Armament and Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

E-mail- [e-mail];

[e-mail]

Mailing Address- C- 29, Swaraj Nagar, Panki, Kanpur- 208020, Uttar Pradesh, India

 

 

Armament and Mahatma Gandhi

 

 

We have so fed ourselves with the history of other nations that we find it impossible to believe that we can attain our end without a repetition of thirty years' or a hundred years' war, and therefore without military training and huge armament. We do not care to read our own history and remember that whilst kings have come and kings have gone, whilst dynasties have been formed and destroyed, India has remained unmoved and unaffected. We will not read the lesson of the late War, that it is not so much military preparation we want as a change of our own outlook upon India's future. Habit has forced the conviction upon us that we, the countless millions, are nothing before one hundred thousand Englishmen, not all of whom are even administrators. As soon as we have discarded the awe of the British rule, and ceased to consider ourselves as cheap as dirt, we shall be free. I know that it is possible to perform this revolution of thought during the year, and it is my hope that India will be ready for it during the time. Hitherto we have promised ourselves many things and fulfilled little.

If we were to turn up even two-year-old resolutions of the Congress, we shall find that we have failed even to send petitions we had resolved upon. Hitherto, we have looked up to the Government to do everything for us, and we have found it almost wholly irresponsive in everything that matters. We have therefore been filled with blank despair. We have ceased to believe in ourselves or the Government. The present movement is an attempt to change this winter of our despair into the summer of hope and confidence. When we begin to believe in ourselves, Englishmen will, I promise, begin to believe in us. Then, and not till then, is there any hope of co-operation between the Government and us. The existing system of Government, it will be found upon analysis, is based upon a scientific study of our weaknesses, which have rather been promoted by it than reduced. Non-cooperation is, therefore, as much a protest against our own weaknesses, as against the inherent corruption of the existing system. British and Indian, we become impure by belonging to it. The withdrawal from it of one party purifies both. I invite even the sceptics to follow the programme of non-co-operation as a trial, and I promise that there will be swaraj in India during the year, if the programme is carried out in its-fullness. 

Voluntary suffering being a new experience, there is a feeling that if the excitement of the moment subsides, we may not respond to a fresh dose of repression, whereas permanent readiness to suffer is an essential condition of swaraj. Does not England provide for a permanent armament in order to keep herself immune from attack? No doubt it is mad, it is suicidal and it amounts to a denial of God and His justice. But she cannot do otherwise so long as she considers it necessary to impose her commerce and to prey upon other nations. She wishes to be feared by the nations of the earth and has to pay heavily for it. India, I hope, wish to be loved by them and, therefore, must depend upon perpetual readiness to suffer for her freedom. We have involuntarily suffered so long that it is difficult for us even to imagine that we can do without it. Let us transmute the unwillingness into willingness to suffer and we are protected against a combination of all the nations of the earth. Anyway that is the course India has chosen, and as soon as it becomes an established fact that our capacity to suffer has become normal, we are altogether a free nation. When we have attained that state we shall approach conferences and settlements without misgiving and with perfect equanimity. 2

Her independence depends partly upon the goodwill of her neighbours and partly upon her armament. In so far as she relies upon her armament, she is a menace to the world, as in fact she became during the late War. She stood, as we now learn, not for righteousness but for plunder. Her statesmen, equally with France and other States, were guilty of secret treaties, diplomatic fraud and barbarities hardly inferior to Germany’s. It must be clear to everyone that it cannot be such armed independence that the signatories want and, if they do, I am certain that they represent only themselves. Independence is a word hallowed by centuries of usage and, therefore, it is possible to raise round it a large body of opinion, but no one would hazard a definition of it that would suit the whole of that body. I suggest, therefore, that there is no substitute for swaraj, and the only universal definition to give it is ‘that status of India which her people desire at a given moment. 3

If Germany today changed her policy and made a determination to use her freedom not for dividing the commerce of the world but for protecting through her moral superiority the weaker races of the earth, she could certainly do that without armament. It would be found that, before general disarmament in Europe commences, as it must someday unless Europe is to commit suicide, some nation will have to dare to disarm her and take large risks. The level of non-violence in that nation, if that event happily comes to pass, will naturally have risen so high as to command universal respect. Her judgments will be unerring, her decisions will be firm, her capacity for heroic self-sacrifice will be great, and she will want to live as much for other nations as for herself. I may not push this delicate subject any further. I know that I am writing in a theoretical way upon a practical question without knowing all its bearings. My only excuse is, if I understand it correctly, that that is what the writer has wanted me to do. 4

This is reported to have been said by Sir William Johnson- Hicks. But he is not the first minister to have reminded us of our serfdom. Why should truth be at all unpalatable? It must do us good to know ourselves as we are destined to be hewers of wood and drawers of water for the benefit of whosoever will claim us by the prowess of his sword. It is good; too, that due emphasis is laid on Lancashire goods. The sword will be sheathed as soon as Manchester calico ceases to be saleable in India. It is much more economical expeditious and possible to give up the use of Manchester and, therefore, foreign calico than to blunt the edge of Sir William’s sword. The process will multiply the number of swords and, therefore, also miseries in the world. Like opium production, the world manufacture of swords needs to be restricted. The sword is probably responsible for more misery in the world than opium. Hence do I say that, if India takes to the spinning-wheel, she will contribute to the restriction of armament and peace of the world as no other country and nothing else can? 5

The fashion nowadays is to take for granted that whatever America and England are doing is good enough for us. But the figures given by the writer of the cost to America of her armament are too terrible to contemplate. War has become a matter of money and resourcefulness in inventing weapons of destruction. It is no longer a matter of personal bravery or endurance. To compass the destruction of men, women and children, it might be enough for me to press a button and drop poison on them in a second. 6 Personally, even under agreement, I should rely more upon the capacity of the nation to offer civil resistance to any aggressor as it did last year with partial success in the case of the British occupier. Complete success awaits complete assimilation of non-violence in thought, word and deed by the nation. An ocular demonstration of the success of nationwide Satyagraha must be a prelude to its worldwide acceptance and hence as a natural corollary to the admission of the futility of armament. The only antidote to armament which is the visible symbol of violence is Satyagraha the visible symbol of non-violence. But the writer is oppressed also by the fear of our dissensions. In the first place they are grossly exaggerated in transmission to the West. In the second place, they are hardened during foreign control. Imperial rule means divide tempera. They must therefore melt with the withdrawal of the frigid foreign rule and the introduction of the warmth giving sunshine of real freedom.   When India becomes self-supporting, self-reliant and proof against temptations and exploitation, she will cease to be the object of greedy attraction for any power in the West or the East and will then feel secure without having to carry the burden of expensive armament. Her internal economy will be India’s strongest bulwark against aggression. 7 

Just a few decades ago, I never knew what Hindustan was nor did Hindustan know what I was. I came to Champaran in 1917 with a view to redressing the grievances of the peasantry who were mere toys in the hands of the planters. I came here with my heart open and had no other instrument for the fight except the armament of truth and nonviolence. Today you love me and adore me. I accept your loyalty with gratitude. But there was nothing extraordinary in me. There was sincerity and devotion in me to lift you up from the economic, social and political morass. I only wish that you could also follow the principles I follow. What I said to you in 1917 still holds good. The indigo curse was removed because you were non-violent. You have the same weapon at your disposal. 8

Why should the Appeal breed any ill-will at all? There is no cause given for it by the manner or the matter of the Appeal. I have not advised cessation of fight. I have advised lifting it to a plane worthy of human nature, of the divinity man shares with God Himself. If the hidden meaning of the remark is that by making the Appeal I have strengthened Nazi hands, the suggestion does not bear scrutiny. Herr Hitler can only be confounded by the adoption by Britain of the novel method of fighting. At one single stroke he will find that all his tremendous armament has been put out of action. A warrior lives on his wars whether offensive or defensive. He suffers a collapse if he finds that his warring capacity is unwanted. 9 That is the equipment that can lead us to victory. I have not retired from the world, nor do I mean to. I am no recluse. I am content to do what little work I can in Sevagram and give what guidance I can do those that come to me. What we need is faith. And what is there to be lost in following the right path? The worst that can happen to us is that we shall be crushed. Better to be crushed than to be vanquished. But if we had to equip ourselves violently, I should be at my wit’s end. I cannot even think out an armament plan, much less work it. On the other hand my non-violent plan is incredibly simpler and easier, and with God as our Commander and Infallible Guide where is there cause for any fear? 10

There can be no limit to what friendly Independent India can do. I had in mind a treaty between United Nations and India for defence of China against Japanese aggression. But given mutual goodwill and trust, the treaty should cover protection of human dignity and rights by means other than resort to armament. For this involves competition in capacity for greatest slaughter. I wish British opinion could realize that Independence of India changes character of Allied cause and ensures speedier victory. 11 A number of workers who in the past were staunch believers in non-violence are, so to say, taking it lightly today. Even if people were to renounce and condemn non-violence, truth, constructive programme and khadi, etc., I shall continue to proclaim my faith in them till my last breath, for I see no other way for India’s progress. No progress will be possible unless we make the requisite effort for implementing the constructive programme and learn to cultivate goodwill towards wrong-doers. Eminent persons have made experiments and invented armament but they fail to tempt me. With the increase in armament my conviction is becoming deeper that the power generated by non-violence is immense and incomparable. I have been a votary of this power for the last 30 years. I am not going to take this power lightly at a critical juncture as at present. Even if no one is with me I am my own companion. 12

 

References:

 

1. Young India, 8-6-1921
2. Young India, 12-1-1922
3. Young India, 17-7-1924
4. Young India, 8-10-1925
5. Young India, 19-11-1925
6. Young India, 22-8-1929
7. Young India, 2-7-1931
8. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 9-5-1939
9. Harijan, 28-7-1940
10. Harijan, 25-8-1940
11. Harijan, 28-6-1942
12. Biharni Komi Agman, pp. 180