The Pilgrims' March/Mahatma Gandhi 2
LOVE NOT HATE.
Mahatma's Faith.
Non-Violence Absolutely Essential.
Be prepared--but not defiant.
A telegram from Allahabad says Pandit Motilal Nehru, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Pandit Shamlal Nehru and Mr. George Joseph Editor of the "Independent" have been arrested. It was received at 11 o'clock last night. It positively filled me with joy: I thanked God for it.
I had not expected Panditji's arrest. In our discussions I used to tell Panditji that he would be about the last to be arrested. Sir Harcourt Butler would not have the courage to lay hands upon him and his friend Rajasaheb of Mahmudabad would decline to retain his office if he was to be arrested. I marvel at Sir. Harcourt Butler’s philosophic courage. Panditji has been working against tremendous odds. He has been battling against his old enemy asthma. I know that he has never worked for his rich clients nor even for the afflicted Panjab as he has slaved for pauper India. I have pleaded with him to take rest. He has refused to do so. I rejoice to think that he will now have respite from the din that was wearing him out.
But my joy was greater for the thought, that what I had feared would not happen before the end of the year, because of the sin of Bombay, was now happening by reason of the innocent suffering of the greatest and the best in the land. These arrests of the totally innocent is real Swaraj. Now there is no shame in the Ali Brothers and their companions remaining in goal. India has not been found undeserving of their immolation.
But my joy, which I hope thousands share with me? is conditional upon perfect peace being observed whilst our leaders are one after another taken away from us. Victory is complete if non-violence reigns supreme in spite of arrest. Disastrous defeat is a certainty if we cannot control all the elements so as to ensure peace. We are out to be killed without killing. We have stipulated to go to prison without feeling angry or injured. We must not quarrel with the conditions of our own creating.
On the contrary our non-violence teaches us to love our enemies. By non-violent non-co-operation we seek to conquer the wrath of English administrators and their supporters. We must love them and pray to God that they might have wisdom to see what appears to us to be their error. It must be the prayer of the strong and not of the weak. In our strength must we humble ourselves before our maker.
In the moment of our trial and our triumph let me declare my faith. I believe in loving my enemies. I believe in non-violence as the only remedy open to the Hindus, Musalmans, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians and Jews of India. I believe in the power of suffering to melt the stoniest heart. The brunt of the battle must fall on the first three. The last named three are afraid of the combination of the first three. We must by our honest conduct demonstrate to them that they are our kinsmen. We must by our conduct demonstrate to every Englishman that he is safe in the remotest corner of India as he professes to feel behind the machine gun.
Islam, Hinduism, Shikhism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Judaism—in fact religion is on its trial. Either we believe in God and His righteousness or we do not. My association with the noblest of Musalmans has taught me to see that Islam has spread not by the power of the sword but by the prayerful love of an unbroken line of its saints and fakirs. Warrant there is in Islam for drawing the sword but the conditions laid down are so strict that they are not capable of being fulfilled by everybody. Where is the unerring general to order Jehad? Where is the suffering, the love and the purification that must precede the very idea of drawing the sword? Hindus are at least as much bound by similar restrictions as the Musalmans of India. The Sikhs have their recent proud history to warn them against the use of force. We are too imperfect, too impure and too selfish as yet to resort to an armed conflict in the cause of God as Shaukat Ali would say. Will a purified India ever need to draw the sword? And it was the definite process of purification we commenced last year at Calcutta.
What must we then do? Surely remain non-violent and yet strong enough to offer as many willing victims as the Government require for imprisonment. Our work must continue with clockwork regularity. Each province must elect its own succession of leaders. Lalaji has set a brilliant example by making all the necessary arrangements. The chairman and the secretary must be given in each province emergency powers. The executive committees must be the smallest possible. Every Congressman must be a volunteer.
Whilst we must not avoid arrest we must not provoke it by unnecessary offence. We must vigorously prosecute the Swadeshi campaign till we are fully organised for the manufacture of all the hand-spun Khadi we require and have brought about a complete boycott of foreign cloth.
We must hold the Congress at any cost in spite of the arrest of every one of the leaders unless the Government dissolve it by force. And if we are neither cowed down nor provoked to violence but are able to continue national work, we have certainly attained Swaraj. For no power on earth can stop the onward march of peaceful determined and godly people.
- Sabarmati,
- 8th December 1921.