THE DUTY OF SATYAGRAHIS

[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]

 

 

 

THE DUTY OF SATYAGRAHIS

 

 

The above was the title given by Mr. Gandhi to the address which he delivered before a Nadiad audience on Sunday last. Mr. Gokuldas D. Talati, President of the Nadiad Municipality, presided. Between two and three thousand people were present. The following is the substance of Mr. Gandhi’s speech as edited by himself: Mr. Gandhi, speaking on the subject, said that he had a special claim on the people of Nadiad in particular and the population of Kaira in general, as he had lived for so long in their midst and was surrounded with so much affection from them. His largest experiments were carried out in Kaira. It was no small matter for law-abiding people to suspend the payment of revenue. It was a very serious responsibility he had taken upon his shoulders of advising them to do so. The actual working of that experiment showed that there was no cause for regret. It was acknowledged by officers concerned that this was a most peaceful, orderly and becoming demonstration of their grievance. It was this exemplary and successful act of civil disobedience which betrayed him into the miscalculation of April last and, if he then considered his mistake to be as big as the Vindhya Range, now after longer experience he felt that it was a Himalayan miscalculation. Not only, however, was his claim upon the Kaira people based upon the revenue struggle, but also upon the recruiting campaign.

Mr. Gandhi further said: The first was to the people’s liking; recruiting by reason of long disuse in the training of arms and of absence of real affection was unattractive and unpleasant, and yet I know that you had begun to respond nobly and I feel confident that had the war been prolonged, Kaira would have quite voluntarily contributed from the middle classes probably not less than 1,000 recruits. I had therefore hoped, as I still hope, that Kaira would play no mean part in the work of national regeneration and that my services to the motherland will be rendered largely through you or, perhaps more correctly speaking, Gujarat. And so as I may have to offer civil disobedience at a very early date, I thought I would speak to you today about the duty of satyagrahis. It is hardly possible to understand this duty without a correct appreciation of the meaning of Satyagraha. I have already given its definition but the mere definition often fails to convey the true meaning. Unfortunately, popular imagination has pictured Satyagraha as purely and simply civil disobedience, if not in some cases even criminal disobedience. The latter, as you all know, is the very opposite of Satyagraha. The former, i.e., civil disobedience, is undoubtedly an important but by no means always the main part of Satyagraha. Today, for instance, on the question of Rowlett legislation, civil disobedience has gone into the background. As Satyagraha is being brought into play on a large scale on the political field for the first time, it is in an experimental stage.

I am therefore ever making new discoveries. And my error in trying to let civil disobedience take the people by storm appears to me to be Himalayan because of the discovery I have made, namely, that he only is able and attains the right to offer civil disobedience who has known how to offer voluntary and deliberate obedience to the laws of the State in which he is living. It is only after one has voluntarily obeyed such laws a thousand times that an occasion rightly comes to one civilly to disobey certain laws. Nor is it necessary for voluntary obedience that the laws to be obeyed must be good. There are many unjust laws which a good citizen obeys so long as they do not hurt his self respect or the moral being, and when I look back upon my life, I cannot recall a single occasion when I have obeyed a law whether of society or the State because of the fear of punishment. I have obeyed bad laws of the society as well as of the State, believing that it was good for me and the State or the society to which I belonged to do so, and I feel that having regularly and in a disciplined manner done so, the call for disobedience to a law of society came when I went to England in 1888 and to a law of the State in South Africa when the Asiatic Registration Act was passed by the Transvaal Government.

I have therefore come to the conclusion that civil disobedience, if it has to be renewed, shall be offered in the first instance only by me as being the fittest to do so and the duty of fellow-satyagrahis will be to assimilate for the time being the first essential just mentioned of civil disobedience. In the instructions I have drawn up, I have suggested that civil disobedience by the others should not be taken up for at least one month after I have been taken charge of by the Government. And then, too, by one or two chosen satyagrahis chosen in the sense above mentioned and only if it is found that no violence has been offered after my incarceration by the satyagrahis so called or others acting in co-operation with them. The next duty then is for the remaining satyagrahis themselves to observe perfect calm and quiet and to see that others do likewise. You will, therefore, see to it that after I have offered civil disobedience, if I do, there is no hartal, no public meetings, and no demonstrations of any kind whatsoever so to give excitement. And I feel sure that if perfect peace is observed after my incarceration, Rowlett legislation will go by reason of that very fact. But it is quite likely that the Government may remain perfectly obstinate.

In that event under the conditions I have already mentioned, it will be open to the satyagrahis to offer further civil disobedience and continue to do so till every satyagrahi has rendered a good account of him. For the intervening period, I have drawn up constructive work in the instructions. I have suggested the swadeshi movement as an item swadeshi in a religious and true spirit without even a suspicion of boycott, swadeshi which would enable the Viceroy down to the humblest ryot to take part in. At the lowest estimate, 80 per cent of the population of India is agricultural. This makes over 24 crores. It is well known that, during half the year, this population remains practically idle or has at least many hours at its disposal for useful work. If this population is given an easy, substantial and profitable work to do, one of the higher economic problems will have been solved. In my humble opinion, such an occupation is hand-spinning. It can be easily learned by everybody and it is the most perfect way in my opinion of utilizing the idle hours of the nation. Swadeshi is mainly a matter of production and manufacture. The more goods we manufacture the more swadeshi there is in the country. The vows have been framed in order to serve as an incentive to manufacture and production. This work requires a large number of volunteers whose sole qualification needs to be perfect honesty and love of the country. I would like every man and woman in India to devote themselves heart and soul to this work. And I doubt not that in an incredibly short time we would have restored to its original vigour the lost art of weaving the finest cloth of the most effective design. There is one more subject I have to touch upon. Painful as it were, in their consequences, the tragic events of the mad mob in Ahmadabad and Viramgam in April last, some of the doings in Kaira were, if possible, still more tragic if you contemplate what might have happened. I refer to the cutting down of the telegraph wires and the tearing down of the railway. The acts of the mob in Ahmadabad betoken mad frenzy. The acts in Kaira betoken deliberation. They were also done in anger but even in anger there can be thoughtlessness or thoughtfulness.

The Kaira crimes, though far less disastrous in consequences than those of Ahmadabad, were from a Satyagraha standpoint more inexcusable, if there can be any excuse for any crime whatsoever. I understand that those who were responsible for the misdeeds of April have not all come forward to boldly confess the crime. It was a pity that Kaira behaved so nobly during the revenue struggle should have forgotten itself during April, but it is a greater pity that the guilty ones should now try to hide themselves. It is therefore the plain duty of satyagrahis to make an open confession if any of them is in any shape or form responsible for the crime and to persuade, if they have the knowledge, those who have committed the crimes to make the confession. It is cowardly enough to tear down the railway and thus endanger the lives of soldiers who were proceeding to restore peace and order. It is still more cowardly not to come forward boldly and admit the wrong. A hidden sin is like poison corrupting the whole body. The sooner the poison is thrown off, the better it is for society. And just as a bit of arsenic mixed with milk renders it none the less vitiating for the addition of pure milk, so also do good deed in a society fail to cover unexpected sins. I hope that you will strain every nerve to find out those whose mad grief betrayed them into unpardonable crimes and appeal to them to own up like men and thus purify the social, moral and political atmosphere of this district.