Any force used by a government under any circumstance is not repression.  An open trial of a person accused of having advocated methods of violence is not repression.  Every State has the right to put down or prevent violence by force.  But the trial of Mr. Zafar Ali Khan and two Moulvis of Panipat shows that the Government is seeking not to put down or prevent violence but to suppress expression of opinion, to prevent the spread of disaffection.  This is repression.  The trials are the beginning of it.  It has not still assumed a virulent form but if these trials do not result in stilling the propaganda, it is highly likely that severe repression will be resorted to by the Government.

The only other way to prevent the spread of disaffection is to remove the causes thereof.  And that would be to respect the growing response of the country to the programme of non-co-operation.  It is too much to expect repentance and humility from a government intoxicated with success and power.

We must therefore assume that the second stage in the Government programme will be repression growing in violence in the same ratio as the progress of non-co-operation.  And if the movement survives repression, the day of victory of truth is near.  We must then be prepared for prosecutions, punishments even up to deportations.  We must evolve the capacity for going on with our programme without the leaders.  That means capacity for self-government.  And as no government in the world can possibly put a whole nation in prison, it must yield to its demand or abdication in favour of a government suited to that nation.

It is clear that abstention from violence and persistence in the programme are our only and surest chance of attaining our end.

The government has its choice, either to respect the movement or to try to repress it by barbarous methods.  Our choice is either to succumb to repression or to continue in spite of repression.

TO EVERY ENGLISHMAN IN INDIA

Dear Friend,

I wish that every Englishman will see this appeal and give thoughtful attention to it.

Let me introduce myself to you.  In my humble opinion no Indian has co-operated with the British Government more than I have for an unbroken period of twenty-nine years of public life in the face of circumstances that might well have turned any other man into a rebel.  I ask you to believe me when I tell you that my co-operation was not based on the fear of the punishments provided by your laws or any other selfish motives.  It was free and voluntary co-operation based on the belief that the sum total of the activity of the British Government was for the benefit of India.  I put my life in peril four times for the sake of the Empire,—­at the time of the Boer war when I was in charge of the Ambulance corps whose work was mentioned in General Buller’s dispatches, at the time of the Zulu revolt in Natal