Instructions for Satyagrahis – Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

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Instructions for Satyagrahis – Mahatma Gandhi  

 

(1) As it is or should be the belief of satyagrahis that those are the best fitted for offering civil disobedience who are the most free from anger, untruth and ill will or hatred and as I consider myself to be from this point of view the best fitted amongst the satyagrahis, I have decided that I should be the first to offer civil disobedience.

(2) The manner in which I propose to offer civil disobedience about the beginning of July is by disobeying the orders against me of internment and externment.

(3) I firmly believe that our victory lies in the nation preserving perfect peace and equanimity at the time of, after and during my incarceration. Such preservation will be the best way of bringing about the withdrawal of the Rowlatt legislation.

(4) I therefore advise that upon my incarceration there should be no demonstration of any kind whatsoever, no hartal and no mass meetings.

(5) I advise that civil disobedience by the others be not resumed at least for one month after the day of my incarceration as distinguished from my arrest or some such final act on the part of the Government.

(6) This month should be treated as one of discipline and preparation for civil disobedience and, assuming that no disturbances take place after my incarceration, it should be devoted to the following constructive programme:

(a) The preaching of the cardinal principles of the doctrine of satyagraha, namely, the necessity of strictest adherence to truth and ahimsa and the duty of civil disobedience as the natural corollary and the equally paramount duty of refraining from criminal disobedience and, with this end in view, literature such as Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience, Hind Swaraj, Defence of Socrates by me, Tolstoy’s Letter to Russian Liberals and Ruskin’s Unto this Last should be widely distributed. It is true that we sold some of this literature as part of the plan of actual civil disobedience. But now we have the knowledge that the Government have been advised that reprints and the sale of prohibited literature is not an offence except in so far as such or any literature may be covered by Section 124A. We should therefore now sell this literature as part of our propaganda but not as an act rendering us liable to penalty for breach of any law.

(b) Propaganda of swadeshi should be taken up on an intensive and extensive scale. It should cover so far as possible the whole of India. Propaganda should be free from all bitterness and from even a suspicion of boycott, swadeshi being regarded as an economic, political and even religious necessity for all time. And this propaganda should include in an equal degree both the presentation of the different pledges to the public for acceptance and activity for the new production of cotton cloth, principally by the encouragement of hand-spinning and weaving, even though it may be for the time being at a loss.

(c) The advocating of the Hindu-Muslim unity not by means of public speeches but by concrete acts of help and kindness on the part of Hindus towards Mohammedans and on the part of the latter towards the former. Hindus would, therefore, naturally give enthusiastic support to the Mohammedans in their just claims regarding the retention of Turkey as a Mohammedan sovereign State with full regard for their feelings as to the holy places and the Khaliphate.

(d) Meetings should be held to pass resolutions praying for the repeal of the Rowlatt legislation, the appointment of an independent impartial committee of enquiry with the power to enquire into the causes of the Punjab disturbances, the administration of martial law and to revise the sentences passed by the Punjab Martial Law Tribunal, the release of Babu Kalinath Roy without the necessity of an enquiry and cancellation of the order of deportation against Mr. Horniman.

(7) If full peace is observed for one month as per para three and it has been ascertained that the people have understood the doctrine of satyagraha, time will have arrived for offering further civil disobedience assuming, of course, that the Rowlatt legislation has not been repealed.

(8) Civil disobedience may then be offered by those who may be selected by the leaders appointed in para 15. I, however, advice that not more than two at a time should offer civil disobedience from any one centre nor should civil disobedience be commenced simultaneously at all the centres. But the effect of resumption of civil disobedience in one or more centres on the public mind should be watched before resuming it in the other centres.

(9) The recommending of the laws for civil disobedience is a most difficult task. In the present state of the country, when it is highly debatable whether the spirit of civil disobedience replacing and entirely superseding criminal disobedience has been understood by the masses, I am unable to advise civil disobedience of the revenue laws, i.e., the salt tax, land tax and the forest laws. I also feel that the satyagrahis may not disobey any orders issued by the Government regarding processions and mass meetings.

(10) The income-tax is a feasible proposition on the ground of safety from any violent disturbance but I am more than doubtful as to any response being made by those who pay the income-tax. Nevertheless, if any satyagrahi desires to offer Satyagraha by not paying this tax, he may do so at his own cost with the permission of his leader. There remain, therefore, the political laws, and only the Press Act and other laws regarding printing lend themselves to civil disobedience but there also the only possible manner of civil breach is the establishing of unlicensed printing presses or of issuing an unlicensed newspaper, to do so at his own cost with the permission of his leader.

(11) I can, therefore, only advise that individual satyagrahis when they receive orders of internment or orders prohibiting them from speaking or publishing any matter which the Government may consider to be obnoxious but which from the satyagraha standpoint may be flawless, such orders should be disregarded.  

(12) It may be that the Government may not view with indifference the propaganda of the doctrine of civil disobedience or the distribution of reprints of prohibited literature, although such literature from the moral, i.e., satyagraha standpoint are perfectly innocuous. In that even civil disobedience is offered in the easiest and most dignified way. It is open, however, to the leaders to add the ways above mentioned by thinking out other laws which may have escaped my notice. But it will be no fault in them to confine themselves to the limits mentioned in these paragraphs but it would be considered agave indiscretion on their part if they select laws which do not hold proper matter for civil disobedience or a civil breach of which is likely to lead to a criminal breach.

(13) In the event of a prosecution for civil disobedience, a satyagrahi, if he has committed it, should plead guilty, offer no defence and invite the severest penalty. If he is falsely charged with civil disobedience, he should make that statement but not enter upon any further defence and accept the penalty he receives. If a satyagrahi is prosecuted for criminal breach as, for instance, for having actually uttered sedition or incited to sedition, he should make a statement denying the guilt and producing his witness. It is open to him also to engage a lawyer if he wishes to, but it is no part of the duty of the Sabha or of co-satyagrahis to find funds for engaging lawyers, as the essence of satyagraha lies in inviting penalty for deliberate civil disobedience and in accepting penalty where one is falsely charged with criminal disobedience because a satyagrahi is indifferent to the pain of imprisonment. He glories in it when it is self-invited and resigns to it when a false and malicious charge has been brought against him. That he may, by not making effort to get the best lawyer possible, be found guilty not only by the court but be considered such by the public should not concern a satyagrahi. The voice of a clear disciplined conscience is the final arbiter for him.

(14) I have come to the conclusion that it is better to divide the Bombay Presidency into so many independent self-sustained centres, each seeking co-operation with the advice from the rest but none being under the orders of any, and I select Bombay, Surat, Broach, Nadiad and Ahmadabad as such centres. I make no selection in the other Presidencies, for the Bombay Sabha’s jurisdiction is limited only to that Presidency and the resolutions giving me extensive powers can refer only to this Presidency.

(15) I, therefore, propose to give separate brief instructions using this as a basis to be adopted by the centres outside the Presidency. The centres appointed under this paragraph will be responsible each for its own district, for instance, Nadiad for the whole of Kaira. For Bombay, I appoint Mrs. Naidu if she has returned in time, Messrs Umar Sobhani, Shankarlal G. Banker and I. K. Yajnik if he can be spared from Ahmadabad, successively, as leaders In Surat, Messrs Dayalji Manubhai Desai and Kalyanji Vithalbhai Mehta In Broach, Mr. Haribhai Javerbhai Amin. In Nadiad, Messrs Foolchand Bapooji Shah and Mohanlal K. Pandya. In Ahmedabad, Messrs Vallabhbhai J. Patel, Balwantrai Narasingh Prasad Kanuga, Indulal Kannaiyalal Yajnik, all successively leaders as in Bombay. I advise the leaders to form small committees and for their guidance consult the feelings of such committees and other fellow-satyagrahis.

(16) All along I have assumed that there will be no disturbance. If, however, the worst happens and there is a disturbance, every satyagrahi living in the disturbed centre will be expected to lose his life in preventing loss of other lives, whether English or Indian. He will at the same peril prevent destruction of property and if he thought there was shooting of innocent men; he will offer himself also to be shot.

(17) Wherever there are individual satyagrahis whether within the Presidency or outside who either for want of ability, confidence in themselves or otherwise are unable to remain in their respective places, it is open to them to go preferably to Bombay or to some other active centre and work under the direction of the leader acting for the time being.

(18) The above instructions are for general guidance but in emergencies every leader is free to depart from them at his own risk. Read paragraph 11 in this connection.

(19) Satyagraha in action is in some respects like physical warfare. The laws of discipline, for instance, are most common to Satyagraha (spiritual) warfare and the physical warfare.

Therefore, a satyagrahi is expected to render implicit obedience to the instructions of the leader and is not to reason why. He must obey instructions first and then question the leader as to the propriety of a particular action but, unlike as in physical warfare, a satyagrahi does retain his final independence in vital matters and then on occasions of such vital difference as a true satyagrahi yielding to the leader the same right of independent judgment will without irritation place his resignation in his hands. But it should be remembered that in the vast majority of cases, differences arise not on vital matters but on trifles. A satyagrahi, therefore, will not mistake the voice of Satan for the voice of conscience and dignify trifles into things of the essence and then precipitate differences. My experience is that it is only he who has obeyed in nine hundred and ninety-nine things finds the thousandth perhaps to be a legitimate matter for difference. With him everyone else is first, himself last.

 

Reference:

 

Instructions for Satyagrahis, June 30, 1919