Gandhi and Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia was a famous Indian freedom fighter and a socialist political leader. He was born on 23 March 1910 in a village Akabarpur in Amedkar Nagar district Uttar Pradesh. While in Europe he attained the League of Nations Assemble in Geneva. He completed his Ph.D. thesis on Salt Satyagraha. He was a closed associate of Mahatma Gandhi up to Quite India Movement. Mahatma Gandhi praise in his writing and speaking many times.

Gandhi wrote in Harijan, on dated 1-7-1939 that having said this let me say for the information of Dr. Lohia and his fellow humanitarians that I yield to no one in my regard for the Zulus, the Bantus and the other races of South Africa. I used to enjoy intimate relations with many of them. I had the privilege of often advising them. It used to be my constant advice to our countrymen in South Africa, never to exploit or deceive these simple folk. But it was not possible to amalgamate the two causes. The rights and privileges (if any could be so called) of the indigenous inhabitants are different from those of the Indians. So are their disabilities and their causes.

But if I discovered that our rights conflicted with their vital interests, I would advise the forgoing of those rights. They are the inhabitants of South Africa as we are of India. The Europeans are undoubtedly usurpers, exploiters or conquerors or all these rolled into one. And so the Africans have a whole code of laws specially governing them. The Indian segregation policy of the Union Government has nothing in common with the policy governing the African races. It is unnecessary for me to go into details. Suffice it to say that ours is a tiny problem compared to the vast problem that faces the African races and that affects their progress. Hence it is not possible to speak of the two in the same breath. The A. I. C. C. resolution concerns itself with the civil resistance struggle of our countrymen on a specific issue applicable solely to them. It is now easy to see that Dr. Lohia’s amendment, if it had remained, would have been fatal to the resolution which would have become perfectly meaningless. The appeal to the Union Government would have lost all its point.

Gandhi wrote in Harijan, on dated 29-7-1939 that Dr. Lohia has sent me a long, well-reasoned letter on the current controversy on the Congress resolution4 on Satyagraha. There is a portion in it which demands public discussion. Here it is: You will not permit the slightest separation of the principle of Satyagraha from your own specific programmed. Is it not possible to universalize the principles of Satyagraha, to make it the bed-rock of programmed other than your own? Perhaps, it is not; but I have this argument against you that you have not permitted and encouraged any such experiment.

The people today do not regard your own programmed of ministerial action and constructive activities as wholly adequate; they are experimenting with such programmed as those of peasant action. These newer programmed entail an amount of local and isolated action even during such times when there is no general Satyagraha. Will you stop these little satyagrahas till you have found the formula for a general Satyagraha? In such a course of action there is the danger of anarchy that arises out of suppression. Non-violent collective action is among the rarest and most precious gifts received by mankind in all history; we may not, however, know how to treasure it and continue it.

Not only have I not prohibited separation of the principle of Satyagraha from my own specific programmed, I have often invited new programmed. But hitherto I have not known a single case of any new programmed. I have never suggested that there can never be any departure from or addition to my programmed. What, however, I have said and would like to repeat here is that I cannot bless or encourage a new programmed that makes no appeal to me. My programmed, I claim, is a deduction from the Satyagraha of my conception. It is, therefore, likely that if there was any such vital activity favoring the growth of Satyagraha, it would not escape me. I am painfully conscious of the fact that my programed has not made a general appeal to the Congress intelligentsia.

 I have already pointed out that the reason for the apathy of Congressmen is not to be sought in any inherent defect in the programme, but that it is due to the want of a living faith in ahimsa. What can be more patent than that we should have complete communal harmony, eradication of untouchability, sacrifice of the drink revenue by the closing of liquor-shops and the replacement of mill-cloth by khadi? I suggest that non-violent swaraj is impossible if Hindus, Muslims and others do not shed their mutual distrust and do not live as blood brothers, if Hindus do not purify themselves by removing the curse of untouchability and thus establish intimate contact with those whom they have for ages put beyond the pale of society, if the wealthy men and women of India will not tax themselves so that the poor who are helpless victims of the drink and drug habit may have the temptation removed from them by the closing of drink and drug shops, and, lastly, if we all will not identify ourselves with the semi-starved millions by giving up the taste for mill-cloth and revert to khadi produced by the many million hands in the cottages of India.

 In all that has been written against the constructive programme, I have not come across a single convincing argument against either its intrinsic merit or its merit in terms of nonviolent Swaraj. I make bold to say that if all Congressmen concentrate themselves on this constructive programme, we shall soon have the requisite non-violent atmosphere throughout the length and breadth of the land for cent-per-cent Satyagraha.

Take the peasant action suggested by Dr. Lohia as a possible new programme. I regret to have to say that in most cases the peasants are not being educated for non-violent action. They are being kept in a state of perpetual excitement and made to entertain hopes which can never be fulfilled without a violent conflict. The same may safely be said about labour. My own experience tells me that both the peasantry and labour can be organized for effective non-violent action, if Congressmen honestly work for it. But they cannot, if they have no faith in the ultimate success of non-violent action. All that is required is the proper education of the peasantry and labour.

They need to be informed that if they are properly organized they have more wealth and resources through their labour than the capitalists through their money. Only capitalists have control over the money market, labour has not over its labour market, although if labour had been well served by its chosen leaders it would have become conscious of the irresistible power that comes from proper instruction in nonviolence. Instead, labour in many cases is being taught to rely on coercive methods to compel compliance with its demands. The kind of training that labour generally receives today leaves it in ignorance, and relies upon violence as the ultimate sanction. Thus it is not possible for me to regard the present peasant or labour activity as a new programme for the preparation of satyagraha.

Indeed what I see around me is not preparation for a non-violent campaign but for an outbreak of violence, however unconscious or unintended it may be. If I was invited to hold myself responsible for this ending to the past twenty years’ effort, I should have no hesitation in pleading guilty. Have I not said as much already in these columns? But my admission will not take us anywhere, unless it results in the retracing of our steps, the undoing of the wrong already done.

This means having a reasoned faith in the non-violent method as the only means of gaining complete independence. When we have that faith, all bickering within the Congress will cease, there will be no longer an ungainly scramble for power, and there will be mutual help instead of mutual mud-flinging. But it may be that Congressmen have come to believe that non-violence of my definition is played out or is not possible of attainment. In that case there should be a conference, formal or informal, between all Congress groups or a special meeting of the A. I. C. C. to consider the question whether time has not come to revise the policy of non-violence and the consequent constructive programme, and to find out and frame a programme in consonance with and answering the present temper of Congressmen. It is up to every Congressman to carry on a fierce search inward and deal with this central problem. It is not safe or dignified for the Congress to follow the policy of drift. I would like such a meeting to forget that the members belong to different groups and to remember that they are first and last servants of the nation pledged to fight the nation’s battle of freedom with one mind. The Congress today is a house divided against itself. It must not be.

Gandhi wrote in Harijan, on dated 27-1-1940 that thus writes Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Does the Independence Pledge necessitate belief in a social order for free India which will be based exclusively on the charkha and the present constructive programme? I personally feel that it does not. The pledge is inclusive of the charkha and village crafts, but it is not exclusive of other industries and economic activities. Among these industries may be mentioned those of electricity, ship-building, machine-making and the like. The question of emphasis still remains. The pledge decides it only to the extent that belief in the charkha and village crafts as an integral part of the future social order is essential and cannot be superseded by other belief. Does the pledge immediately necessitate abandonment of every other action except such as is based on the present constructive programme?

I personally feel that it does not. Agitation against land rents, taxes, interest and other economic obstructions to the advance of our people appears to be permissible. It is not, for instance, impossible that you should yourself decide upon a no-rent and no-tax campaign when you choose to start satyagraha. Whether you actually do so or not is not so important from the viewpoint of the pledge as the fact that you may do it. At any rate, agitation on economic lines is today permissible. These two questions arise in so far as the negative aspect of the pledge is concerned. A third question arises in regard to its positive aspect. It is undoubtedly necessary that anyone who takes the pledge must be ready to express his positive faith in the principle of decentralized economy. The actual forms of this faith may, however, be decided by the march of history.

Only in regard to the charkha it should be possible for anyone who takes the pledge to believe that the complete decentralization of the textile industry is possible and that it should be attempted. I have not at all referred to irregularities of conduct due to indolence and similar causes; that happens in regard to all pledges and faiths. Only the wish must be there to remove these irregularities. I do not know if this interpretation of the pledge is correct and can meet with your approval. I do not also know if my socialist comrades will approve 1 (1910-1967); joined the Congress Socialist Party in 1934; Secretary,

foreign department of the A.I.C.C., 1936-38; General Secretary, Praja Socialist Party, 1953-54; author of Marx, Gandhi and Socialism and other works of it. It might perhaps be worthwhile for the country to know soon your opinion. Perhaps it is already too late for the Independence Day.

I need hardly repeat, what I have said often, that the legal and authoritative interpretation of the pledge can only come from the Working Committee. My interpretation has as much authority as my questioners choose to give it. On the whole I can say that I have no difficulty in accepting Dr. Lohia’s interpretation.

Whatever the ultimate outcome of the Congress effort, the discussion that is going on over the pledge provides healthy political education for the public and crystallizes the opinions that rule the various schools of thought in the country. Though I am in general agreement with Dr. Lohia, it will be well for me to give the interpretation in my own language. The pledge is not exhaustive. It represents the limit to which I could carry the Working Committee with me. If I can convert the country to my point of view, the social order of the future will be based predominantly on the charkha and all it implies. It will include everything that promotes the well-being of the villagers. It will not exclude the industries mentioned by my correspondent so long as they do not smother the villages and village life. I do visualize electricity, ship-building, ironworks, machine-making and the like existing side by side with village handicrafts. But the order of dependence will be reversed.

Hitherto the industrialization has been so planned as to destroy the villages and village crafts. In the State of the future it will sub serve the villages and their crafts. I do not share the socialist belief that centralization of the necessaries of life will conduce to the common welfare when the centralized industries are planned and owned by the State. The socialistic conception of the West was born in an environment reeking with violence. The motive lying behind the Western type and the Eastern is the same—the greatest welfare of the whole society and the abolition of the hideous inequalities resulting in the existence of millions of have-nots and a handful of haves.

I believe that this end can be achieved only when non-violence is accepted by the best mind of the world as the basis on which a just social order is to be constructed. I hold that the coming into power of the proletariat through violence is bound to fail in the end. What is gained by violence must be lost before superior violence. India is within an ace of achieving the end, if only Congressmen will be true to their creed of non-violence and live up to it. The working of the constructive programme is the test. Those who play upon the passions of the masses injure them and the country’s cause.

That they have noble motives is irrelevant. Why will not Congressmen work out the programme fully and faithfully? It will be time to consider other programmes when we have come into our own. But like the fabled men who quarreled over the division of the buffalo before it was bought, we argue and quarrel over our different programmes before swaraj has come. Decency requires that when a programme is approved by the majority all should carry it out faithfully. Most decidedly, the pledge does not necessitate the abandonment of the other items that have hitherto adorned the Congress programme and are adverted to by Dr. Lohia. Agitation against every form of injustice is the breath of political life. My contention is that, divorced from the constructive programme, it is bound to have the tinge of violence.

Let me illustrate my point. My experiments in ahimsa have taught me that non-violence in practice means common labour with the body. A Russian philosopher, Bondoref, has called it bread labour. It means closest co-operation. The first satyagrahis of South Africa laboured for the common good and the common purse and felt free like birds. They included Hindus, Muslims (Shias and Sunnis), Christians (Protestants and Roman Catholics), Parsis, and Jews. They included the English and the Germans. By profession they were lawyers and architects, engineers, electricians, printers and traders.

Practice of truth and non-violence melted religious differences, and we learnt to see beauty in each religion. I do not remember a single religious quarrel in the two colonies1 I founded in South Africa. The common labour consisted of printing, carpentry, shoe-making, gardening, house-building, and the like. Labour was no drudgery, it was a joy. The evenings were devoted to literary pursuits. These men, women and boys were the vanguard of the satyagraha army. I could not wish for braver or more loyal comrades.

 In India the South African experience was continued and, I trust, improved upon. Labour in Ahmedabad is by common consent the best organized in India. If it continues to work along the lines on which it began, it will ultimately own the mills in common with the present holders. If that is not the natural outcome, its non-violence will be found to contain flaws. The peasants of Bardoli who gave Vallabhbhai the title of ‘Sardar’ and won their battle1 and of Borsad2 and Kheda3 who did likewise, have for years been working the constructive programme. They have not deteriorated as satyagrahis by working it. I am quite certain that Ahmedabad labour and the peasantry of Bardoli and Kheda will give as good an account of themselves as any other in India if there is civil resistance.

Thirty-four years of continuous experience and experimenting in truth and non-violence have convinced me that non-violence cannot be sustained unless it is linked to conscious body-labour and finds  expression in our daily contact with our neighbours. This is the constructive programme. It is not an end; it is an indispensable means and therefore is almost convertible with the end. The power of nonviolent resistance can only come from honest working of the constructive programme.

 

Gandhi wrote a letter to Narendra Dev on dated 7 April 1940. In which he described that I do not know whether you have been invited to attend the meeting of the Working Committee. If not, please solve a problem for me by writing a letter. You will recall that you, Jayaprakash and Lohia had proposed a resolution to the effect that Congressmen should withdraw from District Boards and similar other bodies. I had approved of the resolution, but in the Working Committee no one except Jawaharlal and the Maulana had any argument. As for me, I had no other material except my own personal view. I have no experience in such matters. Jayaprakash has some. I should not ignore this question. Will you help me in some way? You can show this letter to Dr. Lohia and other friends.

Gandhi wrote in Harijan on dated 1 June 1940 that the reader will find in another column Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia’s plea for immediate civil disobedience. I endorse his prescription for ensuring world peace. For enforcing the acceptance of his prescription he would have immediate civil disobedience. Here I must join issue. If Dr. Lohia subscribes to my conception of the working of non-violence, he will at once admit that the present is no atmosphere for influencing the Britisher in the right direction through civil disobedience. Dr. Lohia agrees that the British Government should not be embarrassed. I fear that any step towards direct action is bound to cause them embarrassment. If I start now, the whole purpose of civil disobedience will be defeated. I would unhesitatingly declare

Gandhi wrote in Harijan on dated 15 June 1940 that Q. You must know that arrests after arrests are being made under the defence of India Act. Now your favorite Dr. Lohia is taken up. I suppose you still see no reason for civil disobedience even as a protest against these arrests. Or maybe you think that these arrests are legitimate.

A. The question is apposite. Dr. Lohia is no more my favourite than any other Congressman. True he has come nearer to me than he was. Every arrest evokes my mental protest. But I am not in the habit of reducing all my thoughts to writing. I believe that our thoughts too produce effects, though not known to us or to the world. I felt that any public protest by me would be ineffective. All things are legitimate and illegitimate in war time. I regard war itself as illegitimate. Therefore all repression is bad from my standpoint. But I have as yet no effective remedy against war. Even, therefore, as I suffer war, I suffer these repressive acts of warmakers. One strange thing about India is that, so far as I know, it is not the people who are likely to help the Nazis that are being put under restraint, but those who are patriots hungering for the freedom of the country. In a free country they will be fighting against designs upon their country.

 Here their chief fault is that they are lovers of their country and its freedom. If the authorities have anything else against them, they should publish it. Repression is on the increase. They know that the Congress is the most powerful instrument for preventing violence. The Congress has taken no step which might, in spite of its efforts to the contrary, result in violence. It is therefore difficult to understand these acts of repression.

They seem to be part of a concerted plan, for they are prevalent in almost all provinces. One reflection I put before Congressmen for what it is worth. Imprisonment has no terror for them. Civil disobedience means certain imprisonment. The difference is that in the one case it is courted, in the other it comes uninvited. Therefore any step the Congress can take will be not to secure the discharge of the persons arrested but to take wind out of the Government sails by offering more victims than they can take. Therefore the question is whether the Congress should take that step or not.

Gandhi wrote in Harijan again on dated 25 August 1940 that by courtesy of Shri Achyut Patwardhan I have a copy of Dr. Lohia’s statement before the court and the judgment of the presiding magistrate. The whole of Dr. Lohia’s statement is sound, but I resist the temptation to give it in full. Here, however, is its pertinent part:

The Viceroy’s note on this letter was: “P. S. V. Perhaps an acknowledgment to an acknowledgment might be held to be superfluous! But we can afford to be magnanimous and to say that I received his letter and was grateful for it. This letter is clearly an invitation to expand and perhaps a sign of distress. But there is nothing doing.”

In all our activities we have to be non-violent. Non-violence is dictated not only by the circumstances in our country but by considerations that operate throughout the world. It is not only a practical necessity, it is an ethical desirability. Whatever little confusion there might be on this point due to faulty reporting is set aside by the reporter himself. I am reported to have said: ‘When we have recourse to weapons we become weak of hearts. Those who rely on weapons do not rely on their hearts. They turn into slaves of their own weapons. They have no strength left in themselves. I am an opponent of the old cult of the lathi, and its modern equivalent the cult of the aero plane. There is an inner contradiction between these cults and the enduring of human life, a contradiction which is daily becoming more fierce.

The next twenty years will show which wins and the dualism cannot last longer. Should human life endure, there can be only one form of organization. Adult democracy must obtain throughout the world, and there will be no place in it for imperialism, nor for capitalism. I have given an indication in my speech of this form of government as it will affect the Indian people. It was with a view to bring into the foreground this principle of adult democracy that I suggested an immediate peace plan to Mahatma Gandhi. I claim no originality for this plan whose items are:

1. All peoples will be free. Those newly acquiring freedom will determine their constitution through a constituent assembly.

2. All races are equal, and there will be no racial privileges in any part of the world. There will be no political bar to anyone settling wherever he likes.

3. All credits and investments owned by the Government and nationals of one country in another will be scrapped or submitted for impartial review to international tribunals. They will then be owned not by individuals but by the state. When these three principals will have been accepted by the people of the world, a fourth will automatically come into operation.

4. There will be total disarmament. I am happy in the knowledge that Mahatma Gandhi has endorsed this peace plan. Let me in conclusion state that I have no ill will towards any people. I have lived among the German people and liked their thoroughness of enquiry, the scientific bent of their mind and their efficiency in action. I am unhappy that they have today to carry on their shoulders a system which results in war and conquest. I have no intimate knowledge of the British people. I dare say that they have their virtues. I may be permitted to quote from my speech: ‘I do not want the destruction of Britain. The British have done evil to us, but I do not want to do evil to them.’ Again, I am unhappy that the British people have to carry on their shoulders today a system which has enslaved the people of the world.

Of Dr. Lohia this is what the court has to say: The accused is a highly intellectual and cultured gentleman, perhaps with a doctorate degree of some European University, a man of high principles and morals whose honesty of purpose nobody can doubt. He does not mind suffering for his convictions and does not care much for his sentence or its duration. We certainly do not punish him for holding certain political views about the present Government, for the very claim of the Government that it is democratic and run on public opinion entitles the public to criticize it according to his [sic] light by constitutional means, but we must protect such Government from embarrassment in her relations with the masses who are bound to be disaffected by a speech like the one the accused has delivered in Dostpur, and particularly when the British nation and Empire is in grip with the most unscrupulous enemy.

I, therefore, consider that his detention in jail for a long duration or until the present cloud is drifted away is very desirable and to that end in view I sentence him to two years R. I. He is recommended for B Class.

Then why has he been rewarded with rigorous imprisonment? The duration of the term I understand. He must be kept from the supposed mischief. I wonder whether the fact of the imprisonment will not aggravate the mischief. Of this, the Government must be the judge. But the people will remember that love of one’s country and outspokenness are a crime in a country where the state is irresponsible to the people. Dr. Lohia and other Congressmen’s imprisonments are so many hammer-strokes that must weaken the chain that binds India. The Government is inviting the Congress to start civil disobedience and deliver the last blow it would fain have reserved for a better day – better for the British. It is a pity.

Gandhi wrote a letter to Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia on dated 19 October 1945 that It is good that you got the wire regarding Mauritius. I am glad that I could get your letter under that excuse. Let me know about your health if you can, else let the jailor do so.

Gandhi wrote a letter to Dr. Rammanohar Lohia on dated 17 December 1945 that I am sorry that your father passed away suddenly yesterday. We used to meet often. I had sent Pyarelalji and Prabhavatibehn to see his charkha activity. In my view he died in the manner he wanted. He had been engrossed in his work.

 

Gandhi wrote a letter to Dr. Rammanohar Lohia on dated 17 April 1946 that Bhai Human is bringing this letter. I had thought that you would proceed further after meeting me in Delhi. And when you went to Calcutta I thought that you did so because you regarded it your foremost duty to perform your father’s shraddha. I am sure that we shall meet somewhere at some mutually convenient time. Does anyone attend to the social service programme of your father?

Gandhi wrote in Harijan on dated 11 August 1946 that though the politics of Dr. Lohia probably differ from mine, he has commanded my admiration for his having gone to Goa and put his finger on its black spot. Inhabitants of Goa can afford to wait for Independence, until much greater India has regained it. But no person or group can thus remain without civil liberty without losing self-respect. He has lighted a torch which the inhabitants of Goa cannot, except at their peril, allow to be extinguished. Both you and the inhabitants of Goa should feel thankful to the Doctor for lighting that torch. Therefore, your description of him as “stranger” would excite laughter if it was not so tragic. Surely the truth is that the Portuguese coming from Portugal is strangers, whether they come as philanthropists or as Governors exploiting the so-called weaker races of the earth.

 

Gandhi spoke at a prayer meeting in New Delhi on dated 2 October 1946 that It is as though God had sent us a special message in the form of this song.1 In truth the springs of India’s life are drying up. It would be folly to suppose that because there is a Congress Government at the Centre all is well. I shall not dwell on the stabbings that are going on, shocking as they are. To illustrate to you how the springs of our life are drying up, I shall say something on what is going on in Goa. Goa is a small island. It is an integral part of India. News has come that Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia has been arrested immediately on his arrival there and placed in solitary confinement. A few days ago Shri Kakodkar was arrested for having raised his voice for civil liberty and sentenced to imprisonment for nine years. It is being said that he may be deported.

Dr. Lohia is a learned man. I may not agree with his views but this does not mean that I can remain untouched by his case. You must all be as much pained as I am by the arrest of Dr. Lohia and the happenings in Goa. I carried on some correspondence with the authorities in Goa, but it was infructuous. To tell any Indian that he cannot enter Goa is as insulting as to tell me that I may not enter any particular part of India. Goa is as much a part of India as Kashmir or any other State. It is intolerable that Dr. Lohia should be treated as foreigner and denied the right of entry into Goa. Let us see what steps Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who has donned the crown of thorns, and Lord Wavell take to see that this highhandedness on the part of the Goa authorities is stopped.

Gandhi wrote to Dr. Rammanohar Lohia again in Harijan on dated 20 October 1946 that Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia’s letter to the Chief Judge of the Goa High Court deserves more than passing attention. I copy it below from the daily Press:

At the time of my arrest2, I had not, so far as I know, violated any Goan law. I may have been intent on doing so but that is irrelevant. The police officer at Collem walked into my compartment, asked me no questions and put me straightway under arrest. International law, as it stands today, probably empowers the Portuguese Government to arrest and deport anyone whom they consider an undesirable alien but they are surely not empowered to hold him in prison unless he has actually violated some law. The Portuguese Government has in the past declared me as alien and taken up their stand on a provision in International Law with regard to me. They owe me an apology and damages for illegal imprisonment or else. They must give up their attempt to apply International Law as between Goa and the rest of Hindustan. Furthermore, between September 29 and October 2, they kept me in a cell, which has probably as much ventilation as just keeps a man alive.

They owe me an added apology and damages for this kind of treatment. I continue to be held in solitary confinement, although under better conditions and I am not taken out of my cell except for bath and I am held incommunicado. These add to the illegality of my imprisonment.

Let no one laugh at Dr. Lohia’a presumption in asking for damages. If he had power behind him, the Goan authorities would quickly apologize and offer to pay damages. It is not an unusual thing for big powers to ask for damages and obtain them for injury or insult done even to insignificant subjects. Dr. Lohia is not a little man. Well, India has a National Government. I am sure they are as sensitive as any can be. I should not be surprised if they have lodged their protest and asked the Goa Government to mend their manners. Anyway, let the force of public opinion be behind the National Government and the injured Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia. The injury done to him is injury done to our countrymen in Goa and through them to the whole of India.

Gandhi wrote a letter to Dr. Rammanohar Lohia on dated 22 July 1947 that this morning at 4.45 I read your statement about the Adivasis and others. It is good but it may not prove effective. I find none who can undertake this work. The Nagas met me. I understand what is happening.

We had only one force and we have lost it. That was moral force or spiritual force if you choose to call it that. The opposite of it is brute force or military strength. That we do not seem to have at present. It will ruin India. Now you will understand why I talked about. . etc. As the saying goes, a word to the wise.

Gandhi wrote a letter to Dr. Rammanohar Lohia on dated 22 august 1947 that I will write tomorrow about Nepal. Smoking can be given up all at once. Those who smoke moderately cannot keep to a limit. If we workers do not have such will power, what work cans we except to do? It is now that we have to do real work. Have you understood the Goa problem fully?

Gandhi spoke in a prayer meeting on dated 6 November 1947 that when Dr. Rammanohar Lohia met me he fully agreed with me about removing food control. I do not hesitate to say that in the present situation of food scarcity through which the country is passing; Dr. Rajendra Prasad should be guided by one or more members of his Committee and not by his entire staff.