Bengal Provincial Conference 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

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Bengal Provincial Conference and Mahatma Gandhi 

 

I am supposed to be speaking to you to return thanks for the very kind and generous words spoken about me by the Chairman of the Reception Committee and our worthy President. At the outset I want to tender my congratulations to the Subjects Committee on having finished its deliberations in perfect harmony. It is an open secret and latterly we have ceased to have any secrets whatsoever in connection with our politics and, therefore, we have been welcoming, and even inviting, detectives so as to enable them to detect flaws in our policy, detect flaws in our doings and in everything that we may do in connection with the national policy and even outside the national policy. But still, as I said, it is an open secret that there were some disputes or differences or dissensions in connection with the resolutions that will be brought before this House this afternoon. But all’s well that ends well. I do not recall any Subjects Committee in which there have not been little differences or little jars.

I suppose, they will abide with us to the end of time whether they are in India or elsewhere. European Cabinets have their secrets, but if we are permitted to pry into their secrets and into the secrets of their Subjects Committees, I suppose, we would have about the same kind of reports as reports are to be found in connection with our dissensions and disputes. Let us not, therefore, exaggerate those dissensions and differences, but let us treasure the thought that, after all, in the end we can unite and we can unite to a purpose.  I read the address of Deshbandhu Das and I have had the privilege and pleasure of reading the English translation. I do not know which is the original, whether Bengali or the English translation, because Bengali scholars tell me that the Bengali version reads as sweet and as eloquent as the English version, but, in any case, I had the pleasure and privilege of having an advanced copy of the English address when I was in Calcutta with a brief, little, loving, sweet note from Deshbandhu that, if I could spare a few minutes, I should read that address. Well, I read from the start to the finish and I was wondering whether he had pilfered every sentiment from me. But I must confess to you that I saw that the language was not mine. The language was that of a scholar and not of a rustic who delights in calling himself a spinner, a scavenger, a weaver, a farmer and now evens a Namashudras. And so I saw that the language was not mine, but the thoughts seemed to have been pilfered and so immediately I said to myself, if he would ask me to subscribe to it, I would have no hesitation in doing so without perhaps altering a single word or a single phrase. But, perhaps, some of you will consider that this is no recommendation whatever for that address, but on the contrary that is the surest guarantee that the address is as dull as ditch water.

Well, I assure you that it is not as dull as ditch water. And why do I want to give you that assurance? You have listened to it. You read it. And when a thing is not dull in reading, you may depend upon it. I want to look not at phraseology. I do not want to look at the language. I only want to look at the thoughts that under lie it and what he has said to us in that address. If we are true to ourselves, if we are true to the nation, if we are true to the policy that was enunciated for the first time in Calcutta in 1920 with all the great deliberation that we could bring to bear upon that policy, if we are to be true to that, then, there is absolutely nothing in that address to cavil at. And that address is a renunciation and an emphatic and unequivocal re-enunciation of the policy that was laid down for the first time in the history of the Congress in 1920. When I say laid down for the first time in the history of the Congress, it is not that the Congress ever believed in a policy of violence, nor that the Congress ever believed that we should follow anything but legitimate methods, but that the Congress never made that declaration. But in 1920 we chose deliberately to tell the world that we intended to attain that goal of swaraj, that in order to attain that goal we intended to follow a means that was absolutely peaceful and legitimate. And as I have translated these two phrases or these two words or paraphrases, “non-violent and truthful” means, do you abide by that interpretation or that paraphrase or these two words? And during the four or five years that have intervened, Deshbandhu has been one of those who have had a part in the shaping of the national policy in those terms and you have no right to expect anything else from him and you have no right to expect anything more from him today. Anything more I say, because some of us like pepper and salt eschewed from our programme for the time being, at any rate. We have considered it; every one of the leaders has considered it, that it is not possible for us to attain our freedom with pepper and salt or with fire and brimstone.

We shall be able to attain our national regeneration shall we say, national salvation only by means that are absolutely non-violent and truthful; not that it need be the religion of any single one of us it is sufficient if it is our policy, it is sufficient if we accept it from motives of expediency and no other or no higher motive. We have problems in India to deal with which no other nation on the earth has. We have, if we are Hindus, to deal with our Muslim countrymen, with our Christian countrymen, with our Zoroastrian countrymen, with the Sikhs and so many sections and sub-sections of Hindus, which dignify themselves by a name which does not belong to Hinduism. How are we to achieve the unity of purpose, the unity of action between the diverse elements except by means which are not open to any question, namely, non-violence and truthfulness? We will not be able to deal with our Muslim countrymen or with our Hindu countrymen on any other terms. And then we have our provincialism. Bengal thinks that she must rule the whole of India and that the whole of India is to be merged in that little province called Bengal and Gujarat probably thinks likewise. Gujarat, which is merely a drop in the ocean compared to Bengal, thinks it must rule the whole of India and India should be merged in Gujarat. Then take the brave Mahratta with their recent traditions. Why should they not think that they must shape the destiny and policy of India? The Muslim with his still later traditions thinks that he must establish or reestablish a Muslim empire. From these diverse elements and provincialism there is no escape for us except through non-violent and truthful means because, otherwise, we are sitting on a mine which is likely to explode at any moment.

The slightest trace of dirt in us is likely to make us perish and that is why I have insisted in season and out of season upon a policy not of religion but a policy of nonviolence and truthfulness. You may do anything you like with your country after you have attained your goal. You may resort to any means that you consider legitimate or proper for the vindication of your country’s honour, but for me I make no secret. It is the first and the last. It is my religion. It is the breath of my nostrils—non-violence and truthfulness, and I wish; I could infect every young man in this hall with that zeal and with that devotion for this non-violence and truthfulness. I know many a Bengali youth. I know that he has got courage which is matchless; I know he is eager to die for the freedom of his country as he is today living for the country. I claim, if it is not impertinence on my part, that I have also the ability to die for the country as I am today living for the country. But, as I have said, it is for me a living death. Death on the gallows has absolutely no terror for me. I believe I have got the capacity for dying on the gallows with a smile on my lips if I am innocent. If my hands and my heart are as white as snow, then death has no terror for me. Let it be so with every young man in Bengal. And Deshbandhu has re-enunciated and restated that policy for you. Did he not say the same thing in his beautiful address at Gaya? I have not read that address even now, but I heard the echoes of that address delivered to me at the Yeravda Jail. I did not pilfer that news. I may tell you I carried out every instruction of the Jailor’s, but the Jailor and visitors sometimes told me what was passing outside the walls of that prison and I came to know in ordinary course that Deshbandhu had enunciated in emphatic terms the policy of non-violence and the policy of truthfulness.

He thinks likewise for you, for me, for himself and for the whole of the country. You know how he has been assailed. You know how many detractors he has, not merely amongst Europeans but amongst our own countrymen. He has detractors in his own camp. What is he to do? Is he to sit on the fence? Yes, he might have sat on the fence if he had not his country’s interest in all his heart if he did not dream about the deliverance of his country, and if he was not prepared to say in most loving manner : I cannot possibly wish you, Mahatma Gandhi, a long life because you are destined to die the moment we have achieved swaraj, because you are living for swaraj and swaraj alone and as I want my swaraj for India today, I cannot pray to God that Mahatma Gandhi may live long lest my swaraj be delayed. I treasure that thought and in that thought, although humorously uttered, is the highest compliment that he is capable of paying me or you are capable of paying me because it is right. I am as impatient as any single one of you to attain swaraj. But I understand our functions; know what we have got to do. If we could get swaraj by a dozen of intoxicating medicines, I would today hurl defiance at the great British throne and say out with you I want my swaraj today. But I cannot do that today. I cannot hurl that defiance. I admit my incapacity. I admit the incapacity of my country today. Yes, I can certainly take off a few Englishmen’s heads as anyone can. It does not require strong arms. It requires a strong heart. A little bit of revolver can be manipulated by me just as by any one of you. But what is the use of my taking off the head of Lord Reading or Lord Lytton or of any Englishman? But I cannot possibly put that head on a charger and say that here is the deliverance of my country. Deliverance of the country requires a sterner stuff.

We have got to evolve not merely the capacity for dying. We have got to evolve not merely the capacity for killing, but, as Dr. Besant once said, it required some amount of courage, even to live in the face of odium, censure, neglect and boycott even from those whom you have treasured as nearest and dearest to you. And she was right. I say that every moment of my life it requires some degree of courage even to live in the midst of such storms and strife. But how, then, are we to attain freedom of our country? Not certainly by killing, not certainly at the present moment even by dying, but by plodding, and that is the reason why I have humbly ventured to place before you these three things : Hindu-Muslim unity, removal of untouchability and the spinning-wheel. But the Hindu- Muslim unity cannot occupy a young man’s whole twenty-four hours. It is our creed. Just as a Mussalman has said his kalma it is finished and then he has got to live up to the implication of the kalma, just as I have recited a gayatri, it is finished with me and I need not be reciting it fifty million times during the day, but I must live up to it so this is but a creed of Hindu-Muslim unity, removal of untouchability. But every one of us can put our hands to something tangible, to something feasible. Every one of us can put our hands to the beautiful spinning-wheel and with every yard of yarn that you spin; you spin every yard of the destiny of India. That is the finest revolution that I know for India. I know that some of you laugh the laugh of incredulity. Some of you will consider here is an idiot speaking to us in season and out of season about the spinning-wheel. But I promise, I prophesy that a day is to dawn, and is not very far, when nobody will call me an idiot. But the finest testimony that will be given to me will be that I revived the cult of charkha that Gandhi gave the simple message of the rustic when he asked us to spin that he spoke in terms of swaraj for the masses and millions of his downtrodden countrymen when he delivered the message of charkha. I have no misgiving about the future of my career. My career is ensured.

My future is ensured so long as I swear by the charkha and I promise to you that even if everyone of the audience here, including Deshbandhu Das, says: “Gandhi is wrong; charkha is nothing, it is an idiotic thing in this age of machinery and speed”, I will still say the same thing up to the very last breath of my life: “Give me the spinning-wheel and I will spin swaraj for India.”You will not get swaraj for India on any other terms. We must become a nation of workers and not a nation of talkers or idlers. We are by nature not idle but, by force of circumstances, millions of our countrymen have to live in enforced idleness. You do not know the idle masses as I do. I have lived in the midst of the 17 lakhs of people of Champaran for six months or more, and I have seen them hovering round me from day to day without doing anything whatsoever. They were satisfied to draw a little of warmth from one whom they considered to be their true servant, but they would not work. But I had not, at that time, this spinning-wheel or I would have placed it before them.

They were not famishing, not starving, but they had forgotten the use of their limbs. They would scratch a little bit of earth, grow indigo, reap corn, but would not spin. They had no industry in their homes and, having forgotten it for years; they now consider it perfectly useless. That is why I call it enforced idleness. Our limbs were cut off by the East India Company that is one of the blackest crimes that I have charged the British Rule with and that is why I have said that, not until I see a change of heart amongst the Englishmen, and not until they feel in terms of the masses of India and say:“Yes, we repent, we ought to return to India what we have taken from her” for me there is no hand extended; to them I say, “I cannot clasp your hand if you do not call me, ‘my dear brother’.”I cannot do that unless he sympathizes with the masses of India. He flings little bit of sympathy in the face of the masses from time to time. It is not enough for me.

I want him to read the hearts of the masses and understand their economy, not economics borrowed from Europe, no matter how distinguished a personage he may be. He must think in terms of the masses and, the moment the Englishman begins to think in terms of the masses, you will find me fall prostrate at his feet, because I know his virtues, his capacities. But I cannot do so unless he develops along right lines. That being so, unless he does so, what is the use of my speaking to the Englishman; for I charge him with a black crime in that he has robbed me of the spinning-wheel. But why should I charge him when you, my countrymen, refuse to spin for half an hour, when you send messages or when you write sometimes that ‘this fool of a Gandhi has imposed this cursed franchise on us; let us get rid of it as he has imposed this cursed burden upon us.’ But does he ask you to do something marvellous, something beyond your capacity when he asks, in the name of God, for the sake of the country, to spin if it is only for half an hour? Does he ask you to do something which you are incapable of doing when he asks you to be clad from top to toe in hand-spun and hand-woven cloth?

What shall I say to you, what shall I do with you or how shall I attain my swaraj if you cannot do this little practical thing? They accuse you, they accuse the Bengalis, of want of practicability and in some respects they are right. We want everything, but without having to work for it sufficiently. If we speak about the thing sufficiently, if we pass resolutions, but immediately, when it comes to actual work, we shirk it, remember those who shirk work for the sake of the nation shall have no hand in shaping the destiny of India, shall have no hand in attaining swaraj for India. I ask you, therefore, to retain this “Yarn Franchise”. Make it still more restrictive. If it is to be restricted, make it obligatory on every man and woman who wants to serve India through the Congress, a living organization, make it obligatory upon every man and woman, upon every girl and boy, to spin for at least half an hour and to wear khaddar, not only on ceremonial occasions, not for Congress work, but for all work.

In your home also, you will wear nothing but khaddar. You will go stark naked rather than that you should wear anything that is not hand-spun by your sister and hand-woven by your brother in your home and not in the factory. That is the message of the spinning-wheel. That is the simple little demand I make of every man and woman who loves India and who wants freedom of India. Would you be surprised if I tell you that, if you want to have the discharge of those prisoners who are cooped within the walls of the Mandalay Prison, if you want the release of Subhash Chandra Bose and others you must spin? Without work it is impossible. If you want him and his fellow-prisoners to be discharged with honour and with dignity, then I say, spin. Promise me that every Bengali man and woman will henceforth wear khaddar and nothing but khaddar, that every man and woman will go to the charkha with the same delight that he goes to his meal or with the same delight of a young lover who goes to his sweetheart. Then I promise deliverance of those young men in no time. You will find that this incredibly simple thing will secure their deliverance, because that will be a sign of your determination to work for India without expecting any remuneration; because I have asked only for half an hour’s free labour for the sake of India. It is not a mighty thing that I ask of you. But it is because you are of little faith, because you have no faith in your masses, because you have no faith in yourselves, because you have no faith in your country, that you decline to spin and still feel that Deshbandhu would secure the key of that prison, break their fetters and unlock those gates. It is impossible for him to do so. Some of you consider that he is carrying on negotiations with the Government in secret.

He has no secrecy whatsoever, as far as I know. Secrecy is prohibited in Congress politics. When somebody asked him what is at the back of all this, he said, “There is as much in the back of it as in the front”. Lord Birkenhead has sent no secret message to him. He is not in secret negotiations with him. All that he had got to say, you will find it in his beautiful address. You will find it in his writings and speeches. You will find it in his life when he is closeted in his own inner chamber or when he is in this big pandal. If you scratch him, I know you will find the same man wanting deliverance for the country. That is the link that binds me to him, that is the link that should bind the audience to him. That is the link which should bind you to him. You may not be convinced with our reasons. You may say: “Our heart is satisfied that you are on the right track. We subscribe to your advice so long as we hold you to be our ideal.” That is the way for you. That is the way I would like you to treat those whom you love. You are like sepahis and soldiers; it is not for you to reason why after you have chosen your leader if you have not made your choice and are called upon to make your choice, exercise your reason to its utmost Scan the would be candidate to leadership from top to toe. But after having made your choice and after having garlanded, like Sita, your chosen person, never flinch and, like Sita, go through the fire with him and all will be well with you.  

 

Reference:

The Searchlight, 8-5-1925