It was only on the 10th instant that I read your speech delivered in the Legislative Assembly on the 15th February last on the adjournment motion about my fast. I saw at once that it demanded a reply. I wish I had read it earlier.
I observe that you are angry, or at least were, at the time you delivered your speech. I cannot in any other way account for your palpable inaccuracies. This letter is an endeavour to show them. It is written to you, not as an official, but as man to man. The first thought that came to me was that your speech was a deliberate distortion of facts. But I quickly revised it. So long as there was a favourable construction possible to put upon your language, the unfavourable had to be rejected. I must assume, therefore, that what appeared to me to be distortions were not deliberate.
You have said that "the correspondence that led to the fast is there for anyone to interpret as he chooses," yet you have straightway told your audience that "it can perhaps be read in the light of the following facts." Did you leave them the choice?
I now take your "facts" seriatim:
1. When the Congress Party passed their resolution of August 8, a Japanese attack on this country was thought to be likely.
You seem to have conveyed the meaning that the thought was that of the Congress and that it was gratuitous. The fact is that the Government gave currency to the thought and emphasized it by action which even seemed ludicrous.
2. By demanding the withdrawal of British power from India and by placing the Congress in open opposition to it, the Congress Party might be thought to have hoped for some advantage to themselves if the Japanese attack succeeded.
Now this is not a fact, but your opinion wholly contrary to facts. Congressmen never hoped for, nor desired any advantage from Japanese success, on the contrary, they dreaded it and that dread inspired the desire for the immediate end of the British rule. All this is crystal clear from the resolution of the All-India Congress Committee (8th August, 1942) and my writings.
3. Today, six months after, the Japanese danger has, at any rate for the time being, receded and there is little immediate hope from that quarter.
This again is your opinion; mine is that the Japanese danger has not receded. It still stares India in the face. Your fling that "there is little immediate hope from that quarter" should be withdrawn unless you think and prove that the resolution and my writings adverted to in the previous paragraphs did not mean what they said.
4. The movement initiated by the Congress has been decisively defeated.
I must combat this statement. Satyagraha knows no defeat. It flourishes on blows the hardest imaginable. But I need not go to that bower for comfort. I learnt in schools established by the British Government in India that "freedom's battle once begun" is "bequeathed from bleeding sire to son". It is of little moment when the goal is reached so long as effort is not relaxed. The dawn came with the establishment of the Congress 60 years ago. Sixth of April 1919, on which All India satyagraha began, saw a spontaneous awakening from one end of India to the other. You can certainly derive comfort, if you like, from the fact that the immediate objective of the movement was not gained as some Congressmen had expected. But that is no criterion of "decisive" or any "defeat". It ill becomes one belonging to a race which owns no defeat to deduce defeat of a popular movement from the suppression of popular exuberanceÑmaybe not always wiseÑby a frightful exhibition of power.
5. Now, therefore, it is the object of the Congress Party to rehabilitate themselves and regain, if they can, the credit they have lost.
Surely your own experience should correct this opinion. You know, as well as I do, that every attempt at suppression of the Congress has given it greater prestige and popularity. This the latest attempt at suppression is not likely to lead to a contrary result. Hence the question of "lost credit" and "rehabilitation" simply does not arise.
6. Thus they are now concerned to disclaim responsibility for the consequences that followed their decision. The point is taken up by Mr. Gandhi in his correspondence with the Viceroy. The awkward facts are now disowned as unproved.
"They," here can only mean me. For, throughout your speech I was the target. "Now" means at the time of my fast; I remind you that I disclaimed responsibility on 14th August last when I wrote
to His Excellency the Viceroy. In that same letter I laid it on
the Government who, by the wholesale arrests of 9th August, provoked the people to the point of madness. "The awkward facts"
are not awkward for me when the responsibility rests on the Government and what you put forward as "facts" are only one-sided allegations awaiting proof.
7. Mr. Gandhi takes up his stand: "Surely I can say with safety that it is for the Government to justify their action by solid evidence." To whom are they to justify themselves?
Was not Sardar Sant Singh's answer a proper answer? How nice it would have been, if you had not put in the interjection. For, have not the Government of India been obliged before now to justify their acts by appointing inquiry committees as, for instance, after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre? But you proceed:
8. Elsewhere in his letters Mr. Gandhi makes this clear. He says: "Convince me that I was wrong and I will make ample amends." In the alternative he asks: "If you want me to make any proposal on behalf of the Congress, you should put me among the Working Committee members." So far as can be seen, these were the demands when he conceived his fast. There is no other solid demand made.
Here there is a double wrong done to me. You have ignored the fact that my letters were written to one whom I considered to be a friend. You have further ignored the fact that the Viceroy in his letter had asked me to make clear proposals. If you had borne these two facts in mind, you would not have wronged me as you have done. But let me come to the ninth count of your indictment, and it will be clear to you what I mean.
9. But now, fresh light emerges. Government without granting any of his demands informed Mr. Gandhi that they would release him for the purpose and for the duration of the fast in order to make it dear that they disclaimed responsibility for the consequences. On that Mr. Gandhi replied4 that if he was released, he would at once abandon the fast, and that he had conceived the fast only as a prisoner. Thus, if he were released, the objects for which he declared his fast, although still unfulfilled, would recede into the background. As a free man he would neither demand these objects nor fast. Interpreted in this way, his fast would seem to amount to little more than a demand for release.
Together with the letter containing the offer of release, a copy of the draft communique that was to be issued by the Government was delivered to me. It did not say that the offer was made in order "to make it clear that the Government disclaimed responsibility for the consequences". If I had seen that oflending sentence, I would have sent a simple refusal. In my innocence, I put a fair meaning on the offer and in my reply I argued why I could not accept it. And, according to my wont, in order that the Government may not be misled in any shape or form, I told them how the fast was conceived and why it could not be taken by me as a free man. I went out of my way even to postpone for the convenience of the Government the commencement of the fast by a day. Mr. Irwin who had brought the offer and the draft communique appreciated the courtesy. Why was this reply of mine withheld from the public at the time the revised communique was issued, and why was an unwarranted interpretation given instead? Was not my letter a material document?
Now for the second wrong. You say that if I were released, my objects for which I had declared the fast would recede into the background, and even gratuitously suggest that as a free man I would neither demand these objects nor fast. As a free man I could and would have carried on an agitation for an impartial public inquiry into the charges brought against Congressmen and me. I would also have asked for permission to see the imprisoned Congressmen. Assume that my agitation had failed to make any impression on the Government, I might then have fasted. All this, if you were not labouring under intense irritation, you could have plainly seen from my letter, supported as you would have been, by my past record. Instead you have deduced a meaning which, according to the simple rules of construction, you had no right to deduce. Again, as a free man I would have had the opportunity of examining the tales of destruction said to have been wrought by Congressmen and even by non-Congressmen. And if I had found that they had committed wanton acts of murder, then also I might have fasted as I have done before now. You should thus see that the demands made in my letter to His Excellency the Viceroy would not have receded to the background, if I had been released, for they could have been pressed otherwise than by the fast, and that the fast had not the remotest connection with any desire for release. Moreover imprisonment is never irksome to a satyagrahi. For him a prison is a gateway of liberty.
10. I could quote several resolutions of the Congress Working Committee against him. . . Mr. Gandhi himself took up the subject in Harijan dated 19th August, 1939. There he says: "Hunger-strike has positively become a plague."
11. On the ethics of hunger-striking, Mr. Gandhi had something to say in the Harijan of 20th May, 1939, after his Rajkot fast: "I now see that it was tainted with himsa." Further on he remarks: "This was not the way of ahimsa or conversion."
My views quoted by you have not undergone the slightest change. If you had read the quotations without passion, it would have prevented you from putting upon my letter the construction you have.
I am sorry to have to say that you have wholly misread my article. Fortunately I happen to have Anand Hingorani's collection of my writings, To the Princes and Their Peoples. I quote from the Harijan article referred to by you:
At the end of my fast I had permitted myself to say that it had succeeded as no previous fast had done. I now see that it was tainted with himsa. In taking the fast I sought immediate intervention of the Paramount Power so as to induce fulfilment of the promise made by the Thakore Saheb. This was not the way of ahimsa or conversion; it was the way of ahimsa or coercion. My fast to be pure should have been addressed only to the Thakore Saheb, and I should have been content to die, if I could not have melted his heart. . . .
I hope you realize that you misapplied the stray sentences taken from their setting. I described my fast as "tainted" not because it was bad ab initio but because I sought the intervention of the Paramount Power. I have given you the credit of being unaware of the article. I wish you could read it. In any case, may I expect you to correct the error? For me the Rajkot episode is one of the happiest chapters of my life, in that God gave me the courage to own my mistake and purge it by renouncing the fruits of the award. I became stronger for the purging.
12. I must confess that speaking for myself it is certainly repugnant to Western ideas of decency to exploit against an opponent his feelings of humanity, chivalry or mercy or to trifle with such a sacred trust as one's own life in order to play on the feelings of the public for the sake of some purely mundane object.
I must tread with extreme caution upon the ground with which you are infinitely more familiar than I can be. Let me, however, remind you of the historic fast of the late MacSwiney. I know that the British Government let him die in imprisonment. But he has been acclaimed by the Irish people as a hero and a martyr. Edward Thompson in his You Have Lived Throuh All This says that the late Mr. Asquith called the British Government's action a "political blunder of the first magnitude". The author adds:
He was allowed to die by inches, while the world watched with a passion of admiration and sympathy, and innumerable British men and women begged their Government not to be such a damned fool.
And is it repugnant to Western ideas of decency to exploit (if that expression must be retained) against the opponent his feeling of humanity, chivalry or mercy? Which is better, to take the opponent's life secretly or openly or to credit him with finer feelings and evoke them by fasting and the like? Again, which is better, to trifle with one's own life by fasting or some other way of self-immolation, or to trifle with it by engaging in an attempt to compass the destruction of the opponent and his dependants?
13. What he says, in effect, is this: 'You say, Government is right and the Congress is wrong. I say the Congress is right and the Government is wrong. I choose to put the burden of proof on you. I am the only person to be convinced. You must either admit you are wrong or submit your reason to me and make me the sole arbiter in the matter. . . .' It seems to me that Mr. Gandhi's demand is rather like asking the United Nations to appoint Hitler to adjudge the responsibility for the present war. It is not usual in this country to put the accused person on the bench to judge his own case.
This is an unbecoming caricature of my letters to the Viceroy. What I said, in effect, was this: 'You have allowed me to consider myself as your friend. I do not want to stand on my rights and demand a trial. You accuse me of being in the wrong. I contend that your Government is in the wrong. Since you would not admit your Government's error, you owe it to me to let me know wherein I have erred. For, I am in the dark as to how I have erred. If you convince me of my guilt, I will make ample amends.' My simple request you have turned against me and compared me to an imaginary Hitler appointed to adjudge his own case. If you do not accept my interpretation of my own letters, can I not say, 'let an impartial judge examine the rival interpretations'? Will it be an offensive comparison, if I recall the fable of the wolf who was always in the right and the lamb who was always in the wrong?
14. Mr. Gandhi is the leader of an open rebellion. . . . He forfeits that right (the right of being heard) so long as he remains an open rebel. He cannot claim to function except through the success of his own method. He cannot take part in public life under the protection of the law that he denies. He cannot be a citizen and yet not a subject.
You are right in describing me as the leader of an open rebellion except for a fundamental omission, namely, strictly non-violent. This omission is on a par with the omission of 'not's from the Commandments and quoting them in support of killing, stealing, etc. You may dismiss the phrase or explain it away in any manner you like. But when you quote a person you may not omit anything from his language, especially an omission which changes the whole aspect of things. I have declared myself an open rebel on many occasions, even during my visit to London on the occasion of the Second Round Table Conference. But the anathema that you have pronounced against me has not been pronounced before. You will perhaps recall the time when the late Lord Reading was willing to hold a Round Table Conference in which I was to be present, although I was leading a mass civil disobedience movement. It was not called because I had insisted that the Ali Brothers who were then in prison should be released. British history which I was taught as a lad had it that Wat Tyler and John Hampden who had rebelled were heroes. In very recent times the British Government treated with Irish rebels whilst their hands were still red with blood. Why should I become an outcaste although my rebellion is innocent and I have had nothing to do with violence.
In spite of the validity of my claim that you have enunciated a novel doctrine, I admit that you made a perfect statement when you said, "He cannot claim to function except through the success of his own method." My method, being based on truth and non-violence, ever succeeds to the extent it is applied. Therefore I function always and only through the success of my method and to the extent that I correctly represent, in my own person, its fundamentals.
The moment I became a satyagrahi, from that moment I ceased to be a subject but never ceased to be a citizen. A citizen obeys laws voluntarily and never under compulsion or for fear of the punishment prescribed for their breach. He breaks them when he considers it necessary and welcomes the punishment. That robs it of its edge or of the disgrace which it is supposed to imply.
15. In some of the published correspondence, Mr. Gandhi has made much of his intention to seek an interview with the Viceroy. But the Congress resolution still stood, together with Mr. Gandhi's own words "do or die". The Government communique on the subject of his fast has already reminded the public of Mr. Gandhi's statement made on 14th July that there was no room left in the proposal for withdrawal or negotiation. . . . I may again quote Mr. Gandhi's own words: "Every one of you should, from this moment onwards, consider yourself a free man or woman and act as if you are free and are no longer under the heel of this imperialism." Now listen to this:
"You may take it from me that I am not going to strike a bargain with the Viceroy for Ministries or the like. I am not going to be satisfied with anything short of complete freedom. We shall do or die. We shall either free India or die in the attempt. This is open rebellion."
Let me first of all make a vital correction of the quotation you have taken from my Press statement made on the 14th July and reported in the Harijan of 19th July. You have quoted me as saying that "there was no room left in the proposal for withdrawal or negotiation." The real quotation is, "there is no room left for negotiations in the proposal for withdrawal." You will admit that the difference is material. The faulty quotation apart, you have omitted from my statement, which occupies nearly three columns of the Harijan, all the things which amplify my meaning and show the caution with which I was working. I take a few sentences from that statement.
It is possible that the British may negotiate a withdrawal. If they do, it will be a feather in their cap. Then it will cease to be a case for withdrawal. If the British see, however late, the wisdom of recognizing the freedom of India without reference to the various parties, all things are possible but the point I want to stress is this.
Here follows the sentence misquoted by you. The paragraph then proceeds:
Either they recognize independence or they don't. After recognition many things can follow, for, by that single act, the British representatives will have altered the face of the whole landscape and revived the hope of the people which has been frustrated times without number. Therefore whenever that great act is performed on behalf of the British people, it will be a red-letter day in the history of India and the world. And, as I have said, it can materially affect the fortunes of the war.
From this fuller quotation, you will see how everything that was being done was done in order to ensure victory and ward off Japanese aggression. You may not appreciate my wisdom but you may not impugn my good faith.
Though I have no verbatim report of my speeches before the All-India Congress Committee, I have fairly full notes. I accept the correctness of your quotations. If you bear in mind that all things were said with non-violence always as the background, the statements become free from any objection. "Do or die" clearly means do your duty by carrying out instructions and die in the attempt, if necessary.
As to my exhortation to the people to consider themselves free, I take the following from my notes:
The actual struggle does not commence this very moment. You have merely placed certain powers in my hands. My first act will be to wait upon His Excellency the Viceroy and plead with him for the acceptance of the Congress demand. This may take two or three weeks. What are you to do in the mean while? I will tell you. There is the spinning-wheel. I had to struggle with the Maulana Saheb before it dawned upon him that in a non-violent struggle it had an abiding place. The fourteenfold constructive programme is all there for you to carry out. But there is something more you have to do and it will give life to that programme. Every one of you should from this very moment consider yourself a free man or woman and even act as if you are free and no longer under the heel of this imperialism. This is no make-believe. You have to cultivate the spirit of freedom before it comes physically. The chains of a slave are broken the moment he considers himself a free man. He will then tell his master: 'I have been your slave all these days but I am no longer that now. You may kill me, but if you do not and if you release me from the bondage, I will ask for nothing more from you. For, henceforth instead of depending upon you, I shall depend upon God for food and clothing. God has given me the urge for freedom and therefore I deem myself to be a free man.'
Apart from your resentment of the "Quit India" cry, ask yourself whether the quotation as found in its own setting is in any way offensive? Should not a man, longing to be free, first of all cultivate the spirit of freedom and act accordingly irrespective of consequences?
16. It is not the method of peaceful persuasion to go to the person whom you wish to convince armed with a resolution declaring mass rebellion. The essence of negotiation is that both parties should be uncommitted and that neither should exert the pressure of force on the other. That is true in any circumstances. But as between a subject and the State which rules him, the position is still more emphatic. It is not for the subject to deal with the State on equal terms, still less to approach it with an open threat.
At the outset let me make one correction. The resolution did not "declare" mass rebellion. It merely sanctioned the "starting of a mass struggle on non-violent lines on the widest possible scale so that the country might utilize all the non-violent strength it has gathered during the last twenty-two years of peaceful struggle". I was to "guide the nation in the steps to be taken". The paragraph sanctioning the mass struggle also "appeals to British and the United Nations in the interest of world freedom".
The essence of negotiation should undoubtedly be that the parties are uncommitted and that neither "exerts the pressure of force" on the other. In the case under consideration the actual position is that one party has overwhelming force at its disposal and the other has none. About non-committal too the Congress has no commitments except the immediate attainment of freedom. Subject to that there is the widest latitude for negotiation.
Your proposition about the subject and the State is I know a reply to the cry of "Quit India". Only the cry is intrinsically just and the subject-and-the-State formula is too antediluvian to have any
real meaning. It is because the Congress has felt the subjection of India as an insufferable reproach, that it has been against it. A well-ordered State is subject to the people. It does not descend upon the people from above but the people make and unmake it.
The resolution of 8th August did not contain any threat open or veiled. It prescribed the limitations under which the negotiations could be carried on and its sanction was free of all "force", i.e., violence. It consisted of self-suffering. Instead of appreciating the fact that the Congress laid all its cards on the table, you have given a sinister meaning to the whole movement by drawing unwarranted inferences. In so far as there was any violence after the 8th of August last on the part of any Congressman, it was wholly unauthorized as is quite clear from the resolution itself. The Government in their wisdom left me no time whatsoever for issuing instructions. The All-India Congress Committee finished after midnight on the 8th August. Well before sunrise on the 9th, I was carried away by the Police Commissioner without being told what crime I had committed. And so were the members of the Working Committee and the principal Congressmen who happened to be in Bombay. Is it too much when I say that the Government invited violence and did not want the movement to proceed on peaceful lines?
Now let me remind you of an occasion of an open rebellion when you played an important part. I refer to the famous Bardoli satyagraha under Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. He was conducting a campaign of civil disobedience. It had evidently reached a stage when the then Governor of Bombay felt that there should be a peaceful end to the struggle. You will remember that the result of an interview between His Excellency the then Governor and the Sardar was the appointment of a committee of which you were a distinguished member. And the committee's findings were for the most part in favour of the civil resisters. Of course, you may say, if you wish, that the Governor made a mistake in negotiating with a rebel, and so did you in accepting the appointment. Consider the reverse position, what would have happened if, instead of appointing a committee, the Governor had attempted heavy repression. Would not the Government have been held responsible for any outbreak of violence, if the people had lost self-control?
17. Government does hold Mr. Gandhi responsible for the recent happenings that have so disturbed the peace of India, caused so much loss of life and property of innocent persons and brought the country to the brinkof a terrible danger. I do not say, he had any personal complicity in acts of violence . . . but it was he that put the match to the train carefully laid beforehand by himself and his colleagues. That he was forced to do so prematurely was not his fault but our fortune. This was the method by which they hoped to gain their ends. They may seek to repudiate it, now that it has proved unsuccessful, but the responsibility is theirs none the less. . . . If Mr. Gandhi wished to dissociate himself from them, he could have spoken for himself without consulting the members of the Working Committee. Can he then, without cancelling the Congress rebellion, without reparation, without even assurances for the future, claim at any moment to step back as though nothing had happened into the public life of the country and be received by Government and society as a good citizen?
I can accept no responsibility for the unfortunate happenings described by you. I have no doubt whatsoever that history will record that the responsibility for the happenings was wholly that of the Government. In the nature of things I could not put a match to a train which for one thing was never laid. And if the train was never laid, the question of prematureness does not arise. The deprivation of the people of their leaders you may consider "our fortune". I consider it a misfortune of the first magnitude for all concerned. I wish to repudiate nothing of what I have done or intended. I have no sense of repentance for I have no sense of having done any wrong to any person. I have stated times without number that I detest violence in any shape or form. But I can give no opinion about things of which I have no first-hand knowledge. I never asked for permission to consult the Congress Working Committee to enable me to dissociate myself from violence. I asked for permission to see them, if I was expected to make any proposals on behalf of the Committee. I cannot cancel the Congress rebellion which is of a purely non-violent character. I am proud of it. I have no reparation to make, for I have no consciousness of guilt. And there can be no question of assurances for the future when I hold myself guiltless. The question of re-entering the public life of the country or being received by Government and society as a good citizen does not arise. I am quite content to remain a prisoner. I have never thrust myself on the public life of the country or on the Government. I am but a humble servant of India. The only certificate I need is a certificate from the inner voice. I hope you realize that you gave your audience not facts but your opinions framed in anger.
To conclude, why have I written this letter? Not to answer your anger with anger. I have written it in the hope that you may read the sincerity behind my own words. I never despair of converting any person even an official of the hardest type. Gen. Smuts was converted, or say reconciled, as he declared in his speech introducing the Bill giving relief in the terms of the settlement arrived at between him and me in 1914. That he has not fulfilled my hope or that of the Indian settlers which the settlement had inspired is a sad story, but it is irrelevant to the present purpose. I can multiply such recollections. I claim no credit for these conversions or reconciliations. They were wholly due to the working of truth and non-violence expressing themselves through me. I subscribe to the belief or the philosophy that all life in its essence is one, and that the humans are working consciously or unconsciously towards the realization of that identity. This belief requires a living faith in a living God who is the ultimate arbiter of our fate. Without Him not a blade of grass moves. My belief requires me not to despair even of converting you, though your speech warrants no such hope. If God has willed it, He may put power in some word of mine which will touch your heart. Mine is but to make the effort. The result is in God's hands.
