For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Economic Condition 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

Economic Condition and Mahatma Gandhi

We are making an effort to inform ourselves of the condition of the workers in its economic, moral and educational aspects. We shall show the workers how they may improve their economic condition; we shall strive to raise their moral level; we shall think out and teach them ways and means of living in cleanliness and we shall work for the intellectual improvement of such of them as live in ignorance. If you permit us, we should like to help some of you to overcome your bad habits. We want to provide facilities for you and your children’s education. We want to see all-round improvement in you, in your morals, in your and your children’s health, and in your economic condition. If you permit us, we will work amongst you towards this end. 1

As they move about in villages, the volunteers should observe the economic condition of the people and the deficiencies in their education and try, in their spare time, to make them good. It is my advice to young people to take up this work. It is easy enough and requires no special effort, nor does it require much intelligence. All that is necessary is some experience. One enjoys greater freedom through this work. The man who spins earns three annas daily, but the man who weaves earns eight annas. Talking to the weavers of Maganwadi in Bombay, I came to know that many of them earned as much as one rupee, even two rupees, daily. This industry is useful to us. It should be widely popularized. Even the educated class should learn a little of the craft. In the same way as every boy in England knows some naval work, we should all learn this work. If, thus, India understands this mantra and starts working as a matter of religious duty, the country’s economic condition will improve and hunger and disease will disappear from our midst. Since you understand the idea, it is my prayer that you will put it into practice. 2

The expense that they can afford is entirely beyond India's means. Hence, in making arrangements for conferences, we ought to give due consideration to India's climate, her economic condition and her manners and customs. Looking at the matter from this point of view, we cannot approve of the spending of thousands of rupees on pandals and countless flags and buntings. If cleanliness and comfort are ensured, beauty will follow as a matter of course. If we have a clean and open plot, with plenty of trees at the right spots, we cannot imagine a better pandal than this. We want lakhs of people to attend our conferences. If we do not, we ought to. Even in England pandals are not erected when lakhs attend. 3 Your economic condition has improved. There is room for yet more improvement. It can take place in two ways by consultation with the mill-owners or by using undue pressure. The first is the only true remedy. In the West an eternal conflict has set up between capital and labour. Each party considers the other as its natural enemy. That spirit seems to have entered India also, and if it finds a permanent lodgment, it would be the end of our industry and of our peace. If both the parties were to realize that each is dependent upon the other, there will be little cause for quarrel. 4

I have no hesitation in saying that the Indian is comparatively the most extravagant and bears no relation to the general economic condition of the people. The best South African lawyers and they are lawyers of great ability dare not charge the fees the lawyers in India do. Fifteen guineas is almost a top fee for legal opinion. Several thousand rupees have been known to have been charged in India. There is something sinful in a system under which it is possible for a lawyer to earn from fifty thousand to one lakh rupees per month. Legal practice is not— ought not to be a speculative business. The best legal talent must be available to the poorest at reasonable rates. But we have copied and improved upon the practice of the English lawyers. Englishmen find the climate of India trying. The habits imbued under a cold and severe climate are retained in India, ample margin is kept for frequent migrations to the Hills and to their island home and an equally ample margin is kept for the education of an exclusive and aristocratic type for their children. The scale of their fees is naturally therefore pitched very high. But India cannot bear the heavy drain. We fancy that in order to feel the equals of these English lawyers, we must charge the same killing fees that the English do. It would be a sad day for India if it has to inherit the English scale and the English tastes so utterly unsuitable to the Indian environment. Any lawyer looking at the law-courts and the profession of law from the viewpoints I have ventured to suggest cannot keep coming to the conclusion that if he wants to serve the nation to the best of his ability, the first condition of service is suspension of his practice. He can come to a different conclusion only if he successfully changes the statement of facts I have made. 5

But it can, and does, consolidate its power, by making them progressively helpless, in a most subtle manner. I venture therefore to warn the non-Brahmin leaders against the danger of the co-operation with the Government which is bound to hurt the very cause which they seek to espouse. They will not better the economic condition of the masses by gaining a few Government posts, or by being elected legislative councillors. 6 It is plain to me that the economic condition of India depends on the capacity we show. But I cannot write anything more at the moment. I am writing this surrounded by crowds. 7 It is difficult to understand the opposition to Navajivan and khadi caps in Kathiawar. However, anyone who recalls what Shri Amritlal Thakkar had to put up with in Veradale will not be surprised by the incident described above. I think that the circulation of Navajivan in Kathiawar means the spread of good thoughts. The khadi cap and the khadi dress signify prosperity for Kathiawar. It would save sixty-five lakhs of rupees if its population of twenty-six lakhs used annually, on an average, cloth worth two and a half rupees and produced khadi of that value. Everyone can figure out for himself how much the economic condition of Kathiawar would improve if this amount continues to accumulate year after year in the homes of the people in Kathiawar. 8

If they stop making too many speeches and learn all the stages in the processing of cotton, they could improve the economic condition of Kathiawar in one year. They should see that foreign cloth and mill-made cloth are boycotted throughout Kathiawar. Mill-cloth transfers the wealth of the many into the hands of the few. When a person’s blood accumulates in his brain, he is said to have an attack of tetanus. The victim has very little chance of surviving; if at all, an opening in the vein may help him. When the wealth of many is concentrated in the hands of one person, we can describe him as suffering from economic tetanus. Just as, in a healthy person, the blood circulates continuously through the arteries holding the conference despite their agreeing to the conditions, it became a duty to offer Satyagraha; all of them, or any one of them could offer it. It is the beauty of Satyagraha that it can be offered even by a lone individual. I can well understand that because of my opinion against the holding of the conference the public may feel confused. But anyone who is convinced that my view is right can remove this confusion by employing the tremendous power of Satyagraha. It is easy to work in Kathiawar with its population of twenty six lakhs. Spreading the use of khadi, running schools and carrying on propaganda against liquor and opium these are all urgent and veins and does not accumulate in any part of the body, each part receiving the amount it needs, similarly, in a healthy economy, wealth should circulate regularly through every part in amounts proportionate to the needs of each. The spinning-wheel is one powerful means by which such a healthy economic condition can be brought about. Owing to its disappearance, the wealth of the entire world is being drained away to Lancashire. This circumstance is the symptom of a deadly disease, which can be cured only by reinstating the spinning-wheel. 9

I have often admitted that it is the fault of the non-co-operators that they have not been able to win the love of the co-operationists. But that does not give either the right to harm the country. At the beginning of 1922, many co-operationists were willing to do khadi work. Quite a few among them had come to believe that the economic condition of the country could certainly be improved through khadi. The matter rested there. Now, when an attempt is being made to revive the spinning-wheel movement vigorously, I ventured to seek once again the help of the co-operationists. What should a beggar be ashamed of? Co-operationists and non-co-operators may certainly have different ideas of duty to the country. The Hindu strives in one way to attain moksha, the Muslim in another. That is no reason why they should fight. Both are right from their own points of view. But we believe that our political emancipation consists in their practising mutual tolerance. 10

If we cannot improve the economic condition of the country with the help of traders, through whose help can we hope to improve it? Upright traders admit that conditions have deteriorated because of their class, and that is why some of them give away money as some sort of atonement. The experiment, moreover, of distributing khadi among the poor is still to be carried out. How, then, can anyone argue that the money collected does not pass on to them? I am convinced that the persons who are in control of the Conference are unselfish men, and I believe that the fund will be managed by them, or under their supervision, with care and honesty. They will do nothing wrong, at any rate deliberately. The question in the letter, “If that is the aim, can those who claim to serve draw Rs. 75 a month?” is irrelevant to the other question whether or not the money is being distributed among the poor. Is it not surprising, the salaried men should administer funds to the tune of lakhs? I do not know, moreover, whether, those who claim to serve get Rs. 75 a month, or any other sum, though I know that some workers get this amount. Why grudge them that? All workers are not rich. Persons who give their whole time to public service are entitled to accept payment. The only questions which can be asked are; whether the payment a worker receives represents his needs; whether the needs of an ordinary person amount to what the worker gets; how much he would earn elsewhere; and, finally, whether he is honest and whether the public needs his services. If the answers to these questions are satisfactory, the public worker commits no crime in taking Rs. 75 a month. The people will require thousands of workers, and all of them cannot be honorary. 11

What would then happen to the franchise clause? As long as I attach importance to spinning and visualize no improvement in India’s economic condition without it, I shall stick to it as the qualification for the franchise. Mine is the beautiful condition of the mother who hugs her child more closely to her bosom the more the others dislike and slight it. As others’ ill opinion does not make a mother doubt the value or promise of her child, I too cannot entertain any doubt about the value of the franchise qualification or about the beneficial results likely to follow from the adoption of spinning. I will, therefore, cling to the spinning-wheel and advise my co-workers to do likewise. 12 We should fully understand the economic condition of the country and if we can make arrangements for sufficient supply of milk to those living in towns, it is just possible the slaughter of cows may decrease considerably. The large number of tanneries also subsists on the number of animals slaughtered in the country. On the fall in the number of the latter, the number of the former will also go down. 13 Those whose economic condition is not good may adopt still greater simplicity in their lives and consume less khadi; in this manner a non-co-operator should, in the present circumstances, put up with hardships but be faithful to his chosen dharma. 14

I do regard the spinning wheel as a gateway to my spiritual salvation, but I recommend it to others only as a powerful weapon for the attainment of swaraj and the amelioration of the economic condition of the country. To those also who aspire to observe brahmacharya, I do present the spinning-wheel. It is not a thing to be despised, for it is experience here that speaks. A person who wants to subdue his passions has needed to be calm. All commotion within him ought to cease; and so quiet and gentle is the motion of the spinning-wheel, that it has been known to still the passions of those who have turned it in the fullness of faith. I have been able to compose my anger by turning it, and I can adduce similar testimony of several other brahmacharis. Of course it would be quite easy to laugh down all such persons as fools and nincompoops, but it would not be found to be cheap in the end for the scoffer in a fit of anger loses a beautiful means wherewith to compose his passions and attain vigour and strength. I therefore particularly recommend to every young man and young woman who reads these lines to give the spinning-wheel a trial.

They will find that shortly after they sit down to spin, their passions begin to subside. I do not mean to say that they would remain calm for all the rest of the day even after the spinning is discontinued; for, human passions are fleeter even than the wind and to subdue them completely requires no end of patience. All that I claim is that in the spinning-wheel they will find a powerful means of cultivating steadiness. But then, someone will ask, why do not I recommend the far more poetical rosary, if that is the purpose which it is intended to subserve? My reply to this is that the spinning-wheel possesses some virtues in addition to those it has in common with the rosary. I have not prescribed it for a recluse living in a state of nature in a cave of the Himalayas and subsisting on the herbs and roots of the forest. I have placed it only before such countless persons like me who, while living in the work-a-day world, am anxious to serve the country and to practise brahmacharya simultaneously. 15

The Bihar figures reproduced in this issue show 489 weavers against 2,698 spinners. My own observation is that ten spinners are required to feed one weaver both working for the same amount of time. The ultimate ambition is to teach the spinners carding and ginning so as to enable them to increase their earnings as spinners without much effort and without much training. This is being done on a fairly large scale in Bihar, Bengal and the Madras Presidency. The Spinners’ Association can justify its existence therefore only upon its achieving a progressive amelioration in the economic condition of the vast masses who can be reached in no other way in a shorter time. The movement depends also for its increasing influence and vitality upon this fact of its tender care for the millions of whom it has as yet only touched but a small part. 16 Their economic condition is good; they are in a position to carry on a number of benevolent activities. In this article I wish to speak only of the Gujarati National School. They have a costly building. The school has a good number of pupils. There is no doubt that the Gujaratis need a good school. The exiting school has much room for improvement and addition. The school building is small. It is situated in a quarter where the boys and girls have no place to play in. If technical skill is to be imparted there, there is no place to house a small workshop. It has hardly enough accommodation even for the existing number of pupils and classes. Hence, there is need for a building with a playground adjoining it. If it is situated at a distance, so that boys and girls cannot walk to it, arrangements should be made to provide transport. This facility is provided in many places. The number of classes must be increased. It is not beyond the financial capacity of the Gujaratis in Rangoon to advance as far as the Vinaya Mandir. 17

He will study the economic condition of the ryots under his care, establish schools in which he will educate his own children side by side with those of the ryots. He will purify the village well and the village tank. He will teach the ryot to sweep his roads and clean his latrines by himself doing this necessary labour. He will throw open without reserve his own gardens for the unrestricted use of the ryot. He will use as hospital, school, or the like most of the unnecessary buildings which he keeps for his pleasure. If only the capitalist class will read the signs of the times, revise their notions of God-given right to all they possess, in an incredibly short space of time the seven hundred thousand dung-heaps which today pass muster as villages can be turned into abodes of peace, health and comfort. I am convinced that the capitalist, if he follows the Samurai of Japan, has nothing really to lose and everything to gain. There is no other choice than between voluntary surrender on the part of the capitalist of superfluities and consequent acquisition of the real happiness of all on the one hand, and on the other the impending chaos into which, if the capitalist does not wake up betimes, awakened but ignorant, famishing millions will plunge the country and which not even the armed force that a powerful Government can bring into play can avert. I have hoped that India will successfully avert the disaster. The privilege I had of meeting intimately some of the young talukdars in the U.P. has strengthened the hope. 18

When necessary they may ask their neighbours to help them. By giving a little of their time to the roads daily, the village people would soon set their roads right. To be able to do this, they should prepare a map of the village streets and also of the approach roads leading to neighbouring villages. Then they should arrange a programme of work according to their capacity so that, men, women and children, all might participate to some extent. The present state of our culture embraces family life only. The improvement of villages depends upon an extension of the family feeling to the whole village. The look of our villages would be a measure of our culture. Just as every member in a family joins in keeping the home clean, every family should be prepared to do the same for the village. Not until this is done can the village people live happily and become self-reliant. Today, however, we look up for everything to the Government for clearing dung-hills, for making the roads and keeping them in repair, for cleansing wells and ponds, for children’s education, for protection against wild animals, for protection of our property, etc. This attitude of the mind has crippled and disabled us. This helplessness goes on ever increasing and adds to the burden of taxes. If all the villagers regard themselves answerable for the cleanliness, the neatness and the safety of the place they live in, most of the necessary improvement would take place immediately and almost without cost. Moreover, with increased facilities for travel and transport and with improved health, the economic condition of the village would also improve. 19

Although the boycott of foreign cloth is bound to have political consequences, it was not conceived with a view to these consequences. When it is complete, the economic condition of crores of poor people will immediately improve and an unemployed nation will be busy at work. For crores of people living in villages, this is swaraj. They cannot derive any greater benefit than this from swaraj. 20 The introduction of machines will certainly bring about an improvement in the economic condition of a few. Machines would not provide employment to thirty crores of people. They ought to get some additional work besides agriculture. And it cannot be anything but spinning. It would therefore be better if you start using khadi in your house. It is the experience of many that one can afford khadi if one restrains one’s fondness for clothes. If all of you spin for some time daily and have the yarn woven, you will find khadi quite inexpensive. 21

I finish this evening this all too short visit to your beautiful province. Though the two days, or almost two days, have been strenuous, they have been most agreeable to me agreeable not merely because of the magnificent scenery that surrounds you, but also because untouchability has such a slight hold on you. In your address, you have confined yourselves to facts and figures in connection with Harijans. I appreciate the manner in which you have prepared your address, which in fact is a report. It gives me illuminating and exhaustive information about Harijans. It is a matter of regret that Harijans here are daily becoming landless. I see that what little land they still possess is lying fallow. It is up to the local Harijan Sevak Sangh to examine critically this situation and see what it is possible to do to prevent the Harijans from losing their lands. It may be that there are economic causes applicable to all which it is not in your power to prevent. It, therefore, becomes necessary for the Harijan Sevak Sangh to understand the economic condition of Harijans who have become landless. It may be that as a result of the investigation it will be found that, though they have lost their land they are not the poorer. But, should it be otherwise as I fear it is it will be up to the Harijan Sevak Sangh to apply the necessary remedy in order to improve their economic condition. 22

Another question discussed was, “Do you not think that the improvement of the condition of starving peasants is more important than the service of Harijans? Will you not, therefore, form peasant organizations which will naturally include Harijans in so far as their economic condition is concerned?” I wish that what the questioner says were true. Unfortunately, the betterment of the economic condition of peasants will not necessarily include the betterment of that of the Harijans. The peasant who is not a Harijan can rise as high as he likes or opportunity permits him, but not so the poor suppressed Harijan. The latter cannot own and use land as freely as the savarna peasant. He cannot command the labour that he needs. In many places he cannot even buy the seed he requires. And assume for one moment that the Harijan peasant is able to better his economic condition equally with the non-Harijan. Even so, he will still labour under the numerous social disabilities he was labouring under before. Only, because of the very betterment, he will feel them much more keenly than when he was a pauper. Therefore, a special organization for the service of Harijans is a peremptory want in order to deal with the special and peculiar disabilities of harijans. Substantial improvement of these, the lowest strata of society, must include that of the whole of society. Moreover, the ordinary peasant is by no means neglected. For instance, the All-India Spinners’ Association is solely engaged in bettering the peasant’s economic condition by educating him to add a handicraft to husbandry and thus have an automatic insurance against famine and always a substantial addition to his scanty income. 23

I observe that without breaking a single law, villagers can somewhat better their economic condition by reviving their industries hence the Village Industries Association. Hindu-Muslim tension also enables the system to live, and so does untouchability, so does the drink evil. People had sufficient experience now in this kind of training. I am, therefore, resisting every temptation to invite civil disobedience by the people. There is temptation enough. Even the prisoners in Bombay who were thought to be discharged are still in the various jails of the Presidency of Bombay. Buildings which have been seized by the Government are not being returned. I can multiply such instances drawn from various provinces. Nevertheless I know that I have to live down these irritations and so have fellow-workers. That appears to me just now the best form of resistance, if it may be so called. But if I may not go [to] the Frontier, and if there is no just cause for preventing me from going there, it may prove the last straw and I will again find myself utterly incapable of doing constructive work. I must receive this elementary satisfaction of the soul. Let me not anticipate. All I can say is that I shall not rush to the jail. You will have ample notice. 24

If you study statistics, you will find that what you say about the economic condition of a Hindu woman holds good only in the case of a microscopic minority. Do you not know that in Indian houses it is the woman that is generally the real master? 25 Those educated men who are conducting ashrams or are desirous of living in villages and have their physical constitutions disabled or ruined for want of use and find it difficult to do work involving physical labour and would yet be village workers, complain that unless they have at least one companion with them, they would feel lonely. Those who would turn ashrams into colonies of farmers, dairymen and artisans, would do well to employ labour and treat the men and women so employed as if they were members of the ashram. Thus they will understand the domestic and economic condition of their employees and will take them only if the wages paid would at all meet their wants. They would interest themselves in their lives as they would if they were Ashramites. 26

With services so conceived it is wrong to associate ideas of capital and labour. From the unpaid chairmen to the salaried bearers all are servants. The funds belong to the respective trusts. All the servants, whether paid or unpaid, are subject to the rules framed from time to time by the respective boards. Where the whole idea is one of duty, there is no question of privilege. Anyone therefore in these services who think of privileges and rights is doomed some day or other to disappointment. For in these services there is no gradual betterment of the economic condition; on the contrary, there is or there soon will be a progressive renunciation of material advantage. ‘Duty will be merit when debt becomes a donation.’ Duty done is its own reward. Satisfaction there undoubtedly is in these services. But it is that of having done one’s duty. It is true that all have not approached their tasks in the spirit of pure service. Hence there have been exhibitions of distemper now and then in the oldest of the three services. The only way to avoid a repetition of these distempers is to remind ourselves that we are in these services merely to discharge our obligations to Daridranarayana, not to seek privileges. We own no master but Daridranarayana, and if for the time being we own human superiors, we do so voluntarily, well knowing that no organization can be carried on without discipline. Discipline presupposes an organizing head. He is only the first among equals. And being purely a servant, in order to be the head, he has to be the humblest of all his co servants. He is there on sufferance. But whilst he is there, he is entitled to the whole-hearted allegiance and uncomplaining obedience of all the fellow-servants. 27

In practice all the stages will be worked simultaneously. What the new scheme does is to put the emphasis on the right spot and state what the goal is in unmistakable terms. Khadi workers will no longer concentrate on increasing sales and reducing the price of khadi. They are henceforth to concentrate on people becoming self-sufficing about their cloth requirements at least to the extent of spinning. They will have to establish personal touch with the artisans, befriend them, know their wants and help them, progressively to improve their economic condition by making the best possible use of their leisure hours consistently with equal opportunity for all. This ought to be a good enough programme for the most ambitious worker. The most difficult task will be on the one hand to open the eyes of understanding of the millions and persuade them to use their leisure hours for their own betterment and on the other to persuade the buying class the city people and the middle men—to realize that in the long run it pays them if they buy village manufactures even though their cost may be apparently somewhat higher than they have hitherto paid and even though the appearance be not quite what they have been used to. It pays them because it raises the material condition of the people and therefore their purchasing power. The new scheme is therefore calculated to draw the best out of the whole of the nation irrespective of ‘caste, colour or creed’. The question ultimately resolves itself into this: Have we for these task workers enough of the requisite purity, self-sacrifice, industry and intelligence? 28

It is one thing to improve the economic condition of the masses by State regulation of taxation, and wholly another for them to feel that they have bettered their condition by their own sole personal effort. Now this they can only do through hand-spinning and other village handicrafts. 29 It is good indeed that for the present you are staying on. Maybe, by and by, your economic condition will cease to trouble you. Please remember that it is good to live in poverty. Poverty shapes a man’s character. In plenty one does not know at all where one is going. Moreover, most of the world lives in poverty. We see very few living in plenty. I have never envied such people. Sometimes I pity them. 30 Begging is an age-old institution in India. It was not always a nuisance. It was not always a profession. Now it has become a profession to which cheats have taken. No person who is capable of working for his bread should be allowed to beg. The way to deal with the problem will be to penalize those who give alms to professional beggars. Of course begging itself by the able-bodied should be penalized. But this reform is possible only when municipalities conduct factories where they will feed people against work. The Salvation Army people are or were experts in this class of work. They had opened a match factory in London in which any person who came found work and food. What I have, however, suggested is an immediate palliative. The real remedy lies in discovering the root cause and dealing with it. This means equalizing the economic condition of the people. The present extremes have to be dealt with as a serious social disease. In a healthy society concentration of riches in a few people and unemployment among millions is a great social crime or disease which needs to be remedied. 31

But if you have enough time on your hands and you are already doing all the spinning that would satisfy me, and if you are longing to do some additional act of service, I can suggest quite a number of things. For instance, there is Harijan service. Try to enter Harijan's life, go and stay in Harijan quarters, teach them, nurse those who are ill, show them the ways and means of improving their economic condition. All this offers a wide field of work. Thakkar Bapa is now going to spend a lot of time in Bombay. Go and seek his guidance. 32 We believe that even the economic development, for which His Excellency the Viceroy has expressed such great sympathy, is impossible unless there is at the centre a Government which can inspire confidence and enthusiasm among the people. Only a National Government could fulfil the above condition. The Committee, therefore, strongly appeal to His Excellency the Viceroy that in the interest of winning the war, the future Indo-British relations and the improvement of the economic condition of India, it is imperative that the Government should take immediate steps to achieve conditions for the establishment of a truly National Government. The Committee also appeals to Mahatma Gandhi and Mr. Jinnah to make fresh efforts to solve the communal deadlock for the purpose of creating an atmosphere for establishment of a National Government. 33

We have become free, but only politically. The economic condition of crores of our people has not improved. But we do not realize this. We will realize it when we know that we are producing our own food and demand any price for it we want. We shall know it when we produce enough cloth to meet our needs. We have got enough cotton. We can even procure it from the mills. We should realize that it is not possible to have all our cloth from the mills. But let us at least know this that we will not have to face any hardships. Then we can be at least economically free, and even the poor will feel that they have become free. Let us do this much and the consequences will automatically follow. 34 I am not tempted to become a Christian in order to improve my economic condition or gain some other advantage. I will have settled my accounts with God and would act in accordance with my conscience even if the world protests. I believe that no Harijan has any such conviction. I can say this with authority because I have become a Harijan, an untouchable, and I have accepted their religion. I expect that as far as the Harijans and others in Pakistan are concerned, it should be declared that they are safe. Then there would be no need for anyone to put on a badge. It should be declared in respect of all that, even if any individual says he has changed his religion of his own accord, his conversion will not be considered valid. Religion is a matter of the heart. It is between a man and his God. But under the present Government in Pakistan no one can claim that he has changed his religion of his own free will. It is understood that anyone doing so has done it from fear or compulsion. That is why the Pakistan Government has to declare that there can be no conversion. 35

References: