For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

British Administration and Mahatma Gandhi

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- dr.yadav.yogendra@gandhifoundation.net;

dr.yogendragandhi@gmail.com

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

British Administration and Mahatma Gandhi

We may not like the British administration, but the Emperor is not responsible for it. He does not even know what happens in his Empire. It is not his duty; he does not have the means, to keep himself so informed. How is he to blame, then? Even if the blame is his, how will he be better by our tearing out his picture? The important thing, however, is that unworthy thoughts should not make their appearance in children’s minds at all. They should be innocent. The mind should be innocent for the entire period of one’s student life. Attachments and aversions should have no place in that period. Even if, however, we cannot attain such a high state, we may certainly keep ourselves free from rudeness, discourtesy and thoughtlessness. I don’t think Navajivan is read by many children. I would therefore urge the parents to ask the children to read this article and see that they correct their wrong habit. Teachers also can do this. 1

Shaken as I was by this Peace Treaty, the Hunter Report has taken away all my faith even in the good intentions of the Ministry and the Viceregal Council. Nor has Mr. Montagu come well out of the ordeal. He has tried to serve both God and Mammon and has failed hopelessly. If the British Constitution survives this shock it will be due to some inherent vitality in it. Those who are at the helm at the present moment have certainly left no stone unturned to smash that constitution to pieces. Mahadev just now reminds me that you have cancelled by your wire the letter I am replying to. That however does not alter the situation. I would like you to realize with me the enormity of the double crime of the present British administration or make me see my folly and correct myself! 2 Railway workers have formed their own unions. I put it to their leaders that it is as much their duty to bring about internal reform as to secure rights in regard to their wages. If we merely insist on our rights and fail in our duties, we shall lose whatever rights we secure. No very profound principle of honesty is involved in this. If we do not display even practical honesty, public administration just cannot be carried on. I place a simple idea before the railway workers: “You, too, take interest in the national movement; you, too, raise your voice against the injustice of British rule. But how are people to protest against the injustice you do by stealing? Has an unjust man any right to demand justice? To the extent you are dishonest, you strengthen British rule, for people will lose faith in you. You will make them say, by your behaviour, that British administration is better, such as it is.” So long as a subject people do not make themselves better than their rulers in point of moral strength, they cannot shake off subjection. Therefore, if the railway workers wish well both of themselves and the people, they must resolve to shake off this immoral practice of stealing. 3

Dr. Pollen is wrong in his dates. I did not write to the Viceroy after non-co-operation as he suggests, but long before. I did then have faith in the British Government. I began the denunciation of the British administration two years after the open letter to the Viceroy. 4 But that is a reflection really upon the British administrators that instead of getting hold of all these turbulent tribes and making them peaceful they have used them for their own base ends. It is a sad thing which the future historians will have to note against the British administration. I am coming now in touch with the Nepalese. They are a splendid people. I met a little girl and I parted with her the day before yesterday. She is spreading the knowledge of non-violence among the Nepalese, because there never has the slightest attempt been made to make them peaceful. 5 I was not unprepared for some such defence. But I remain unrepentant. I have paid unstinted tribute to the Travancore administration. But the Abakari policy admits of no such defence. The extracts quoted read like pages from British Administration reports. Liquor is not a matter to trifle with. No soft and easy-going policy will cope with the tremendous evil. Nothing short of total prohibition can save the people from the curse. 6

The remedy is cultivation of enlightened and forceful public opinion. The process must begin, as it has begun, in British India proper; because it is naturally freer, being administered directly, unlike the States which are administered through the vassals of the Emperor. They, therefore, reproduce the evils of the British system without containing the few safeguards that direct British administration provides for its own sake. In the Indian States, therefore, orderliness depends more upon the personal character and whims of the chiefs for the time being than upon the constitution or rather the constitutions under which the States’ government is regulated. It follows, therefore, that real reform of the States can only come when the chilling control of the British Imperial system is at least tempered by the freedom of British India secured by the disciplined power of the people. Not that, therefore, all the journals have to observe silence. Reference to abuses in the States is undoubtedly a necessary part of journalism, and it is a means of creating public opinion. Only, my scope is strictly limited, I have taken up journalism not for its sake but merely as an aid to what I have conceived to be my mission in life. My mission is to teach by example and precept under severe restraint the use of the matchless weapon of Satyagraha which is direct corollary of non-violence and truth. I am anxious, indeed I am impatient, to demonstrate that there is no remedy for the many ills of life save that of non-violence. It is a solvent strong enough to melt the stoniest heart. To be true to my faith, therefore, I may not write in anger or malice. I may not write idly.

I may not write merely to excite passion. The reader can have no idea of the restraint I have to exercise from week to week in the choice of topics and my vocabulary. It is training for me. It enables me to peep into myself and make discoveries of my weaknesses. Often my vanity dictates a smart expression or my anger a harsh adjective. It is a terrible ordeal but a fine exercise to remove these weeds. The reader sees the pages of Young India fairly well dressed up and sometimes with Romain Rolland; he is inclined to say ‘what a fine old man this must be’. Well, let the world understand that the fineness is carefully and prayerfully cultivated. And if it has proved acceptable to some whose opinion I cherish, let the reader understand that when that fineness has become perfectly natural, i.e., when I have become incapable of evil and when nothing harsh or haughty occupies, be it momentarily, my thought-world, then and not till then, my nonviolence will move all the hearts of all the world. I have placed before me and the reader no impossible ideal or ordeal. It is man’s prerogative and birthright. We have lost the paradise only to regain it. If it takes time, then it is but a speck in the complete time-circle. The Divine Teacher of the Gita knew when he said that millions of our days are equal to only a day of Brahma. Let us not, therefore, be impatient and in our weakness think that non-violence is a sign of soft brains. It is not. 7

There is no such thing as co-operation if there is no non-co-operation. If we give our co-operation for the prosecution of that which is good, we must withdraw it from that which is evil. I believe that the present British administration of India is on the whole not good but positively evil. The military policy and the revenue policy which includes the hideous traffic in drink and drugs and the preference given to English interests over Indian are causing progressive deterioration both moral and material of the people of this unhappy country. English people are not all conscious of this tremendous wrong that is being done to the country and they will never be if we continue to give our co-operation whether through ignorance, through hypocrisy or through weakness. 8 I have cited this instance before you because I am a determined opponent of this British administration but we have yet got to learn much from the Britishers in the matter of sanitation. I ask you to shake off your lethargy, to take your courage in your hands; and you can easily carry out this reform. 9 I call this system a demoniacal system. To pretend to render justice instead of doing so, to fuss outward formalities in order to throw dust into people’s eyes, to build dykes beforehand, never to accept any mistakes as far as possible, to cover up the guilt of the guilty officials—these are marks of a demoniacal system. We observe these marks every day in the British administration. 10

It is terribly difficult, almost impossible, for them to realize that, at least so far as Indians are concerned, they believe that the sum total of the activities of British administration in India has been harmful rather than beneficial to the nation. It is no use pointing out the benefit that India might have received from the British connection. It is of vital importance to sum up the pros and cons and find out how India has fared. 11 I am surprised that the professor has failed to see the distinction between the Princes and the Paramount Power. The Princes (present) are a creation of the Paramount Power. They derive their authority from it. Their abdication will not end the Princely rule. Another will immediately take the vacant place and in the absence of one the State will be under British administration. Thus, whichever way you look, you will find the British power by its very nature blocking the way to Truth. 12

Your letter is a plea for co-operation by the Congress in the present administration, and failing that, in planning for the future. In my opinion, this requires equality between the parties and mutual trust. But equality is absent and Government distrust of the Congress can be seen at every turn. The result is that suspicion of Government is universal. Add to this the fact that Congressmen have no faith in the competence of the Government to ensure India’s future good. This want of faith is based upon bitter experience of the past and present conduct of the British administration of India. Is it not high time that you co-operate with the people of India through their elected representatives instead of expecting co-operation from them? 13

Hindu and Mussalman tea is sold at railway stations. Separate arrangements for meals for the two communities are sometimes made and none seems to be there for Harijans. All this is a sign of our pitiable condition and constitutes a blot on British administration. One can understand their not interfering in religious matters, but for them to allow separate arrangements for tea, water, etc., for the two communities is to set the seal of approval on separatism. Railways and railway travelling offer a golden opportunity which could be used for social reform and for educating the public in sanitation and hygiene, good manners and communal unity. Instead, however, an utter neglect of and indifference to these desiderata are shown. Railway travel serves to strengthen, rather than mitigate, evil customs and bad habits. First and second-class passengers are pampered, luxurious habits encouraged. Third-class passengers on whom the railway revenues largely depend are denied even elementary amenities and exposed to all kinds of hardship. In either case weakness is exploited. And when, in addition to this, separatism and untouchability are recognized by the railway authorities, it is the very limit. If any passenger wishes to impose restrictions on him, he is at liberty to do so at his own expense and suffer, maybe, even hunger and thirst. But let him not demand special facilities for himself from railway authorities. That vegetarians and non-vegetarians should be catered for, is another matter. That is already being done. 14

It is my firm conviction that the education imparted by the British administration, whether at the primary or the higher level, is not conducive to the progress of India, nor could it ever have been so. I have no doubt that only the scheme of education devised by the Talimi Sangh is the right education. And that is meant for all village people whether Hindus or others. 15 I would like you to tell me what you can about the Punjab tragedy. I know nothing about it save what is allowed to appear in the Press which I thoroughly distrust. Nor am I in sympathy with what may be termed by the old expression of “hush hush policy”. It is amazing how the country is adopting almost the every measure which it criticized during the British administration. Of course, I know the reason behind it. It makes no appeal to me. 16

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