Our ancients classified the arts of conquest into four well-known
_Upayas_. Sama, Dana, Uheda, and Danda. A fifth Upuya was recognised
sometimes by our ancients, which they called _Upeshka_. It is this
_Punchamopaya_ that is placed by Mahatma Gandhi before the people of
India in the form of Non-cooperation as an alternative, besides
violence, to surrender.
Where in any case negotiations have failed and the enemy is neither
corruptible nor incapable of being divided, and a resort to violence has
failed or would certainly be futile the method of _Upeshka_ remains to
be applied to the case. Indeed, when the very existence of the power we
seek to defeat really depends on our continuous co-operation with it,
and where our _Upeskha_ its very life, our _Upeskha_ or non-co-operation
is the most natural and most effective expedient that we can employ to
bend it to our will.
No Englishman believes that his nation can rule or keep India for a day
unless the people of India actively co-operate to maintain that rule.
Whether the co-operation be given willingly or through ignorance,
cupidity, habit or fear, the withdrawal of that co-operation means
impossibility of foreign rule in India. Some of us may not realise this,
but those who govern us have long ago known and are now keenly alive to
this truth. The active assistance of the people of this country in the
supply of the money, men, and knowledge of the languages, customs and
laws of the land, is the main-spring of the continuous life of the
foreign administration. Indeed the circumstances of British rule in this
country are such that but for a double supply of co-operation on the
part of the governed, it must have broken down long ago. Any system of
race domination is unnatural, and can be kept up only by active
coercion through a foreign-recruited public, service invested with large
powers, however much it may be helped by the perversion of mentality
shaping the education of the youth of the country. The foreign recruited
service must necessarily be very highly paid. This creates a wrong
standard for the Indian recruited officials also. Military expenditure
has to cover not only the needs of defence against foreign aggression,
but also the possibilities of internal unrest and rebellion. Police
charges have to go beyond the prevention and deletion of ordinary crime,
for though this would be the only expenditure over the police of a
self-governing people where any nation governs another, a large chapter of
artificial crime has to be added to the penal code, and the work of the
police extended accordingly. The military and public organisations must
also be such as not only to result in outside efficiency, but also at
the same time guarantee internal impotency. This is to be achieved by
the adjustment and careful admixture of officers and units from
different races. All this can be and is maintained only by extra cost
and extra-active co-operation on the part of the people. The slightest
withdrawal of assistance must put such machinery out of gear. This is
the basis of the programme of progressive non violent non-co-operation
that has been adopted by the National Congress.