Mahatma Gandhi’s Discussion with U.P.P.C.C. Executive Council Members

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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Mahatma Gandhi’s Discussion with U.P.P.C.C. Executive Council Members

 

QUESTION: You seem to be placing an exaggerated emphasis on non-violence today. Surely you will not suggest that we were more ready or more non-violent in 1920-21 and in 1930? Or will you say that your standard has now gone up?

ANSWER: Both. There was not then so much violence as is to be seen on the surface today. And my standard too has gone up. I was not so rigid in my conditions then as I am now. If you accept my generalship, you have to accept not only my conditions but my judgment as to whether we are ready or not. It is quite likely that there is really no difference between the conditions of those days and of today; but it is equally true that I did not know then that I was walking on a mine, today I am haunted by that consciousness and I cannot help it.

QUESTION: Is there not a fear that, if we do not strike the nail while it is hot, we may never be able to do so at all?

ANSWER: There is that psychology of readiness among the people. If we do not seize the opportunity, their enthusiasm may be damped and their readiness may vanish. The best thing, therefore, today is for you to suggest a programme whereby we may prepare the field and yet keep up the spirit of the people. I have always been impatient of this kind of language. I cannot understand a readiness which would vanish if it was not availed of at once. That is no readiness at all. Ready is he who is ready at all times and at all places whenever and wherever he is called. The only meaning of readiness is readiness to carry out the command of the general. To use military language, we should be so prepared as to make war unnecessary. What is essential is the attainment of independence, not the time and the ways and means of civil disobedience. I expect from you enough faith and discipline to instinctively await and obey your general’s word. Don’t expect me to say anything more. Do not expect me to reveal how, if ever, I shall launch civil disobedience. I have nothing up my sleeve, and I will have no knowledge until the last moment. I am not made that way. I knew nothing of the Salt March until practically the moment it was decided upon. This I know that God has rarely made me repeat history and he may not do so this time. There is one thing, however. I may, for reasons you may not reveal to me, be unfit as a general. In that case you must give me up, and I shall not in the least be sorry for it now for the last point in your question. You want a programme which may be directly connected with civil disobedience. If you will not laugh at me, I will unhesitatingly say it is the programme of universal spinning. Listening to the alarms and advice of the doctors I had given it up for some time. I began it in response to Narandas Gandhi’s call, and I do not think I shall ever give it up, until of course my hands are paralyzed. So I would say that the more you spin the better soldiers you will be. If that is my conviction, why should I be ashamed of declaring it? There cannot be two parts in my advice, one of which you may accept and the other you may reject. My condition is a vital one. It is likely that there may not be the necessary intellectual conviction, but it will follow faith as a necessary consequence. I say this because I have acted in that spirit. I have marched miles upon miles, through bush and briar and along unbeaten tracks, acting on the word of command, during the Zulu Rebellion. But as I have said the whole thing may strike you as chimerical or quixotic. In that case you have but to give up my leadership. I have led for twenty years, and it may be well for me to rest on my oars. It is possible that you may be able to evolve some new technique of Satyagraha. In that case the moment I am convinced I shall be ready to follow you. Whatever you do, do not accept my leadership with a mental reservation. You will by doing so betray both me and the country. If I get your co-operation, it must be full and hearty. I have argued the thing for twenty years; I can advance no fresh argument now. We have proceeded on an altogether different ideology. Well, there’s the rub. That is why I am repeating again and again my suggestion of a change in the leadership.

QUESTION: But if the charkha is with some of us a symbol of your leadership and nothing more?

ANSWER: No, it must be a symbol of non-violence and a specific condition of preparation for a non-violent struggle. I would suggest even a better course a course I suggested in 1934. Banish spinning and khadi from the Congress programme, so that I automatically drop out. If you do so, the mistake will not be yours but mine. For it is my duty to convince you that there is a vital connection between the charkha and non-violence.

QUESTION: What was the duty of the Congressmen when there was a riot going on to die in quelling it?

ANSWER: We had one Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi in 1931, and have had none to copy his example since. So many die during the riots, but they do not offer of themselves willing sacrifices. Those who do not accept this programme should leave me.

QUESTION: But must we allow them to hold up the movement assuming that there will be Hindu-Muslim riots?

ANSWER: They cannot indefinitely do so. I have enough faith in Mussalmans to hope that they would rebel against being an obstacle in the way of independence. There is enough love of freedom and democracy in them to make them ashamed of that state of things. In view of the little time at our disposal, could you tell us what you would regard as the minimum preparation necessary from the point of view of spinning? Why little time? Is it essential that we should start the movement in three months or six months? Let it take six years. What is essential is the preparation, I would ask you to get rid of impatience. The test for me is not a formal spinning by you all for half an hour or even an hour a day in order to satisfy me or to secure my leadership, but the universalization of spinning so that there may be no mill-cloth indigenous or foreign in your province. If I feel that we have made rapid strides in that direction, I shall be satisfied. You boast of several hundred thousand Congress members. If all of these took up the programme and became voluntary workers on behalf of the A.I.S.A., there would be no mill-cloth in the province. It should be part of your daily life. Just as an Afridi cannot do without his rifle, even so every one of you non-violent soldiers should not be able to do without your spinning and all this, not because this old man wants it, but because you want independence. When you realize this you will not come to me with questions like the one you have asked.

Reference:

Harijan, 2-12-1939