ONE STEP ENOUGH FOR ME

ONE STEP ENOUGH FOR MEMr. Stokes is a Christian, who wants to follow the light that God gives him. He has adopted India as his home. He is watching the non-co-operation movement from the Kotgarh hills where he is living in isolation from the India of the plains and serving the hillmen. He has contributed three articles on non-co-operation to the columns of the Servant of Calcutta and other papers. I had the pleasure of reading them during my Bengal tour. Mr. Stokes approves of non-co-operation but dreads the consequences that may follow complete successi.e.,evacuation of India by the British. He conjures up before his mind a picture of India invaded by the Afghans from the North-West, plundered by the Gurkhas from the Hills. For me I say with Cardinal Newman: ‘I do not ask to see the distant scene; one step enough for me.’ The movement is essentially religious. The business of every god-fearing man is to dissociate himself from evil in total disregard of consequences. He must have faith in a good deed producing only a good result: that in my opinion is the Gita doctrine of work without attachment. God does not permit him to peep into the future. He follows truth although the following of it may endanger his very life. He knows that it is better to die in the way of God than to live in the way of Satan. Therefore who ever is satisfied that this Government represents the activity of Satan has no choice left to him but to dissociate himself from it.However, let us consider the worst that can happen to India on a sudden evacuation of India by the British. What does it matter that the Gurkhas and the Pathans attack us? Surely we would be better able to deal with their violence than we are with the continued violence, moral and physical, perpetrated by the present Government. Mr. Stokes does not seem to eschew the use of physical force. Surely the combined labour of the Rajput, the Sikh and the Mussalman warriors in a united India may be trusted to deal with plunderers from any or all the sides. Imagine however the worst: Japan overwhelming us from the Bay of Bengal, the Gurkhas from the Hills, and the Pathans from the North-West. If we not succeed in driving them out we make terms with them and drive them at the first opportunity. This will be a more manly course than a hopeless submission to an admittedly wrongful State.But I refuse to contemplate the dismal out-look. If the movement succeeds through non-violent non-co-operation, and that is the supposition Mr. Stokes has started with, the English whether they remain or retire, they will do so as friends and under a well-ordered agreement as between partners. I still believe in the goodness of human nature, whether it is English or any other. I therefore do not believe that the English will leave in a night.And do I consider the Gurkha and the Afghan being incorrigible thieves and robbers without ability to respond to purifying influences? I do not. If India returns to her spirituality, it will react upon the neighbouring tribes, she will interest herself in the welfare of these hardy but poor people, and even support them if necessary, not out of fear but as a matter of neighbourly duty. She will have dealt with Japan simultaneously with the British. Japan will not want to invade India, if India has learnt to consider it a sin to use a single foreign article that she can manufacture within her own borders. She produces enough to eat and her men and women can without difficulty manufacture enough to clothe to cover their nakedness and protect themselves from heat and cold. We become prey to invasion if we excite the greed of foreign nation, by dealing with them under a feeling dependence on them. We must learn to be independent of every one of them.Whether therefore we finally succeed through violence or non-violence in my opinion, the prospect is by no means so gloomy as Mr. Stokes has imagined. Any conceivable prospect is, in my opinion, less black than the present unmanly and helpless condition. And we cannot do better than following out fearlessly and with confidence the open and honourable programme of non-violence and sacrifice that we have mapped for ourselves.THE NEED FOR HUMILITYThe spirit of non-violence necessarily leads to humility. Non-violence means reliance on God, the Rocks of ages. If we would seek His aid, we must approach Him with a humble and a contrite heart. Non-co-operationists may not trade upon their amazing success at the Congress. We must act, even as the mango tree which drops as it bears fruit. Its grandeur lies in its majestic lowliness. But one hears of non-co-operationists being insolent and intolerant in their behaviour towards those who differ from them. I know that they will lose all their majesty and glory, if they betray any inflation. Whilst we may not be dissatisfied with the progress made so far, we have little to our credit to make us feel proud. We have to sacrifice much more than we have done to justify pride, much less elation. Thousands, who flocked to the Congress pandal, have undoubtedly given their intellectual assent to the doctrine but few have followed it out in practice. Leaving aside the pleaders, how many parents have withdrawn their children from schools? How many of those who registered their vote in favour of non-co-operation have taken to hand-spinning or discarded the use of all foreign cloth?Non-co-operation is not a movement of brag, bluster, or bluff. It is a test of our sincerity. It requires solid and silent self-sacrifice. It challenges our honesty and our capacity for national work. It is a movement that aims at translating ideas into action. And the more we do, the more we find that much more must be done than we have expected. And this thought of our imperfection must make us humble.A non-co-operationist strives to compel attention and to set an example not by his violence but by his unobtrusive humility. He allows his solid action to speak for his creed. His strength lies in his reliance upon the correctness of his position. And the conviction of it grows most in his opponent when he least interposes his speech between his action and his opponent. Speech, especially when it is haughty, betrays want of confidence and it makes one’s opponent sceptical about the reality of the act itself. Humility therefore is the key to quick success. I hope that every non-co-operationist will recognise the necessity of being humble and self-restrained. It is because so little is really required to be done because all of that little depends entirely upon ourselves that I have ventured the belief that Swaraj is attainable in less than one year.SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED“I write to thank you for yours of the 7th instant and especially for your request that I should after reading your writings in “Young India” on non-co-operation, give a full and frank criticism of them. I know that your sole desire is to find out the truth and to act accordingly, and hence I venture to make the following remarks. In the issue of May 5th you say that non-co-operation is “not even anti-Government.” But surely to refuse to have anything to do with the Government to the extent of not serving it and of not paying its taxes is actually, if not theoretically anti-Government; and such a course must ultimately make all Government impossible. Again, you say, “It is the inherent right of a subject to refuse to assist a government that will not listen to him.” Leaving aside the question of the ethical soundness of this proposition, may I ask which Government, in the present case? Has not the Indian Government done all it possibly can in the matter? Then if its attempts to voice the request of India should fail, would it be fair and just to do anything against it? Would not the proper course be non-co-operation with the Supreme Council of the Allies, including Great Britain, if it be found that the latter has failed properly to support the demand of the Indian Government and people? It seems to me that in all your writings and speeches you forget that in the present question both Government and people are as one, and if they fail to get what they justly want, how does the question of non-co-operation arise? Hindus and Englishmen and the Government are all at present “shouldering in a full-hearted manner the burden that Muhomedans of India are carrying etc. etc.” But supposing we fail of our object—what then? Are we all to refuse to co-operate and with whom?Might I recommend the consideration of the following course of conduct?(1) “Wait and see” what the actual terms of the Treaty with Turkey are?(2) If they are not in accordance with the aspirations and recommendations of the Government and the people of India, the every legitimate effort should be made to have the terms revised.(3) To the bitter end, co-operate with a Government that co-operates with us, and only when it refuses co-operation, go in for non-co-operation.So far I personally see no reason whatsoever for non-co-operation with the Indian Government, and till it fails to voice the needs and demands of India as a whole there can be no reason. The Indian Government does some times make mistakes, but in the Khilafat matter it is sound and therefore deserves or ought to have the sympathetic and whole-hearted co-operation of every one in India. I hope that you will kindly consider the above and perhaps you will be able to find time for a reply inYoung India.”I gladly make room for the above letter and respond to the suggestion to give a public reply as no doubt the difficulty experienced by the English friend is experienced by many. Causes are generally lost, not owing to the determined opposition of men who will not see the truth as they want to perpetuate an injustice but because they are able to enlist in their favour the allegiance of those who are anxious to understand a particular cause and take sides after mature judgment. It is only by patient argument with such honest men that one is able to check oneself, correct one’s own errors of judgment and at times to wean them from their error and bring them over to one’s side. This Khilafat question is specially difficult because there are so many side-issues. It is therefore no wonder that many have more or less difficulty in making up their minds. It is further complicated because the painful necessity for some direct action has arisen in connection with it. But whatever the difficulty, I am convinced that there is no question so important as this one if we want harmony and peace in India.My friend objects to my statement that non-co-operation is not anti-Government, because he considers that refusal to serve it and pay its taxes is actually anti-Government. I respectfully dissent from the view. If a brother has fundamental differences with his brother, and association with the latter involves his partaking of what in his opinion is an injustice. I hold that it is brotherly duty to refrain from serving his brother and sharing his earnings with him. This happens in everyday life. Prahalad did not act against his father, when he declined to associate himself with the latter’s blasphemies. Nor was Jesus anti-Jewish when he declaimed against the Pharisees and the hypocrites, and would have none of them. In such matters, is it not intention that determines the character of a particular act? It is hardly correct as the friend suggests that withdrawal of association under general circumstances would make all government impossible. But it is true that such withdrawal would make all injustice impossible.My correspondent considers that the Government of India having done all it possibly could, non-co-operation could not be applicable to that Government. In my opinion, whilst it is true that the Government of India has done a great deal, it has not done half as much as it might have done, and might even now do. No Government can absolve itself from further action beyond protesting, when it realises that the people whom it represents feel as keenly as do lakhs of Indian Mussalmans in the Khilafat question. No amount of sympathy with a starving man can possibly avail. He must have bread or he dies, and what is wanted at that critical moment is some exertion to fetch the wherewithal to feed the dying man. The Government of India can to-day heed the agitation and ask, to the point of insistence for full vindication of the pledged word of a British Minister. Has the Government of India resigned by way of protest against the threatened, shameful betrayal of trust on the part of Mr. Lloyd George? Why does the Government of India hide itself behind secret despatches? At a less critical moment Lord Hardiage committed a constitutional indiscretion, openly sympathised with South African Passive Resistance movement and stemmed the surging tide of public indignation in India, though at the same time he incurred the wrath of the then South African Cabinet and some public men in Great Britain. After all, the utmost that the Government of India has done is on its own showing to transmit and press the Mahomedan claim. Was that not the least it could have done? Could it have done anything less without covering itself with disgrace? What Indian Mahomedans and the Indian public expect the Government of India to do at this critical juncture is not the least, but the utmost that it could do. Viceroys have been known to tender resignations for much smaller causes. Wounded pride brought forth not very long ago the resignation of a Lieutenant Governor. On the Khilafat question, a sacred cause dear to the hearts of several million Mahomedans is in danger of being wounded. I would therefore invite the English friend, and every Englishman in India, and every Hindu, be he moderate or extremist, to make common cause with the Mahomedans and thereby compel the Government of India to do its duty, and thereby compel His Majesty’s Ministers to do theirs.There has been much talk of violence ensuing from active non-co-operation. I venture to suggest that the Mussalmans of India, if they had nothing in the shape of non-co-operation in view, would have long ago yielded to counsels of despair. I admit that non-co-operation is not unattended with danger. But violence is a certainty without, violence is only a possibility with non-co-operation. And it will he a greater possibility if all the important men, English, Hindu and others of the country discountenance it.I think, that the recommendation made by the friend is being literally followed by the Mahomedans. Although they practically know the fate, they are waiting for the actual terms of the treaty with Turkey. They are certainly going to try every means at their disposal to have the terms revised before beginning non-co-operation. And there will certainly be no non-co-operation commenced so long as there is even hope of active co-operation on the part of the Government of India with the Mahomedans, that is, co-operation strong enough to secure a revision of the terms should they be found to be in conflict with the pledges of British statesmen. But if all these things fail, can Mahomedans as men of honour who hold their religion dearer than their lives do anything less than wash their hands clean of the guilt of British Ministers and the Government of India by refusing to co-operate with them? And can Hindus and Englishmen, if they value Mahomedan friendship, and if they admit then full justice of the Mahomaden friendship and if they admit the full justice of the Mahomedan claim do otherwise than heartily support the Mahomedans by word and deed.PLEDGES BROKENAfter the forgoing was printed the long-expected peace terms regarding Turkey were received. In my humble opinion they are humiliating to the Supreme Council, to the British ministers, and if as a Hindu with deep reverence for Christianity I may say so, a denial of Christ’s teachings. Turkey broken down and torn with dissentions within may submit to the arrogant disposal of herself, and Indian Mahomedans may out of fear do likewise. Hindus out of fear, apathy or want of appreciation of the situation, may refuse to help their Mahomedan brethren in their hour of peril. The fact remains that a solemn promise of the Prime Minister of England has been wantonly broken. I will say nothing about President Wilson’s fourteen points, for they seem now to be entirely forgotten as a day’s wonder. It is a matter of deep sorrow that the Government of Indiacommuniqueoffers a defence of the terms, calls them a fulfilment of Mr. Lloyd George’s pledge of 5th January 1918 and yet apologises for their defective nature and appeals to the Mahomedans of India as if to mock them that they would accept the terms with quiet resignation. The mask that veils the hypocrisy is too thin to deceive anybody. It would have been dignified if thecommuniquehad boldly admitted Mr. Lloyd George’s mistake in having made the promise referred to. As it is, the claim of fulfilment of the promise only adds to the irritation caused by its glaring breach. What is the use of the Viceroy saying, “The question of the Khilafat is one for the Mahomedans and Mahomedans only and that with their free choice in the matter Government have no desire to interfere,” while the Khalif’s dominions are ruthlessly dismembered, his control of the Holy places of Islam shamelessly taken away from him and he himself reduced to utter impotence in his own palace which can no longer be called a palace but which can he more fitly described us a prison? No wonder, His Excellency fears that the peace includes “terms which must be painful to all Moslems.” Why should he insult Muslim intelligence by sending the Mussalmans of India a of encouragement and sympathy? Are they expected to find encouragement in the cruel recital of the arrogant terms or in a remembrance of ‘the splendid response’ made by them to the call of the King ‘in the day of the Empire’s need.’ It ill becomes His Excellency to talk of the triumph of those ideals of justice and humanity for which the Allies fought. Indeed, the terms of the so called peace with Turkey if they are to last, will be a monument of human arrogance and man-made injustice. To attempt to crush the spirit of a brave and gallant race, because it has lost in the fortunes of war, is a triumph not of humanity but a demonstration of inhumanity. And if Turkey enjoyed the closest ties of friendship with Great Britain before the war, Great Britain has certainly made ample reparation for her mistake by having made the largest contribution to the humiliation of Turkey. It is insufferable therefore when the Viceroy feels confident that with the conclusion of this new treaty that friendship will quickly take life again and a Turkey regenerate full of hope and strength, will stand forth in the future as in the past a pillar of the Islamic faith. The Viceregal message audaciously concludes, “This thought will I trust strengthen you to accept the peace terms with resignation, courage and fortitude and to keep your loyalty towards the Crown bright and untarnished as it has been for so many generations.” If Muslim loyalty remains untarnished it will certainly not be for want of effort on the part of the Government of India to put the heaviest strain upon it, but it will remain so because the Mahomedans realise their own strength—the strength in the knowledge that their cause is just and that they have got the power to vindicate justice in spite of the aberration suffered by Great Britain under a Prime Minister whom continued power has made as reckless in making promises as in breaking them.Whilst therefore I admit that there is nothing either in the peace terms or in the Viceregal message covering them to inspire the Mahomedans and Indians in general with confidence or hope, I venture to suggest that there is no cause for despair and anger. Now is the time for Mahomedans to retain absolute self-control, to unite their forces and, weak though they are, with firm faith in God to carry on the struggle with redoubled vigour till justice is done. If India—both Hindu and Mahomedan—can act as one man and can withdraw her partnership in this crime against humanity which the peace terms represent, she will soon secure a revision of the treaty and give herself and the Empire at least, if not the world, a lasting peace. There is no doubt that the struggle would be bitter sharp and possibly prolonged, but it is worth all the sacrifice that it is likely to call forth. Both the Mussalmans and the Hindus are on their trial. Is the humiliation of the Khilafat a matter of concern to the former? And if it is, are they prepared to exercise restraint, religiously refrain from violence and practise non-co-operation without counting the material loss it may entail upon the community? Do the Hindus honestly feel for their Mahomedan brethren to the extent of sharing their sufferings to the fullest extent? The answer to these questions and not the peace terms, will finally decide the fate of the Khilafat.MORE OBJECTIONS ANSWEREDSwadeshmitranis one of the most influential Tamil dailies of Madras. It is widely read. Everything appearing in its columns is entitled to respect. The Editor has suggested some practical difficulty in the way of non-co-operation. I would therefore like, to the best of my ability, to deal with them.I do not know where the information has been derived from that I have given up the last two stages of non-co-operation. What I have said is that they are a distant goal. I abide by it. I admit that all the stages are fraught with some danger, but the last two are fraught with the greatest—the last most of all. The stages have been fixed with a view to running the least possible risk. The last two stages will not be taken up unless the committee has attained sufficient control over the people to warrant the beliefs that the laying down of arms or suspension of taxes will, humanly speaking, be free from an outbreak of violence on the part of the people. I do entertain the belief that it is possible for the people to attain the discipline necessary for taking the two steps. When once they realise that violence is totally unnecessary to bend an unwilling government to their will and that the result can be obtained with certainty by dignified non-co-operation, they will cease to think of violence even by way of retaliation. The fact is that hitherto we have not attempted to take concerted and disciplined action from the masses. Some day, if we are to become truly a self-governing nation, that attempt has to be made. The present, in my opinion, is a propitious movement. Every Indian feels the insult to the Punjab as a personal wrong, every Mussalman resents the wrong done to the Khilafat. There is therefore a favourable atmosphere for expecting cohesive and restrained movement on the part of the masses.So far as response is concerned, I agree with the Editor that the quickest and the largest response is to be expected in the matter of suspension of payment of taxes, but as I have said so long as the masses are not educated to appreciate the value of non-violence even whilst their holding are being sold, so long must it be difficult to take up the last stage into any appreciable extent.I agree too that a sudden withdrawal of the military and the police will be a disaster if we have not acquired the ability to protect ourselves against robbers and thieves. But I suggest that when we are ready to call out the military and the police on an extensive scale we would find ourselves in a position to defend ourselves. If the police and the military resign from patriotic motives, I would certainly expect them to perform the same duty as national volunteers, not has hirelings but as willing protectors of the life and liberty of their countrymen. The movement of non-co-operation is one of automatic adjustment. If the Government schools are emptied, I would certainly expect national schools to come into being. If the lawyers as a whole suspended practice, they would devise arbitration courts and the nation will have expeditions and cheaper method of setting private disputes and awarding punishment to the wrong-doer. I may add that the Khilafat Committee is fully alive to the difficulty of the task and is taking all the necessary steps to meet the contingencies as they arise.Regarding the leaving of civil employment, no danger is feared, because no one will leave his employment, unless he is in a position to find support for himself and family either through friends or otherwise.Disapproval of the proposed withdrawal of students betrays, in my humble opinion, lack of appreciation of the true nature of non-co-operation. It is true enough that we pay the money wherewith our children are educated. But, when the agency imparting the education has become corrupt, we may not employ it without partaking of the agents, corruption. When students leave schools or colleges I hardly imagine that the teachers will fail to perceive the advisability of themselves resigning. But even if they do not, money can hardly be allowed to count where honour or religion are at the stake.As to the boycott of the councils, it is not the entry of the Moderates or any other persons that matters so much as the entry of those who believe in non-co-operation. You may not co-operate at the top and non-co-operate at the bottom. A councillor cannot remain in the council and ask thegumastawho cleans the council-table to resign.MR. PENNINGTON’S OBJECTIONS ANSWEREDI gladly publish Mr. Pennington’s letter with its enclosure just as I have received them. Evidently Mr. Pennington is not a regular reader of ‘Young India,’ or he would have noticed that no one has condemned mob outrages more than I have. He seems to think that the article he has objected to was the only thing I have ever written on General Dyer. He does not seem to know that I have endeavoured with the utmost impartiality to examine the Jallianwala massacre. And he can see any day all the proof adduced by my fellow-commissioners and myself in support of our findings on the massacre. The ordinary readers of ‘Young India’ knew all the facts and therefore it was unnecessary for me to support my assertion otherwise. But unfortunately Mr. Pennington represents the typical Englishman. He does not want to be unjust, nevertheless he is rarely just in his appreciation of world events because he has no time to study them except cursorily and that through a press whose business is to air only party views. The average Englishman therefore except in parochial matters is perhaps the least informed though he claims to be well-informed about every variety of interest. Mr. Pennington’s ignorance is thus typical of the others and affords the best reason for securing control of our own affairs in our own hands. Ability will come with use and not by waiting to be trained by those whose natural interest is to prolong the period of tutelage as much as possible.But to return to Mr. Pennington’s letter he complains that there has been no ‘proper trial of any one.’ The fault is not ours. India has consistently and insistently demanded a trial of all the officers concerned in the crimes against the Punjab.He next objects to be ‘violence’ of my language. If truth is violent, I plead guilty to the charge of violence of language. But I could not, without doing violence to truth, refrain from using the language, I have, regarding General Dyer’s action. It has been proved out of his own mouth or hostile witnesses:(1) That the crowd was unarmed.(2) That it contained children.(3) That the 13th was the day of Vaisakhi fair.(4) That thousands had come to the fair.(5) That there was no rebellion.(6) That during the intervening two days before the ‘massacre’ there was peace in Amritsar.(7) That the proclamation of the meeting was made the same day as General Dyer’s proclamation.(8) That General Dyer’s proclamation prohibited not meetings but processions or gatherings of four men on the streets and not in private or public places.(9) That General Dyer ran no risk whether outside or inside the city.(10) That he admitted himself that many in the crowd did not know anything of his proclamation.(11) That he fired without warning the crowd and even after it had begun to disperse. He fired on the backs of the people who were in flight.(12) That the men were practically penned in an enclosure.In the face of these admitted facts I do call the deed a ‘massacre.’ The action amounted not to ‘an error of judgment’ but its ‘paralysis in the face of fancied danger.’I am sorry to have to say that Mr. Pennington’s notes, which too the reader will find published elsewhere, betray as much ignorance as his letter.Whatever was adopted on paper in the days of Canning was certainly not translated into action in its full sense. ‘Promises made to the ear were broken to the hope,’ was said by a reactionary Viceroy. Military expenditure has grown enormously since the days of Canning.The demonstration in favour of General Dyer is practically a myth.No trace was found of the so-called Danda Fauj dignified by the name of bludgeon-army by Mr. Pennington. There was no rebel army in Amritsar. The crown that committed the horrible murders and incendiarism contained no one community exclusively. The sheet was found posted only in Lahore and not in Amritsar. Mr. Pennington should moreover have known by this time that the meeting held on the 13th was held, among other things, for the purpose of condemning mob excesses. This was brought out at the Amritsar trial. Those who surrounded him could not stop General Dyer. He says he made up his mind to shoot in a moment. He consulted nobody. When the correspondent says that the troops would have objected to being concerned in ‘what might in that case be not unfairly called a ‘massacre,’ he writes as if he had never lived in India. I wish the Indian troops had the moral courage to refuse to shoot innocent, unarmed men in full flight. But the Indian troops have been brought in too slavish an atmosphere to dare do any such correct act.I hope Mr. Pennington will not accuse me again of making unverified assertions because I have not quoted from the books. The evidence is there for him to use. I can only assure him that the assertions are based on positive proofs mostly obtained from official sources.Mr. Pennington wants me to publish an exact account of what happened on the 10th April. He can find it in the reports, and if he will patiently go through them he will discover that Sir Michael O’Dwyer and his officials goaded the people into frenzied fury—a fury which nobody, as I have already said, has condemned more than I have. The account of the following days is summed up in one word,viz.‘peace’ on the part of the crowd disturbed by indiscriminate arrests, the massacre and the series of official crimes that followed.I am prepared to give Mr. Pennington credit for seeking after the truth. But he has gone about it in the wrong manner. I suggest his reading the evidence before the Hunter Committee and the Congress Committee. He need not read the reports. But the evidence will convince him that I have understated the case against General Dyer.When however I read his description of himself as “for 12 years Chief Magistrate of Districts in the South of India before reform, by assassination and otherwise, became so fashionable.” I despair of his being able to find the truth. An angry or a biased man renders himself incapable of finding it. And Mr. Pennington is evidently both angry and biased. What does he mean by saying, “before reform by assassination and otherwise became so fashionable?” It ill becomes him to talk of assassination when the school of assassination seems happily to have become extinct. Englishmen will never see the truth so long as they permit their vision to be blinded by arrogant assumption of superiority or ignorant assumptions of infallibility.MR. PENNINGTON’S LETTER TO MR. GANDHIDear Sir,I do not like your scheme for “boycotting” the Government of India under what seems to be the somewhat less offensive (though more cumbrous) name of non-co-operation; but have always given you credit for a genuine desire to carry out revolution by peaceful means and am astonished at the violence of the language you use in describing General Dyer on page 4 of your issue of the 14th July last. You begin by saying that he is “by no means the worst offender,” and, so far, I am inclined to agree, though as there has been no proper trial of anyone it is impossible to apportion their guilt; but then you say “his brutality is unmistakable,” “his abject and unsoldierlike cowardice is apparent, he has called anunarmed crowdof men and children—mostly holiday makers—a rebel army.” “He believes himself to be the saviour of the Punjab in that he was able to shoot down like rabbits men who werepennedin an enclosure; such a man is unworthy to be considered a soldier. There was no bravery in his action. He ran no risk. He shot without the slightest opposition and without warning. This is not an error of judgement. It is paralysis of it in the face offancieddanger. It is proof of criminal incapacity and heartlessness,” etc.You must excuse me for saying that all this is mere rhetoric unsupported by any proof, even where proof was possible. To begin with, neither you nor I were present at the Jallianwalla Bagh on that dreadful day—dreadful especially for General Dyer for whom you show no sympathy,—and therefore cannot know for certain whether the crowd was or was not unarmed.’ That it was an ‘illegal,’ because a ‘prohibited,’ assembly is evident; for it is absurd to suppose that General Dyer’s 4-1/2 hours march, through the city that very morning, during the whole of which he was warning the inhabitants against the danger of any sort of gathering, was not thoroughly well-known. You say they were ‘mostly holiday makers,’ but you give nor proof; and the idea of holiday gathering in Amritsar just then in incredible. I cannot understand your making such a suggestion. General Dyer was not the only officer present on the occasion and it is impossible to suppose that he would have been allowed to go on shooting into an innocent body of holiday-makers. Even the troops would have refused to carry out what might then have been not unfairly called a “massacre.”I notice that you never even allude to the frightful brutality of the mob which was immediately responsible for the punitive measure reluctantly adopted by General Dyer. Your sympathies seem to be only with the murderers, and I am not sanguine enough to suppose that my view of the case will have much influence with you. Still I am bound to do what I can to get at the truth, and enclose a copy of some notes I have had occasion to make. If you can publish anexactaccount of what happened at Amritsar on the 10th of April, 1919 and the following days, especially on the 13th, including the demonstration in favour of General Dyer, (if there was one), I for one, as a mere seeker after the truth, should be very much obliged to you. Mere abuse is not convincing, as you so often observe in your generally reasonable paper,Yours faithfully, J. R. PENNINGTON, I.O.S. (Retd.) 35, VICTORIA ROAD, WORTHING, SUSSEX 27th Aug. 1920.For 12 years Chief Magistrate of Districts in the south of India before reform, by assassination and otherwise, became so fashionable.P.S. Let us get the case in this way. General Dyer, acting as the only representative of Government on the spot shot some hundreds of people (some of themperhapsinnocently mixed up in an illegal assembly), in thebona fidebelief that he was dealing with the remains of a very dangerous rebellion and was thereby saving the lives of very many thousands, and in the opinion of a great many people did actually save the city from falling in the hands of a dangerous mob.SOME DOUBTSBabu Janakdhari Prasad was a staunch coworker with me in Champaran. He has written a long letter setting forth his reasons for his belief that India has a great mission before her, and that she can achieve her purpose only by non-violent non-co-operation. But he has doubts which he would have me answer publicly. The letter being long, I am withholding. But the doubts are entitled to respect and I must endeavour to answer them. Here they are us framed by Bubu Janakdhari Prasad.(a) Is not the non-co-operation movement creating a sort of race-hatred between Englishmen and Indians, and is it in accordance with the Divine plan of universal love and brotherhood?(b) Does not the use of words “devilish,” “satanic,” etc., savour of unbrotherly sentiment and incite feelings of hatred?(c) Should not the non-co-operation movement be conducted on strictly non-violent and non-emotional lines both in speech and action?(d) Is there no danger of the movement going out of control and lending to violence?As to (a), I must say that the movement is not ‘creating’ race-hatred. It certainly gives, as I have already said, disciplined expression to it. You cannot eradicate evil by ignoring it. It is because I want to promote universal brotherhood that I have taken up non-co-operation so that, by self-purification, India may make the world better than it is.As to (b), I know that the words ‘satanic’ and ‘devilish’ are strong, but they relate the exact truth. They describe a system not persons: We are bound to hate evil, if we would shun it. But by means of non-co-operation we are able to distinguish between the evil and the evil-doer. I have found no difficulty in describing a particular activity of a brother of mine to be devilish, but I am not aware of having harboured any hatred about him. Non-co-operation teaches us to love our fellowmen in spite of their faults, not by ignoring or over-looking them.As to (c), the movement is certainly being conducted on strictly non-violent lines. That all non-co-operators have not yet thoroughly imbibed the doctrine is true. But that just shows what an evil legacy we have inherited. Emotion there is in the movement. And it will remain. A man without emotion is a man without feeling.As to (d), there certainly is danger of the movement becoming violent. But we may no more drop non-violent non-co-operation because of its dangers, than we may stop freedom because of the danger of its abuse.REJOINDERMessrs. Popley and Philips have been good enough to reply to my letter “To Every Englishman in India.” I recognise and appreciate the friendly spirit of their letter. But I see that there are fundamental differences which must for the time being divide them and me. So long as I felt that, in spite of grievous lapses the British Empire represented an activity for the worlds and India’s good, I clung to it like a child to its mother’s breast. But that faith is gone. The British nation has endorsed the Punjab and Khilsfat crimes. The is no doubt a dissenting minority. But a dissenting minority that satisfies itself with a mere expression of its opinion and continues to help the wrong-doer partakes in wrong-doing.And when the sum total of his energy represents a minus quantity one may not pick out the plus quantities, hold them up for admiration, and ask an admiring public to help regarding them. It is a favourite design of Satan to temper evil with a show of good and thus lure the unwary into the trap. The only way the world has known of defeating Satan is by shunning him. I invite Englishmen, who could work out the ideal the believe in, to join the ranks of the non-co-operationists. W.T. Stead prayed for the reverse of the British arms during the Boer war. Miss Hobbhouse invited the Boers to keep up the fight. The betrayal of India is much worse than the injustice done to the Boers. The Boers fought and bled for their rights. When therefore, we are prepared to bleed, the right will have become embodied, and idolatrous world will perceive it and do homage to it.But Messers. Popley and Phillips object that I have allied myself with those who would draw the sword if they could. I see nothing wrong in it. They represent the right no less than I do. And is it not worth while trying to prevent an unsheathing of the sword by helping to win the bloodless battle? Those who recognise the truth of the Indian position can only do God’s work by assisting this non-violent campaign.The second objection raised by these English friends is more to the point. I would be guilty of wrong-doing myself if the Muslim cause was not just. The fact is that the Muslim claim is not to perpetuate foreign domination of non-Muslim or Turkish races. The Indian Mussalmans do not resist self-determination, but they would fight to the last the nefarious plan of exploiting Mesopotamia under the plea of self-determination. They must resist the studied attempt to humiliate Turkey and therefore Islam, under the false pretext of ensuring Armenian independence.The third objection has reference to schools. I do object to missionary or any schools being carried on with Government money. It is true that it was at one time our money. Will these good missionaries be justified in educating me with funds given to them by a robber who has robbed me of my money, religion and honour because the money was originally mine.I personally tolerated the financial robbery of India, but it would have been a sin to have tolerated the robbery of honour through the Punjab, and of religion through Turkey. This is strong language. But nothing less would truly describe my deep conviction. Needless to add that the emptying of Government aided, or affiliated, schools does not mean starving the young mind National Schools are coming into being as fast as the others are emptied.Messrs. Popley and Phillips think that my sense of justice has been blurred by the knowledge of the Punjab and the Khilafat wrongs. I hope not. I have asked friends to show me some good fruit (intended and deliberately produced) of the British occupation of India. And I assure them that I shall make the amplest amends if I find that I have erred in my eagerness about the Khilafat and the Punjab wrongs.TWO ENGLISHMEN REPLYDear Mr. Gandhi,Thank you for your letter to every Englishman in India, with its hard-hitting and its generous tone. Something within us responds to the note which you have struck. We are not representatives of any corporate body, but we think that millions of our countrymen in England, and not a few in India, feel as we do. The reading of your letter convinces us that you and we cannot be real enemies.May we say at once that in so far as the British Empire stands for the domination and exploitation of other races for Britain’s benefit, for degrading treatment of any, for traffic in intoxicating liquors, for repressive legislation, for administration such as that which to the Amritsar incidents, we desire the end of it as much as you do? We quite understand that in the excitement of the present crisis, owing to certain acts of the British Administration, which we join with you in condemning, the Empire presents itself to you under this aspect along. But from personal contact with our countrymen, we know that working like leaven in the midst of such tendencies, as you and we deplore, is the faith in a better ideal—the ideal of a commonwealth of free peoples voluntarily linked together by the ties of common experience in the past and common aspirations for the future, a commonwealth which may hope to spread liberty and progress through the whole earth. With vast numbers of our countrymen we value the British Empire mainly as affording the possibility of the realization of such an idea and on the ground give it our loyal allegiance.Meanwhile we do repent of that arrogant attitude to Indians which has been all too common among our countrymen, we do hold Indians to be our brothers and equals, many of them our superiors, and we would rather be servants than rulers of India. We desire an administration which cannot he intimated either by the selfish element in Anglo-Indian political opinion or by any other sectional interest and which shall govern in accordance with the best democratic principles. We should welcome the convening of a National assembly of recognized leaders of the people, representing all shades of political opinion of every caste, race and creed, to frame a constitution for Swaraj. In all the things that matter most we are with you. Surely you and we can co-operate in the service of India, in such matters for example as education. It seems to us nothing short of a tragedy that you should be rallying Indian Patriotism to inaugurate a new era of good will under a watchword that divides, instead of uniting all.We have spoken of the large amount of common ground upon which you and we can stand. But frankness demands that we express our anxiety about some items in your programme. Leaving aside smaller questions on which your letter seems to us to do the British side less than justice, may we mention three main points? Your insistence on spiritual forces alone we deeply respect and desire to emulate, but we cannot understand your combining into it with a close alliance with those who, as you frankly say, would draw the sword as soon as they could.Your desire for an education truly national commands our whole-hearted approval. But instead of Indianizing the present system, as you could begin to do from the beginning of next year, or instead of creating a hundred institutions such as that at Bolpur and turning into them the stream of India’s young intellectual life, you appear to be turning that stream out of its present channel into open sands where it may dry up. In other words, you seem to us to be risking the complete cessation, for a period possibly, of years, of all education, for a large number of boys and young men. Is it best, for those young men or for India that the present imperfect education should cease before a better education is ready to take its place?Your desire to unite Mohammedan and Hindu and to share with your Mohammedan brethren in seeking the satisfaction of Mohammedan aspirations, we can understand and sympathize with. But is there no danger, in the course which some of your party have urged upon the Government, that certain races in the former Ottoman Empire might be fixed under a foreign yoke, for worse than that which you hold the English yoke to be? You could not wish to purchase freedom in India at the price of enslavement in the middle East.To sum up, we thank you for the spirit of your letter, to which we have tried to respond in the same spirit. We are with you in the desire for an India genuinely free to develop the best that is in her and in the belief that best is something wonderful of which the world to-day stands in need.We are ready to co-operate with you and with every other man of any race or nationality who will help India to realize her best. Are you going to insist that you can have nothing to do with us if we receive a government grant (i.e., Indian money), for an Indian School. Surely some more inspiring battle cry than non-co-operation can be discovered. We have ventured quite frankly to point out three items in your present programme, which seem to us likely to hinder the attainment of your true ideals for Indian greatness. But those ideals themselves command our warm sympathy, and we desire to work, so far as we have opportunity, for their attainment. In fact, it is only thus that we can interpret our British citizenship.Yours sincerely, (Sd.) H.A. POPLEY, (Sd.) G.E. PHILLIPS. Bangalore, November 15, 1920.RENUNCIATION OF MEDALSMr. Gandhi has addressed the following letter to the Viceroy:—It is not without a pang that I return the Kaisar-i-Hind gold medal granted to me by your predecessor for my humanitarian work in South Africa, the Zulu war medal granted in South Africa for my services as officer in charge of the Indian volunteer ambulance corps in 1906 and the Boer war medal fur my services as assistant superintendent of the Indian volunteer stretcher bearer corps during the Boer war of 1899-1900. I venture to return these medals in pursuance of the scheme of non-co-operation inaugurated to-day in connection with the Khilafat movement. Valuable as those honours have been to me, I cannot wear them with an easy conscience so long as my Mussalman countrymen have to labour under a wrong done to their religious sentiment. Events that have happened during the past month have confirmed me in the opinion that the Imperial Government have acted in the Khilafat matter in an unscrupulous, immoral and unjust manner and have been moving from wrong to wrong in order to defend their immorality. I can retain neither respect nor affection for such a Government.The attitude of the Imperial and Your Excellency’s Governments on the Punjab question has given me additional cause for grave dissatisfaction. I had the honour, as Your Excellency is aware, as one of the congress commissioners to investigate the causes of the disorders in the Punjab during the April of 1919. And it is my deliberate conviction that Sir Michael O’Dwyer was totally unfit to hold the office of Lieutenant Governor of Punjab and that his policy was primarily responsible for infuriating the mob at Amritsar. No doubt the mob excesses were unpardonable; incendiarism, murder of five innocent Englishmen and the cowardly assault on Miss Sherwood were most deplorable and uncalled for. But the punitive measures taken by General Dyer, Col. Frank Johnson, Col. O’Brien, Mr. Bosworth Smith, Rai Shri Ram Sud, Mr. Malik Khan and other officers were out of all proportional to the crime of the people and amounted to wanton cruelty and inhumanity and almost unparalleled in modern times. Your excellency’s light-hearted treatment of the official crime, your, exoneration of Sir Michael O’Dwyer, Mr. Montagu’s dispatch and above all the shameful ignorance of the Punjab events and callous disregard of the feelings of Indians betrayed by the House of Lords, have filled me with the gravest misgivings regarding the future of the Empire, have estranged me completely from the present Government and have disabled me from tendering, as I have hitherto whole-heartedly tendered, my loyal co-operation.In my humble opinion the ordinary method of agitating by way of petitions, deputations and the like is no remedy for moving to repentence a Government so hopelessly indifferent to the welfare of its charges as the Government of India has proved to me. In European countries, condonation of such grievous wrongs as the Khilafat and the Punjab would have resulted in a bloody revolution by the people. They would have resisted at all costs national emasculation such as the said wrongs imply. But half of India is to weak to offer violent resistance and the other half is unwilling to do so.I have therefore ventured to suggest the remedy of non-co-operation which enables those who wish, to dissociate themselves from the Government and which, if it is unattended by violence and undertaken in an ordered manner, must compel it to retrace its steps and undo the wrongs committed. But whilst I shall pursue the policy of non-co-operation in so far as I can carry the people with me, I shall not lose hope that you will yet see your way to do justice. I therefore respectfully ask Your Excellency to summon a conference of the recognised leaders of the people and in consultation with them find a way that would placate the Mussalmans and do reparation to the unhappy Punjab.August 4, 1920.MAHATMA GANDHI’S LETTER TO H.R.H. THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHTThe following letter has been addressed by Mr. Gandhi to his Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught;—Sir,Your Royal Highness must have heard a great deal about non-co-operation, non-co-operationists and their methods and incidentally of me its humble author. I fear that the information given to Your Royal Highness must have been in its nature one-sided. I owe it to you and to my friends and myself that I should place before you what I conceive to be the scope of non-co-operation as followed not only be me but my closest associates such as Messrs. Shaukat Ali and Mahomed Ali.For me it is no joy and pleasure to be actively associated in the boycott of your Royal Highness’ visit—I have tendered loyal and voluntary association to the Government for an unbroken period of nearly 30 years in the full belief that through that way lay the path of freedom for my country. It was therefore no slight thing for me to suggest to my countrymen that we should take no part in welcoming Your Royal Highness. Not one among us has anything against you as an English gentleman. We hold your person as sacred as that of a dearest friend. I do not know any of my friends who would not guard it with his life, if he found it in danger. We are not at war with individual Englishmen we seek not to destroy English life. We do desire to destroy a system that has emasculated our country in body, mind and soul. We are determined to battle with all our might against that in the English nature which has made O’Dwyerism and Dyerism possible in the Punjab and has resulted in a wanton affront upon Islam a faith professed by seven crores of our countrymen. The affront has been put in breach of the letter and the spirit of the solemn declaration of the Prime Minister. We consider it to be inconsistent with our self respect any longer to brook the spirit of superiority and dominance which has systematically ignored and disregarded the sentiments of thirty crores of the innocent people of India on many a vital matter. It is humiliating to us, it cannot be a matter of pride to you, that thirty crores of Indians should live day in and day out in the fear of their lives from one hundred thousand Englishmen and therefore be under subjection to them.Your Royal Highness has come not to end the system I have described but to sustain it by upholding its prestige. Your first pronouncement was a laudation of Lord Wellingdon. I have the privilege of knowing him. I believe him to be an honest and amiable gentleman who will not willingly hurt even a fly. But, he has certainly failed as a ruler. He allowed himself to be guided by those whose interest it was to support their power. He is reading the mind of the Dravidian province. Here in Bengal you are issuing a certificate of merit to a Governor who is again from all I have heard an estimable gentleman. But he knows nothing of the heart of Bengal and its yearnings. Bengal is not Calcutta. Fort William and the palaces of Calcutta represent an insolent exploitation of the unmurmuring and highly cultured peasantry of this fair province. Non-co-operationists have come to the conclusion that they must not be deceived by the reforms that tinker with the problem of India’s distress and humiliation. Nor must they be impatient and angry. We must not in our impatient anger resort, to stupid violence. We freely admit that we must take our due share of the blame for the existing state. It is not so much the British guns that are responsible fur our subjection, as our voluntary co-operation. Our non-participation in a hearty welcome to your Royal Highness is thus in no sense a demonstration against your high personage but it is against the system you have come to uphold. I know that individual Englishmen cannot even if they will alter the English nature all of a sudden. If we would be equals of Englishmen we must cast off fear. We must learn to be self-reliant and independent of the schools, courts, protection, and patronage of a Government, we seek to end, if it will not mend. Hence this non-violent non-co-operation. I know that we have not all yet become non-violent in speech and deed. But the results so far achieved have I assure Your Royal Highness, been amazing. The people have understood the secret and the value of non-violence as they have never done before. He who runs may see that this a religious, purifying movement. We are leaving off drink, we are trying to rid India of the curse of untouchability. We are trying to throw off foreign tinsel splendour and by reverting to the spinning wheel reviving the ancient and the poetic simplicity of life. We hope thereby to sterilize the existing harmful institution. I ask Your Royal Highness as an Englishman to study this movement and its possibilities for the Empire and the world. We are at war with nothing that is good in the world. In protecting Islam in the manner we are, we are protecting all religions. In protecting the honour of India we are protecting the honour of humanity. For our means are hurtful to none. We desire to live on terms of friendship with Englishmen but that friendship must be friendship of equals in both theory and practice. And we must continue to non-co-operate, i.e. to purify ourselves till the goal is achieved.I ask Your Royal Highness and through you every Englishman to appreciate the view-point of the non-co-operationists.I beg to remain, Your Royal Highness’s faithful servant, (Sd.) M.K. GANDHI.February, 1921THE GREATEST THINGIt is to be wished that non-co-operationists will clearly recognise that nothing can stop the onward march of the nation as violence. Ireland may gain its freedom by violence. Turkey may regain her lost possessions by violence within measurable distance of time. But India cannot win her freedom by violence for a century, because her people are not built in the manner of other nations. They have been nurtured in the traditions of suffering. Rightly or wrongly, for good or ill, Islam too has evolved along peaceful lines in India. And I make bold to say that, if the honour of Islam is to be vindicated through its followers in India, it will only be by methods of peaceful, silent, dignified, conscious, and courageous suffering. The more I study that wonderful faith, the more convinced I become that the glory of Islam is due not to the sword but to the sufferings, the renunciation, and the nobility of its early Caliphs. Islam decayed when its followers, mistaking the evil for the good, dangled the sword in the face of man, and lost sight of the godliness, the humility, and austerity of its founder and his disciples. But, I am not at the present moment, concerned with showing that the basis of Islam, as of all religions, is not violence but suffering not the taking of life but the giving of it.What I am anxious to show is that non-co-operationists must be true as well to the spirit as to the letter of their vow if they would gain Swaraj within one year. They may forget non-co-operation but they dare not forget non-violence. Indeed, non-co-operation is non-violence. We are violent when we sustain a government whose creed is violence. It bases itself finally not on right but on might. Its last appeal is not to reason, nor the heart, but to the sword. We are tired of this creed and we have risen against it. Let us not ourselves belie our profession by being violent. Though the English are very few, they are organised for violence. Though we are many we cannot be organised for violence for a long time to come. Violence for us is a gospel or despair.I have seen a pathetic letter from a god-fearing English woman who defends Dyerism for she thinks that, if General Dyer had not enacted Jallianwala, women and children would have been murdered by us. If we are such brutes as to desire the blood of innocent women and children, we deserve to be blotted out from the face of the earth. There is the other side. It did not strike this good lady that, if we were friends, the price that her countrymen paid at Jallianwala for buying their safety was too great. They gained their safety at the cost of their humanity. General Dyer has been haltingly blamed, and his evil genius Sir Michael O’Dwyer entirely exonerated because Englishmen do not want to leave this country of fields even if everyone of us has to be killed. If we go mad again as we did at Amritsar, let there be no mistake that a blacker Jallianwala will be enacted.Shall we copy Dyerism and O’Dwyerism even whilst we are condemning it? Let not our rock be violence and devilry. Our rock must be non-violence and godliness. Let us, workers, be clear as to what we are about.Swaraj depends upon our ability to control all the forces of violence on our side.Therefore there is no Swaraj within one year, if there is violence on the part of the people.We must then refrain from sittingdhurna, we must refrain from crying ‘shame, shame’ to anybody, we must not use any coercion to persuade our people to adopt our way. We must guarantee to them the same freedom we claim for ourselves. We must not tamper with the masses. It is dangerous to make political use of factory labourers or the peasantry—not that we are not entitled to do so, but we are not ready for it. We have neglected their political (as distinguished from literary) education all these long years. We have not got enough honest, intelligent, reliable, and brave workers to enable us to act upon these countrymen of ours.

Mr. Stokes is a Christian, who wants to follow the light that God gives him. He has adopted India as his home. He is watching the non-co-operation movement from the Kotgarh hills where he is living in isolation from the India of the plains and serving the hillmen. He has contributed three articles on non-co-operation to the columns of the Servant of Calcutta and other papers. I had the pleasure of reading them during my Bengal tour. Mr. Stokes approves of non-co-operation but dreads the consequences that may follow complete successi.e.,evacuation of India by the British. He conjures up before his mind a picture of India invaded by the Afghans from the North-West, plundered by the Gurkhas from the Hills. For me I say with Cardinal Newman: ‘I do not ask to see the distant scene; one step enough for me.’ The movement is essentially religious. The business of every god-fearing man is to dissociate himself from evil in total disregard of consequences. He must have faith in a good deed producing only a good result: that in my opinion is the Gita doctrine of work without attachment. God does not permit him to peep into the future. He follows truth although the following of it may endanger his very life. He knows that it is better to die in the way of God than to live in the way of Satan. Therefore who ever is satisfied that this Government represents the activity of Satan has no choice left to him but to dissociate himself from it.

However, let us consider the worst that can happen to India on a sudden evacuation of India by the British. What does it matter that the Gurkhas and the Pathans attack us? Surely we would be better able to deal with their violence than we are with the continued violence, moral and physical, perpetrated by the present Government. Mr. Stokes does not seem to eschew the use of physical force. Surely the combined labour of the Rajput, the Sikh and the Mussalman warriors in a united India may be trusted to deal with plunderers from any or all the sides. Imagine however the worst: Japan overwhelming us from the Bay of Bengal, the Gurkhas from the Hills, and the Pathans from the North-West. If we not succeed in driving them out we make terms with them and drive them at the first opportunity. This will be a more manly course than a hopeless submission to an admittedly wrongful State.

But I refuse to contemplate the dismal out-look. If the movement succeeds through non-violent non-co-operation, and that is the supposition Mr. Stokes has started with, the English whether they remain or retire, they will do so as friends and under a well-ordered agreement as between partners. I still believe in the goodness of human nature, whether it is English or any other. I therefore do not believe that the English will leave in a night.

And do I consider the Gurkha and the Afghan being incorrigible thieves and robbers without ability to respond to purifying influences? I do not. If India returns to her spirituality, it will react upon the neighbouring tribes, she will interest herself in the welfare of these hardy but poor people, and even support them if necessary, not out of fear but as a matter of neighbourly duty. She will have dealt with Japan simultaneously with the British. Japan will not want to invade India, if India has learnt to consider it a sin to use a single foreign article that she can manufacture within her own borders. She produces enough to eat and her men and women can without difficulty manufacture enough to clothe to cover their nakedness and protect themselves from heat and cold. We become prey to invasion if we excite the greed of foreign nation, by dealing with them under a feeling dependence on them. We must learn to be independent of every one of them.

Whether therefore we finally succeed through violence or non-violence in my opinion, the prospect is by no means so gloomy as Mr. Stokes has imagined. Any conceivable prospect is, in my opinion, less black than the present unmanly and helpless condition. And we cannot do better than following out fearlessly and with confidence the open and honourable programme of non-violence and sacrifice that we have mapped for ourselves.

The spirit of non-violence necessarily leads to humility. Non-violence means reliance on God, the Rocks of ages. If we would seek His aid, we must approach Him with a humble and a contrite heart. Non-co-operationists may not trade upon their amazing success at the Congress. We must act, even as the mango tree which drops as it bears fruit. Its grandeur lies in its majestic lowliness. But one hears of non-co-operationists being insolent and intolerant in their behaviour towards those who differ from them. I know that they will lose all their majesty and glory, if they betray any inflation. Whilst we may not be dissatisfied with the progress made so far, we have little to our credit to make us feel proud. We have to sacrifice much more than we have done to justify pride, much less elation. Thousands, who flocked to the Congress pandal, have undoubtedly given their intellectual assent to the doctrine but few have followed it out in practice. Leaving aside the pleaders, how many parents have withdrawn their children from schools? How many of those who registered their vote in favour of non-co-operation have taken to hand-spinning or discarded the use of all foreign cloth?

Non-co-operation is not a movement of brag, bluster, or bluff. It is a test of our sincerity. It requires solid and silent self-sacrifice. It challenges our honesty and our capacity for national work. It is a movement that aims at translating ideas into action. And the more we do, the more we find that much more must be done than we have expected. And this thought of our imperfection must make us humble.

A non-co-operationist strives to compel attention and to set an example not by his violence but by his unobtrusive humility. He allows his solid action to speak for his creed. His strength lies in his reliance upon the correctness of his position. And the conviction of it grows most in his opponent when he least interposes his speech between his action and his opponent. Speech, especially when it is haughty, betrays want of confidence and it makes one’s opponent sceptical about the reality of the act itself. Humility therefore is the key to quick success. I hope that every non-co-operationist will recognise the necessity of being humble and self-restrained. It is because so little is really required to be done because all of that little depends entirely upon ourselves that I have ventured the belief that Swaraj is attainable in less than one year.

“I write to thank you for yours of the 7th instant and especially for your request that I should after reading your writings in “Young India” on non-co-operation, give a full and frank criticism of them. I know that your sole desire is to find out the truth and to act accordingly, and hence I venture to make the following remarks. In the issue of May 5th you say that non-co-operation is “not even anti-Government.” But surely to refuse to have anything to do with the Government to the extent of not serving it and of not paying its taxes is actually, if not theoretically anti-Government; and such a course must ultimately make all Government impossible. Again, you say, “It is the inherent right of a subject to refuse to assist a government that will not listen to him.” Leaving aside the question of the ethical soundness of this proposition, may I ask which Government, in the present case? Has not the Indian Government done all it possibly can in the matter? Then if its attempts to voice the request of India should fail, would it be fair and just to do anything against it? Would not the proper course be non-co-operation with the Supreme Council of the Allies, including Great Britain, if it be found that the latter has failed properly to support the demand of the Indian Government and people? It seems to me that in all your writings and speeches you forget that in the present question both Government and people are as one, and if they fail to get what they justly want, how does the question of non-co-operation arise? Hindus and Englishmen and the Government are all at present “shouldering in a full-hearted manner the burden that Muhomedans of India are carrying etc. etc.” But supposing we fail of our object—what then? Are we all to refuse to co-operate and with whom?

Might I recommend the consideration of the following course of conduct?

(1) “Wait and see” what the actual terms of the Treaty with Turkey are?

(2) If they are not in accordance with the aspirations and recommendations of the Government and the people of India, the every legitimate effort should be made to have the terms revised.

(3) To the bitter end, co-operate with a Government that co-operates with us, and only when it refuses co-operation, go in for non-co-operation.

So far I personally see no reason whatsoever for non-co-operation with the Indian Government, and till it fails to voice the needs and demands of India as a whole there can be no reason. The Indian Government does some times make mistakes, but in the Khilafat matter it is sound and therefore deserves or ought to have the sympathetic and whole-hearted co-operation of every one in India. I hope that you will kindly consider the above and perhaps you will be able to find time for a reply inYoung India.”

I gladly make room for the above letter and respond to the suggestion to give a public reply as no doubt the difficulty experienced by the English friend is experienced by many. Causes are generally lost, not owing to the determined opposition of men who will not see the truth as they want to perpetuate an injustice but because they are able to enlist in their favour the allegiance of those who are anxious to understand a particular cause and take sides after mature judgment. It is only by patient argument with such honest men that one is able to check oneself, correct one’s own errors of judgment and at times to wean them from their error and bring them over to one’s side. This Khilafat question is specially difficult because there are so many side-issues. It is therefore no wonder that many have more or less difficulty in making up their minds. It is further complicated because the painful necessity for some direct action has arisen in connection with it. But whatever the difficulty, I am convinced that there is no question so important as this one if we want harmony and peace in India.

My friend objects to my statement that non-co-operation is not anti-Government, because he considers that refusal to serve it and pay its taxes is actually anti-Government. I respectfully dissent from the view. If a brother has fundamental differences with his brother, and association with the latter involves his partaking of what in his opinion is an injustice. I hold that it is brotherly duty to refrain from serving his brother and sharing his earnings with him. This happens in everyday life. Prahalad did not act against his father, when he declined to associate himself with the latter’s blasphemies. Nor was Jesus anti-Jewish when he declaimed against the Pharisees and the hypocrites, and would have none of them. In such matters, is it not intention that determines the character of a particular act? It is hardly correct as the friend suggests that withdrawal of association under general circumstances would make all government impossible. But it is true that such withdrawal would make all injustice impossible.

My correspondent considers that the Government of India having done all it possibly could, non-co-operation could not be applicable to that Government. In my opinion, whilst it is true that the Government of India has done a great deal, it has not done half as much as it might have done, and might even now do. No Government can absolve itself from further action beyond protesting, when it realises that the people whom it represents feel as keenly as do lakhs of Indian Mussalmans in the Khilafat question. No amount of sympathy with a starving man can possibly avail. He must have bread or he dies, and what is wanted at that critical moment is some exertion to fetch the wherewithal to feed the dying man. The Government of India can to-day heed the agitation and ask, to the point of insistence for full vindication of the pledged word of a British Minister. Has the Government of India resigned by way of protest against the threatened, shameful betrayal of trust on the part of Mr. Lloyd George? Why does the Government of India hide itself behind secret despatches? At a less critical moment Lord Hardiage committed a constitutional indiscretion, openly sympathised with South African Passive Resistance movement and stemmed the surging tide of public indignation in India, though at the same time he incurred the wrath of the then South African Cabinet and some public men in Great Britain. After all, the utmost that the Government of India has done is on its own showing to transmit and press the Mahomedan claim. Was that not the least it could have done? Could it have done anything less without covering itself with disgrace? What Indian Mahomedans and the Indian public expect the Government of India to do at this critical juncture is not the least, but the utmost that it could do. Viceroys have been known to tender resignations for much smaller causes. Wounded pride brought forth not very long ago the resignation of a Lieutenant Governor. On the Khilafat question, a sacred cause dear to the hearts of several million Mahomedans is in danger of being wounded. I would therefore invite the English friend, and every Englishman in India, and every Hindu, be he moderate or extremist, to make common cause with the Mahomedans and thereby compel the Government of India to do its duty, and thereby compel His Majesty’s Ministers to do theirs.

There has been much talk of violence ensuing from active non-co-operation. I venture to suggest that the Mussalmans of India, if they had nothing in the shape of non-co-operation in view, would have long ago yielded to counsels of despair. I admit that non-co-operation is not unattended with danger. But violence is a certainty without, violence is only a possibility with non-co-operation. And it will he a greater possibility if all the important men, English, Hindu and others of the country discountenance it.

I think, that the recommendation made by the friend is being literally followed by the Mahomedans. Although they practically know the fate, they are waiting for the actual terms of the treaty with Turkey. They are certainly going to try every means at their disposal to have the terms revised before beginning non-co-operation. And there will certainly be no non-co-operation commenced so long as there is even hope of active co-operation on the part of the Government of India with the Mahomedans, that is, co-operation strong enough to secure a revision of the terms should they be found to be in conflict with the pledges of British statesmen. But if all these things fail, can Mahomedans as men of honour who hold their religion dearer than their lives do anything less than wash their hands clean of the guilt of British Ministers and the Government of India by refusing to co-operate with them? And can Hindus and Englishmen, if they value Mahomedan friendship, and if they admit then full justice of the Mahomaden friendship and if they admit the full justice of the Mahomedan claim do otherwise than heartily support the Mahomedans by word and deed.

After the forgoing was printed the long-expected peace terms regarding Turkey were received. In my humble opinion they are humiliating to the Supreme Council, to the British ministers, and if as a Hindu with deep reverence for Christianity I may say so, a denial of Christ’s teachings. Turkey broken down and torn with dissentions within may submit to the arrogant disposal of herself, and Indian Mahomedans may out of fear do likewise. Hindus out of fear, apathy or want of appreciation of the situation, may refuse to help their Mahomedan brethren in their hour of peril. The fact remains that a solemn promise of the Prime Minister of England has been wantonly broken. I will say nothing about President Wilson’s fourteen points, for they seem now to be entirely forgotten as a day’s wonder. It is a matter of deep sorrow that the Government of Indiacommuniqueoffers a defence of the terms, calls them a fulfilment of Mr. Lloyd George’s pledge of 5th January 1918 and yet apologises for their defective nature and appeals to the Mahomedans of India as if to mock them that they would accept the terms with quiet resignation. The mask that veils the hypocrisy is too thin to deceive anybody. It would have been dignified if thecommuniquehad boldly admitted Mr. Lloyd George’s mistake in having made the promise referred to. As it is, the claim of fulfilment of the promise only adds to the irritation caused by its glaring breach. What is the use of the Viceroy saying, “The question of the Khilafat is one for the Mahomedans and Mahomedans only and that with their free choice in the matter Government have no desire to interfere,” while the Khalif’s dominions are ruthlessly dismembered, his control of the Holy places of Islam shamelessly taken away from him and he himself reduced to utter impotence in his own palace which can no longer be called a palace but which can he more fitly described us a prison? No wonder, His Excellency fears that the peace includes “terms which must be painful to all Moslems.” Why should he insult Muslim intelligence by sending the Mussalmans of India a of encouragement and sympathy? Are they expected to find encouragement in the cruel recital of the arrogant terms or in a remembrance of ‘the splendid response’ made by them to the call of the King ‘in the day of the Empire’s need.’ It ill becomes His Excellency to talk of the triumph of those ideals of justice and humanity for which the Allies fought. Indeed, the terms of the so called peace with Turkey if they are to last, will be a monument of human arrogance and man-made injustice. To attempt to crush the spirit of a brave and gallant race, because it has lost in the fortunes of war, is a triumph not of humanity but a demonstration of inhumanity. And if Turkey enjoyed the closest ties of friendship with Great Britain before the war, Great Britain has certainly made ample reparation for her mistake by having made the largest contribution to the humiliation of Turkey. It is insufferable therefore when the Viceroy feels confident that with the conclusion of this new treaty that friendship will quickly take life again and a Turkey regenerate full of hope and strength, will stand forth in the future as in the past a pillar of the Islamic faith. The Viceregal message audaciously concludes, “This thought will I trust strengthen you to accept the peace terms with resignation, courage and fortitude and to keep your loyalty towards the Crown bright and untarnished as it has been for so many generations.” If Muslim loyalty remains untarnished it will certainly not be for want of effort on the part of the Government of India to put the heaviest strain upon it, but it will remain so because the Mahomedans realise their own strength—the strength in the knowledge that their cause is just and that they have got the power to vindicate justice in spite of the aberration suffered by Great Britain under a Prime Minister whom continued power has made as reckless in making promises as in breaking them.

Whilst therefore I admit that there is nothing either in the peace terms or in the Viceregal message covering them to inspire the Mahomedans and Indians in general with confidence or hope, I venture to suggest that there is no cause for despair and anger. Now is the time for Mahomedans to retain absolute self-control, to unite their forces and, weak though they are, with firm faith in God to carry on the struggle with redoubled vigour till justice is done. If India—both Hindu and Mahomedan—can act as one man and can withdraw her partnership in this crime against humanity which the peace terms represent, she will soon secure a revision of the treaty and give herself and the Empire at least, if not the world, a lasting peace. There is no doubt that the struggle would be bitter sharp and possibly prolonged, but it is worth all the sacrifice that it is likely to call forth. Both the Mussalmans and the Hindus are on their trial. Is the humiliation of the Khilafat a matter of concern to the former? And if it is, are they prepared to exercise restraint, religiously refrain from violence and practise non-co-operation without counting the material loss it may entail upon the community? Do the Hindus honestly feel for their Mahomedan brethren to the extent of sharing their sufferings to the fullest extent? The answer to these questions and not the peace terms, will finally decide the fate of the Khilafat.

Swadeshmitranis one of the most influential Tamil dailies of Madras. It is widely read. Everything appearing in its columns is entitled to respect. The Editor has suggested some practical difficulty in the way of non-co-operation. I would therefore like, to the best of my ability, to deal with them.

I do not know where the information has been derived from that I have given up the last two stages of non-co-operation. What I have said is that they are a distant goal. I abide by it. I admit that all the stages are fraught with some danger, but the last two are fraught with the greatest—the last most of all. The stages have been fixed with a view to running the least possible risk. The last two stages will not be taken up unless the committee has attained sufficient control over the people to warrant the beliefs that the laying down of arms or suspension of taxes will, humanly speaking, be free from an outbreak of violence on the part of the people. I do entertain the belief that it is possible for the people to attain the discipline necessary for taking the two steps. When once they realise that violence is totally unnecessary to bend an unwilling government to their will and that the result can be obtained with certainty by dignified non-co-operation, they will cease to think of violence even by way of retaliation. The fact is that hitherto we have not attempted to take concerted and disciplined action from the masses. Some day, if we are to become truly a self-governing nation, that attempt has to be made. The present, in my opinion, is a propitious movement. Every Indian feels the insult to the Punjab as a personal wrong, every Mussalman resents the wrong done to the Khilafat. There is therefore a favourable atmosphere for expecting cohesive and restrained movement on the part of the masses.

So far as response is concerned, I agree with the Editor that the quickest and the largest response is to be expected in the matter of suspension of payment of taxes, but as I have said so long as the masses are not educated to appreciate the value of non-violence even whilst their holding are being sold, so long must it be difficult to take up the last stage into any appreciable extent.

I agree too that a sudden withdrawal of the military and the police will be a disaster if we have not acquired the ability to protect ourselves against robbers and thieves. But I suggest that when we are ready to call out the military and the police on an extensive scale we would find ourselves in a position to defend ourselves. If the police and the military resign from patriotic motives, I would certainly expect them to perform the same duty as national volunteers, not has hirelings but as willing protectors of the life and liberty of their countrymen. The movement of non-co-operation is one of automatic adjustment. If the Government schools are emptied, I would certainly expect national schools to come into being. If the lawyers as a whole suspended practice, they would devise arbitration courts and the nation will have expeditions and cheaper method of setting private disputes and awarding punishment to the wrong-doer. I may add that the Khilafat Committee is fully alive to the difficulty of the task and is taking all the necessary steps to meet the contingencies as they arise.

Regarding the leaving of civil employment, no danger is feared, because no one will leave his employment, unless he is in a position to find support for himself and family either through friends or otherwise.

Disapproval of the proposed withdrawal of students betrays, in my humble opinion, lack of appreciation of the true nature of non-co-operation. It is true enough that we pay the money wherewith our children are educated. But, when the agency imparting the education has become corrupt, we may not employ it without partaking of the agents, corruption. When students leave schools or colleges I hardly imagine that the teachers will fail to perceive the advisability of themselves resigning. But even if they do not, money can hardly be allowed to count where honour or religion are at the stake.

As to the boycott of the councils, it is not the entry of the Moderates or any other persons that matters so much as the entry of those who believe in non-co-operation. You may not co-operate at the top and non-co-operate at the bottom. A councillor cannot remain in the council and ask thegumastawho cleans the council-table to resign.

I gladly publish Mr. Pennington’s letter with its enclosure just as I have received them. Evidently Mr. Pennington is not a regular reader of ‘Young India,’ or he would have noticed that no one has condemned mob outrages more than I have. He seems to think that the article he has objected to was the only thing I have ever written on General Dyer. He does not seem to know that I have endeavoured with the utmost impartiality to examine the Jallianwala massacre. And he can see any day all the proof adduced by my fellow-commissioners and myself in support of our findings on the massacre. The ordinary readers of ‘Young India’ knew all the facts and therefore it was unnecessary for me to support my assertion otherwise. But unfortunately Mr. Pennington represents the typical Englishman. He does not want to be unjust, nevertheless he is rarely just in his appreciation of world events because he has no time to study them except cursorily and that through a press whose business is to air only party views. The average Englishman therefore except in parochial matters is perhaps the least informed though he claims to be well-informed about every variety of interest. Mr. Pennington’s ignorance is thus typical of the others and affords the best reason for securing control of our own affairs in our own hands. Ability will come with use and not by waiting to be trained by those whose natural interest is to prolong the period of tutelage as much as possible.

But to return to Mr. Pennington’s letter he complains that there has been no ‘proper trial of any one.’ The fault is not ours. India has consistently and insistently demanded a trial of all the officers concerned in the crimes against the Punjab.

He next objects to be ‘violence’ of my language. If truth is violent, I plead guilty to the charge of violence of language. But I could not, without doing violence to truth, refrain from using the language, I have, regarding General Dyer’s action. It has been proved out of his own mouth or hostile witnesses:

(1) That the crowd was unarmed.

(2) That it contained children.

(3) That the 13th was the day of Vaisakhi fair.

(4) That thousands had come to the fair.

(5) That there was no rebellion.

(6) That during the intervening two days before the ‘massacre’ there was peace in Amritsar.

(7) That the proclamation of the meeting was made the same day as General Dyer’s proclamation.

(8) That General Dyer’s proclamation prohibited not meetings but processions or gatherings of four men on the streets and not in private or public places.

(9) That General Dyer ran no risk whether outside or inside the city.

(10) That he admitted himself that many in the crowd did not know anything of his proclamation.

(11) That he fired without warning the crowd and even after it had begun to disperse. He fired on the backs of the people who were in flight.

(12) That the men were practically penned in an enclosure.

In the face of these admitted facts I do call the deed a ‘massacre.’ The action amounted not to ‘an error of judgment’ but its ‘paralysis in the face of fancied danger.’

I am sorry to have to say that Mr. Pennington’s notes, which too the reader will find published elsewhere, betray as much ignorance as his letter.

Whatever was adopted on paper in the days of Canning was certainly not translated into action in its full sense. ‘Promises made to the ear were broken to the hope,’ was said by a reactionary Viceroy. Military expenditure has grown enormously since the days of Canning.

The demonstration in favour of General Dyer is practically a myth.

No trace was found of the so-called Danda Fauj dignified by the name of bludgeon-army by Mr. Pennington. There was no rebel army in Amritsar. The crown that committed the horrible murders and incendiarism contained no one community exclusively. The sheet was found posted only in Lahore and not in Amritsar. Mr. Pennington should moreover have known by this time that the meeting held on the 13th was held, among other things, for the purpose of condemning mob excesses. This was brought out at the Amritsar trial. Those who surrounded him could not stop General Dyer. He says he made up his mind to shoot in a moment. He consulted nobody. When the correspondent says that the troops would have objected to being concerned in ‘what might in that case be not unfairly called a ‘massacre,’ he writes as if he had never lived in India. I wish the Indian troops had the moral courage to refuse to shoot innocent, unarmed men in full flight. But the Indian troops have been brought in too slavish an atmosphere to dare do any such correct act.

I hope Mr. Pennington will not accuse me again of making unverified assertions because I have not quoted from the books. The evidence is there for him to use. I can only assure him that the assertions are based on positive proofs mostly obtained from official sources.

Mr. Pennington wants me to publish an exact account of what happened on the 10th April. He can find it in the reports, and if he will patiently go through them he will discover that Sir Michael O’Dwyer and his officials goaded the people into frenzied fury—a fury which nobody, as I have already said, has condemned more than I have. The account of the following days is summed up in one word,viz.‘peace’ on the part of the crowd disturbed by indiscriminate arrests, the massacre and the series of official crimes that followed.

I am prepared to give Mr. Pennington credit for seeking after the truth. But he has gone about it in the wrong manner. I suggest his reading the evidence before the Hunter Committee and the Congress Committee. He need not read the reports. But the evidence will convince him that I have understated the case against General Dyer.

When however I read his description of himself as “for 12 years Chief Magistrate of Districts in the South of India before reform, by assassination and otherwise, became so fashionable.” I despair of his being able to find the truth. An angry or a biased man renders himself incapable of finding it. And Mr. Pennington is evidently both angry and biased. What does he mean by saying, “before reform by assassination and otherwise became so fashionable?” It ill becomes him to talk of assassination when the school of assassination seems happily to have become extinct. Englishmen will never see the truth so long as they permit their vision to be blinded by arrogant assumption of superiority or ignorant assumptions of infallibility.

Dear Sir,

I do not like your scheme for “boycotting” the Government of India under what seems to be the somewhat less offensive (though more cumbrous) name of non-co-operation; but have always given you credit for a genuine desire to carry out revolution by peaceful means and am astonished at the violence of the language you use in describing General Dyer on page 4 of your issue of the 14th July last. You begin by saying that he is “by no means the worst offender,” and, so far, I am inclined to agree, though as there has been no proper trial of anyone it is impossible to apportion their guilt; but then you say “his brutality is unmistakable,” “his abject and unsoldierlike cowardice is apparent, he has called anunarmed crowdof men and children—mostly holiday makers—a rebel army.” “He believes himself to be the saviour of the Punjab in that he was able to shoot down like rabbits men who werepennedin an enclosure; such a man is unworthy to be considered a soldier. There was no bravery in his action. He ran no risk. He shot without the slightest opposition and without warning. This is not an error of judgement. It is paralysis of it in the face offancieddanger. It is proof of criminal incapacity and heartlessness,” etc.

You must excuse me for saying that all this is mere rhetoric unsupported by any proof, even where proof was possible. To begin with, neither you nor I were present at the Jallianwalla Bagh on that dreadful day—dreadful especially for General Dyer for whom you show no sympathy,—and therefore cannot know for certain whether the crowd was or was not unarmed.’ That it was an ‘illegal,’ because a ‘prohibited,’ assembly is evident; for it is absurd to suppose that General Dyer’s 4-1/2 hours march, through the city that very morning, during the whole of which he was warning the inhabitants against the danger of any sort of gathering, was not thoroughly well-known. You say they were ‘mostly holiday makers,’ but you give nor proof; and the idea of holiday gathering in Amritsar just then in incredible. I cannot understand your making such a suggestion. General Dyer was not the only officer present on the occasion and it is impossible to suppose that he would have been allowed to go on shooting into an innocent body of holiday-makers. Even the troops would have refused to carry out what might then have been not unfairly called a “massacre.”

I notice that you never even allude to the frightful brutality of the mob which was immediately responsible for the punitive measure reluctantly adopted by General Dyer. Your sympathies seem to be only with the murderers, and I am not sanguine enough to suppose that my view of the case will have much influence with you. Still I am bound to do what I can to get at the truth, and enclose a copy of some notes I have had occasion to make. If you can publish anexactaccount of what happened at Amritsar on the 10th of April, 1919 and the following days, especially on the 13th, including the demonstration in favour of General Dyer, (if there was one), I for one, as a mere seeker after the truth, should be very much obliged to you. Mere abuse is not convincing, as you so often observe in your generally reasonable paper,

Yours faithfully, J. R. PENNINGTON, I.O.S. (Retd.) 35, VICTORIA ROAD, WORTHING, SUSSEX 27th Aug. 1920.

For 12 years Chief Magistrate of Districts in the south of India before reform, by assassination and otherwise, became so fashionable.

P.S. Let us get the case in this way. General Dyer, acting as the only representative of Government on the spot shot some hundreds of people (some of themperhapsinnocently mixed up in an illegal assembly), in thebona fidebelief that he was dealing with the remains of a very dangerous rebellion and was thereby saving the lives of very many thousands, and in the opinion of a great many people did actually save the city from falling in the hands of a dangerous mob.

Babu Janakdhari Prasad was a staunch coworker with me in Champaran. He has written a long letter setting forth his reasons for his belief that India has a great mission before her, and that she can achieve her purpose only by non-violent non-co-operation. But he has doubts which he would have me answer publicly. The letter being long, I am withholding. But the doubts are entitled to respect and I must endeavour to answer them. Here they are us framed by Bubu Janakdhari Prasad.

(a) Is not the non-co-operation movement creating a sort of race-hatred between Englishmen and Indians, and is it in accordance with the Divine plan of universal love and brotherhood?

(b) Does not the use of words “devilish,” “satanic,” etc., savour of unbrotherly sentiment and incite feelings of hatred?

(c) Should not the non-co-operation movement be conducted on strictly non-violent and non-emotional lines both in speech and action?

(d) Is there no danger of the movement going out of control and lending to violence?

As to (a), I must say that the movement is not ‘creating’ race-hatred. It certainly gives, as I have already said, disciplined expression to it. You cannot eradicate evil by ignoring it. It is because I want to promote universal brotherhood that I have taken up non-co-operation so that, by self-purification, India may make the world better than it is.

As to (b), I know that the words ‘satanic’ and ‘devilish’ are strong, but they relate the exact truth. They describe a system not persons: We are bound to hate evil, if we would shun it. But by means of non-co-operation we are able to distinguish between the evil and the evil-doer. I have found no difficulty in describing a particular activity of a brother of mine to be devilish, but I am not aware of having harboured any hatred about him. Non-co-operation teaches us to love our fellowmen in spite of their faults, not by ignoring or over-looking them.

As to (c), the movement is certainly being conducted on strictly non-violent lines. That all non-co-operators have not yet thoroughly imbibed the doctrine is true. But that just shows what an evil legacy we have inherited. Emotion there is in the movement. And it will remain. A man without emotion is a man without feeling.

As to (d), there certainly is danger of the movement becoming violent. But we may no more drop non-violent non-co-operation because of its dangers, than we may stop freedom because of the danger of its abuse.

Messrs. Popley and Philips have been good enough to reply to my letter “To Every Englishman in India.” I recognise and appreciate the friendly spirit of their letter. But I see that there are fundamental differences which must for the time being divide them and me. So long as I felt that, in spite of grievous lapses the British Empire represented an activity for the worlds and India’s good, I clung to it like a child to its mother’s breast. But that faith is gone. The British nation has endorsed the Punjab and Khilsfat crimes. The is no doubt a dissenting minority. But a dissenting minority that satisfies itself with a mere expression of its opinion and continues to help the wrong-doer partakes in wrong-doing.

And when the sum total of his energy represents a minus quantity one may not pick out the plus quantities, hold them up for admiration, and ask an admiring public to help regarding them. It is a favourite design of Satan to temper evil with a show of good and thus lure the unwary into the trap. The only way the world has known of defeating Satan is by shunning him. I invite Englishmen, who could work out the ideal the believe in, to join the ranks of the non-co-operationists. W.T. Stead prayed for the reverse of the British arms during the Boer war. Miss Hobbhouse invited the Boers to keep up the fight. The betrayal of India is much worse than the injustice done to the Boers. The Boers fought and bled for their rights. When therefore, we are prepared to bleed, the right will have become embodied, and idolatrous world will perceive it and do homage to it.

But Messers. Popley and Phillips object that I have allied myself with those who would draw the sword if they could. I see nothing wrong in it. They represent the right no less than I do. And is it not worth while trying to prevent an unsheathing of the sword by helping to win the bloodless battle? Those who recognise the truth of the Indian position can only do God’s work by assisting this non-violent campaign.

The second objection raised by these English friends is more to the point. I would be guilty of wrong-doing myself if the Muslim cause was not just. The fact is that the Muslim claim is not to perpetuate foreign domination of non-Muslim or Turkish races. The Indian Mussalmans do not resist self-determination, but they would fight to the last the nefarious plan of exploiting Mesopotamia under the plea of self-determination. They must resist the studied attempt to humiliate Turkey and therefore Islam, under the false pretext of ensuring Armenian independence.

The third objection has reference to schools. I do object to missionary or any schools being carried on with Government money. It is true that it was at one time our money. Will these good missionaries be justified in educating me with funds given to them by a robber who has robbed me of my money, religion and honour because the money was originally mine.

I personally tolerated the financial robbery of India, but it would have been a sin to have tolerated the robbery of honour through the Punjab, and of religion through Turkey. This is strong language. But nothing less would truly describe my deep conviction. Needless to add that the emptying of Government aided, or affiliated, schools does not mean starving the young mind National Schools are coming into being as fast as the others are emptied.

Messrs. Popley and Phillips think that my sense of justice has been blurred by the knowledge of the Punjab and the Khilafat wrongs. I hope not. I have asked friends to show me some good fruit (intended and deliberately produced) of the British occupation of India. And I assure them that I shall make the amplest amends if I find that I have erred in my eagerness about the Khilafat and the Punjab wrongs.

Dear Mr. Gandhi,

Thank you for your letter to every Englishman in India, with its hard-hitting and its generous tone. Something within us responds to the note which you have struck. We are not representatives of any corporate body, but we think that millions of our countrymen in England, and not a few in India, feel as we do. The reading of your letter convinces us that you and we cannot be real enemies.

May we say at once that in so far as the British Empire stands for the domination and exploitation of other races for Britain’s benefit, for degrading treatment of any, for traffic in intoxicating liquors, for repressive legislation, for administration such as that which to the Amritsar incidents, we desire the end of it as much as you do? We quite understand that in the excitement of the present crisis, owing to certain acts of the British Administration, which we join with you in condemning, the Empire presents itself to you under this aspect along. But from personal contact with our countrymen, we know that working like leaven in the midst of such tendencies, as you and we deplore, is the faith in a better ideal—the ideal of a commonwealth of free peoples voluntarily linked together by the ties of common experience in the past and common aspirations for the future, a commonwealth which may hope to spread liberty and progress through the whole earth. With vast numbers of our countrymen we value the British Empire mainly as affording the possibility of the realization of such an idea and on the ground give it our loyal allegiance.

Meanwhile we do repent of that arrogant attitude to Indians which has been all too common among our countrymen, we do hold Indians to be our brothers and equals, many of them our superiors, and we would rather be servants than rulers of India. We desire an administration which cannot he intimated either by the selfish element in Anglo-Indian political opinion or by any other sectional interest and which shall govern in accordance with the best democratic principles. We should welcome the convening of a National assembly of recognized leaders of the people, representing all shades of political opinion of every caste, race and creed, to frame a constitution for Swaraj. In all the things that matter most we are with you. Surely you and we can co-operate in the service of India, in such matters for example as education. It seems to us nothing short of a tragedy that you should be rallying Indian Patriotism to inaugurate a new era of good will under a watchword that divides, instead of uniting all.

We have spoken of the large amount of common ground upon which you and we can stand. But frankness demands that we express our anxiety about some items in your programme. Leaving aside smaller questions on which your letter seems to us to do the British side less than justice, may we mention three main points? Your insistence on spiritual forces alone we deeply respect and desire to emulate, but we cannot understand your combining into it with a close alliance with those who, as you frankly say, would draw the sword as soon as they could.

Your desire for an education truly national commands our whole-hearted approval. But instead of Indianizing the present system, as you could begin to do from the beginning of next year, or instead of creating a hundred institutions such as that at Bolpur and turning into them the stream of India’s young intellectual life, you appear to be turning that stream out of its present channel into open sands where it may dry up. In other words, you seem to us to be risking the complete cessation, for a period possibly, of years, of all education, for a large number of boys and young men. Is it best, for those young men or for India that the present imperfect education should cease before a better education is ready to take its place?

Your desire to unite Mohammedan and Hindu and to share with your Mohammedan brethren in seeking the satisfaction of Mohammedan aspirations, we can understand and sympathize with. But is there no danger, in the course which some of your party have urged upon the Government, that certain races in the former Ottoman Empire might be fixed under a foreign yoke, for worse than that which you hold the English yoke to be? You could not wish to purchase freedom in India at the price of enslavement in the middle East.

To sum up, we thank you for the spirit of your letter, to which we have tried to respond in the same spirit. We are with you in the desire for an India genuinely free to develop the best that is in her and in the belief that best is something wonderful of which the world to-day stands in need.

We are ready to co-operate with you and with every other man of any race or nationality who will help India to realize her best. Are you going to insist that you can have nothing to do with us if we receive a government grant (i.e., Indian money), for an Indian School. Surely some more inspiring battle cry than non-co-operation can be discovered. We have ventured quite frankly to point out three items in your present programme, which seem to us likely to hinder the attainment of your true ideals for Indian greatness. But those ideals themselves command our warm sympathy, and we desire to work, so far as we have opportunity, for their attainment. In fact, it is only thus that we can interpret our British citizenship.

Yours sincerely, (Sd.) H.A. POPLEY, (Sd.) G.E. PHILLIPS. Bangalore, November 15, 1920.

Mr. Gandhi has addressed the following letter to the Viceroy:—

It is not without a pang that I return the Kaisar-i-Hind gold medal granted to me by your predecessor for my humanitarian work in South Africa, the Zulu war medal granted in South Africa for my services as officer in charge of the Indian volunteer ambulance corps in 1906 and the Boer war medal fur my services as assistant superintendent of the Indian volunteer stretcher bearer corps during the Boer war of 1899-1900. I venture to return these medals in pursuance of the scheme of non-co-operation inaugurated to-day in connection with the Khilafat movement. Valuable as those honours have been to me, I cannot wear them with an easy conscience so long as my Mussalman countrymen have to labour under a wrong done to their religious sentiment. Events that have happened during the past month have confirmed me in the opinion that the Imperial Government have acted in the Khilafat matter in an unscrupulous, immoral and unjust manner and have been moving from wrong to wrong in order to defend their immorality. I can retain neither respect nor affection for such a Government.

The attitude of the Imperial and Your Excellency’s Governments on the Punjab question has given me additional cause for grave dissatisfaction. I had the honour, as Your Excellency is aware, as one of the congress commissioners to investigate the causes of the disorders in the Punjab during the April of 1919. And it is my deliberate conviction that Sir Michael O’Dwyer was totally unfit to hold the office of Lieutenant Governor of Punjab and that his policy was primarily responsible for infuriating the mob at Amritsar. No doubt the mob excesses were unpardonable; incendiarism, murder of five innocent Englishmen and the cowardly assault on Miss Sherwood were most deplorable and uncalled for. But the punitive measures taken by General Dyer, Col. Frank Johnson, Col. O’Brien, Mr. Bosworth Smith, Rai Shri Ram Sud, Mr. Malik Khan and other officers were out of all proportional to the crime of the people and amounted to wanton cruelty and inhumanity and almost unparalleled in modern times. Your excellency’s light-hearted treatment of the official crime, your, exoneration of Sir Michael O’Dwyer, Mr. Montagu’s dispatch and above all the shameful ignorance of the Punjab events and callous disregard of the feelings of Indians betrayed by the House of Lords, have filled me with the gravest misgivings regarding the future of the Empire, have estranged me completely from the present Government and have disabled me from tendering, as I have hitherto whole-heartedly tendered, my loyal co-operation.

In my humble opinion the ordinary method of agitating by way of petitions, deputations and the like is no remedy for moving to repentence a Government so hopelessly indifferent to the welfare of its charges as the Government of India has proved to me. In European countries, condonation of such grievous wrongs as the Khilafat and the Punjab would have resulted in a bloody revolution by the people. They would have resisted at all costs national emasculation such as the said wrongs imply. But half of India is to weak to offer violent resistance and the other half is unwilling to do so.

I have therefore ventured to suggest the remedy of non-co-operation which enables those who wish, to dissociate themselves from the Government and which, if it is unattended by violence and undertaken in an ordered manner, must compel it to retrace its steps and undo the wrongs committed. But whilst I shall pursue the policy of non-co-operation in so far as I can carry the people with me, I shall not lose hope that you will yet see your way to do justice. I therefore respectfully ask Your Excellency to summon a conference of the recognised leaders of the people and in consultation with them find a way that would placate the Mussalmans and do reparation to the unhappy Punjab.August 4, 1920.

The following letter has been addressed by Mr. Gandhi to his Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught;—

Sir,

Your Royal Highness must have heard a great deal about non-co-operation, non-co-operationists and their methods and incidentally of me its humble author. I fear that the information given to Your Royal Highness must have been in its nature one-sided. I owe it to you and to my friends and myself that I should place before you what I conceive to be the scope of non-co-operation as followed not only be me but my closest associates such as Messrs. Shaukat Ali and Mahomed Ali.

For me it is no joy and pleasure to be actively associated in the boycott of your Royal Highness’ visit—I have tendered loyal and voluntary association to the Government for an unbroken period of nearly 30 years in the full belief that through that way lay the path of freedom for my country. It was therefore no slight thing for me to suggest to my countrymen that we should take no part in welcoming Your Royal Highness. Not one among us has anything against you as an English gentleman. We hold your person as sacred as that of a dearest friend. I do not know any of my friends who would not guard it with his life, if he found it in danger. We are not at war with individual Englishmen we seek not to destroy English life. We do desire to destroy a system that has emasculated our country in body, mind and soul. We are determined to battle with all our might against that in the English nature which has made O’Dwyerism and Dyerism possible in the Punjab and has resulted in a wanton affront upon Islam a faith professed by seven crores of our countrymen. The affront has been put in breach of the letter and the spirit of the solemn declaration of the Prime Minister. We consider it to be inconsistent with our self respect any longer to brook the spirit of superiority and dominance which has systematically ignored and disregarded the sentiments of thirty crores of the innocent people of India on many a vital matter. It is humiliating to us, it cannot be a matter of pride to you, that thirty crores of Indians should live day in and day out in the fear of their lives from one hundred thousand Englishmen and therefore be under subjection to them.

Your Royal Highness has come not to end the system I have described but to sustain it by upholding its prestige. Your first pronouncement was a laudation of Lord Wellingdon. I have the privilege of knowing him. I believe him to be an honest and amiable gentleman who will not willingly hurt even a fly. But, he has certainly failed as a ruler. He allowed himself to be guided by those whose interest it was to support their power. He is reading the mind of the Dravidian province. Here in Bengal you are issuing a certificate of merit to a Governor who is again from all I have heard an estimable gentleman. But he knows nothing of the heart of Bengal and its yearnings. Bengal is not Calcutta. Fort William and the palaces of Calcutta represent an insolent exploitation of the unmurmuring and highly cultured peasantry of this fair province. Non-co-operationists have come to the conclusion that they must not be deceived by the reforms that tinker with the problem of India’s distress and humiliation. Nor must they be impatient and angry. We must not in our impatient anger resort, to stupid violence. We freely admit that we must take our due share of the blame for the existing state. It is not so much the British guns that are responsible fur our subjection, as our voluntary co-operation. Our non-participation in a hearty welcome to your Royal Highness is thus in no sense a demonstration against your high personage but it is against the system you have come to uphold. I know that individual Englishmen cannot even if they will alter the English nature all of a sudden. If we would be equals of Englishmen we must cast off fear. We must learn to be self-reliant and independent of the schools, courts, protection, and patronage of a Government, we seek to end, if it will not mend. Hence this non-violent non-co-operation. I know that we have not all yet become non-violent in speech and deed. But the results so far achieved have I assure Your Royal Highness, been amazing. The people have understood the secret and the value of non-violence as they have never done before. He who runs may see that this a religious, purifying movement. We are leaving off drink, we are trying to rid India of the curse of untouchability. We are trying to throw off foreign tinsel splendour and by reverting to the spinning wheel reviving the ancient and the poetic simplicity of life. We hope thereby to sterilize the existing harmful institution. I ask Your Royal Highness as an Englishman to study this movement and its possibilities for the Empire and the world. We are at war with nothing that is good in the world. In protecting Islam in the manner we are, we are protecting all religions. In protecting the honour of India we are protecting the honour of humanity. For our means are hurtful to none. We desire to live on terms of friendship with Englishmen but that friendship must be friendship of equals in both theory and practice. And we must continue to non-co-operate, i.e. to purify ourselves till the goal is achieved.

I ask Your Royal Highness and through you every Englishman to appreciate the view-point of the non-co-operationists.

I beg to remain, Your Royal Highness’s faithful servant, (Sd.) M.K. GANDHI.February, 1921

It is to be wished that non-co-operationists will clearly recognise that nothing can stop the onward march of the nation as violence. Ireland may gain its freedom by violence. Turkey may regain her lost possessions by violence within measurable distance of time. But India cannot win her freedom by violence for a century, because her people are not built in the manner of other nations. They have been nurtured in the traditions of suffering. Rightly or wrongly, for good or ill, Islam too has evolved along peaceful lines in India. And I make bold to say that, if the honour of Islam is to be vindicated through its followers in India, it will only be by methods of peaceful, silent, dignified, conscious, and courageous suffering. The more I study that wonderful faith, the more convinced I become that the glory of Islam is due not to the sword but to the sufferings, the renunciation, and the nobility of its early Caliphs. Islam decayed when its followers, mistaking the evil for the good, dangled the sword in the face of man, and lost sight of the godliness, the humility, and austerity of its founder and his disciples. But, I am not at the present moment, concerned with showing that the basis of Islam, as of all religions, is not violence but suffering not the taking of life but the giving of it.

What I am anxious to show is that non-co-operationists must be true as well to the spirit as to the letter of their vow if they would gain Swaraj within one year. They may forget non-co-operation but they dare not forget non-violence. Indeed, non-co-operation is non-violence. We are violent when we sustain a government whose creed is violence. It bases itself finally not on right but on might. Its last appeal is not to reason, nor the heart, but to the sword. We are tired of this creed and we have risen against it. Let us not ourselves belie our profession by being violent. Though the English are very few, they are organised for violence. Though we are many we cannot be organised for violence for a long time to come. Violence for us is a gospel or despair.

I have seen a pathetic letter from a god-fearing English woman who defends Dyerism for she thinks that, if General Dyer had not enacted Jallianwala, women and children would have been murdered by us. If we are such brutes as to desire the blood of innocent women and children, we deserve to be blotted out from the face of the earth. There is the other side. It did not strike this good lady that, if we were friends, the price that her countrymen paid at Jallianwala for buying their safety was too great. They gained their safety at the cost of their humanity. General Dyer has been haltingly blamed, and his evil genius Sir Michael O’Dwyer entirely exonerated because Englishmen do not want to leave this country of fields even if everyone of us has to be killed. If we go mad again as we did at Amritsar, let there be no mistake that a blacker Jallianwala will be enacted.

Shall we copy Dyerism and O’Dwyerism even whilst we are condemning it? Let not our rock be violence and devilry. Our rock must be non-violence and godliness. Let us, workers, be clear as to what we are about.Swaraj depends upon our ability to control all the forces of violence on our side.Therefore there is no Swaraj within one year, if there is violence on the part of the people.

We must then refrain from sittingdhurna, we must refrain from crying ‘shame, shame’ to anybody, we must not use any coercion to persuade our people to adopt our way. We must guarantee to them the same freedom we claim for ourselves. We must not tamper with the masses. It is dangerous to make political use of factory labourers or the peasantry—not that we are not entitled to do so, but we are not ready for it. We have neglected their political (as distinguished from literary) education all these long years. We have not got enough honest, intelligent, reliable, and brave workers to enable us to act upon these countrymen of ours.

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