LETTERS FROM ABROAD
73
will prove that the meek are to inherit the earth.
It is in the fitness of things, that Mahatma Gandhi, frail in body and devoid of all material resources, should call up the immense power of the meek, that has been lying waiting in the heart of the destitute and insulted humanity of India. The destiny of India has chosen for its ally, Narayan, and not the Narayansena—the power of soul and not that of muscle. And she is to raise the history of man from the muddy level of physical conflict to the higher moral altitude.
What is Swaraj! It is maya; it is like a mist, that will vanish, leaving no stain on the radiance of the Eternal. However we may delude ourselves with the phrases learnt from the West, Swaraj is not our objective. Our fight is a spiritual fight—it is for Man. We are to emancipate Man from the meshes that he himself has woven round him- these organisations of National Egoism. The butterfly will have to be persuaded that the freedom of the sky is of higher value than the shelter of the cocoon. If we can defy the strong, the armed, the wealthy—revealing to the world the power of the immortal spirit—the whole castle of the Giant Flesh will vanish in the void. And then Man will find his Swaraj.
We, the famished, ragged ragamuffins of the East, are to win freedom for all Humanity. We have no word for ‘Nation’ in our language. When we
