were the Indians or myself to oppose it? General Smuts talked glibly about his experience of what he called my ‘cunning’ and yet he could not cite a single case in point in support of his statement. And I do not remember to have ever resorted to cunning during all those years that I lived in South Africa. I may now go even farther and say without the least hesitation that I have never had recourse to cunning in all my life. I believe that cunning is not only morally wrong but also politically inexpedient, and have therefore always discountenanced its use even from the practical standpoint. It is hardly necessary for me to defend myself. I would even be ashamed of defending myself before the class of readers for whom this is written. If even now they have not seen that I am free from cunning, nothing that I could write in self-defence could convince them of that fact. I have penned these few sentences only with a view to give the reader an idea of the difficulties which were encountered during the Satyagraha struggle and of the imminent danger to the movement if the Indians even by a hair’s breadth swerved from the strait and narrow path. The rope-dancer, balancing himself upon a rope suspended at a height of twenty feet, must concentrate his attention upon the rope, and the least little error in so doing means death for him, no matter on which side he falls. My eight years’ experience of Satyagraha in South Africa has taught me that a Satyagrahi has to be if possible even more single-minded than the rope-dancer. The friends before whom General Smuts levelled this charge at me knew me well, and therefore the charge had an effect over them just the opposite of what General Smuts had desired. They, not only did not give me up or the movement but grew even more zealous in supporting us, and the Indians saw later on that they would have come in for no end of trouble if their Satyagraha had not been extended to the Immigration Act also.
My experience has taught me that a law of progression applies to every righteous struggle. But in the case of Satyagraha the law amounts to an axiom. As the
