I hold that it was more unpardonable on the part of the mob than on the part of Government.

  Proceeding, Mr. Gandhi narrated how he endeavoured to do what he could to repair the error. He placed himself entirely at the disposal of the authorities. He had a long interview with Mr. Pratt and other officials. He was to have held a meeting of the people on the 13th but he was told that it would not be possible to hold it that day, not on account of Colonel Fraser's order, because he was promised every assistance in connection with the meeting, but that the notice of the meeting would not reach all the people that day. The meeting took place on the 14th. There he adumbrated what had happened. There he had to use the terms organized and educated both of which terms had been so much quoted against him and against the people. The speech was in Gujarati. Mr. Gandhi explained and hoped Sir Chimanlal Setalwad would bear him out on a reference to the Gujarati speech that the word only means those who can read and write, and that he used the word and expressed the opinion as he sensed the thing at that time.

  He emphasized it was not a previous organization that he meant; he only meant to say, and there could be no mistaking the actual words in his speech, that the acts were done in an organized manner. He further emphasized that he was speaking of Ahmedabad only, that he had then no knowledge of what had happened even at Viramgam, and that he would not retract a single statement from that speech. In his opinion, said Mr. Gandhi, violence was done in an organized manner. It cannot be interpreted to mean a deep-laid conspiracy. He laid special emphasis on the fact that while he used these expressions he was addressing the people, and not the police authorities.

  If Mr. Guider stated that a single name of the offenders was not forthcoming from him, he was entirely mistaken about his mission and had put an improper valuation upon the term organization. The crimes committed by the mob were the result of their being deluded by the wicked rumour of the arrest of Miss Anasuya. There was a class of half-educated people who possessed false ideas obtained from sources such as cinematographs and from silly novels and from political leaders. He knew that school. He had mixed with them and endeavoured to wean them. He had so far succeeded in his endeavours that there were today hundreds of people who had ceased to belong to the school of revolution.

  Proceeding, Mr. Gandhi said he had now given the whole meaning of what he had said. He had never meant that there were University men behind the disturbances. He did not say they were incapable of those acts, but he was not aware of any highly educated man directing the mob.

  Lord Hunter: Do you imply that there was a common purpose on the part of the rioters?

  Mr. Gandhi: I don't say that. It would be exaggerating to say that, but I think the common purpose was restricted to two or three men or parties who instigated the crimes.

  Q. Did the agitation take an anti-European character?

  A. It was certainly an anti-Government movement. I would fain believe it was not anti-European, but I have not yet made up my mind as to that.

  Lord Hunter: I do not know whether you want to answer this or not. According to the Satyagraha doctrine, is it right that people who have committed crimes should be punished by the civil authorities?

  Mr. Gandhi: It is a difficult question to answer, because (through punishment) you anticipate pressure from outside. I am not prepared to say that it is wrong, but there is a better method. But I think, on the whole, it would be proper to say that a Satyagrahi cannot possibly quarrel with any punishment that might be meted out to an offender, and therefore he cannot be anti-Government in that sense.

  Lord Hunter: But apparently it is against the doctrine of Satyagraha to give assistance to Government by way of placing the information that a Satyagrahi has that would lead to the conviction of offenders?

  Mr. Gandhi: According to the principle of Satyagraha it is inconsistent, for the simple reason that a Satyagrahi's business is not to assist the police in the method which is open to the police, but he helps the authorities and the police to make the people more law-abiding and more respectable to authority.

  Lord Hunter: Supposing a Satyagrahi has seen one of the more serious crimes committed in these riots in his own presence. Would there be no obligation on him to inform the police?

  Mr. Gandhi: Of course I answered that question to Mr. Guider before and I think I must answer it to Your Lordship. I don't want to misguide the youth of the country, but even then he cannot go against his own brother. When I say brother, I do not, of course, make any distinction of country or nationality. A Satyagrahi is wholly independent of such a distinction. The Satyagrahi's position is somewhat similar to that of a counsel defending an accused. I have known criminals of the deadliest type and I may humbly claim to have been instrumental in weaning them from crimes. I should be forfeiting their confidence if I disclosed the name of a single man. But supposing I found myself wanting in weaning them I would surely not take the next step to go and inform the police about them; I do not hesitate to say that for a Satyagrahi it is the straightest thing not to give evidence of a crime done even under his nose. But there can be only the rarest uses of this doctrine and even today I am not able to say whether I would not give evidence against a criminal whom I saw caught in the act.

  Young India, 21-1-'20

  2. Examination by Sir Chimanlal Setalwad

  Sir Chimanlal: With regard to your Satyagraha doctrine, so far as I understand it, it involves the pursuit of truth and in that pursuit you invite suffering on yourself and do not cause violence to anybody else.

  Mr. Gandhi: Yes. Sir.

  Q. However honestly a man may strive in his search for truth his notions of truth may be different from the notions of others. Who then is to determine the truth?

  A. The individual himself would determine that.

  Q. Different individuals would have different views as to truth. Would that not lead to confusion?

  A. I do not think so.

  Q. Honestly striving after truth is different in every case.

  A. That is why the non-violence part was a necessary
corollary. Without that there would be confusion and worse.

  Q. Must not the person wanting to pursue truth be of high moral and intellectual equipment?

  A. No. It would be impossible to expect that from every one. If A has evolved a truth by his own efforts which B, C and others are to accept I should not require them to have the equipment of A.

  Q. Then it comes to this that a man comes to a decision and others of lower intellectual and moral equipment would have to blindly follow him.

  A. Not blindly. All I wish to urge is that each individual, unless he wants to carry on his pursuit of truth independently, needs to follow someone who has determined truth.

  Q. Your scheme involves the determination of truth by people of high moral and intellectual equipment and a large number of people may follow them blindly being themselves unable to arrive at similar conclusions by reason of their lower intellectual equipment.

  A. I would exact from them nothing more than I would expect from an ordinary being.

  Q. I take it that the strength of the propaganda must depend on the number of its followers.

  A. No. In Satyagraha success is possible even if there is only one Satyagrahi of the proper stamp.

  Q. Mr. Gandhi, you said you do not consider yourself a perfect Satyagrahi yet. The large mass of people are then even less so.

  A. No. I do not consider myself an extraordinary man. There may be people more capable of determining truth than myself. Forty thousand Indians in South Africa, totally uncultured, came to the conclusion that they could be Satyagrahis and if I could take you through those thrilling scenes in the Transvaal you will be surprised to hear what restraint your countrymen in South Africa exhibited.

  Q. But there you were all unanimous.

  A. I have more solidity of opinion here than in South Africa.

  Q. But there you had a clear-cut issue, not here.