[The opening session of the National College, Calcutta, under the
auspices of the Board of Education, formed by Srijuts Chittaranjan Das,
Jitendralal Banerjee and other non-co-operation leaders, took place on
Friday the 4th February 1921. In opening this College, Mahatma Gandhi
addressed the students and professors, from which the following is
culled.]
We have sufficiently talked about Charka and how it is going to free
India--how a nation that came through the Charka to this country as
traders, merchants and travellers settled themselves down as rulers with
our co-operation, and how non-co-operation and by means of that very
Indian _Charka_ they will go back to their own country if they cannot
live as fellow-citizens in India.
There are peoples who say--"how can you expect the Mahomedans to be
non-violent." How, I do not want to speak out. I want the _Charka_
itself to speak out. The whole Europe will know when we place these
Charkas in our mosques. Something like 800 Charkas had been ordered for
the mosques so that the people who come there should be able to produce
Indian yarn with which Indian clothes should be woven by Indian hands in
Indian homes to clothe our nakedness or at least to provide home-spun
shrouds for us. Thus every revolution of the _Charka_ I can assure you,
will bring the success of this bloodless revolution the nearer every
day. That is the doctrine of _Charka_. Therefore I ask you to work up
this doctrine which will be a great advertisement both of our
determination to win freedom, and if possible, through peaceful means.
If you are determined to have the freedom of your country, if you want
to see the cessation of our slavery in which we are living for close
upon two centuries, it requires from you a peaceful battle--the battle
of the _Charka_.
_Y. I.--9th Feb. 1921._