Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/719

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violence of its injured supporters. The police and mili- tary looked on with callous indifference, whilst the Christians in their justifiable indignation deprived inno- cent men of their white cap, and hammered those who would not surrender them, or whilst the Parsis assaulted or shot not in self-defence, but because the victims happened to be Hindus or Mussalmans, or non- co-operators. I can excuse the aggrieved Parsis or Christians, but can find no excuse for the military and police for taking sides. So the task before the workers is to take the blow from the Government, and our erring countrymen. This is the only way open to us of steri" lizing the forces of violence. The way to immediate swaraj lies through our gaining control over the forces of violence, and that not by greater violence, but by moral influence. We must see as clearly as daylight that it is impossible for us to be trained and armed for violence if active enugh for displacing the existing Government.

Some people 1 imagine that after all we would not have better advertised our indignation against the wel- come to the Prince of Wales than by letting loose the mob frenzy on the fateful 17th. The reasoning betrays at once ignorance and weakness ignorance of the fact that our goal was not injury to the welcome, and weakness because we still hanker after advertising our strength to others instead of being satisfied with the conciousness of its possession.

I wish I could convince everyone that we have materially retarded our progress to our triple goal. But all is not lost if the workers realise and act up to their responsibility. We must secure the full co- operation of the rowdies of Bombay. We must know

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