INDEPENDENCE

[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]

 

 

 

INDEPENDENCE

 

 

Maulana Hasrat Mohani put up a plucky fight for independence on the Congress platform and then as President of the Muslim League and was happily each time defeated. There is no mistake about the meaning of the Maulana. He wants to sever all connection with the British people even as partners and equals and even though the Khilafat question be satisfactorily solved. It will not do to urge that the Khilafat question can never be solved without complete independence. We are discussing merely the theory. It is common cause that if the Khilafat question cannot be solved without complete independence, i.e., if the British people retain hostile attitude towards the aspirations of the Islamic world, there is nothing left for us to do but to insist upon complete independence. India cannot afford to give Britain even her moral support and must do without Britain’s support, moral and material, if she cannot be induced to be friendly to the Islamic world. But assuming that Great Britain alters her attitude as I know she will when India is strong, it will be religiously unlawful for us to insist on independence. For, it will be vindictive and petulant.

It would amount to a denial of God for the refusal will then be based upon the assumption that the British people are not capable of response to the God in man. Such a position is untenable for both a believing Mussulman and a believing Hindu. India’s greatest glory will consist not in regarding Englishmen as her implacable enemies fit only to be turned out of India at the first available opportunity but in turning them into friends and partners in a new commonwealth of nations in the place of an Empire based upon exploitation of the weaker or undeveloped nations and races of the earth and, therefore, finally upon force. Let us see clearly what swaraj together with the British connection means. It means undoubtedly India’s ability to declare her independence if she wishes. Swaraj, therefore, will not be a free gift of the British Parliament. It will be a declaration of India’s full self-expression. That it will be expressed through an Act of Parliament is true. But it will be merely a courteous ratification of the declared wish of the people of India even as it was in the case of the Union of South Africa. Not an unnecessary adverb in the Union scheme could be altered by the House of Commons. The ratification in our case will be of a treaty to which Britain will be party. Such swaraj may not come this year, may not come within our generation. But I have contemplated nothing less. The British Parliament, when the settlement comes, will ratify the wishes of the people of India as expressed not through the bureaucracy but through her freely chosen representatives. Swaraj can never be a free gift by one nation to another.

It is a treasure to be purchased with a nation’s best blood. It will cease to be a gift when we have paid dearly for its The Viceroy was confused when he said that swaraj would have to come from the Parliament unless it came by the sword. He paid no compliment to his country when he allowed his audience to infer that England was incapable of listening to the moral pressure of suffering, and he insulted the intelligence of his audience if he wished it to understand that the British Parliament would give swaraj when it wished irrespective of India’s desires and aspirations. The fact is that swaraj will be a fruit of incessant labour, suffering beyond measure. But His Excellency is unused to any substitute for the sword and, therefore, does probably think that by exercising our debating skill in the legislative councils, some day or other we shall be able to impress the British Parliament with the desirability of granting us swaraj. He will soon learn that there is a better and more effective substitute for the sword and that is civil disobedience.

It is daily becoming increasingly clear that civil disobedience will afford the course of suffering through which India must pass before she comes to her own. We have not come to our own. There is still mutual distrust between Mussulmans and Hindus. The untouchables have not yet felt the glow of the Hindu touch. The Parsis and the Christians of India do not yet know their future under swaraj to a certainty. We have not yet learnt the art nor realized the necessity of obeying our own laws. The spinning-wheel has not yet found a permanent place in our homes. Khadi has not yet become the national garment. In other words, we have not yet understood the art or the conditions of self-protection. There is still a body of opinion diminishing in volume but not yet negligible which considers that violence alone will bring swaraj to us and that, therefore, violence might be permitted to continue side by side with non-violence, i.e., our non-violence should be regarded as merely a prelude to and a preparation for violence. Those who hold these views little know that their attitude constitutes a fraud upon the world. Our pledge requires that whilst we are under it we believe in the efficacy of non-violence for the quickest attainment of our goal. Each one of us is under a sacred obligation to cancel the pledge as soon as he believes that swaraj is unattainable by non-violence or except by violence. Non-violence is a creed while it lasts. It is an expedient because it is an experiment. But whilst we are under the pledge we are not only bound to believe in and observe non-violence but we are equally bound to persuade others to be non-violent and condemn those who do violence. I am more than ever convinced that we have not reached our goal because even we who have subscribed to the Congress creed have not all remained non-violent in word and deed nor endeavoured to be non-violent in thought or intent.