The Gandhi-King Community

For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

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

 

Civil Right and Mahatma Gandhi

You imagine that a more potent reason for delaying the contemplated march is “to be found in the fact that the mass of the local Indian community could not be relied upon to join in the resuscitation of a form of conflict which recoiled most injuriously upon the Indians themselves”. There are other inferences, also, you have drawn from the delay, with which I shall not deal at present. I, however, assure you that you are wrongly informed if you consider that the mass of the local Indian community is not to be relied upon to join the march, if it has ever to be undertaken. On the contrary, the difficulty to-day is even to delay it and my co-workers and I have been obliged to send special messengers and to issue special leaflets in order to advise the people that the march must be postponed for the time being. I admit that speculation as to whether the mass of the local Indian community will or will not join the march is fruitless, because this will be, if it has to be, put to the test at no distant date. I give my own view in order that the public may not be lulled into a sense of false belief that the movement is confined to a few only among the community.

The chief reason, therefore, for trespassing upon your courtesy is to inform the South African public through your columns that, whilst the great National Congress that has just closed its session at Karachi was fully justified in asking, and was bound to ask, for full citizen rights throughout the British Dominions for all the King’s subjects, irrespective of caste, colour, or creed, and whilst they may not and ought not to be bound by local considerations, we in South Africa have repeatedly made it clear that, as sane people [we] are bound to limit our ambition by local circumstances, we are bound to recognize the widespread prejudice, however unjustified it may be, and, having done so, we have declared and I venture to re-declare through your columns that my co-workers and I shall not be party to any agitation which has for its object the free and unrestricted immigration of British Indians into the Union or the attainment of the political franchise in the near future. That these rights may come in time will, I suppose, be admitted by all; but when they do come, they will not be obtained by forcing the pace, as passive resistance is undoubtedly calculated to do, but by otherwise educating public opinion, and by the Indian community so acquitting itself in the discharge of all the obligations that flow from citizenship of the British Empire as to have these rights given to them as a matter of course. Meanwhile, so far as my advice counts for anything, I can only suggest that the efforts of the Indian community should be concentrated upon gaining or regaining every lost civil right or every such right at present withheld from the community; and I hold that even this will not happen unless we are ready to make an effective protest against our civic destruction by means of passive resistance, and unless through our self-suffering we have demonstrated to the European public that we are a people that cherishes its honour and self respect as dearly as any people on earth. 1   

Ninth August is a great day and it is the duty of all to observe it. But that part of the resolution which speaks of mass civil disobedience cannot be brought into force because the authority to put it into force was vested solely in me. Today I see no possibility of mass civil disobedience either according to that authority or according to circumstances. Mass civil disobedience is one thing and the exercise of citizen’s right and civil disobedience in pursuance of it is different. The people have been exercising the right of defensive individual civil disobedience since 1920. People in general may not understand the difference between mass civil disobedience and civil disobedience for the defence of individual citizen’s rights. But it is necessary to know the differences. On such occasions as 9th August, people have to understand the difference, and exercise this right of individual civil disobedience for the defence of civil rights. In such places where it is necessary to take the permission of police for meetings, processions and such common civil rights, permission from the police should be asked for. But, if such permission is not granted, people should exercise their civil right in spite of the refusal. 2

                                              

References:

  1. The Natal Mercury, 31-12-1913
  2. Talk to Bombay Congress Leaders, July 29/30, 1944

 

 

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