But if we Indians take care of ourselves the English and the rest of the world would take care of themselves.  Our contributions to the world’s progress must therefore consist in setting our own house in order.

Training in arms for the present is out of the question.  I go a step further and believe that India has a better mission for the world.  It is within her to show that she can achieve her destiny by pure self-sacrifice, i.e., self-purification.  This can be done only by non-co-operation.  And non-co-operation is possible only when those who commenced to co-operate being the process of withdrawal.  If we can but free ourselves from the threefold maya of Government-controlled schools, Government law-courts and legislative councils, and truly control our own education regulate our disputes and be indifferent to their legislation, we are ready to govern ourselves and we are only then ready to ask the government servants, whether civil or military, to resign, and the tax-payers to suspend payment of taxes.

And is it such an impracticable proposition to expect parents to withdraw their children from schools and colleges and establish their own institutions or to ask lawyers to suspend their practice and devote their whole time attention to national service against payment where necessary, of their maintenance, or to ask candidates for councils not to enter councils and lend their passive or active assistance to the legislative machinery through which all control is exercised.  The movement of non-co-operation is nothing but an attempt to isolate the brute force of the British from all the trappings under which it is hidden and to show that brute force by itself cannot for one single moment hold India.

But I frankly confess that, until the three conditions mentioned by me are fulfilled, there is no Swaraj.  We may not go on taking our college degrees, taking thousands of rupees monthly from clients for cases which can be finished in five minutes and taking the keenest delight in wasting national time on the council floor and still expect to gain national self-respect.

The last though not the least important part of the Maya still remains to be considered.  That is Swadeshi.  Had we not abandoned Swadeshi, we need not have been in the present fallen state.  If we would get rid of the economic slavery, we must manufacture our own cloth and at the present moment only by hand-spinning and hand weaving.

All this means discipline, self-denial, self-sacrifice, organising ability, confidence and courage.  If we show this in one year among the classes that to-day count, and make public opinion, we certainly gain Swaraj within one year.  If I am told that even we who lead have not these qualities in us, there certainly will never be Swaraj for India, but then we shall have no right to blame the English for what they are doing.  Our salvation and its time are solely dependent upon us.