breach of the law. Hence, Satyagraha' largely appears to the public as civil disobedience or civil resistance. It is civil in the sense that it is not criminal.
The criminal, i e. the ordinary law-breaker bre aks the law surreptitiously and tries to void the penalty ; not so the civil resister. He ever obeys the laws of the State to which he belongs, not out of far of the sanctions, but be- cause he considers them to be good for the welfare of society. But there come occasions, generally rare, when he con- siders certain laws to be so unjust as to render obedience to them a dishonour, he then openly and civilly breaks them and quietly suffers the penalty for their breach And in order to register his protest against the action of the law- giver, it is open to him to withdraw his co-operation from the State by disobeying such other laws whose breach does not invole moral turpitude. In my opinion, the beauty and efficacy of * Satyagraha' are so great and the doctrine so simple that it can be preached even to children. It was preached by me to thousands of men, women and children, commonly callled indentured Indians, with excellent results.
ROWLATT BlF.LS.
When the Rowlatt Bills were published I felt that they were so restrictive of human liberty that they must be resist- ed to the utmost. I observed, too, that the opposition to them was universal amorrg Indians. I submit that no State, however despotic, has the right to enact laws whi ch are re- puguant to the whole body of the people, much less a govern- ment guided by constitutional usage and precedent, such as the Indian Government. I felt, too, that the Oncoming agitation needed a definite direction if it was neither to collapse nor to run into violent channels.
I ventured therefore to present Satyagraha to the coun- try, emphasising its civil resistance aspect. And as it is
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