2. The way to it is Passive Resistance; that is soul force or love
force.
In my opinion, we have used the term "Swaraj" without understanding its
real significance. I have endeavoured to explain it as I understand it,
and my conscience testifies that _my life henceforth is dedicated to
its attainment_.
Such is the real Gandhi. Railways, lawyers, courts, doctors, education
on Western lines, machinery of every kind or manufacturing industries,
parliamentary government should disappear. He is singularly ill informed
on every one of the questions he has discussed. 'Soul force' alone
should be relied upon. No resistance should be offered to violence. No
resistance should be offered to robbery and the robbers are to be left
to cut one another's throats. No resistance to be offered to murderers
or to those who might want to enslave you. Briefly, no protection is to
be given by laws and their administrators to person and property.
There is no harm perhaps as long as such fantastic visionaries restrict
the application of these principles to themselves, to their own persons
or properties. But it becomes a serious matter when their general
application is sought for.
These are the sentiments he expressed in 1908, and it was with these
sentiments that he came to India. As it is well to be definite and
clear, I will quote from a letter addressed by him in 1909 to a friend
in India:--
"Bombay, Calcutta and the other chief cities of India are the real
plague spots".
"If British rule were replaced tomorrow by Indian rule based on modern
methods, India would be no better, except that she would be able then
to retain some of the money that is drained away to England; but then
India would only become a second or fifth nation of Europe or America".
"Medical science is the concentrated essence of black magic. Quackery
is infinitely preferable to what passes for high medical skill".
"Hospitals are the instruments that the devil has been using for his
own purpose, in order to keep his hold on his kingdom. They perpetuate
vice, misery and degradation and real slavery".
"India's salvation consists in unlearning what she has learnt during
the past fifty years. The railways, telegraphs, hospitals, lawyers,
doctors, and such like have all to go, and so called upper classes have
to learn to live consciously and religiously and deliberately the
simple peasant life, knowing it to be a life giving true happiness".
But he soon found that it was hopeless to carry out his theories in the
face of the determination of the people of India to attain Home Rule
preached by the Indian National Congress and the Indian politicians. He
had accordingly to put on a new garb. Therefore, in 1917, the year of
the famous declaration made by the British Government about the
progressive realisation of self government, he found it necessary, to
obtain a hearing, to accept the Home Rule programme. In his Presidential
address at the First Gujarat Political Conference in 1917 he said that
without going into the merits of the scheme of reforms approved by the
Congress and the Muslim League he will do all that is necessary to get
it accepted and enforced. Though the scheme itself is not 'swaraj', he
admitted it was a great step towards 'swaraj'. At the same time he said
that though he is acting on the propriety of the current trend of
thought it does not appear to him to be tending altogether in the right
direction as the 'swaraj' put forward is one of Western type.
Nevertheless as India is being governed in accordance with the Western
system and without Parliament we should be nowhere, he does not hesitate
to take part in the Parliamentary swaraj movement and the programme that
he sketched out for himself may be described thus in his own words
written in 1921:--
"But I would warn the reader against thinking that I am to-day aiming
at the Swaraj therein (spiritual swaraj as described in his 'Indian
Home Rule'), I know that India is not ripe for it. It may seem an
impertinence to say so. But such is my conviction. I am individually
working for the self-rule pictured therein. But to-day my corporate
activity is undoubtedly devoted to the attainment of Parliamentary
Swaraj in accordance with the wishes of the people of India. I am not
aiming at destroying railways or hospitals, though I would certainly
welcome their natural destruction. Neither railways nor hospitals are a
test of a high and pure civilisation. At best they are a necessary
evil. Neither adds one inch to the moral stature of a nation. Nor am I
aiming at a permanent destruction of law courts, much as I regard it as
'a consummation devoutly to be wished for,' still less am I trying to
destroy all machinery and mills. It requires a higher simplicity and
renunciation than the people are to-day prepared for".
He also admitted that his acceptance of Parliamentary Swaraj required
some modification of his theory of using violence or force. He admitted
that though there is no scope for violence or force in spiritual swaraj,
and military training is intended only for those who do not believe in
it, he was prepared to accept the view that the whole of India will
never accept Satyagraha. He added:--
"Not to defend the weak is an entirely effeminate idea, everywhere to
be rejected. In order to protect our innocent sister from the brutal
designs of a man we ought to offer ourselves a willing sacrifice and by
the force of Love conquer the brute in the man. But if we have not
attained that power, we would certainly use up all our bodily strength
in order to frustrate those designs. The votaries of soul force and
brute force are both soldiers. The latter, bereft of his arms,
acknowledges defeat, the former does not know what defeat is".
It was a consequence of this acceptance of Parliamentary Swaraj that he
should try to work the Montagu Chelmsford Council reforms. Though these
reforms may be inadequate yet for one who accepts the goal of
Parliamentary Government it was his bounden duty to avail himself of the
available Parliamentary scheme to carry out those reforms which were
then possible and to take the necessary steps to enlarge the scope of
the scheme to carry out the further reforms that might be needed.
Accordingly at the Amritsar Congress in December 1919, he resolved to
co-operate with the country in working the Reform Scheme.
I have already pointed out that he entirely disagreed with the system of
Parliamentary government and his acceptance was one of necessity. At the
earliest opportunity at the special sessions of the Indian National
Congress held at Calcutta in September 1920 and at the National Congress
held at Nagpur in December 1920 he took steps to destroy the Montagu
Reform Scheme of Parliamentary Swaraj and everything else to which he
had given a reluctant assent and to bring the country to adopt his wild
theories already stated by me and in order to do so, he brought into
prominence forces entirely opposed to his own principles which he proved
himself unable to control with disastrous consequences and had to resort
willingly or unwillingly to dishonest methods.
What was the reason for his throwing overboard the Montagu Reform
Scheme? The following resolution which at his insistence was passed by
the National Congress at Calcutta and practically re-affirmed at Nagpur
will explain the situation as then developed.