Young India, Viking Press, 1924-1926/Young India and Navajivan

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3rd April, 1924

FOR THE READERS PAST AND PRESENT OF ‘YOUNG INDIA’

By M. K. Gandhi

It is not without much hesitation that I resume the editorship of Young India. I do not know whether my health can yet sustain the energy required for conducting the paper. But I cannot foresee. I can only dimly understand God’s purpose in bringing me out of my retirement in Yerowada. In taking up the editorial control of Navajivan and Young India I am following the Light as far I see it.

Nor have I any new message to deliver to the reader. I had hoped for release by an act of a Swaraj Parliament and to be able to take my humble share in serving Free India. That was not to be.

We have yet to attain freedom. I have no new programme. My faith in the old is just as bright as ever if not brighter. Indeed one’s faith in one’s plans and methods is truly tested when the horizon before one is the blackest.

Though therefore so far as my mind can perceive, there will be no new method or policy developed in the pages of Young India, I hope they will not be stale. Young India will be stale when Truth becomes stale. I want to see God face to face. God I know is Truth. For me the only certain means of knowing God is non-violence—Ahimsa—love.

I live for India’s freedom and would die for it, because it is part of Truth. Only a free India can worship the true God. I work for India’s freedom because my Swadeshi teaches me that being born in it and having inherited her culture, I am fittest to serve her and she has a prior claim to my service. But my patriotism is not exclusive; it is calculated not only not to hurt any other nation but to benefit all in the true sense of the word. India’s freedom as conceived by me can never be a menace to the world.

But if it is not to be such a menace, the means ad opted for gaining it must be strictly non-violent. My interest in India’s freedom will cease if she adopts violent means, for their fruit will be not freedom but slavery in disguise. And if we have not yet attained our freedom, it is because we have not been non-violent in thought, word and deed. It is true that non violence has been adopted as policy i. e. because we are convinced that by no other means can India achieve her freedom. Our policy is not, must not be, a camouflage. We may not harbour violence under cover of non-violence. Whilst we claim to be non-violent for a particular purpose and a particular period, our thought and word must accord with our practice for that purpose and that period. Even so does an honest gaoler act towards a condemned man. He protects his life at the peril of his own till the date of the extreme penalty. He thinks and speaks of his safety. He is, for the time and the person, non-violent in thought, word and deed.

We pledged ourselves to be non-violent towards each other and our opponents whether administrators or co-operators. We were to appeal to their hearts and evoke I means the best in them, not play upon their fear to gain our end. Consciously or unconsciously the majority of us—the articulate portion—have not been true to our pledge. We have been intolerant towards our opponents. Our own countrymen are filled with distrust of us. They simply do not believe in our non-violence. Hindus and Mussulmans in many places have provided an object lesson not in non-violence but in violence. Even the ‘changers’ and the ‘ no-changers’ have flung mud against one another. Each has claimed the monopoly of truth and with an ignorant certainty of conviction sworn at the other for his helpless stupidity.

The pages of Young India can only, therefore, illustrate the utility and the necessity of non-violence in dealing with the questions that engage public attention. So much for the central policy of Young India.

A word as to the business side.[1] Some of the readers till recollect that I announced that when at the instance of Mr. Shankerlal Banker and other friends I took up the editing of Young India, I told the public that it was run at a loss and that I would be obliged to give it up if the loss continued. I do not believe in publishing news papers indefinitely at a loss or by means of advertisements. If a paper supplies a felt want, it must pay its way. The subscription list however ran up steadily week by week and it began to yield profits. But during the last two years as the reader is aware the list has fallen from 21,500 to 3,000 and it is now being run at a loss. Happily Navajivan has made up for it. But even that method is wrong. Young India must stand on its own bottom or fall. It is likely that if I still retain the personal affection of the old readers, Young India will soon pay its way. But I have mentioned the loss not only to acquaint the public with the true state of affairs but also as an introduction to an important announcement.

When Messrs. Banker and Yajnik suggested that the Gujarati Navajivan which was then a monthly, should be turned into a weekly and edited by me and when I undertook the responsibility, I announced that it would be given up if it proved a loss and that if there were profits, they would be utilized for some public purpose. Navajivan soon became profitable but at the instance of Sheth Jampalalji, Hindi Navajivan was commenced. It too had just begun to pay its way when my arrest took place and the circulation steadily fell. It is now again being issued at a loss. But in spite of these losses the large circulation of Navajivan and other publications enable the management to devote Rs. 50,000 to public work. Swami Anandanand who is managing the Navajivan press has left it entirely to me to allocate the money and as I know no other and better method of utilising it, I propose to devote the sum through the agency of the Provincial Congress Committee to the spread of the spinning wheel and Khadi in Gujarat including Kathiawad. Preference will be given to their spread among poor women and the suppressed classes. It is due to my co-workers that I should inform the public that with some of them the work is a labour of love. Where they receive payment, it is just enough for their wants. The result of such work is before the public. I know that if from the sweeper upward I could secure selfless workers, with the efficient management I have the good fortune to have to-day, it would be possible to show a better surplus.

I should also like to add that if Young India again shows profits, as it did before my imprisonment, they will be distributed for All-India work. If any profits are derived from Hindi Navajivan, they will be devoted to the spread of Hindi.

  1. In Young India of 15th May, 1924, Mahatma Gandhi wrote under the heading ‘Young India’ and ‘Navajivan’:—A correspondent writes to me about the donation for Khaddar production, of the profits of Rs. 50,000 of the Navjivan Press, and says that the profits show that the prices of the weeklies could have been considerably reduced so as to make them available to a larger public. I give below extracts from the letter.

    "Recently an announcement was made in the Press that the Navajivan Press had made a profit of about Rs. 50,000—and that sum was to be spent in some charitable purposes. This shows that by the grace of God the Press is not in loss and the management is to be congratulated on that account.

    But I and many others in this line fail to understand why the price of the paper of 8 pages with such rough paper is so very exorbitant in spite of the low cost of paper prevalent at present. Two annas for a copy of ‘Young India’ is too much for the general reading public of India, and ‘Navajivan’ for as 11/4 is also too much. India is a very poor country and that is an acknowledged fact. If they are making profits, is it not fair that their prices should be decreased and thus make them available for the big masses?

    In this connection I may say that the noteworthy English weeklies such as ‘Saturday Review,’ ‘The Nation and Athenaeum,’ ‘The American Nation,’ ‘The Spectator,’ etc., are far cheaper even at the rate of 6d., since they contain more than three times the number of pages. If it is not possible to decrease the price of the weeklies under your control, can you not conveniently manage to increase the number of pages?

    Some of us would believe that even if the ‘Young India’ and ‘Navajivan’ are sold at 2 to 3 pice, they will not be under loss so long as they are edited by your goodself. If you think that you owe an explanation to the public in this connection you may explain this through your paper.

    Now suppose that the papers are not making profits nor are likely to make any even at the prevailing prices of as.2 and as.1/4, can you not manage to put some amount of the profit of the Press in these papers and thus make them cheap?

    I have consulted the manager about the subject-matter of the letter and both he and I have come to the conclusion that the prices could not be safely reduced for the following reasons:

    1. Profits are a precarious item.

    2. Reduction of the prices will make no difference in the number of subscribers.

    3. The masses do not count as readers because they cannot read.

    4. My editing, though it has somewhat increased the number of subscribers, has not made any material increase. The papers are by no means as popular as they were before because perhaps of the subsidence of excitement. Young India and Hindi Navajivan have not yet begun to pay their way and unless English readers of Young India and Hindi readers of Hindi Navajivan interest themselves in the upkeep of these weeklies and secure more subscribers, the question of stopping them may soon arise.

    5. It is a bad policy to print a cheap newspaper by making profits from other work, I want the readers to be just as much interested in the upkeep of the papers as the manager and the editor are.

    6. It is better that the readers become direct participators in the donation of profits than that they get their paper cheap.

    7. If there is a public that does not buy the papers by reason of the prices, it is open to well-to-do subscribers, interested in the circulation of the views and policies advocated in the papers, to order as many copies as they choose and if there is a large demand, lower prices will certainly be quoted for them.

    8. In view of the suggestion in clause 7, the question of the high prices is not a matter of moment since the public benefit by every single pie of the profits.

    9. The size of the papers cannot very well be increased, if only because I have but limited capacity and the papers have only a limited ambition. The public do not want from me a larger weekly letter than they are getting at present.