Before a crowded meeting of Mussalmans in the Muzaffarabad, Bombay, held
on the 29th July 1920, speaking on the impending non-co-operation which
commenced on the 1st of August, Mr. Gandhi said: The time for speeches
on non-co-operation was past and the time for practice had arrived. But
two things were needful for complete success. An environment free from
any violence on the part of the people and a spirit of self-sacrifice.
Non-co-operation, as the speaker had conceived it, was an impossibility
in an atmosphere surcharged with the spirit of violence. Violence was an
exhibition of anger and any such exhibition was dissipation of valuable
energy. Subduing of one's anger was a storing up of national energy,
which, when set free in an ordered manner, would produce astounding
results. His conception of non-co-operation did not involve rapine,
plunder, incendiarism and all the concomitants of mass madness. His
scheme presupposed ability on their part to control all the forces of
evil. If, therefore, any disorderliness was found on the part of the
people which they could not control, he for one would certainly help the
Government to control them. In the presence of disorder it would be for
him a choice of evil, and evil through he considered the present
Government to be, he would not hesitate for the time being to help the
Government to control disorder. But he had faith in the people. He
believed that they knew that the cause could only be won by non-violent
methods. To put it at the lowest, the people had not the power, even if
they had the will, to resist with brute strength the unjust Governments
of Europe who had, in the intoxication of their success disregarding
every canon of justice dealt so cruelly by the only Islamic Power
in Europe.
In non-co-operation they had a matchless and powerful weapon. It was a
sign of religious atrophy to sustain an unjust Government that supported
an injustice by resorting to untruth and camouflage. So long therefore
as the Government did not purge itself of the canker of injustice and
untruth, it was their duty to withdraw all help from it consistently
with their ability to preserve order in the social structure. The first
stage of non-co-operation was therefore arranged so as to involve
minimum of danger to public peace and minimum of sacrifice on the part
of those who participated in the movement. And if they might not help an
evil Government nor receive any favours from it, it followed that they
must give up all titles of honour which were no longer a proud
possession. Lawyers, who were in reality honorary officers of the Court,
should cease to support Courts that uphold the prestige of an unjust
Government and the people must be able to settle their disputes and
quarrels by private arbitration. Similarly parents should withdraw their
children from the public schools and they must evolve a system of
national education or private education totally independent of the
Government. An insolent Government conscious of its brute strength,
might laugh at such withdrawals by the people especially as the Law
courts and schools were supposed to help the people, but he had not a
shadow of doubt that the moral effect of such a step could not possibly
be lost even upon a Government whose conscience had become stifled by
the intoxication of power.
He had hesitation in accepting Swadeshi as a plank in non-co-operation.
To him Swadeshi was as dear as life itself. But he had no desire to
smuggle in Swadeshi through the Khilafat movement, if it could not
legitimately help that movement, but conceived as non-co-operation was,
in a spirit of self-sacrifice, Swadeshi had a legitimate place in the
movement. Pure Swadeshi meant sacrifice of the liking for fineries. He
asked the nation to sacrifice its liking for the fineries of Europe and
Japan and be satisfied with the coarse but beautiful fabrics woven on
their handlooms out of yarns spun by millions of their sisters. If the
nation had become really awakened to a sense of the danger to its
religions and its self-respect, it could not but perceive the absolute
and immediate necessity of the adoption of Swadeshi in its intense form
and if the people of India adopted Swadeshi with the religious zeal he
begged to assure them that its adoption would arm them with a new power
and would produce an unmistakable impression throughout the whole world.
He, therefore, expected the Mussalmans to give the lead by giving up all
the fineries they were so fond of and adopt the simple cloth that could
be produced by the manual labour of their sisters and brethren in their
own cottages. And he hoped that the Hindus would follow suit. It was a
sacrifice in which the whole nation, every man, woman and child could
take part.