Page:Gandhi - Freedom's battle.djvu/339

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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