Page:Gandhi - Freedom's battle.djvu/96

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to accept the very moderate and reasonable demand of the Congress Committee that the imprisoned Punjab leaders might be allowed to appear before it to instruct Counsel. Any doubt that might have been left in the mind of any person has been dispelled by the report of the majority of that committee. The result has justified the attitude of the Congress Committee. The evidence collected by it shows what lord Hunter's Committee purposely denied itself.

The minority report stands out like an oasis in a desert. The Indian members deserve the congratulation of their countrymen for having dared to do their duty in the face of heavy odds. I wish that they had refused to associate themselves even in a modified manner with the condemnation of the civil disobedience form of Satyagraha. The defiant spirit of the Delhi mob on the 30th March 1919 can hardly be used for condemning a great spiritual movement which is admittedly and manifestly intended to restrain the violent tendencies of mobs and to replace criminal lawlessness by civil disobedience of authority, when it has forfeited all title to respect. On the 30th March civil disobedience had not even been started. Almost every great popular demonstration has been hitherto attended all the world over by a certain amount of lawlessness. The demonstration of 30th March and 6th April could have been held under any other