"The condition of England at present is pitiable. I pray to God that
India may never be in that plight. That which you consider to be Mother
of Parliaments is like a sterile woman and a prostitute. Both these are
harsh terms, but exactly fit the case. That Parliament has not yet of
its own accord done a single good thing; hence I have compared it to a
sterile woman. The natural condition of that Parliament is such that
without out-side pressure it can do nothing. It is like a prostitute
because it is under the control of ministers who change from time to
time. To-day it is under Mr. Asquith; tomorrow it may be under Mr.
Balfour."
"If the money and the time wasted by Parliament were entrusted to a few
good men, the English nation would be occupying to-day a much higher
platform. The Parliament is simply a costly toy of the nation. These
views are by no means peculiar to me. Some great English thinkers have
expressed them.
"That you cannot accept my views at once is only right. If you will
read the literature on this subject, you will have some idea of it. The
Parliament is without a real master, under the Prime Minister, its
movement is not steady, but it is buffeted about like a prostitute. The
Prime Minister is more concerned about his power than about the welfare
of the Parliament. His energy is concentrated upon securing the success
of his party. His care is not always that the Parliament shall do
right. Prime Ministers are known to have made the Parliament do things
merely for party advantage. All this is worth thinking over."
It is no wonder that he called upon all his followers to boycott the
Indian Councils. I shall deal with this when dealing with the boycott
question.
After all this one would naturally think that if we expel the English
from India we would be happy. Not a bit, says Mr. Gandhi whose views
about independence are peculiar. Look, he says, at Italy. He thinks that
Italy has not gained anything by independence of Austrian domination. He
adds:--
"If you believe that because Italians hold Italy, the Italian nation is
happy, you are groping in darkness. What substantial gain did Italy
obtain after the withdrawal of the Austrian troops? The gain is only
nominal. You do not want therefore to reproduce the same conditions in
India. India to gain her independence can fight like Italy only when
she has arms and in order to gain her independence India has to be
armed and to arm India on a large scale is to Europeanise it. Then her
condition will be just as pitiable as that of Europe. This means in
short, that India must accept European civilisation ... but the fact is
that the Indian nation will not adopt arms and it is well that she does
not."
She must not therefore use force to fight the English.
But what is it she has to do. She must obtain Swaraj or Home Rule by
'soul force'. What is it?:--
"When we are slaves we think that the whole universe is enslaved.
Because we are in an abject condition, we think that the whole of India
is in that condition. As a matter of fact, it is not so, but it is as
well to impute our slavery to the whole of India. But if we bear in
mind the above fact we can see that if we become free, India is free.
And in this thought you have definition of 'swaraj.' It is 'swaraj'
when we earn to rule ourselves. It is therefore in the palm of our
hands. Do not consider this 'swaraj' to be like a dream. Hence there is
no idea of sitting still. The 'swaraj' that I wish to picture before
you and me is such that, after we have once realised it, we will
endeavour to the end of our lifetime to persuade others to do likewise.
But such 'swaraj' has to be experienced by each one for himself."
The assumption made by a few persons that Mr. Gandhi is only condemning
parliamentary government for its inutility is unfounded. The extracts
already given might lend some colour to that view. But such is not the
fact. In England Parliamentary government is denounced by certain
persons on the ground that it will always be under the influence of a
capitalist Press and therefore unable to redress the evils from which
the people of the country other than the capitalists are suffering. Mr.
Gandhi's objection is not based on any such ground; he is against not
only Parliamentary Government but practically against any Government in
any form as is apparent from the extracts given above. The doctrine that
Governments have very little to do with our happiness which depends upon
self-control or 'soul force' has many advocates, but to deduce it as a
doctrine from the alleged failure of Parliamentary Government in England
is ludicrous. I shall not stop here to justify Parliamentary government
which has justified itself by its results; it is only ignorance of the
work that has been done which is responsible for opinions like those to
which Mr. Gandhi has given expression.