Evidence before Disorders Inquiry - I

[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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Evidence before Disorders Inquiry - I

 

Q. Mr. Gandhi, we have been informed that you are the author of the Satyagraha movement? A. Yes, sir. I would like you to give us an explanation of what that movement is. It is a movement intended to replace methods of violence. It is a movement based entirely on truth. It is, as I have conceived it, an extension of the domestic law on the political field, and my own experience has led me to the conclusion that that movement and that movement alone can rid India of the possibilities of violence spreading throughout the length and breadth of the land for the redress of grievances, supposed or real. So far as it has any bearing upon our enquiry, you adopted it in connection with the opposition to the Rowlett Bill? Yes. And in connection with it you asked people to pledge themselves by what is known as the Satyagraha vow? I did. Am I correct in holding that the Satyagraha vow is this? Starting with the narrative as to the objectionable paragraphs of the Rowlett legislation, satyagrahis pledge themselves to civilly disobey the Rowlett Act and such other acts as the Committee to be appointed may determine. Was it your intention to enlist as many satyagrahis as possible? Yes, consistently with the carrying on of the movement in a proper way, that is to say, if I found a million men who were capable of understanding the truth and adhering by it and never using violence, I would certainly be glad to have the million men. You will get as many satyagrahis as possible if you are satisfied that they understand the nature of the movement? Yes. Is not your movement a movement essentially antagonistic to Government? Don’t you substitute the determination of this Committee for the will of Government? Not in my opinion. This is not the spirit in which the movement has been conceived, and that is not the spirit in which the movement, wherever I have led it, has been understood by the people. Look at it from the point of view of Government, Mr. Gandhi. If you are the Government yourself, what would you say to a movement that was started by someone to the effect that none of your laws were to be obeyed and instead the will of some committee was to be obeyed? That would not be stating the whole of the case for satyagrahis. I would put it this way. If I was in charge of the Government of a country and I found myself face to face with a body of men who were determined to find out the truth, who were determined to seek redress in connection with unjust laws without inflicting violence, without rioting, without arson, I would welcome the body of men and I would consider that they were the best constitutionalists, as Governor, I could get by my side, because they would keep me in the right track. I suppose it is the case in India as elsewhere that people differ as to the justice or injustice of particular laws? Yes; and that is the reason, the main reason, why violence is eliminated here. The satyagrahi gives his opponent the same right of independence and feeling of truth that he reserves to himself, seeing that he wants to fight for truth he will do so by inviting injury upon his own person. Before you come to the question of violence, I was looking at it from the point of view of the continuing of Government. Would it be possible to continue Government if a body of men stood up against Government who were to accept not the Government’s view of what was right or what was wrong, but the view of an independent committee? I think that it would be quite impossible, and I have found within my experience of 8 years of continuous struggle in South Africa that it was so. I found General Smuts who went through the whole of that campaign, said in the end that if all conducted them as the satyagrahis had done, he should have nothing to say. That was in connection with a particular campaign. There was nothing objectionable, but, so far as I recollect » I may be wrong » there was no such pledge as was given here? Certainly. Every satyagrahi was bound to resist all those laws which he considered to be unjust and all those laws which were not of a criminal character in order to bend Government to the will of the people. You see in your present pledge, you have gone a step further. It is not what laws the satyagrahi considers unjust but it is what the Committee considers unjust that he has got to disobey? I was only this morning discussing about it. That pledge or part of the pledge is really restraint. If you will re-read it, you will find that that pledge or that part of the pledge is designed to be a restraint upon individual liberty so far as the breach of laws was concerned; and as I intended to make it a mass movement, I felt that some such step was necessary that no man should become the lord of the masses, so far as the satyagrahis were concerned. Therefore I conceived this plan that the Committee should be able to say what laws may be broken en masse. We know the saying that doctors differ, and I understand from Mr. Desai that even satyagrahis differ occasionally? I have not the slightest doubt and I have found it to my cost. I put this case to you. Supposing a satyagrahi was satisfied in his own mind that a particular law was a just law and ought to be obeyed but the Committee of satyagrahis said ‘disobey this law’, what was the satyagrahi who signed such a pledge to do? He is not bound to disobey that law which he does not consider to be unjust and we had such satyagrahis in abundance. According to the terms of the pledge, as I understand, he would be bound to disobey that? Not as I have conceived the pledge and not as I have interpreted it. If the Committee will say that my interpretation of the pledge is faulty, all I can say is I should mend the error the next time I start a Satyagraha campaign. I do not wish to give you advice Mr. Gandhi; I know that you would not take it, if I did. But this Satyagraha is a rather dangerous campaign. I wish I could disabuse the Committee really of this attitude that it is a dangerous campaign. If you will conceive the campaign as designed in order to rid the country of the school of violence, then you will share the same concern that I have that, at any cost, a movement of this character should remain in the country and purify it certainly. In connection with the Rowlett legislation, I know we have been told that there was a very general widespread Indian opposition to the Rowlett legislation. Look at that legislation from an independent standard, apart altogether from the Indian or European standpoint. Would you indicate briefly to me what the essence of your objection to the legislation is? As I read the Rowlett Committee’s report and came to the end of it, and I saw the legislation that was fore-shadowed, I felt that it was not warranted by the facts that were produced by the Committee. As I read the legislation itself, I felt that it was so restrictive of human liberty, that no self-respecting person or no self-respecting nation could allow such legislation to appear on its regular statute-book. When I saw the debates in the Legislative Council, I felt that the opposition against it was universal and when I found that agitation or that opposition flouted by the Government, I felt that for me, as a self-respecting individual, as a member of a vast Empire, there was no course left open but to resist that law to the utmost. So far as the objects of that legislation are concerned, have you any doubt that the objects were to put down revolutionary and anarchical crimes? I have no doubt that the object was laudable. Those are quite laudable objects? Quite so. Your complaint, then, must be as regards the methods adopted entirely that if I have understood it rightly, what you complain of is that greater power has been given to the executive than they enjoyed before? That is so. I understand that the executive had these powers during the period of the European War under the Defence of India Act? That is true. The Defence of India Act was an emergency legislation. The Defence of India Act was designed to secure the cooperation of everybody in order to put down any violence that might be offered by any school at the moment; and it was with the greatest reluctance that the people really accepted the Defence of India Act, but the Rowlett legislation was of a different character altogether as I apprehended; then the people had the additional advantage of having the experience of the working of the Defence of India Act. Suppose now, Mr. Gandhi that the Rowlett legislation was to be put into operation; in the first instance, the Local Government should be satisfied that there was a state of anarchy existing, and in the second place, the Government of India had to take that attitude. Would you see any serious objection to it? I would see most serious objection. I would not as legislator leave that power in the hands of an executive which I had repeatedly found wanting. I have known the executive Government in India to have run mad. I would certainly not arm a Government of that character with any such arbitrary powers. Then your objection really comes back to this, that you think that the Government of India in the prosecution of a laudable object adopted a wrong measure. Is not the proper method of dealing with that from a constitutional point of view to endeavour to get the legislation remedied by satisfying the Government of the inexpediency of the measure? I tried to get that done. On bended knee I pleaded before Lord Chelmsford, and before other English officers I had the pleasure of meeting, and placed my view-point before him also. I am glad to say that some of them accepted the view that I placed before them, but they said that the Rowlett Committee made these recommendations and they were helpless. I think we exhausted all the resources open to us. If an honest opponent differs from your view, you cannot expect to satisfy him of the rightness of your cause all of a sudden. You must do so by degrees? Yes. Is not refusing to obey that or any other law you choose to select a rather drastic way of attempting to do that? I respectfully differ. When I find that even my father has imposed upon me a law which is repugnant to my conscience, I think it is the least drastic course that I adopt by respectfully telling him, “Father, I cannot obey this.” I do nothing but justice to my father when I do that. If I may say so without any disrespect to the Committee, I have simply followed that in my own domestic circle, and I found I had done so with the greatest advantage. I have placed that before Indians and everybody for acceptance. Rather than feel angry with my father, I would respectfully tell him, “I cannot obey this law.” I see nothing wrong in that. If it is not wrong for me to say so to my father, there is nothing wrong for me to say so to a friend or to a Government. Now, in the prosecution of your satyagraha movement against the Rowlett legislation, you resolved to open a hartal throughout India? Yes. When the hartal was on, no business was to be done, thereby to show disapproval of Government’s action? Yes. Hartal means then general cessation of business throughout the whole country? Yes. If you have a general cessation of business for a brief time nothing harmful might result. But if the cessation is for a lengthened period, will it not be productive of great harm to the people? Very great As regards your hartal, it was originally to be held on the 30th March? I had simply said the second Sunday after the publication. The second Sunday was the 6th April. Some people seemed to have made a miscalculation? No miscalculation. Those who came to know of the Viceregal assent immediately after it was given, for them the calculation would be 30th March. That was brought to the notice of the people in Madras. I immediately sent a telegram fixing the 6th April, but at the end of the day telegrams had gone all over India when this letter was published fixing the second Sunday after the viceregal assent was given in Delhi. Unfortunately, the hartal came prematurely. When the hartal came in Delhi, unfortunately serious riots took place? Yes. As regards the hartal, is it your view that the abstention from business should be entirely passive? Entirely, Then anything like what I may call active persuasion on the part of those who observed any hartal, to get others to follow their example, would be disapproved entirely; if that active persuasion was exerted on the day of the hartal. In any case that would be disapproved. It will not be disapproved if in preparing the people for the hartal leaflets were distributed and people were told from platforms, in their different houses also, that it was a proper thing for them to do. We know as a fact that there were a great number of meetings held in connection with your movement when gentlemen in sympathy with your views endeavoured to persuade the people generally as to the propriety of adopting the course you advocated; and in consequence of that general agitation, there was a very general campaign throughout the country to observe the hartal conforming to your views? Yes. But now if I follow you a right, you disapproved of any people observing the hartal endeavouring to make people to get down on the day of the hartal from their Tongas or motor cars in which they happened to be driving? I felt very much grieved when I heard that. That would be fully against your doctrine? Very fully And if anything of that sort occurred, inevitably violence or riot would ensue? Yes, that would. May I take it, that you won’t disapprove of the action of the police or civil authority in interfering with those who were observing the hartal and also endeavouring to force others to adopt a similar course, so long as the police acted with sufficient restraint and forbearance? I saw no recourse was open to the police but to do that. And if that is your view, from what happened a fortiori, I take it as your view that it was improper on the part of any people to go to the shop-keepers and tell them to close their shops? On the day it was highly improper. It would be still more highly improper to jostle the unfortunate shop-keepers who have not been willing to close their shops, from the Satyagraha standpoint? I will hold it to be criminal. In connection with the hartal on the 6th, there was no violence, but we had a considerable amount of evidence on all these times of persuasion being brought to bear upon people to make them observe the hartal? There was that. Those were indications of improper action? Certainly your lieutenant in Delhi is Swami Shraddhanand? I would hardly call him my lieutenant. I would like to call him my esteemed co-worker. He wrote to you a letter upon the subject of hartal. He indicated to you that after what occurred in Delhi and, I think also in the, Punjab it was manifest that you could not have a general hartal without violence inevitably ensuing? 1 The letter could not be traced by Gandhiji. Swami Shraddhanand produced only a draft, while giving evidence before the Committee at Delhi on November 5. He summed up the purport his letter to Gandhiji as follows: “I thought the Satyagraha started by Mr. Gandhi civil disobedience of laws was unsuited. The movement of Mr. Gandhi as regards civil disobedience being part of Satyagraha was unsuited to the conditions in this country.” I do not think he said that in so many words. I cannot recall the contents of that letter It was very much to that effect? I think what he said was he went much further - that it was not responsible; he was not referring to the hartal, but the law-breaking campaign; he suggested that the satyagraha campaign could not be carried on with impunity among the masses of people, but there was really a difference between him and me. When I suspended civil disobedience he thought that I ought not to suspend civil disobedience, but when I found it necessary to suspend civil disobedience, because I had not obtained sufficient control over the people in order to prevent violence, then he said: “If this is the position you take up, the moral for me to draw is that satyagraha can never be put into action as a mass movement.” I think that is the drift of his letter. I had to discuss it with him also. Did he agree with you? I do not know whether he is still holding that view today. Facts might have converted him. I feel that suspension of civil disobedience is as much a necessity as prosecuting civil disobedience. You see, if you have complete abstention from work and simultaneously you have the application of such a doctrine as civil disobedience of law among the masses of idle people, there will be great difficulty in distinguishing between passive and active resistance, Mr. Gandhi. I will like Your Lordship to draw a sharp distinction between hartal and Satyagraha proper. Hartal may sometimes be satyagrahi or may not be. Here civil disobedience as such had absolutely nothing to do with hartal. Hartal had a two-fold purpose; one to strike the imagination of the people as also to strike the imagination of the Government; but the second was a discipline for those who have to offer disobedience. I had no method of understanding the mind of India except by some such striking thing if I had simply satisfied myself with fasting. I would not have known how many fasted, or with prayer, I would have not known how many prayed. The hartal is a proper index to show how far I could carry my principle. I quite follow the difference between the two things. But if you have the hartal in the same time as Satyagraha doctrine is being preached? It was being preached at public meetings? Certainly, on that very day. Do you not create a condition of very great danger to peace and order? On the contrary, I promote peace. And I have done it myself on the 6th of April, because I was there in Bombay, and there was some fear of people themselves offering violence. And I am here to tell you that no violence, no real violence was offered by the people, because people were being told the true nature of Satyagraha. It was an amazing sight for me to see thousands of people behaving in a perfectly peaceful manner. That would not have been the case if the Satyagraha doctrine had not been preached in the right key. It all depends on the doctrine of Satyagraha or the doctrine of hate in the form of Satyagraha. But to enforce Satyagraha and call upon those who are engaged in hartal to break the law is a different application and it is that which I am trying to distinguish. Coming to the occurrences in which you yourself were implicated, you intended to proceed to Delhi and to the Punjab and you were met at Palwal and escorted back to Bombay? Yes. As I understand, were you formally arrested? I was absolutely in form and substance arrested and I was surprised to find it so often said that it was not so. The train pulled up between Muttra and Palwal and the order was served on me when we reached the border and the police officer exceedingly courteously reasoned with me saying how bad it would be for them to arrest me at a wayside station and how it would not be possible to have a magistrate and that he did not know what proceedings would be adopted. We reached Palwal. At that station, I saw not only the Superintendent of Police; I think it was the Delhi Superintendent of Police, but also a party of officers. I suppose they were police constables, I cannot say exactly who they were and the officer placing his hand on my shoulder said, “Mr. Gandhi, I arrest you.” He served two orders on me, then he asked me quickly to remove my luggage, not myself personally, but he had the luggage removed and I was called upon to point out the things that had to be removed. He asked whether there was any man who wanted to be with me. Then there was a friend who came with me. There was a police guard. I intended to go to the platform to clear my throat and the police challenged me. They were right. There were all the simple ingredients of proper arrest. We heard of far-reaching ingredients. I do not say it was anything bad. The police performed, as they themselves said, the painful duty, as gently and as courteously as any gentleman could possibly do. Do not you understand that all that was required of you was, in consequence of the order of Government, you were not to proceed to Delhi or the Punjab but you should go back to Bombay? Yes; that was what the police said at the place where the train was held up. By the time I was arrested I had actually committed an offence. Therefore I was arrested. The officer arresting me did not know how I was to be dealt with. When I came to Muttra I received further orders. And the nature of the further orders was that you were asked to go back to Bombay? Not at all. I was taken under escort. There were two changes at Muttra. There was this police officer. He did not know what was to be done. He said I would have to be taken straight to the Secretary and therefore I would have to await orders as to what would be done to me. Then he exchanged some words with Mr. Bowring at Sawai Madhopur where the Peshawar train joined the Bombay train. I was taken to the Commissioner who had certain orders and it was he who produced the order when I was taken to Bombay. But Mr. Bowring himself was unaware of what was to happen to me when I was to be taken to Bombay. He was met, I believe, at Surat by an officer who came there from Bombay. He had a chat with me. It was daybreak. Mr. Bowring had a conversation with this officer, and then he told me that I would be free in Bombay. It amount to this, that in consequence of an order of Government it was made clear to you that would not be allowed to proceed to Delhi or the Punjab, but if you remained at Bombay you will be allowed perfect freedom? Certainly in the Bombay Presidency. Of course that is a little different from the idea that you have been taken and forcibly thrown into jail? I do not know if anybody charged Government with forcibly throwing me into jail. Everybody asked what is the truth, when I was arrested. I do not think that anybody had made it a matter of complaint against Government, except that Government had no business to turn me away from a mission of peace which Government knew I was bent on. There may be a difference of opinion, quite as honest difference of opinion, between you and the Government? I have accepted that position. Rightly or wrongly, if they had thought that if you were allowed to proceed to Delhi in order to propagate the doctrine, riot might ensue, they would be justified in taking that action? From their own view. From their standpoint I have absolutely nothing to say. Subsequently to your arrest, very unfortunately serious incidents occurred in Delhi and the Punjab and also in Ahmadabad here? The only matter we have got to deal with here is as regards Ahmadabad itself. In Ahmadabad, as we have been told, you enjoyed great popularity among the mill-workers on account of the fact that you intervened successfully in one of their disputes and your arrest seems to have created a great resentment on their part, and very unfortunately again, on the part of the mob, on the 11th and 12th at Ahmadabad and Viramgam. So far as these incidents are concerned, you have no personal knowledge? I have no personal knowledge. I do not know whether there is any matter in connection with them on which you would like to present your views which would be useful in enabling us to form our opinion? I would venture to present this thing in connection with these riots. I consider that the action of this mob, whether in Ahmadabad or in Viramgam, was totally unjustified, and I have thought that it was a very sad thing that they lost self-control. I do not wish to offer the slightest defence for the acts of the mob, but at the same time I would like to say that the people amongst whom, rightly or wrongly, I was popular were put to such severe stress by Government who should have known better. I think that Government committed an unpardonable error of judgment and the mob committed a similar unpardonable error, but more unpardonable on the part of the mob than on the part of the Government. I wish to say that also as a satyagrahi, I cannot find a single thing done by the mob which I can defend or justify. No amount of provocation, however great, could justify people from doing as they have done. It has been suggested to me that all those who did it were not satyagrahis. That is true. But they chose to take part in the Satyagraha movement and came under the Satyagraha discipline. These were the terms in which I have spoken to the people; and it gives me the greatest pleasure and also pain to declare my settled conviction before this Committee also. I have said this elsewhere. I would proceed further with what I have come to know. Very well. As soon as I came here I endeavoured to do what I was capable of doing in order to repair the mischief and the error, as I sensed at the time. I placed it before the people and at the disposal of the authorities also, and I had a very long interview with Mr. Pratt and with other officers. I was to have held a meeting by their consent. I think Mr. Robertson also was present at the time, on the 13th; but I thought that it would not be possible for me to hold the meeting that day. Whether it was Martial Law or whatever it was, that was not the deciding factor; my co-workers were not able to reach the people; they sent volunteers to send notices. I conferred with Mr. Pratt and he said, “Yes, you could hold the meeting on the 14th.” So the meeting took place on the 14th. There I adumbrated what I felt. It happened that there I used the words “organization” and “education” both of which terms have been so much quoted against me and against the people. If against me, it is no matter; but if against the people, it matters vary materially. The speech itself was in Gujarati. If you will read it » of course, you won’t, but Sir Chimanlal will. He will be able to guide the Committee there and he will correct me if I am misunderstanding or misinterpreting the meaning of the terms. I have translated a Gujarati word which simply means those who know how to read and write, shikhela, and I chose the word bhanela as I sensed the thing before me at the time. I had no time to keep together all the evidence that could have come before me. I used the word bhanela in the sense of “leader”, “a man who can read and write”. I have spoken not of “organization” but I might have said this thing: “done in an organized manner.” I do not wish to withdraw a single word from that. But I want the Committee to understand, if I could make the Committee understand, that I referred only to the events in Ahmadabad. I had then no knowledge even of what had happened in Viramgam; but at Ahmadabad, looking at the whole picture and talking to the people, because I had talked to a large number of people who were before me, not merely at the meeting but also before the meeting, I felt that this thing was organized and I hold on to that even now. I had no hesitation in saying to Mr. Guider , I had no hesitation in saying it to Mr. Chatfield. I am here to repeat that statement. In my opinion, the thing was organized, but there it stands. There was no question whether it was a deep-laid conspiracy through the length and breadth of India or a deep-rooted organization of which this was a part. The organization was hastily constructed; the organization was not in the sense in which we understand the word organization. There is my expression, “This thing has been done in an organized manner.” I certainly felt strengthened in my supposition as I marched along with the facts I was getting. I wish also to place my position before the Committee. When I was addressing many people, I was not concerned with what steps the Government will take and it was necessary for me to diagnose the situation before the people. I was not concerned with giving any information to the police and when Mr. Guider came to me, I said, “It was none of my business. I was simply a reformer, and if I could wean the people from the error of their ways,” my position was justified and my task was finished; if he thought that he could get a single name from me he was mistaken. I said I was taking a serious responsibility as a citizen and also I understood that responsibility. So you would put a proper valuation on my work. It is an improper valuation on that word to hitch it on to any organization, real or fancied. If I confined that word to Ahmadabad alone, to masses of absolutely unlettered men, who would be able to make no fine distinctions » then you have got the idea of what that organization is. This exactly is my opinion as given to him, and I have no hesitation in giving that opinion to the Committee. There were those poor deluded labourers whose one business was to see me released and see Anasuyabai released. That it was a wicked rumour deliberately started by somebody I have not the slightest doubt. As soon as these things happened the people thought there should be something behind it. Then there were the half-educated raw youths. This is the work of these; I am grieved to have to say. These youths possessed themselves with false ideas gathered from shows, such as the cinematograph shows that they have seen, gathered from silly novels and from the political literature of Europe. I know that school. I have mixed with these men and I have endeavoured to wean them. I may, however, tell the Committee that there are today, I won’t be able to say 100, but I will not be surprised if I count it by the 20, men who have ceased to belong to the school of violence because of this. But it was an organization of this character. I think I have now given the full meaning of what I have said. I want deliberately to accept those who go by the name of university men or degree men. I do not for one moment wish the Committee to understand that the degree men and the university men are incapable of doing that. On the contrary, the university men have also often implicated themselves in these things but not in Ahmadabad, not for this purpose. I am not aware of a single university man having instigated these things. As regards the organization, you think it started on the 10th? Mr. Chatfield has said that. I have not really taxed my mind on it, but it was an organization or attempt made before the rioting took place. I am not going to ask you to name any people in connection with this matter. Your view in so expressing yourself was apparently that there was a common purpose among the people who were affected on the 10th and 11th? I would not say there was a common purpose; I think I would be then exaggerating it on the other side. Not a common purpose that fired the whole mob, but I think Your Lordship will agree with me that a common purpose may be restricted to two or three men and they are able to affect a whole mass of people, but once they have affected the people with their ideas, although originally they are the responsible people, the whole people are affected. On this particular occasion on the 10th, 11th and 12th the affection took the form of the obliteration of all trace of Government; was not that so? I think it was certainly anti-Government and I had not yet been able to make up my mind whether it was anti-European also. I am not really able to assist the Committee on that point. I would like to believe that it was not anti-European. There were certainly silver lines to this cloud but I should certainly feel exceedingly hurt if I made the discovery, but I would place it before the Committee if I found that. I am not sure whether you desire to answer this question or not. According to Satyagraha doctrine, is it right that people who have committed crimes should be punished by the civil authorities? I am not prepared to say that it is wrong but there is a better method. It is really a difficult question to answer, because you do not anticipate any pressure from outside. But on the whole I think that it would be the proper thing to say that a satyagrahi cannot possibly quarrel with any punishment that might be meted out to offenders and therefore he cannot be anti-Government in that sense. But apparently it is against the doctrine of the Satyagraha to give assistance to Government by way of placing information that would lead to the conviction of offenders? According to the principles of Satyagraha you say it is inconsistent. It is inconsistent? That would be inconsistent. Why? For the simple reason that a satyagrahis business is not to assist the police by that particular method which is open to the police or which the police adopts, but he helps the authorities and the police by making the people more law-abiding and more respectful to authority. But when he sees lapses, it is no part of his duty to combine his reform work with police work. The two are contradictory and inconsistent. I know, Mr. Guider has challenged that. You gave an answer to Mr. Guider and it was really on that answer that I was asking this question? And he has not been able to dislodge me from that position. And I am fully aware that I have not dislodged him from his position. Supposing a satyagrahi had seen one of the more serious crimes committed in the course of these riots, actually committed in his own presence, would there be no obligation upon him to inform the police? Of course I have answered that before Mr. Guider and I think I must answer that here also. I do not want to misguide the youth of the country, but my answer is that even then he cannot go and give evidence against his brother, and when I say against his brother there is no distinction here of country or anything of that kind at all. As I understand your satyagrahi vow, it is wholly independent of India or European nationality? Certainly. And what I would suggest is that it is inherent in the thing. He cannot do the two things. I have now mixed with criminals of the deadliest type for a number of years and I know that I have been instrumental, however poorly, but still I have been instrumental in weaning them over. I should forfeit their confidence if I disclosed the name of a single man. My business ends there. I should pay with my life, if I have the courage, in weaning the man who is about to do a criminal act, but if I have done that or after I have found myself unable to do it, the other duty does not devolve upon me, viz., of going and straightaway lodging the information before the police. Of course, you see there is a distinction, Mr. Gandhi, between divulging a communication that has been made to you in confidence and making a statement as regards a crime that has been committed in your presence? And you say it is not the duty of a satyagrahi to assist the police? I would say that it is the straightest conduct of a satyagrahi not to do so and not to give evidence in a court of law even in connection with a crime which has been committed under his own nose and which he has assisted in preventing, but I do not want to carry that doctrine to that dangerous limit. I think it is open only in the rarest cases possible, but it would be a prostitution of the doctrine if a satyagrahi, having signed a pledge, absolved himself from bringing criminals to justice; nor does that follow from the satyagrahi pledge. But if a man modeled his life according to the principles of satyagraha as I venture to think I have conceived them, I think there is no room for him to do so. But in order that I may not be misunderstood, I am not able to say today that I will not give information against a man whom I have seen in the act of committing a crime because I do not claim to be a perfected satyagrahi, I am aiming at becoming it and when I have become that, probably God will never put such temptations in my way, but if they were there, I would certainly not give evidence. But today I am unable to say of myself that I would not do so. Now there is one other point on which you may desire to express your views. As regards the measures which were taken by the Government to repress the riot, what have you to say about them? In Ahmadabad I think that, whether there was technically Martial Law or whether there was not, the impression left on my mind by Mr. Pratt and the other gentlemen who were there was clearly that there was Martial Law. I feel that Martial Law was not necessary, but I am not really competent to judge that. I think that the Government acted with the greatest restraint and with forbearance under provocation of a serious character. In the case of a troop train, coming to suppress disorders, being in danger of being derailed and escaping derailment, I can understand troops of that character dealing destruction in a fit of fury. It would be mad, but I would find it in my heart to excuse an act of that fury. I think, therefore, there was self-restraint on the part of Government and on the part of those who were actually conducting the business. I think, at the same time, that the terms in which the military notice was couched were open to very serious objections. I think they were totally unwarranted by the situation as it faced the military, and I do believe that as a result of that several inoffensive lives were lost. If the military rule or semi-military rule had been carried on for any length of time, I do not know what would have happened. Do you know of any case where groups of people were fired on without first having been asked to disperse? If I am to believe the statements that were made before me, I think that that has happened, and I should certainly not be surprised if that has happened. I saw the troops that were posted. Some of them were mere lads. Mr. Pratt brought that danger face to face with me. It is one thing, he said, to issue these orders; it is another thing to have these orders carried in the spirit in which they have been issued, and he himself did anticipate the danger of these young lads simply playing with the people and playing with fire and I do feel that some such thing has happened. You think something of the sort may have occurred? I do not say “may have”, I think something of that kind has occurred. I think the people who came to me did not exaggerate and I cross-examined them very severely and they said, “No, we have not received warnings.” It does not matter if you have got a group of 9 people, that is not a crime; a 10th man comes without wanting to be the 10th and the military fire, and what is the value even of a warning being given to men who do not know the thing? Of course, the object of that order was to prevent groups of people going and indulging in acts of violence? I think there was a much better way of doing that. What better way? A better way would be not to fire. To give these directions to irresponsible lads was the height of folly. If a complaint is to be made that any irresponsible lad has acted contrary to the way in which he had instructions to act, we should know what that incident was and also the facts? I quite agree with Your Lordship. I can only give you my impression. I am unable to prove the thing and I understand the responsibility rests on my shoulders; but if you ask me to give my impression, it is that such things must have happened. What I feel is that any civilian should have realized that as inevitable in the nature of things. Is there any other matter in this connection? I have said in my statement, and I should like to repeat it, that I do not know that the people were not sufficiently punished, though I would again make the admission, and make it with the greatest pleasure, that the work of the troops here was done consistently with the laws of civilized justice. There was nothing to be said against that. I have urged already that the sections under which the prosecutions were undertaken ought not to have been brought into use. There was nothing to warrant that, and certainly nothing to warrant that when the trial took place. You mean the sections as regards waging war; of course, that is after all a legal question? It is, but I place it before this Committee in order that they may have a proper bearing in so far as I can enable the Committee to have that, as to the measures taken by the Government. And as I have paid, and I think a deserved, tribute to the Government for their forbearance, I do not want myself to be misunderstood as endorsing all that has been done, and so I am as gently as possible urging upon the Committee these defects, even in this admirable handling by the administration. But that looks very like as though you were making a complaint against the Government Advocate that he did not understand the proper charge? I think it was more than that; it was not the Government Advocate who merely chose, though technically it was. But that is not how the thing happened. That is within my experience and quite rightly. No Advocate would take upon his shoulders the entire responsibility of choosing the section, but he would be naturally guided by the administrative bent at the time and the Government might have instructed the Advocate, the Government Counsel, not to do that; but I do ask myself whether it was necessary for them to impose that heavy contribution upon Ahmadabad. But the sorest point with me is that they should have imposed that very severe contribution upon the labourers and in the manner they did. The manner, in which it was executed, in my opinion, was unforgivable. We had a statement from Mr. Ambalal Sarabhai and I ventured to differ from him in spite of my regard for him and his fairness. I think he erred, and erred grievously, against his own people, the labourers. I am not sure that you are not going a bit beyond the scope of our enquiry? You have put before me a sore point. There may be difficulties of course between employers and employees, but we have nothing to do with that.

 

Reference:

Evidence before Disorders Inquiry Committee Vol. II, pp. 107-32