LAWYERS’ PRACTICE

I come now to the second objection of Mr. Kasturiranga Iyengar with reference to the suspension by lawyers of their practice.  Milk is good in itself but it comes absolutely poisonous immediately a little bit of arsenic is added to it.  Law courts are similarly good when justice is distilled through them on behalf of a Sovereign power which wants to do justice to its people.  Law courts are one of the greatest symbols of power and in the battle of non-co-operation, you may not leave law courts untouched and claim to offer non-co-operation, but if you will read that objection carefully, you will find in that objection the great fear that the lawyers will not respond to the call that the country makes upon them, and it is just there that the beauty of non-co-operation comes in.  If one lawyer alone suspends practice, it is so much to the good of the country and so if we are sure to deprive the Government of the power that it possess through its law courts, whether one lawyer takes it up or many, we must adopt that step.

GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

He objects also to the plan of boycotting Government schools.  I can only say what I have said with reference to lawyers that if we mean non-co-operation, we may not receive any favours from the Government, no matter how advantageous by themselves they may be.  In a great struggle like this, it is not open to us to count how many schools will respond and how many parents will respond and just as a geometrical problem is difficult, because it does not admit of easy proof, so also because a certain stage in national evolution is difficult, you may not avoid that step without making the whole of the evolution a farce.

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We have had a great lesson in non-co-operation and co-operation.  We had a lesson in non-co-operation when some young men began to fight there and it is a dangerous weapon.  I have not the slightest doubt about it.  One man with a determined will to non-co-operate can disturb a whole meeting and we had a physical demonstration of it to night but ours is non-violent, non-co-operation in which there can be no mistake whatsoever in the fundamental conditions are observed.  If non-co-operation fails, it will not be for want of any inherent strength in it, but it will fall because there is no response to it, or because people have not sufficiently grasped its simple principles.  You had also a practical demonstration of co-operation just now; that heavy chair went over the heads of so many people, because all wanted to lift their little hand to move that chair away from them and so was that heavier dome also removed from our sight by co-operation of man, woman and child.  Everybody believes and knows that this Government of our exists only by the co-operation of the people and not by the force of arms it can wield and everyman with a sense of logic