Freemasonry is a secret brotherhood which has more by its secret and
iron rules than by its service to humanity obtained a hold upon some of
the best minds. Similarly there seems to be some secret code of conduct
governing the official class in India before which the flower of the
great British nation fall prostrate and unconsciously become instruments
of injustice which as private individuals they would be ashamed of
perpetrating. In no other way is it possible for one to understand the
majority report of the Hunter Committee, the despatch of the Government
of India, and the reply thereto of the Secretary of State for India. In
spite of the energetic protests of a section of the Press to the
personnel of the committee, it might be said that on the whole the
public were prepared to trust it especially as it contained three Indian
members who could fairly be claimed to be independent. The first rude
shock to this confidence was delivered by the refusal of Lord Hunter's
Committee to accept the very moderate and reasonable demand of the
Congress Committee that the imprisoned Punjab leaders might be allowed
to appear before it to instruct Counsel. Any doubt that might have been
left in the mind of any person has been dispelled by the report of the
majority of that committee. The result has justified the attitude of the
Congress Committee. The evidence collected by it shows what lord
Hunter's Committee purposely denied itself.
The minority report stands out like an oasis in a desert. The Indian
members deserve the congratulation of their countrymen for having dared
to do their duty in the face of heavy odds. I wish that they had refused
to associate themselves even in a modified manner with the condemnation
of the civil disobedience form of Satyagraha. The defiant spirit of the
Delhi mob on the 30th March 1919 can hardly be used for condemning a
great spiritual movement which is admittedly and manifestly intended to
restrain the violent tendencies of mobs and to replace criminal
lawlessness by civil disobedience of authority, when it has forfeited
all title to respect. On the 30th March civil disobedience had not even
been started. Almost every great popular demonstration has been hitherto
attended all the world over by a certain amount of lawlessness. The
demonstration of 30th March and 6th April could have been held under any
other aegis us under that of Satyagrah. I hold that without the advent
of the spirit of civility and orderliness the disobedience would have
taken a much more violent form than it did even at Delhi. It was only
the wonderfully quick acceptance by the people of the principle of
Satyagrah that effectively checked the spread of violence throughout the
length and breadth of India. And even to-day it is not the memory of the
black barbarity of General Dyer that is keeping the undoubted
restlessness among the people from breaking forth into violence. The
hold that Satyagrah has gained on the people--it may be even against
their will--is curbing the forces of disorder and violence. But I must
not detain the reader on a defence of Satyagrah against unjust attacks.
If it has gained a foothold in India, it will survive much fiercer
attacks than the one made by the majority of the Hunter Committee and
somewhat supported by the minority. Had the majority report been
defective only in this direction and correct in every other there would
have been nothing but praise for it. After all Satyagrah is a new
experiment in political field. And a hasty attributing to it of any
popular disorder would have been pardonable.
The universally pronounced adverse judgment upon the report and the
despatches rests upon far more painful revelations. Look at the
manifestly laboured defence of every official act of inhumanity except
where condemnation could not be avoided through the impudent admissions
made by the actors themselves; look at the special pleading introduced
to defend General Dyer even against himself; look at the vain
glorification of Sir Michael O'Dwyer although it was his spirit that
actuated every act of criminality on the part of the subordinates; look
at the deliberate refusal to examine his wild career before the events
of April. His acts were an open book of which the committee ought to
have taken judicial notices. Instead of accepting everything that the
officials had to say, the Committee's obvious duty was to tax itself to
find out the real cause of the disorders. It ought to have gone out of
its way to search out the inwardness of the events. Instead of patiently
going behind the hard crust of official documents, the Committee allowed
itself to be guided with criminal laziness by mere official evidence.
The report and the despatches, in my humble opinion, constitute an
attempt to condone official lawlessness. The cautious and half-hearted
condemnation pronounced upon General Dyer's massacre and the notorious
crawling order only deepens the disappointment of the reader as he goes
through page after page of thinly disguised official whitewash. I need,
however, scarcely attempt any elaborate examination of the report or the
despatches which have been so justly censured by the whole national
press whether of the moderate or the extremist hue. The point to
consider is how to break down this secret--be the secrecy over so
unconscious--conspiracy to uphold official iniquity. A scandal of this
magnitude cannot be tolerated by the nation, if it is to preserve its
self-respect and become a free partner in the Empire. The All-India
Congress Committee has resolved upon convening a special session of the
Congress for the purpose of considering, among other things, the
situation arising from the report. In my opinion the time has arrived
when we must cease to rely upon mere petition to Parliament for
effective action. Petitions will have value, when the nation has behind
it the power to enforce its will. What power then have we? When we are
firmly of opinion that grave wrong has been done us and when after an
appeal to the highest authority we fail to secure redress, there must be
some power available to us for undoing the wrong. It is true that in the
vast majority of cases it is the duty of a subject to submit to wrongs
on failure of the usual procedure, so long as they do not affect his
vital being. But every nation and every individual has the right and it
is their duty, to rise against an intolerable wrong. I do not believe in
armed risings. They are a remedy worse than the disease sought to be
cured. They are a token of the spirit of revenge and impatience and
anger. The method of violence cannot do good in the long run. Witness
the effect of the armed rising of the allied powers against Germany.
Have they not become even like the Germans, as the latter have been
depicted to us by them?
We have a better method. Unlike that of violence it certainly involves
the exercise of restraint and patience: but it requires also
resoluteness of will. This method is to refuse to be party to the wrong.
No tyrant has ever yet succeeded in his purpose without carrying the
victim with him, it may be, as it often is, by force. Most people choose
rather to yield to the will of the tyrant than to suffer for the
consequences of resistance. Hence does terrorism form part of the
stock-in-trade of the tyrant. But we have instances in history where
terrorism has failed to impose the terrorist's will upon his victim.
India has the choice before her now. If then the acts of the Punjab
Government be an insufferable wrong, if the report of Lord Hunter's
Committee and the two despatches be a greater wrong by reason of their
grievous condonation of those acts, it is clear that we must refuse to
submit to this official violence. Appeal the Parliament by all means, if
necessary, but if the Parliament fails us and if we are worthy to call
ourselves a nation, we must refuse to uphold the Government by
withdrawing co-operation from it.