There is not only no objection to the Charka but it is very much to be
commended. It is very useful as a cottage or home industry and will find
an occupation to many who might otherwise be idle. But it will not
displace foreign goods at least without the aid of mills by foreign
machinery.
All these with other minor ones are only steps to be taken to carry out
the policy of non-violent non-co-operation for the attainment of Swaraj
and Mr. Gandhi asks every body, in fact the people of India, to carry on
non-violent non-co-operation with the Government so as ostensibly to
attain Swaraj but really I have no doubt as an end in itself.
I have already pointed out that non-violent submission to suffering and
the consequent attainment of self-control over oneself which he called
Swaraj was the end which he had in view. He found that there was no use
in directly advocating it. He therefore puts it forward as the chief
instrument for obtaining the Parliamentary Swaraj which the people of
India wanted. He based his appeal to the Hindus on the well known
doctrine of "Ahimsa". I will not stop here to discuss how far suffering
for the purpose of inducing another to follow a particular line of
conduct is included in the scope of Ahimsa. I myself believe it is not
only not so included but is totally inconsistent with it. I will merely
point out that this principle has already been condemned by the Penal
Code which makes it a crime for a creditor to realise his debt by
Dharna. For my purpose it is only necessary to say that this principle
of non-violence if accepted in practice generally will lead to chaos and
anarchy. If applied to Government alone by refusal to recognise the
jurisdiction of the courts it will lead to the same results. How it will
lead to 'Parliamentary Swaraj' it is impossible to see. Mr. Gandhi says
if all the people of India adopted it the machinery of Government is
bound to come to a standstill. But that all will adopt it without
leaving sufficient men with the aid of those who will be imported from
England and elsewhere to carry out the administration is only the
fantasy of a diseased imagination. Non-violence is a guarantee on the
part of those who carry it out that the Government has nothing to fear
from physical force. If they use force then they abandon the weapon of
non-violence. Mr. Gandhi and his followers, are agreed that physical
force is now out of the question on ground, according to Mr. Gandhi,
that we will be crushed. I cannot help thinking that when we take this
aspect of the matter along with others already mentioned that Mr. Gandhi
himself does not consider this as any effective step towards the
attainment of the 'Parliamentary Swaraj,' but only to attain his
"Spiritual Swaraj." This explains what he is so fond of reiterating that
when Lajpatrai, Motilal Nehru, and C. R. Das and others were arrested
and went to Jail without complaint, or resistance denying the
jurisdiction of the courts, in pursuance of the policy of non-violent
non-co-operation, though Parliamentary Swaraj was not attained, the
spiritual 'Swaraj' of which he was in search has been attained to his
intense satisfaction. If he had advocated abstention from schools,
boycott of Councils and Courts, non-violence as a means of attaining his
(spiritual) Swaraj, giving up Punjab Khilafat and Parliamentary Home
Rule, no one would perhaps have any right to complain, and it would have
been a straightforward and honest course. But he has adopted underhand
methods which appear to me, unless a satisfactory explanation is given,
little short of dishonest and fraudulent.
But it may be asked whether anybody would have accepted a policy of
non-violent non-co-operation in the circumstances of the case unless
there was some reasonable prospect of success within any measurable
time. Here we come to the most sinister aspect of the matter. In moving
his resolution on non-co-operation in the National Congress held at
Calcutta in September 1920, he said, "If there is sufficient response to
my scheme I make bold to reiterate my statement that you can gain
Swarajya in the course of an year" and he laid down certain conditions,
the more important of which have been mentioned. That period has been
extended subsequently by a few months. Even that extended period has
elapsed. When charged with his failure to attain Parliamentary Swaraj
within the period asked for by him he had effrontery to state that the
conditions mentioned by him have not been complied with. A political
leader has no right to put forward before the country any scheme under
conditions which he has no reasonable belief of being likely to be
complied with. Did he honestly believe that those conditions named by
him would be complied with and Parliamentary Swaraj obtained within the
time mentioned by him? Looking to the nature of the conditions I do not
think he believed that they would be complied with, not only in one year
but at any time; and even if complied with I have no doubt he did not
believe that Swaraj would come though he might assert the contrary. He
put the lure forward simply for the purpose of persuading the Congress
to make an important change in the policy which the country had hitherto
adopted. The National Congress, carried away by its hostility towards
Government, accepted his programme. Some of the younger men may have
believed in it. The older and the most experienced I have no doubt never
believed in its possibility but considered it a means, of rousing the
people of the country from their political lethargy, to put pressure on
the Government for further and more extensive reforms. They may also
have felt that this might be a means of Mahomedan co-operation for their
policy. I do not deny that according to English political life this is a
perfectly legitimate manoeuvre though none of those leaders believed in
the soundness of the policy put forward by Mr. Gandhi and many of them
said so.
Having attained his purpose by a representation, the truth of which I
cannot help thinking he did not believe, and could not have believed,
and having committed the Congress to a certain course of action, he is
now able to carry the Congress with him for revolutionary action, as it
finds it has gone too far on this course to revert to its own natural
methods of progress. But as a matter of fact he went further than this.
On 29th December, 1920, _i.e._ three months after the change of
programme, he said, "my experience during the last months fills me with
the hope that within the nine months that remain of the year in which I
have expected Swaraj for India we shall redress the two wrongs and we
shall see Swaraj (Parliamentary) established in accordance with the
wishes of the people of India." But I do not think for a moment he
believed what he said. He used these words to dupe the people of India
to follow him yet a step further and to pay him money. After about a
month on the 21st of January 1921--he again confirmed his previous
statement. He said: "Four months of this one year have already gone by
and my faith has never burnt as brightly as it burns tonight as I am
talking to the young men of Bengal." And he added "that in case of his
death before the expiry of eight months he is satisfied that the people
of India will secure Swaraj before the year is out." Is this not a
definite statement that the Indian people are going to get Swaraj? A few
days later the purpose comes out. In a public address to the merchants
of Calcutta on the 30th January, 1921, he said:--
"What I purposed to do I can accomplish in a certain line. I Must
attain Swaraj. If thirty crores of people say that they are not with me
yet I shall do my work and win Swaraj.... If you wish to accomplish
work of thirty crores of men then come out with your money. Try to have
money and ask me to give an account of the same. I appoint some one
treasurer.... If you know that you yourself can not attain Swaraj +then
help one with money+. If you do not help with money Swaraj will be
difficult but not impossible to attain. If the students of India do not
help, me it does not matter. If the pleaders do not help, it does not
matter."
The old conditions of the boycott of schools and of the courts as
conditions indispensable for the attainment of Swaraj are dropped. And
he promises Swaraj and asks for money for getting it in nine months. He
collected money on the faith of that representation. Earlier on the same
day he got ten thousand rupees, and on the spot a large sum is said to
have been collected. On the same date in addressing the students he
said: "If the response continues as it has begun there is no doubt of
Swaraj coming within the time prescribed". On the 23rd February 1921 he
again said: "Last five months experience has confirmed me in the
opinion. I am convinced that the country has never been so ready for
establishing Swaraj as now." To me only one conclusion is possible that
he was collecting the money from the people who understood him to say
that Swaraj will be attained within the period mentioned by him. In
March he said:--
"The last Congress has given a constitution whose working in itself
calculated to lead to Swaraj. It is intended to secure in every part of
India representative committees working in conjunction with, and under
willing and voluntary submission to a central organisation--The all
India Congress Committee. It establishes an adult suffrage open to men
and women subject only to two qualifications signing of the creed and a
nominal payment of four annas. It is intended to secure due
representation of the parties and communities, if then, it is honestly
worked, and commands confidence and respect, it can oust the present
Government without the slightest difficulty. For, the latter has no
power except through the co-operation willing or forced, of the people.
The force it exercises is almost through our own people. One lac of
Europeans, without our help, can only hold less than one seventh of our
villages each and it would be difficult for a man even when physically
present, to impose his will on, say four hundred men and women--the
average population of Indian village."
He said that we have therefore to concentrate our attention up to the
30th of June on getting:--
(1) One crore of rupees for Tilak Swaraj Fund.
(2) One crore members on the Congress register.
(3) The spinning wheel introduced in twenty lacs of homes.