GANDHIJI: I would have to take Scarperl literally and what I would want to do is to speak in their presence to the people the very things I should speak out.
ROMAIN ROLLAND: Then you should have with you American reporters.
G. It would be against my nature to make these arrangements beforehand.
R.R. They will surround you with people, English and American, who are Fascists. Your voice must break the cordon for the people of Italy.
G. I would make it a condition also that I would not like to speak to them about neutral matters. This visit has come to me unsought. Let us take it for granted that in Italian Press every word will be distorted. In Free England too my words were distorted and message boycotted. In France too wild things have been written in Figaro.
R.R. The other danger. You will speak, but others will speak against you and you will not understand it.
G. I would do my duty and leave the results.
R.R. You have a duty to speak to the poor people.
G. I feel that it is impossible for any person to take these meticulous precautions.
R. R. Always you must have someone with you.
G. The immediate effect will be that Italian Press will misrepresent me, but the distant effect of a good word spoken or a good thing shown must be good. We must run the risk provided we are sure that I would not fall a prey to temptation.
R. R. You will meet intellectualsΓÇöpeople with intellectual mask, but not the people like Formichi, Gentile, etc.
G. I saw your great pain and I realized with what enormous labours you had reached your conclusions on the situation. On the other hand I have been built differently. Whatever conclusions I have reached have not been through historical studies at all. History has played the least part in my make. A scoffer would say that I have been empirical in my methods and all my conclusions are based on my so-called experience. I call it so called because there is a danger of self-delusion. I know many lunatics who believe in certian things as if they were their own experiences. But he has some belief as regards his wife and children, and it is impossible to dislodge him from what he calls his experience and the dividing line between his experience and mine may be very thin. Nevertheless my experience has precedents. Saints have based their institutions on experiences and, after all, the world now believes that the experiences they had recorded were correct and also that they had been tested by the historical and analytical methods. My experience has not altogether been baseless and the whole experience regarding non-violence and non-co-operation has a foundation of this character and so, whilst I was listening to yesterday's penetrating discourse, I said, "How can I react to this?" I said: "I should say such is my faith and I must work for it." It was an awful problem. Whilst non-violence may work in India, it may not answer at all in Europe. It does not baffle me for the simple reason that I should not be able to deliver the message of non-violence to Europe, except that it may percolate through India. I may never be able to deliver such a message, but God may have many things in store for me. I have met many enlightened Englishmen and also foreigners and I have said that you must not move unless you have faith to such an extent that you would have faith in you even if the world was against you; and you will then have ways and means coming to your rescue. It is, therefore, my firm belief that non-violence alone will save Europe; otherwise I see nothing but perdition. A process of disintegration is going on in front of me. Things in Russia may be a puzzle. I have spoken least about Russia, but deep down in me I am full of the profound distrust of things happening in Russia. It seems to be a challenge to non-violence. Just now it seems to be working well, but the basis is force. I do not know how long that force is going to be effective in keeping that society, that country to this narrow path. The Indians who are under the influence of Russian methods are betraying intolerance of an extreme type. The result is that those who are under it are under a system of terrorism. So I follow the Russian experiment with a fundamental distrust. I have crosss-questioned every Englishman and American who has been to Russia. They have seemed to me to be impartial observers. The other day Lord Lothian and Bernard Shaw went to Russia. Lothian's testimony is decidedly that he does not know how far force is going to remould society. Bernard Shaw has written enthusiastically. In his conversation with me, I missed that enthusiasm and I did not draw him out completely. On the contrary he was interested in Indian matters. So I see that even for Europe there is need for non-violence. It needs no big organization. It somehow or other organizes itself. There ought to be at the head someone who is non-violent in character, with faith immovable as a mountain, and so long as this man hs not come to the surface we must wait and watch and pray.
R.R. I sent you letters addressed to Runham Brown. Non-resistance will be successful in the distant future. But the question is immediate. In 20 years European civilization may perish. I have doubts about the method of non-violence. In 20 years' time everything would be decided. What should we do in the interval?
G. I said somewhat to this effect. The world is really idolatrous. Islam is idolatrous, and so is Protestant Christianity. It wants to see something through one of the five senses. That is what I call idolatry. It wants an ocular demonstration and, if India can successfully give the demonstration, the thing becomes easy. I am clear India should not need 20 years and, if India can come to real freedom through non-violence the world would know non-violence, and then the whole world would take it. I want to develop world opinion so that England will be ashamed to do the wrong thing. But whether that can come about, or whether this war others will fight or not, I do not, know. But I am certain that out of intense non-violence only good can come. There is no doubt about it that English opinion has undergone a revolutionary changeΓÇönot to a satisfactory degree. I attribute it to a non-violence. Some brilliant EnglishmenΓÇöGilbert Murray [for instance] ΓÇödo not agree and don't make admission. I do not want it. The thing is there and anyone can see that but for the fight of non-violence, the so-called R.T.C. would not have met. So I have a hope that after we have gone through... I should have no difficulty in covering the rest of the ground. I know the difference, but I cannot lose faith. I have to build on the self-dedication of the few who have given their lives to it. The same thing happened to me in South Africa. The same thing happened in India where I did not know that I could give a definite battle. We would be able to give that battle. Beyond that I am not able to suggest anything further. If you can deal with the Indian situation in the correct manner, the European will be and cannot but be corrected.
R.R. Non-resistance has been applied in some cases, but our difficulties are double and triple. Indians have been ill-treated, but I do not think that they have been as ill-treated as [people in] Italy. Forced exploitation through work by children. There must be a gospel to preach to the miserable people.
In Russia you must know what the conditions were. What could non-violence do in Russia? Have we the right to ask them to be non-violent to Europe? Should we force them to yield to Europe?
G. With reference to European proletariat, the relations between employers and emloyed were fairly happy. But I said that the remedy did not come through giving battle to capitalists but in giving battle to themselves. They would then become their own employers. They look to capital to find their labour. If the capitalists gave them all the capital, they would not be happy and they could not make use of it even for one full year. I said to them, therefore, "revive your cottage industry". It is being adopted in Wales. Brave, Stalwart minds and majority of them unemployed ΓÇö and unemployment will increase as oil wells increase. Not one of them should be living upon doles.
R. R. The danger in Europe is in a large middle class which lives in comfort at the expense of others. After the War France was told Germany would pay. In France they are trying to prepare an Asiatic Army and go back to the times of the Roman Empire.
India is rightΓÇöyou are acting in the interest of mankind. Poverty has not yet come to France, though it has come to Germany. Our part is to be with the oppressed.
G. There, too, does not the remedy lie with the oppressed? If they ceased to co-operate with the exploiter, deliverance would come.
Those who have no deep religious feeling are tempted by salaries and material comforts. World's greatest works are chemical industries which have for their object violence. The gospel of poverty and self-abnegation must be preached.
From the manuscript of Mahadev Desai's Diary. Courtesy: Narayan Desai.
