After the great war it is difficult,
to point out a single nation that is happy; but this
has come out of the war, that there is not a single
nation outside India, that is not either free or striving
to be free.
It is said that we, too, are on the
road to freedom, that it is better to be on the certain
though slow course of gradual unfoldment of freedom
than to take the troubled and dangerous path of revolution
whether peaceful or violent, and that the new Reforms
are a half-way house to freedom.
The new constitution granted to India
keeps all the military forces, both in the direction
and in the financial control, entirely outside the
scope of responsibility to the people of India.
What does this mean? It means that the revenues
of India are spent away on what the nation does not
want. But after the mid-Eastern complications
and the fresh Asiatic additions to British Imperial
spheres of action. This Indian military servitude
is a clear danger to national interests.
The new constitution gives no scope
for retrenchment and therefore no scope for measures
of social reform except by fresh taxation, the heavy
burden of which on the poor will outweigh all the advantages
of any reforms. It maintains all the existing
foreign services, and the cost of the administrative
machinery high as it already is, is further increased.
The reformed constitution keeps all
the fundamental liberties of person, property, press,
and association completely under bureaucratic control.
All those laws which give to the irresponsible officers
of the Executive Government of India absolute powers
to override the popular will, are still unrepealed.
In spite of the tragic price paid in the Punjab for
demonstrating the danger of unrestrained power in the
hands of a foreign bureaucracy and the inhumanity
of spirit by which tyranny in a panic will seek to
save itself, we stand just where we were before, at
the mercy of the Executive in respect of all our fundamental
liberties.
Not only is Despotism intact in the
Law, but unparalleled crimes and cruelties against
the people have been encouraged and even after boastful
admissions and clearest proofs, left unpunished.
The spirit of unrepentant cruelty has thus been allowed
to permeate the whole administration.
THE MUSSALMAN AGONY
To understand our present condition
it in not enough to realise the general political
servitude. We should add to it the reality and
the extent of the injury inflicted by Britain on Islam,
and thereby on the Mussalmans of India. The articles
of Islamic faith which it is necessary to understand
in order to realise why Mussalman India, which was
once so loyal is now so strongly moved to the contrary
are easily set out and understood. Every religion
should be interpreted by the professors of that religion.
The sentiments and religious ideas of Muslims founded
on the traditions of long generations cannot be altered
now by logic or cosmopolitanism, as others understand
it. Such an attempt is the more unreasonable
when it is made not even as a bonafide and independent
effort of proselytising logic or reason, but only to
justify a treaty entered into for political and worldly
purposes.
The Khalifa is the authority that
is entrusted with the duty of defending Islam.
He is the successor to Muhammad and the agent of God
on earth. According to Islamic tradition he must
possess sufficient temporal power effectively to protect
Islam against non-Islamic powers and he should be
one elected or accepted by the Mussalman world.
The Jazirat-ul-Arab is the area bounded
by the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf,
and the waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
It is the sacred Home of Islam and the centre towards
which Islam throughout the world turns in prayer.
According to the religious injunctions of the Mussalmans,
this entire area should always be under Muslim control,
its scientific border being believed to be a protection
for the integrity of Islamic life and faith.
Every Mussalman throughout the world is enjoined to
sacrifice his all, if necessary, for preserving the
Jazirat-ul-Arab under complete Muslim control.
The sacred places of Islam should
be in the possession of the Khalifa. They should
not merely be free for the entry of the Mussalmans
of the world by the grace or the license of non-Muslim
powers, but should be the possession and property
of Islam in the fullest degree.
It is a religions obligation, on every
Mussalman to go forth and help the Khalifa in every
possible way where his unaided efforts in the defence
of the Khilifat have failed.
The grievance of the Indian Mussalmans
is that a government that pretends to protect and
spread peace and happiness among them has no right
to ignore or set aside these articles of their cherished
faith.
According to the Peace Treaty imposed
on the nominal Government at Constantinople, the Khalifa
far from having the temporal authority or power needed
to protect Islam, is a prisoner in his own city.
He is to have no real fighting force, army or navy,
and the financial control over his own territories
is vested in other Governments. His capital is
cut off from the rest of his possessions by an intervening
permanent military occupation. It is needless
to say that under these conditions he is absolutely
incapable of protecting Islam as the Mussulmans of
the world understand it.
The Jazirat-ul-Arab is split up; a
great part of it given to powerful non-Muslim Powers,
the remnant left with petty chiefs dominated all round
by non-Muslim Governments.
The Holy places of Islam are all taken
out of the Khalifa’s kingdom, some left in the
possession of minor Muslim chiefs of Arabia entirely
dependent on European control, and some relegated to
newly-formed non-Muslim states.
In a word, the Mussalman’s free
choice of a Khalifa such as Islamic tradition defines
is made an unreality.
THE HINDU DHARMA
The age of misunderstanding and mutual
warfare among religions is gone. If India has
a mission of its own to the world, it is to establish
the unity and the truth of all religions. This
unity is established by mutual help and understanding
between the various religions. It has come as
a rare privilege to the Hindus in the fulfilment of
this mission of India to stand up in defence of Islam
against the onslaught of the earth-greed of the military
powers of the west.
The Dharma of Hinduism in this respect
is placed beyond all doubt by the Bhagavat Gita.
Those who are the votaries of other
Gods and worship them with faith even they,
O Kaunteya, worship me alone, though not as the Shastra
requires IX, 23.
Whoever being devoted wishes in perfect
faith to worship a particular form, of such a one
I maintain the same faith unshaken, VII
21.
Hinduism will realise its fullest
beauty when in the fulfilment of this cardinal tenet,
its followers offer themselves as sacrifice for the
protection of the faith of their brothers, the Mussalmans.
If Hindus and Mussalmans attain the
height of courage and sacrifice that is needed for
this battle on behalf of Islam against the greed of
the West, a victory will be won not alone for Islam,
but for Christianity itself. Militarism has robbed
the crucified God of his name and his very cross and
the World has been mistaking it to be Christianity.
After the battle of Islam is won, Islam and Hinduism
together can emancipate Christianity itself from the
lust for power and wealth which have strangled it
now and the true Christianity of the Gospels will be
established. This battle of non-cooperation with
its suffering and peaceful withdrawal of service will
once for all establish its superiority over the power
of brute force and unlimited slaughter.
What a glorious privilege it is to
play our part in this history of the world, when Hinduism
and Christianity will unite on behalf of Islam, and
in that strife of mutual love and support each religion
will attain its own truest shape and beauty.
AN ENDURING TREATY
Swaraj for India has two great problems,
one internal and the other external. How can
Hindus and Mussalmans so different from each other
form a strong and united nation governing themselves
peacefully? This was the question for years,
and no one could believe that the two communities
could suffer for each other till the miracle was actually
worked. The Khilafat has solved the problem.
By the magic of suffering, each has truly touched
and captured the other’s heart, and the Nation
now is strong and united.
Not internal strength and unity alone
has the Khilafat brought to India. The great
block in the way of Indian aspiration for full freedom
was the problem of external defence. How is India,
left to herself defend her frontiers against her Mussalman
neighbours? None but emasculated nations would
accept such difficulties and responsibilities as an
answer to the demand for freedom. It is only
a people whose mentality has been perverted that can
soothe itself with the domination by one race from
a distant country, as a preventative against the aggression
of another, a permanent and natural neighbour.
Instead of developing strength to protect ourselves
against those near whom we are permanently placed,
a feeling of incurable impotence has been generated.
Two strong and brave nations can live side by side,
strengthening each other through enforcing constant
vigilance, and maintain in full vigour each its own
national strength, unity, patriotism and resources.
If a nation wishes to be respected by its neighbours
it has to develop and enter into honourable treaties.
These are the only natural conditions of national
liberty; but not a surrender to distant military powers
to save oneself from one’s neighbours.
The Khilafat has solved the problem
of distrust of Asiatic neighbours out of our future.
The Indian struggle for the freedom of Islam has brought
about a more lasting entente and a more binding
treaty between the people of India and the people
of the Mussalman states around it than all the ententes
and treaties among the Governments of Europe.
No wars of aggression are possible where the common
people on the two sides have become grateful friends.
The faith of the Mussulman is a better sanction than
the seal of the European Diplomats and plenipotentiaries.
Not only has this great friendship between India and
the Mussulman States around it removed for all time
the fear of Mussulman aggression from outside, but
it has erected round India, a solid wall of defence
against all aggression from beyond against all greed
from Europe, Russia or elsewhere. No secret diplomacy
could establish a better entente or a stronger
federation than what this open and non-governmental
treaty between Islam and India has established.
The Indian support of the Khilafat has, as if by a
magic wand, converted what Was once the Pan-Islamic
terror for Europe into a solid wall of friendship and
defence for India.
THE BRITISH CONNECTION
Every nation like every individual
is born free. Absolute freedom is the birthright
of every people. The only limitations are those
which a people may place over themselves. The
British connection is invaluable as long as it is
a defence against any worse connection sought to be
imposed by violence. But it is only a means to
an end, not a mandate of Providence of Nature.
The alliance of neighbours, born of suffering for
each other’s sake, for ends that purify those
that suffer, is necessarily a more natural and more
enduring bond than one that has resulted from pure
greed on the one side and weakness on the other.
Where such a natural and enduring alliance has been
accomplished among Asiatic peoples and not only between
the respective governments, it may truly be felt to
be more valuable than the British connection itself,
after that connection has denied freedom or equality,
and even justice.
THE ALTERNATIVE
Is violence or total surrender the
only choice open to any people to whom Freedom or
Justice is denied? Violence at a time when the
whole world has learnt from bitter experience the
futility of violence is unworthy of a country whose
ancient people’s privilege, it was, to see this
truth long ago.
Violence may rid a nation of its foreign
masters but will only enslave it from inside.
No nation can really be free which is at the mercy
of its army and its military heroes. If a people
rely for freedom on its soldiers, the soldiers will
rule the country, not the people. Till the recent
awakening of the workers of Europe, this was the only
freedom which the powers of Europe really enjoyed.
True freedom can exist only when those who produce,
not those who destroy or know only to live on other’s
labour, are the masters.
Even were violence the true road to
freedom, is violence possible to a nation which has
been emasculated and deprived of all weapons, and the
whole world is hopelessly in advance of all our possibilities
in the manufacture and the wielding of weapons of
destruction.
Submission or withdrawal of co-operation
is the real and only alternative before India.
Submission to injustice puts on the tempting garb
of peace and, gradual progress, but there is no surer
way to death than submission to wrong.
THE FIFTH UPAYA
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 he 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.
SOME OBJECTIONS
The powerful character of the measure,
however, leads some to object to non-co-operation
because of that very reason. Striking as it does
at the very root of Government in India, they fear
that non-co-operation must lead to anarchy, and that
the remedy is worse than the disease. This is
an objection arising out of insufficient allowance
for human nature. It is assumed that the British
people will allow their connection with India to cease
rather than remedy the wrongs for which we seek justice.
If this assumption be correct, no doubt it must lead
to separation and possibly also anarchy for a time.
If the operatives in a factory have grievances, negotiations
having failed, a strike would on a similar argument
be never admissible. Unyielding obstinacy being
presumed, it must end in the closing down of the factory
and break up of the men. But if in ninety-nine
out of a hundred cases it is not the case that strikes
end in this manner, it is more unlikely that, instead
of righting the manifest wrongs that India complains
about, the British people will value their Indian
Dominion so low as to prefer to allow us to non-co-operate
up to the point of separation. It would be a totally
false reading of British character and British history.
But if such wicked obstinacy be ultimately shown by
a government, far be it from us to prefer peace at
the price of abject surrender to wrong. There
is no anarchy greater than the moral anarchy of surrender
to unrepentant wrong. We may, however, be certain
that if we show the strength and unity necessary for
non-co-operation, long before we progress with it
far, we shall have developed true order and true self-government
wherein there is no place for anarchy.
Another fear sometimes expressed that,
if non-co-operation were to succeed, the British would
have to go, leaving us unable to defend ourselves
against foreign aggression. If we have the self-respect,
the patriotism, the tenacious purpose, and the power
of organisation that are necessary to drive the British
out from their entrenched position, no lesser foreign
power will dare after that, undertake the futile task
of conquering or enslaving us.
It is sometimes said that non-co-operation
is negative and destructive of the advantages which
a stable government has conferred on us. That
non-co-operation is negative is merely a half-truth.
Non-co-operation with the government means greater
co-operation among ourselves, greater mutual dependence
among the many different castes and classes of our
country. Non-co-operation is not mere negation.
It will lead to the recovery of the lost art of co-operation
among ourselves. Long dependence on an outside
government which by its interference suppressed or
prevented the consequences of our differences has made
us forget the duty of mutual trust and the art of
friendly adjustment. Having allowed Government
to do everything for us, we have gradually become
incapable of doing anything for ourselves. Even
if we had no grievance against this Government, non-co-operation
with it for a time would be desirable so far as it
would perforce lead us to trusting and working with
one another and thereby strengthen the bonds of national
unity.
The most tragic consequence of dependence
on the complex machinery of a foreign government is
the atrophy of the communal sense. The direct
touch with administrative cause and effect is lost.
An outside protector performs all the necessary functions
of the community in a mysterious manner, and communal
duties are not realised by the people. The one
reason addressed by those who deny to us the capacity
for self-rule is the insufficient appreciation by
the people of communal duties and discipline.
It is only by actually refraining for a time from dependence
on Government that we can regain self-reliance, learn
first-hand the value of communal duties and build
up true national co-operation. Non-co-operation
is a practical and positive training in Swadharma,
and Swadharma alone can lead up to Swaraj.
The negative is the best and most
impressive method of enforcing the value of the positive.
Few outside government circles realise in the present
police anything but tyranny and corruption. But
if the units of the present police were withdrawn
we would soon perforce set about organising a substitute,
and most people would realise the true social value
of a police force. Few realise in the present
taxes anything but coercion and waste, but most people
would soon see that a share of every man’s income
is due for common purposes and that there are many
limitations to the economical management of public
institutions; we would begin once again to contribute
directly, build up and maintain national institutions
in the place of those that now mysteriously spring
up and live under Government orders.
EMANCIPATION
Freedom is a priceless thing.
But it is a stable possession only when it is acquired
by a nation’s strenuous effort. What is
not by chance or outward circumstance, or given by
the generous impulse of a tyrant prince or people
is not a reality. A nation will truly enjoy freedom
only when in the process of winning or defending its
freedom, it has been purified and consolidated through
and through, until liberty has become a part of its
very soul. Otherwise it would be but a change
of the form of government, which might please the
fancy of politicians, or satisfy the classes in power,
but could never emancipate a people. An Act of
Parliament can never create citizens in Hindustan.
The strength, spirit, and happiness of a people who
have fought and won their liberty cannot be got by
Reform Acts. Effort and sacrifice are the necessary
conditions of real stable emancipation. Liberty
unacquired, merely found, will on the test fail like
the Dead-Sea-apple or the magician’s plenty.
The war that the people of India have
declared and which will purify and consolidate India,
and forge for her a true and stable liberty is a war
with the latest and most effective weapon. In
this war, what has hitherto been in the world an undesirable
but necessary incident in freedom’s battles,
the killing of innocent men, has been eliminated; and
that which is the true essential for forging liberty,
the self-purification and self-strengthening of men
and women has been kept pure and unalloyed. It
is for men, women and youth, every one of them that
lives in and loves India, to do his bit in this battle,
not waiting for others, not calculating the chances
of his surviving the battle to enjoy the fruits of
his sacrifice. Soldiers in the old-world wars
did not insure their lives before going to the front.
The privilege of youth in special is for country’s
sake to exercise their comparative freedom and give
up the yearning for lives and careers built on the
slavery of the people.
That on which a foreign government
truly rests whatever may be the illusions on their
or our part is not the strength of its armed forces,
but our own co-operation. Actual service on the
part of one generation, and educational preparation
for future service on the part of the next generation
are the two main branches of this co-operation of slaves
in the perpetuation of slavery. The boycott of
government service and the law-courts is aimed at
the first, the boycott of government controlled schools
is to stop the second. If either the one or the
other of these two branches of co-operation is withdrawn
in sufficient measure, there will be an automatic
and perfectly peaceful change from slavery to liberty.
The beat preparation for any one who
desires to take part in the great battle now going
on is a silent study of the writings and speeches
collected herein, and proposed to be completed in a
supplementary volume to be soon issued.
C. RAJAGOPALACHAR