For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Vengeance and Mahatma Gandhi

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

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

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

E-mail- dr.yadav.yogendra@gandhifoundation.net;

dr.yogendragandhi@gmail.com

Mailing Address- C- 29, Swaraj Nagar, Panki, Kanpur- 208020, Uttar Pradesh, India

Vengeance and Mahatma Gandhi

The man who follows the path of duragraha becomes impatient and wants to kill the so-called enemy. There can be but one result of this. Hatred increases. The defeated party vows vengeance and simply bides its time. The spirit of revenge thus descends from father to son. It is much to be wished that India never gives predominance to this spirit of duragraha. If the members of this assembly deliberately accept Satyagraha and chalk out its programme accordingly, they will reach their goal all the more easily for doing so. They may have to face disappointment in the initial stages. They may not see results for a time. But Satyagraha will triumph in the end. The duragrahi, like the oilman’s ox, moves in a circle. His movement is only motion but it is not progress. The satyagrahi is ever moving forward. 1 If you do not provide the rising generation with an effective remedy against the excesses of authority, you will let loose the powers of vengeance and the doctrines of the Little Bengal Cult of violence will spread with a rapidity which all will deplore. Repression answers only so long as you can overawe people. But even cowards have been known to exhibit extraordinary courage under equally extraordinary stress. In offering the remedy of self-suffering which is one meaning of Satyagraha, I follow the spirit of our civilization and present the young portion with a remedy of which he need never despair. 2

I hastened to Ahmadabad in company with Anasuya Behn in order that the people may be calmed and in all humility I may say that the effect of our arrival on the populace was electrical. I placed myself unreservedly at the service of the authorities. You will have observed that I spoke at the Monday meeting with the utmost caution. I would like you to go through my speech sent to you for publication. I deliberately refrained from narrating the acts done by the military under martial law. I doubt not that there was much avoidable loss of life. I have seen the wounded at the Civil Hospital. I spoke to every one of them. All of them gave me frank statements. Many admitted that they were part of large crowds, not crowds that had any evil designs, but crowds of men, who had hardly realized what the law was. They could not immediately upon its being proclaim have informed themselves of the conditions. I know that although eager crowds gathered round me to listen to my speech, and although I had printed 25 thousand copies, it has not reached all. How then could the martial law notices indifferently distributed amongst a sullen population inform vast bodies of men? These crowds, therefore, did gather. I understand that they were fired at after due notice being given to them, but you will agree with me when I say that they could not all understand the notice to disperse. In the hospital, I saw a few little children 10 or 11 years old. I asked them what they were doing, and they said they had gone out to play. A husband and wife were shot in their own house. The wife died of the wounds. The husband who described the affair does not say that they were deliberately aimed at, but that the bullets whizzed through the house and struck them. Some of them told me that they were alone.

The rule was that if ten people collected together, they could be fired at. In one case, I was told, a man, who wanted to be extra-cautious, first asked the permission to pass the pickets, he got it and he passed the pickets with his friends, and as soon as they had preceded a few paces, they received bullet wounds. The one who asked for permission dropped down dead, and the other is in danger of losing his life. The wound is so serious. The view I have taken of this is that the people of Ahmadabad have no right to complain of these sad occurrences, after the ruthlessness with which the mob destroyed the property, hacked to pieces Sergeant Fraser, and committed many other excesses. It is highly likely that the English lads—I call them lads, because they looked like lads—who were posted as pickets during martial law, had arrived on the scene with the knowledge that a wicked plot was hatched in order to kill the force that was sent from Bombay, of which these lads were members. I refer to the derailing near Nadiad, and in their fury to wreak vengeance upon the Ahmadabad people without any nice or exact discrimination; they may have been too free with their rifles. I describe this shooting in order to show that the people have been sufficiently punished, and there should be no further punitive measures taken and no prosecutions undertaken. 3

The whole of the speech is worth reading as an example of bad taste. It is speeches such as Sir Havelock Hudson are which create bad blood and give unbridled licence to the soldiery. I was totally unprepared for this defence from high quarters of acts of vengeance, unworthy of true soldiers. Surely there are nobler methods of ensuring protection for European women. Have their lives been in such danger in India as to require any special protection? Why should the life of a European woman be held more sacred than that of an Indian woman? Has she not the same sense of honour, the same feelings? What is the British flag worth if a British soldier, wearing the King’s uniform, rise from his seat in the Viceregal Council and insults the people of India by language such as Lieut.-General Sir Havelock Hudson has used? I still do not share the cry against the Indemnity Bill. I think with due deference to the great experienced leaders of opinion in India that, to put it at its worst, it was bad tactics to have opposed the Indemnity Bill, but the speech of General Hudson, if it reflects, as I fear it does, the sentiments of the English members of the Council, must cause the gravest misgivings as to the ultimate result of Lord Hunter’s Committee and its offshoot.

In view of the Royal Proclamation and the release of the majority of the prisoners convicted by the tribunals mentioned by us, it is unnecessary to go into the details of these trials. But it may be mentioned that cases involving transportation for life with forfeiture of property as the minimum penalty were based on such charges as organizing the hartal or making speeches on the Rowlatt Act. Leading men were charged with serious offences on no better evidence than that of an approver. We hope, however, to discuss the Martial Law Commission trials a little more fully in our discussion of the Lahore events. We shall close our examination of the Amritsar events with the remark that the authorities committed a criminal blunder in secretly deporting Doctors Kitchlew and Satyapal; that there was at least undue haste in firing; that, had they acted with tact and consideration, then, in spite of the deportation, the mob excesses would have been prevented; that the excesses were, in any event, deplorable and deserving of condemnation; that the massacre in the Jallianwala Bagh was an act of inhumanity and vengeance, unwarranted by anything that then existed or has since transpired; that, on General Dyer’s own showing, the introduction of Martial Law in Amritsar was not justified by any local causes and that its prolongation was a wanton abuse of authority, and its administration unworthy of a civilized government. 4

It was on Sunday the 6th April, 1919, that the first all-India hartal took place as a protest against the passing of the Rowlatt Act. It was on that day that thousands of men and women all over India kept a twenty-four-hour fast. It was on that sacred day that the nation recognized, with the strength it has never done before, the necessity of Hindu-Muslim unity and that Hindus, Mussalmans, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians and others met in hearty co-operation, and it was on that day that an all-India swadeshi spirit, not in vengeance but as a vital necessity in the life of the nation, was born. It was on the 13th that the Jallianwala massacre took place. We have been observing both these days and the intervening day’s from year to year as special days for purification, searching of hearts, for cultivating better relations among all the different sections and for promoting swadeshi which has centered gradually round the spinning-wheel. I was grieved to learn from a friend that in Amritsar, the scene of the black tragedy, the Week was least observed last year. I wonder how Amritsar and the rest of India will have observed the Week this year. 5

That number may possibly be considered as small elsewhere. In an area were Muslims barely number 15,000, this is terrible. The Hindus there work up and the Muslims could not tolerate the awakening; those looking for a chance to wreak vengeance found it in the form of that booklet. If that was the only reason, the man concerned could have been arrested, he could have been crushed, and perhaps all those connected with the booklet could have been crushed. But here the whole community was persecuted. Its cause must be deep-seated. I found that cause quite by chance. The Muslims said many things frankly about proselytization. But that activity has hurt me very much. I would not mind it at all if 30 crores of Hindus became Muslims as a result of scriptural studies and rational arguments. Then I would be the single Hindu left and thereby I would add lustre to Hinduism. Or I would adduce proof of the immortality of Hinduism and say that the others became Muslims because they could not bear the brilliance of Hinduism. But if people turned Muslims out of greed or fear, as it happened there, I could not endure it.

I am talking about this matter because I am to make you strong of mind, in order that you may be more attached to dharma. Despite this, there will be no change in my non-violent behaviour, my attitude of love and in my behaviour towards Muslims. The more I see their weaknesses, the more shall I serve them? My love for them will certainly endure. But the language of love will change—it has become more firm and will become firmer still—just as my words to Englishmen are becoming stiffer. That will be the only difference. My sole object is to rouse you this morning and to caution you. I want to caution you because you may sometimes face a similar situation. If any little boy or girl in the Ashram is kidnapped, you should not just look on, interpreting my non-violence in a superficial way. The determination to be pure is itself a source of strength. A man having a pure and unsullied heart has no need to develop his body. His body automatically becomes strong. And thereafter mere resolve is enough. It is my resolve that I would utter the name of Rama before retiring, so that without changing the name I can never get sleep. And if I do get it, I utter Ramanama while turning on my side and I do see my standing near me. The same true of every resolve. 6

I know that in spite of the discharge of Sardar Makhan Singh’s son upon the charge of abduction, many Mussalmans continue to believe in the guilt of the Sardar’s son. But assuming the guilt of the young Sardar, his crime was no warrant for the fearful vengeance wreaked upon a whole community. 7 This talk, therefore, of justice and nothing but justice is a thoughtless, angry and ignorant outburst whether it comes from Hindus or Mussalmans. So long as Hindu and Mussalmans continue to prate about justice, they will never come together. ‘Might is right’ is the last word of ‘justice and nothing but justice.’ Why should Englishmen surrender an inch of what they have earned by right of conquest? Or why should Indians, when they come to power, not make the English disgorge everything which their ancestors robbed them of? And yet when we come to a settlement, as we shall some day, we will not weigh in the scales of justice so called. But we shall introduce into the calculation the disturbing factor of surrender, otherwise called love or affection or fellow-feeling. And so will it be with us Hindus and Mussalmans when we have sufficiently broken one another’s heads and spilled a few gallons of innocent blood and realized our foolishness. The scales will then fall off our eyes and we shall recognize that vengeance was not the law of friendship; not justice but surrender and nothing but surrender was the law of friendship. Hindus will have to learn to bear the sight of cow-slaughter and the Mussalmans will have to discover that it was against the law of Islam to kill a cow in order to wound the susceptibilities of Hindus.

When that happy day arrives, we shall know only each other’s virtues. Our vices will not obtrude themselves upon our gaze. That day may be far off or it may be very near. I feel it coming soon. I shall work for that end and no other. “The British oppress us equally with the Boers. If we are subjected to hardships in the Transvaal, we are not very much better off in Natal or the Cape Colony. The difference, if any, is only one of degree. Again, we are more or less a community of slaves; knowing as we do that a small nation like the Boers is fighting for its very existence, why should we be instrumental in their destruction? Finally, from a practical point of view, no one will take it upon himself to predict a defeat for the Boers. And if they win, they will never fail to wreak vengeance upon us.” 8

Non-violence, therefore, presupposes ability to strike. It is a conscious deliberate restraint put upon one’s desire for vengeance. But vengeance is any day superior to passive, effeminate and helpless submission. Forgiveness is higher still. Vengeance too is weakness. The desire for vengeance comes out of fear of harm, imaginary or real. A dog barks and bites when he fears. A man who fears no one on earth would consider it too troublesome even to summon up anger against one who is vainly trying to injure him. The sun does not wreak vengeance upon little children who throw dust at him. They only harm themselves in the act. 9 Everybody justifies his description of practices by imputing wickedness to those whom he distrusts. General Dyer himself surely believed that English men and women were in danger of losing their lives if he did not take the measures he did. We who know better call it an act of cruelty and vengeance. But from General Dyer’s own standpoint, he is justified. Many Hindus sincerely believe that it is a proper thing to kill a man who wants to kill a cow and he will quote scripture for his defence and many other Hindus will be found to justify his action. But strangers who do not accept the sacredness of the cow will hold it to be preposterous to kill a human being for the sake of slaying an animal. Guru Nanak who undoubtedly read the Koran and is reported even to have gone to Mecca, returned with lofty regard for Islam. Kabir did likewise. So did Dadu. I cannot therefore help thinking that it is a fruitless and undesirable effort to show that the Koran is a wicked book and those followers of the Koran are still more so. I suggest that the better method is to find out the good points and the beauties of these writings which have transformed the lives of those who have believed in them.

It is unsafe and even dangerous to judge Islam and Mussalmans by the conduct of many of those who are misrepresented here in India and then to seek to ascribe their conduct to the teachings of the Koran. In order to defend the general trend of the Koran in favour of peace I am not required to disprove any atrocity by a single Mussalman or to explain away the few misdeeds that I see going on before me, But my liberal estimate of the Koran thus enables me to extend to the Mussalmans the justice that I would have extended to fellow-Hindus. It is an easier task to sympathize with the different religions of the world than to pick up one and seek to prove it as the only true religion and then set about demolishing all the rest. 10

I have your letter. I have not yet got the soya bean packets. I note what you have written to Govind Babu. I do not attach any importance to his opinion. You are having your share of sorrows and worries with a vengeance, Tarini incapable, Charu following suit and Hemprabhadevi again bed-ridden. It is appalling. May YOU have the strength to bear the burden? 11 The threat of dire vengeance uttered against civil and criminal resisters is idle and therefore uncalled for. There is this in common between both. Both have counted the cost. They are out for suffering, Would that their means were also common. Unfortunately instead of being complementary, they neutralize each other. I know that the non-violent revolutionary like me impedes the progress of the violent revolutionary. I wish the latter would realize that he impedes my progress more than I do his, and that I, being a Mahatma, if left unhampered by him, am likely to make greater progress than he can ever hope to make. Let him realize too that he has never yet given me a fair chance. Some of them no doubt have been most considerate. I want full suspension of his activity. If it will please him, I am free to admit that I dread him more than I dread Lord Irwin’s wrath. His Excellency the Viceroy deserves the thanks of every Congressman for having cleared the atmosphere and let us knows exactly where he and we stand. 12

It is the greatest delusion to suppose that the duty of swadeshi begins and ends with merely spinning so much yarn anyhow and wearing khadi made from it. Khadi is the first indispensable step towards the discharge of swadeshi dharma towards society. One often meets men who wear khadi but in all other things indulge their taste for foreign manufactures with a vengeance. Such men cannot be said to be practising swadeshi. They are simply following the fashion. A votary of swadeshi will carefully study his environment and try to help his neighbours wherever possible by giving preference to local manufactures even if they are of an inferior grade or dearer in price than things manufactured else-where. He will try to remedy their defects but will not give them up because of their defects and take to foreign manufactures. 13 Up to the year 1906 I simply relied on appeal to reason. I was a very industrious reformer. I was a good draftsman, as I always had a close grip of facts which in its turn was the necessary result of my meticulous regard for truth. But I found that reason failed to produce an impression when the critical moment arrived in South Africa. My people were excited—even a worm will and does sometimes turn—and there was talk of wreaking vengeance. I had then to choose between allying myself to violence or finding out some other method of meeting the crisis and stopping the rot, and it came to me that we should refuse to obey legislation that was degrading and let them put us in jail if they liked. Thus came into being the moral equivalent of war. I was then a loyalist, because I implicitly believed that the sum total of the activities of the British Empire was good for India and for ‘humanity’. Arriving in England soon after the outbreak of the War, I plunged into it and later, when I was forced to go to India as a result of the pleurisy that I had developed, I led a recruiting campaign at the risk of my life, and to the horror of some of my friends. The disillusionment came in 1919 after the passage of the Black Rowlatt Act and the refusal of the Government to give the simple elementary redress of proved wrongs that we had asked for. And so, in 1920, I became a rebel. Since then the conviction has been growing upon me, that things of fundamental importance to the people are not secured by reason alone, but have to be purchased with their suffering. Suffering is the law of human beings; war is the law of the jungle. But suffering is infinitely more powerful than the law of the jungle for converting the opponent and opening his ears, which are otherwise shut, to the voice of reason. Nobody has probably drawn up more petitions or espoused more forlorn causes than I, and I have come to this fundamental conclusion that, if you want something really important to be done, you must not merely satisfy the reason, you must move the heart also. The appeal of reason is more to the head, but the penetration of the heart comes from suffering. It opens up the inner understanding in man. Suffering is the badge of the human race, not the sword. 14

Now consider this thing in the light of happenings in Bengal. The Ordinance is most objectionable. The most objectionable was the Rowlatt Act. This is much more objectionable. It reminds us of the Mutiny days and Martial Law days. It is worse than the Martial Law. In Martial Law decisions are liable to be revised, not here. Here it is legalized Martial Law. Attempt to commit murder to be punished by hanging. No appeal, proceedings in camera, mere boys given powers to try, and they can transmit these powers to police officers. The Irish thing is not worse, delivering up the absconders. This will punish the whole of Bengal. The crimes in Martial Law were bad, but vengeance was terrible. 15 There is a conflict of interest between capital and labour, but we have to resolve it by doing our own duty. Just as pure blood is proof against poisonous germs, so will labour, when it is pure, be proof against exploitation. The labourer has but to realize that labour is also capital. As soon as labourers are properly educated and organized and they realize their strength, no amount of capital can subdue them. Organized and enlightened labour can dictate its own terms. It is no use vowing vengeance against a party because we are weak. We have to get strong. Strong hearts, enlightened minds and willing hands can brave all odds and remove all obstacles. No, ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’ is on counsel of perfection. The capitalist is as much a neighbour of the labourer as the latter is a neighbour of the former, and one has to seek and win the willing co-operation of the other. Nor does the principle mean that we should accept exploitation lying down. Our internal strength will render all exploitation impossible. 16

When money is given it can only do harm. It has got to be earned when it is required. I am convinced that the American and British money which has been voted for missionary societies has done more harm than good. You cannot serve God and mammon both. And my fear is that mammon has been sent to serve India and God has remained behind, with the result that He will one day have His vengeance. When the American says, ‘I will serve you through money,’ I dread him. I simply say to him: ‘Send us your engineers not to earn money but to give us the benefit of their scientific knowledge. 17 When I was in Burma some years ago, Burmese priests were good enough to invite me to their conference and honour me with their address under the shadow of the mighty Pagoda. They were good enough, as Buddhists, to claim me as one of them. It therefore hurt me when I read of the mob fury which knew no distinction of sex or age and wreaked vengeance on persons who could never have had anything to do with the offending pamphlet. I have the greatest veneration for the Buddha. He is one of the greatest preachers of peace. The gospel of the Buddha is gospel of love. It passes comprehension how representatives of that faith could give themselves up to savagery and that on an apparently flimsy pretext. The pity of it is that, if the newspaper reports were true, even priests, the repositories of the Buddha’s gospel, were to be seen among the mob, not stilling its fury, but actually taking part in loot, arson and murder. Would that the wise men among them would do a little heart-searching and take steps to prevent a recurrence of the tragedy which all right thinking people must deplore! 18

An armed conflict may bring disaster to German arms; it cannot change the German heart even as the last defeat did not. It produced a Hitler vowed to wreak vengeance on the victors. And what a vengeance it is! My answer, therefore, must be the answer that Stephenson gave to his fellow-workers who had despaired of ever filling the deep pit that made the first railway possible. He asked his co-workers of little faith to have more faith and go on filling the pit. It was not bottomless, it must be filled. Even so I do not despair because Herr Hitler’s or the German heart has not yet melted. On the contrary I plead for more suffering and still more till the melting has become visible to the naked eye. And even as the Pastor has covered himself with glory, a single Jew bravely standing up and refusing to bow to Hitler’s decrees will cover him with glory and lead the way to the deliverance of the fellow Jews. 19

As for Jaipur, I have only one word. I do know that the British Prime Minister is one member of the Jaipur State Council. My submission is that he is all in all. He has vowed vengeance against the Praja Mandal and Seth Jamnalalji. And in spite of the forest of words about action in respect of the Praja Mandal, I claim that virtually it is declared illegal. If not, let the authorities leave Seth Jamnalalji free to enter Jaipur and let him and his Mandal educate unmolested the people in the art of responsible government. Let them be punished if they inculcate violence, directly or indirectly. 20 A study of the evidence before me leads me to the conclusion that whatever the provocation, the popular fury was wanton, cruel and deliberate. Over two thousand villagers had collected with the set purpose of wreaking vengeance. They were intent upon releasing the President and the other prisoners. Congressmen cannot escape blame for the savagery of the people. The villagers were having the wrong lesson given to them. Ranpur in Orissa was the first finger-post. Ramdurg is the second. No one has denied the fact that the Raja Saheb of Ramdurg was a friend of the Congress. He deserved better treatment. I am not just now concerned with the truth or otherwise of the evidence on provocation. There are grave enough charges. But it has never been the Congress policy to plead provocation, howsoever grave, in justification of popular violence. We shall lose all if we play with this fundamental provision of the Congress. I had remarked before the Ramdurg outbreak that I smelt violence in the very air I was breathing. I am very sensitive to the slightest exhibition of violence or untruth. They are twins. 21

It regards forbearance as superior to vengeance. The very word Islam means peace, which is non-violence. Badshah Khan a staunch Muslim who never misses his namaz and Ramzan, has accepted out and out non-violence as his creed. It would be no answer to say that he does not live up to his creed, even as I know to my shame that I do not. If there is difference in our actions, the difference is not one of kind, it is of degree. But argument about non-violence in the holy Koran is an interpolation, not necessary for my thesis. 22 What I cannot understand is man hating brother man and thirsting for his blood. I can see no justification for the war that is going on and fast enveloping the earth. It is based on hate and vengeance and will leave a crop of hate and vengeance behind. The waste of human life and material that might be useful otherwise for the world is appalling and sickening. Why should your country and mine have to be involved in this war? You are a fine resourceful people. Rather than that you should build up your country and make it useful to the rest of the world. Why should you be asked to sacrifice your manhood? And what is more painful is that it is all to no purpose. I do not know why all this fighting is going on, for whose benefit, with what great end in view. 23

This Bihar of ours has today committed a heinous crime. The atrocities perpetrated on a handful of Muslims have no parallel, so say the Muslims, in the annuls of history. I too have read some history. I know that the world has witnessed greater brutality by man on man. But it is no use repeating them here. We must not compete in doing evil and that too against whom? Those who cry for avenging Noakhali in Bihar do not know the meaning of vengeance. Is it manliness to return barbarism for barbarism? We ought to overcome violence by love. Jai Hind does not mean victory to Hindus and defeat for Muslims. But nowadays the Muslims take it in that light because we have put it to wrong use and threatened them with it. When we hear the slogans shouted by another person we think that the other fellow is preparing for a fight, and we also start getting ready for it. If we go on fighting like this and wreak vengeance for one place upon another, rivers of blood will flow all over India and still the spirit of vengeance will not subside. Hindus should behave so affectionately that even if a Muslim child comes into their midst, they should wash and clean him, dress him well and shower him with such love that the child should feel entirely at home. Only when this happens will Muslims realize that Hindus have become their friends. 24

I must keep you for a moment over the much-debated question of control. Must the voice of the people be drowned by the noise of the pundits who claim to know all about the virtue of controls? Would that our ministers who are drawn from the people and are of the people listened to the voice of the people rather than of the controllers of the red-tape which, they know, did them infinite harm when they were in the wilderness! The pundits then ruled with a vengeance. Must they do so even now? Will not the people have any opportunity of committing mistakes and learning by them? Do the ministers not know that they have the power to resume control wherever necessary, if decontrol is found to have been harmful to the people, in any instance out of the samples, by no means exhaustive, that I am giving below? The list before me confounds my simple mind. There may be virtue in some of them. All I contend is that the science, if it is one of controls, requires a dispassionate examination and then education of the people in the secret of controls in general or specified controls. Without examining the merits of the list I have received I pick out a few out of the samples given to me: Control on exchange, investment capital issues, opening branches of banks and their investments, insurance investments, all import and export of every kind of commodity, cereals, sugar, gur, cane, and syrup, vanaspati, textile, including woolens, power, alcohols, petrol and kerosene, paper, cement, steel, mica, manganese, coal, transport, installation of plant, machinery, factories, distribution of cars in certain provinces and tea-plantation. 25

You saw what has happened in Karachi. People used to say that such things could not happen in Sind. I always said that Hindus could not live in peace in Sind and not only Hindus, even others. That was proved yesterday. They had assembled in a Gurdwara awaiting evacuation. The Gurdwara was attacked. A few were killed, some were injured. The Government says that the situation was brought under control as soon as possible. But in the first place such a thing should not have happened at all. I must tell the Pakistan Government to see that such things do not happen or else they should quit the Government. Maybe if there is no government there will be plunder and looting for a few days. But later the situation will improve. I have the same thing to say to the Government in India. I shall not listen to the Government saying that people cannot be persuaded. If the people cannot be persuaded they must give up the pretext of governing. Both the Governments are the same in my eyes. If the Pakistan Government allows the people to be murdered in this way, the Government will not last long. To you, brothers, I shall only say, do not let yourselves become mad. You must swallow your anger. You must not answer anger with anger and say, ‘We will destroy the mosques, occupy them and kill the Muslims.’ This will not be just. Such personal vengeance will put an end to the rule of law. Certainly we should provide all reasonable facilities to the refugees. It will be shameful if we do not. We should not be afraid or upset or angry over what has happened in Karachi. In return we on our part should live peacefully If we can conduct ourselves decently, if we let the Muslims stay on, and if the refugees behave with civility, we shall soon overcome the present painful situation. 26

Lastly, those who in anger boycott the Urdu script, put a wanton affront upon the Muslims of the Union who, in the eyes of many Hindus, have become aliens in their own land. This is copying the bad manners of Pakistan with a vengeance. I invite every inhabitant of India to join me in a stern refusal to copy bad manners. If they will enter the heart of what I have written, they will prevent the impending collapse of the Nagari and Urdu editions of the Harijan. Will Muslim friends rise to the occasion and do two things—subscribe to the Urdu edition and diligently learn the Nagari script and enrich their intellectual capital? 27

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