Chapter XXXVIII
Breach of Pledge
In prosecuting the Satyagraha struggle the Indians were very careful not to take a single step not warranted by their principles, and they always remembered that they should not take any illegitimate advantage over the Government. For instance, as the Black Act was restricted in its application to Indians in the Transvaal, only the Transvaal Indians were admitted as recruits in the struggle. Not only was there no attempt made to obtain recruits from Natal, the Cape Colony etc., but offers from outside the Transvaal were politely refused. The struggle also was limited to a repeal of the Act in question. This limitation was understood neither by the Europeans nor by Indians. In the early stages the Indians were every now and then asking for other grievances besides the Black Act to be covered by the struggle. I patiently explained to them that such extension would be a violation of the truth, which could not be so much as thought of in a movement professing to abide by truth and truth alone. In a pure fight the fighters would never go beyond the objective fixed when the fight began even if they received an accession to their strength in course of the fighting, and on the other hand they could not give up their objective if they found their strength dwindling away. This twofold principle was fully observed in South Africa. The strength of the community, upon which we counted in determining our goal at the commencement of the struggle, did not answer our expectations as we have already seen, and yet the handful of Satyagrahis who remained stuck to their posts. Fighting thus single-handed in the face of odds was comparatively easy, but it was more difficult, and called for the exercise of greater self-restraint, not to enlarge one’s objective when one had
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