Volume Twenty-Five

1. NOTES MUNICIPALITIES BEWARE The Government of Bombay note regarding the Ahmedabad, Surat and Nadiad municipalities shows that it refuses to see the writing on the wall. Its dictatorial tone is now no longer in keeping with the rising spirit of the people. Its incitement to the individual ratepayers to sue the councillors who believe they have performed their duty is hardly dignified. The proper course for the Government was to let the municipalities take their own course and not to invite trouble. As it is, the Government note is calculated to precipitate a crisis. The councillors must take up the challenge and dare the Government to disregard the municipalities if they choose. The municipalities must have the right to misgovern themselves if they wish. If a city is misgoverned, it is as much the ratepayers’ fault as is the councillors’. But our wise Government whilst recognizing the independent existence of the municipalities wants to stick to the letter of the law which killeth and would itself rule instead of letting the municipalities alone so long as they do not cost the Government anything. The municipalities must now take up the challenge and prepare for action on their part. Government may succeed; in getting a few ratepayers to file suits. That will be the least it can do. The most it can do is to disband the municipalities concerned. And the most of the Government should prove most welcome, if only the protestants are a strong body. Assuming that they are, they must simply educate the ratepayers to understand what is happening and to prepare them for battle. I can see swaraj peeping even through the Government note if the latter take and the former are ready for action. So long as there is no disbandment, the municipalities have all power; as soon as there is disbandment, the Government is powerless assuming of course that the ratepayers are strong, intelligent and united. The ratepayers are all that but they require to be organized for action. Hitherto the people have been the football of officials or so-called representatives. Non-co-operation enables the people to become the players in the game. Representatives must represent or they perish. THE VISITORS TO THE CONGRESS The Reception Committee of the Congress is trying to make the Congress session a purely business session. In its anxiety to do so, it VOL. 25 : 27 OCTOBER, 1921 - 22 JANUARY, 1922 1 has restricted its own number and the number of visitors. It was impossible to avoid limitation of the number of visitors when the number of delegates was limited. The question therefore before the Committee was to devise a method of selection. The only qualification possible was a monetary qualification subject to free tickets for a few distinguished guests. The idea is purely to restrict the number of applicants, not to make money. For the first time, the annual gathering will cease to be an instrument for collecting funds for the annual expenditure. Elaborate preparations including exhibition, musical concerts and popular lectures by all the celebrated speakers of the day for a fee of eight annas per day are in progress. The prohibitive fee has been imposed only for visitors to the Congress session, the idea being to discourage applications from visitors. I am anxious that the public should understand and appreciate the position of the Reception Committee upon whose shoulders devolves the responsibility of organizing the first session under the new constitution and under exceptional circumstances. The success of the Congress depends principally upon the willing and hearty co-operation of every member of the public. WAR ON THE KHADI CAP Mr. Dharamadas Udharam of Karachi writes, saying that he was cashiered by his employers Messrs Forbes Campbell and Co., for having dared to wear the khadi cap. I congratulate him upon his courage in accepting dismissal rather than giving up his cap. If he were not demoralized, every clerk serving no matter where would invite dismissal by a simultaneous adoption of the khadi cap. This would really have the effect of the firms recognizing the inevitable and seeing the folly of warring against harmless dress. Indeed this war is being waged to strike awe among employees and keep them submissive and even unmanly. In Madras the Director of Public Instruction will not allow the inspectors of schools to introduce spinning-wheels if only because, the Director says, they are given a political significance. On the same reasoning even a lecture on abstinence should be taboo because it has for non-co-operators a political significance. This war against swadeshi in a variety of ways shows that it is distasteful to the Government. In other words the Government cannot tolerate the economic independence of India. Should these indications not make us resolute in the prosecution of the swadeshi programme? 2 THE COLLECTED WORKS OF MAHATMA GANDNI SOLDIERS The prosecution of the Brothers and their companions and the Manifesto1 have reached the barracks, and soldiers are inquiring how they can support themselves if they leave. One correspondent asks on their behalf as to what would happen to them under swaraj. As for the first, the Working Committee has shown them the way. Every soldier can easily become a weaver and carder. Carding requires strength of arm which every soldier must have. And a carder in Bombay earns anything between two to three rupees per day. Many weavers of the Punjab have left the handloom for the sword of the hireling. I consider the former to be infinitely preferable to the latter. I refuse to call the profession of the sepoy honourable when he has no choice as to the time when and the persons or people against whom he is called upon to use his sword. The sepoy’s services have more often been utilized for enslaving us than for protecting us, whereas the weaver today can truly become the liberator of his country and hence a true soldier. A friend has suggested, that agriculture should also be added to weaving and carding advised by the Congress. It cannot be as an immediate measure, because, agriculture cannot be taken up with ease, and it requires a capital outlay which renders it impracticable for our purpose. What will happen during swaraj is easily answered. The soldiers will not then be hirelings, but they will form the national militia for defensive and protective purposes alone. They will have a voice in the moulding of the affairs of the nation. And they will certainly never be sent to cut down inoffensive Turks or Arabs in the West or equally inoffensive Chinese or Burmese in the East. IN DEFENCE OF MR. TYAGI Babu Bhagwandas who has been closely following the movement has sent in the following learned note2 in defence of Mr. Tyagi. The reader will note that I made some amends last week as soon as I saw Mr. Tyagi’s statement.3 I considered the caution to be 1 On the Karachi Resolution; vide”A Manifesto’, 24-10-1921. 2 Not reproduced here 3 Vide”Notes”, 20-10-1921, under the sub-titles”A Magistrate’s Apology”, and”Accused’s Statement”. VOL. 25 : 27 OCTOBER, 1921 - 22 JANUARY, 1922 3 necessary because of my experience of our silence being a result of our weakness. Unfortunately it is not confined to the individual. It has become a national vice. When I cited Mr. Tyagi, his case was merely the latest illustration of that vice. As I have explained before now, bad as the Moplah madness is, the fact of others having submitted to the madness is worse. Why did they live to tell the tale of their forcible conversions? Nobody can keep our religion for us. Each one of us man or woman must be one’s own defender. God who has given us religion has given also the power of defending it. Everyone has not the power to strike; all, the lame, the blind and the dumb have the power to die. The cowardly assault by the magistrate was an attack on Mr. Tyagi’s manhood and therefore his religion. By some act of his, be it called defiances, impudence, insolence, he ought to have invited more slaps and”created a peaceful scene”. This would have, been truest non-co-operation. But I do not blame Mr. Tyagi or anybody. Manliness has been deliberately killed out of us. And we have been disarmed into mute submission. As the author of non-violence in its modern presentation I am anxious to guard myself against our weakness being apotheosized. I would far rather not shower congratulations for bravery till we are positive about it. For the rest, we have every reason to be thankful for the progress we have made in shedding our fear and awe of authority. Non-co-operation arms both the weak and the strong with a powerful weapon. And I should not be ashamed of our submission to insults even out of weakness so long as we realized that it was due to weakness and attempted every time to outgrow it. Babu Bhagwandas is curious to know what could be worse than fear. I had in mind cowardice. It is curious to note that whilst Babu Bhagwandas has in view of Mr. Tyagi’s statement and in ignorance of my amends, rightly protested against my condemnation of weakness I hastily inferred in Mr. Tyagi’s case, Maulana Mahomed Ali has, as will appear from his letter1 printed elsewhere, energetically protested against his action being called a defiance. The word”defence” occurring in my notes at the end was a misprint for”defiance”.2 These protests are to me most welcome signs of the national desire to be correct to a fault.

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