Q. How can East and West be brought together to work for peace?
A. This question was asked me some 5 years ago. And this was my answer: I, who belong to a subject nation, did not know how I could work for peace except by working for freedom, and if India could be helped to win freedom through peaceful means, it would be a very good combination for peace. I have said this after having attempted the deliverance of my country through absolutely non-violent and truthful means.
Q. Must we admit that, parallel to the use of non-violence in India, there should be a movement here also for use of non-violence for political ends?
A. If you are convinced that the means adopted in India are day by day bringing about the results we desire, and if you are convinced that India is doing so through spiritual means, then do so here too. Though there is greater difference in Europe.
Friends have told me there were special difficulties in Europe to adopt non-violent means. Europe consists of martial races unlike India. Here all know how to wield arms. All the male population has at one time or another wielded arms. It is difficult for you to understand the efficacy and beauty of non-retaliation. Why not punish the wrongdoerΓÇöand in an exemplary manner?ΓÇöthat is what is asked everywhere here. Thus non-violence is quite foreign to Europe. For people belonging to such a country it is difficult to strike out a new path. Your economic life is so constructed that it is not possible, generally speaking, for an ordinary man to get out of the ordinary rut unless he faces poverty. And the fourth difficulty is that in Catholic Europe the iron discipline allows very little free play to the intellect. These are the four difficulties we have not to face in India which you have to face. If India becomes free through non-violent means, it won't enter upon war. But if she does, God will give me strength to fight India single-handed.
Q. What do you think of Einstein's call to military people not to take part in war?
A. My answer can only be one. That, if Europe can take up this method enthusiastically like me, I can only say Einstein has stolen the method from me. But if you want me to elaborate the thing, I would like to elaborate the method a little deeper. To refuse to render military service when a particular individual's time comes is to do the thing after all the time for combating the evil is practically gone. The disease is deeper. I suggest to you that those who are not on the Register for military service are equally participating in the crime. He or she, therefore, who supports a State so organized is, whether directly or indirectly, participating in the sin. It is fraught with immediate danger. Seeing that each man, old or young, takes part in this sin by contributing to the State (by paying the tax to the State) I said so long as I ate wheat supplied by the Navy, whilst I was doing everything short of being a soldier, it was best for me to be shot; otherwise I should go to the mountains and eat food grown by nature. Similarly, all those who want to stop military service can do so by withdrawing all military co-operation. Refusal of military service is much more superficial than non-co-operation with a whole system which supports the State. But then your opportunity becomes so swift and so effective that you run the risk of not only being marched to jail, but of being thrown on the street. This was the position of Tolstoy.
Q. Are we not allowed to accept the State? Should we even refuse local self-government (including public works, schools, etc.)?
A. Now you have touched the tenderest spot in human nature. This question touched me as author of non-co-operation in the initial stage. And before I could make up my mind, I said to myself: I co-operate with the State in two ways. There is no State, run either by Nero or Mussolini, which has no good points about it. We have in India what is called the Grand Trunk Road. It provides facility for millions of travellers; well-equipped hospitals, grand palaces built for schools. These we may consider to be good points. But I said, if the whole thing crushes the nation, I should not have anything to do with them. They are like the snake with a jewel but with poison fangs. So I came to the conclusion that British rule in India had stunted the nation and so I denied myself all the privileges. The gentlemanly way was to deny them.
The plea of self-defence is a wretched plea. You organize your country and society to prey upon ill-organized communities and nations. It is a bad thing. . . . What Einstein has said would occur only once in a year and only with a very few people. But your first duty is to non-co-operate with the State.
Q. Is there so deep a difference between a man in India and subjects of other countries which are free? Could not we say that our position is different from yours before we can quarrel with our State?
A. Difference there undoubtedly is. As a member of a subject nation I could best help by shaking rid of my subjection. Here I am asked how best to get out of military mentality. You are enjoying amenities on condition that you render military service to the State. There you have to rid the State of military mentality. But you are in a hopeless minority. A State that rests on military violence is a bad State. You will then say that a majority of people are like that. They are. In examining the efficacy of the method I am able to draw a distinction between a free State and a subject State. If you want the minority to become a majority, you will have to deny the privileges.
