ENGLISH FRIENDS OF MAHATMA GANDHI

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09415777229, 094055338

E-mail- [e-mail];[e-mail]

 

 

ENGLISH FRIENDS OF MAHATMA GANDHI

 

 

 

To the many known and still more unknown English friends, I owe perhaps a word on the eve of what may end in being a life-and-death struggle. In spite of myself I tried to believe in the possibility of self-respecting Congressmen attending the proposed Round Table Conference. I had my doubts because I knew that the Congress, though it is admittedly the most representative organization in the country, had no adequate power behind it for vindicating its position. It could therefore be represented at the Conference, only if it knew that the British Government and people had, either through a generous impulse or through the pressure of world opinion, decided to grant immediate Dominion Status, and that the Conference was to meet in order to discuss not anything the different groups liked but to discover the contents of a Dominion Status constitution.

The Viceroy made it clear in no uncertain terms that he could give no such assurance. Such being the case, consistently with its past declaration and with the national interest of which the Congress claims to be the principal trustee, clearly it could not allow itself to be represented at the Conference. But it may be asked: Granting that the Congress could not in the circumstances be expected to send its representatives, where was the necessity for going from Dominion Status to independence? The answer is plain. Organizations like men, if they are to command respect and grow, must have a sense of honour and must fulfil their promises. Well, the Congress promised at Calcutta to change the creed to independence if Dominion Status was not forthcoming by the 31st of December 1929. It did not come nor was there any prospect of its coming for certain in the immediate future. The Congress therefore had no other course left open, if it was not ‘to commit suicide’, but to declare its immediate objective to be complete independence instead of Dominion Status. But what is there intrinsically wrong in wanting independence? It is not possible for me to understand this opposition from sober Englishmen to the enunciation of an inalienable right of every nation to be independent except on the supposition that even they, the sober Englishmen, do not want India to be free. ‘But you are not fit for independence’, say some. Surely it is for us to judge whether we are fit or not. And granting that we are not, there is nothing wrong or immoral in our aspiring after independence and in the attempt rendering ourselves fitter day by day. We shall never be fit by being taught to feel helpless and to rely upon the British bayonet to keep us from fighting among ourselves or from being devoured by our neighbours.

If we have to go through the agonies of a civil war or a foreign invasion, it won’t be a new thing in the history of nations that have struggled for freedom. England has gone through both the experiences. After all freedom is not a hot-house growth. It is open to those English friends who are sincerely anxious for India’s welfare to assist India in her fight for freedom and on her terms. She knows best what she needs. Complete independence does not mean arrogant isolation or a superior disdain for all help. But it does mean complete severance of the British bondage, be it ever so slight or well concealed. The opposition therefore to the demand for immediate independence raises the strongest suspicions about the good intentions of those who have conceived the idea of the Conference. It must be clearly understood that the largest nationalist party in India will no longer submit to the position of a dependent nation or to the process of helpless exploitation. It will run any risk to be free from the double curse. Is it not now intelligible why, notwithstanding its undoubted risks, I am planning some sort of civil disobedience so as to get together all the non-violent forces and see if it stems the tide of onrushing violence? Hatred and ill will there undoubtedly are in the air. They are bound sooner or later to burst into acts of fury if they are not anticipated in time.

The conviction has deepened in me that civil disobedience alone can stop the bursting of that fury. The nation wants to feel its power more even than to have independence. Possession of such power is independence. That civil disobedience may resolve itself into violent disobedience is, I am sorry to have to confess, not an unlikely event. But I know that it will not be the cause of it. Violence is there already corroding the whole body politic. Civil disobedience will be but a purifying process and may bring to the surface what is burrowing under and into the whole body. And British officials, if they choose, may regulate civil disobedience so as to sterilize the forces of violence. But whether they do so, or whether, as many of us fear, they will, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, provoke violence, my course is clear. With the evidence I have of the condition of the country and with the unquenchable faith I have in the method of civil resistance, I must not be deterred from the course the inward voice seems to be leading me to. But whatever I do and whatever happens, my English friends will accept my word, that whilst I am impatient to break the British bondage, I am no enemy of Britain.