Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/316

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226 EARLIER INDIAN SPEECHES.

It has been said that those who do not like the law 'may leave the country. This is all very well, spoken from a cushioned chair, but it is neither possible nor becoming for men to leave their homes because they do not subscribe to certain laws enacted against them. The Uit landers of the Boer regime complained of harsh Jaws ; they, too, were told that if they did not like them, they could retire from the country. Are Indians, who are fighting for their self-respect, to slink away from the country for fear of suffering imprisonment or worse ? If I could help it, nothing would remove Indians from the country save brute force. It is no part of a citizen's duty to pay blind obedience to the laws imposed on him. And if my countrymen believe in God and the existence of the soul, then, while they may admit that their bodies belong to the state to be imprisoned and deported, their minds, their wills, and their souls must ever remain free like the birds of the air, and are beyond the reach of the swiftest arrow.

��A PLEA FOR THE SOUL.

��The following is an extract from the letter of the London correspondent of the " Amrita Bazaar Patrika" summarising an address delivered by Mr. Gandhi before the Members of the Emerson Club and of the Hampstead Branch of the Peace and Arbitration Society whilst in London.

Mr. Gandhi turned to India, and spake with enthusiasm of Rama, the victim of the machinations of a woman, choosing fourteen years' exile rather than surrender ; other Orientals were mentioned, and then, through the Doukhabors of to-day, he brought the

�� �