THE WAY OF SATYAGRAHA

[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 WAY OF SATYAGRAHA

 

 

At the end of five days' heart-to-heart talks with the Muslim friends, often continuing till midnight, and shorter talks with the Bhayats and having failed with them, Gandhiji put his signature to the letter to the Thakore Saheb submitting seven names of the Sardar's representatives. His hand shook as he did so. He never dreamt at that time that within thirty-six hours of the dispatch of his letter, his faith in God and ahimsa would be put to test. Ever since his arrival here on his mission of peace, Gandhiji had made it a point to hold daily the congregational evening prayer on the Rashtriyashala grounds. The practice was kept up during the fast. On the evening of the 16th instant a report was brought to Gandhiji that the Bhayats and Mussalmans of Rajkot were going to hold a black-flag demonstration at the evening prayer. There was also a report that a garland of shoes had been got ready for the occasion. He made light of the fears of those who brought the report. He had full faith in the Mussalman and the Bhayat leaders who had friendly discussions with him during the last five days. But in case the worst came to the worst he would welcome it. Accordingly, he gave peremptory instructions that anybody approaching him, no matter with what intent, should be given free access and not obstructed in any way. He motored as usual to the Rashtriyashala prayer ground. Almost simultaneously with it the demonstrators, too, numbering about 600, arrived on the scene with black flags and placards bearing inscriptions some of which were highly offensive. They lined the fence enclosing the prayer ground from the main road. The Sardar happened to be away at Amreli that day and so missed the show. Gandhiji bowed to the demonstrators, as is his wont, before he sat down to prayer, which was conducted as usual. All the time the prayer was going on; the precisionists kept on an unseemly demonstration of shouting and yelling. The creation of disturbance at the prayer time under the very eyes of the Bhayats and Mussalman representatives who had sat with him in conference only the other day was for him the “unkindest cut of all”. The prayer over, he rose to go. The demonstrators had by now begun to pour in through the entrance of the narrow passage leading to the prayer ground. Gandhiji, instead of going by car as usual, decided to walk through the crowd so as to give the demonstrators full chance to say or do to him whatever they pleased. At the entrance the crush was too great to allow further progress. The pushing and jostling by the demonstrators at the rear on either side of the gangway was growing apace. The dust and the din added to the confusion. Friends tried to form a protective cordon. But Gandhiji waved them off. “I shall sit here or go alone in their midst,” he told them. All of a sudden he was seized by an attack of indescribable pain in the region of the waist, and felt as if he would faint. This is an old symptom in his case that seizes him whenever he receives an acute mental shock. For a time he stood in the midst of that jostling crowd motionless and silent, his eyes shut, supporting himself on his staff, and tried to seek relief through silent prayer, a remedy that has never failed him on such occasions. As soon as he had sufficiently recovered, he reiterated his resolve to go through the demonstrators all alone. He addressed a Bhayat, who stood confronting him and who, he subsequently learned, was besides a police officer in plain clothes, “I wish to go under your sole protection, not co-workers'.” Some Bhayats had already noticed his condition. They now bade the rest to make way for him, and leaning on the shoulder of the Bhayat friend in question, Gandhiji walked to the waiting car. “This is the way of satyagraha,” he remarked as the car drove off, “to put your head unresistingly into the lap of your ‘enemy’, for him to keep or make short work of just as he pleases. It is the sovereign way, and throughout my half a century of varied experience it has never once failed me.” Two Mussalman representatives from the Civil Station came to see him soon after, according to previous appointment. “You were less than fair to yourself and to us in exposing yourself to such a risk. Anything may happen in a motley crowd,” they remarked to him with reference to the happenings of the evening. Gandhiji in reply described to them how such risk-taking had become a part and parcel of his life. There were at least half a dozen occasions in South Africa and in India when he had risked his life like that and he had never regretted doing so. In all cases the assailant or the would-be assailants had ended by becoming his friends. “But should the worst happen after all,” he concluded, “what privilege can be greater for a satyagrahi than to fall with a prayer in your heart for those whom you wanted to serve but who under a delusion took you for an ‘enemy’?”