BRITISH RULE—­AN EVIL

The Interpreter is however more to the point in asking, “Does Mr. Gandhi hold without hesitation or reserve that British rule in India is altogether an evil and that the people of India are to be taught so to regard it?  He must hold it to be so evil that the wrongs it does outweigh the benefit it confers, for only so is non-co-operation to be justified at the bar of conscience or of Christ.”  My answer is emphatically in the affirmative.  So long as I believed that the sum total of the energy of the British Empire was good, I clung to it despite what I used to regard as temporary aberrations.  I am not sorry for having done so.  But having my eyes opened, it would be sin for me to associate myself with the Empire unless it purges itself of its evil character.  I write this with sorrow and I should be pleased if I discovered that I was in error and that my present attitude was a reaction.  The continuous financial drain, the emasculation of the Punjab and the betrayal of the Muslim sentiment constitute, in my humble opinion, a threefold robbery of India.  ’The blessings of pax Britanica’ I reckon, therefore, to be a curse.  We would have at least remained like the other nations brave men and women, instead of feeling as we do so utterly helpless, if we had no British Rule imposing on us an armed peace.  ‘The blessing’ of roads and railways is a return no self-respecting nation would accept for its degradation.  ‘The blessing’ of education is proving one of the greatest obstacles in our progress towards freedom.

A MOVEMENT OF PURIFICATION

The fact is that non-co-operation by reason of its non-violence has become a religious and purifying movement.  It is daily bringing strength to the nation, showing it its weak spots and the remedy for removing them.  It is a movement of self-reliance.  It is the mightiest force for revolutionising opinion and stimulating thought.  It is a movement of self-imposed suffering and therefore possesses automatic checks against extravagance or impatience.  The capacity of the nation for suffering regulates its advance towards freedom.  It isolates the force of evil by refraining from participation in it, in any shape or form.

WHY WAS INDIA LOST?

[A dialog between the Reader and Editor,—­Indian Home Rule].

Reader:  You have said much about civilisation—­enough to make me ponder over it.  I do not know what I should adopt and what I should avoid from the nations of Europe. but one question comes to my lips immediately.  If civilisation is a disease, and if it has attacked England why has she been able to take India, and why is she able to retain it?