ON THE WRONG TRACK

Lord Ronaldshay has been doing me the favour of reading my booklet on Indian Home Rule which is a translation of Hind Swaraj.  His Lordship told his audience that if Swaraj meant what I had described it to be in the booklet, the Bengalis would have none of it.  I am sorry that Swaraj of the Congress resolution does not mean the Swaraj depicted in the booklet; Swaraj according to the Congress means Swaraj that the people of India want, not what the British Government may condescend to give.  In so far as I can see, Swaraj will be a Parliament chosen by the people with the fullest power over the finance, the police, the military, the navy, the courts, and the educational institutions.

I am free to confess that the Swaraj I expect to gain within one year, if India responds will be such Swaraj as will make practically impossible the repetition of the Khilafat and the Punjab wrongs, and will enable the nation to do good or evil as it chooses, and not he ‘good’ at the dictation of an irresponsible, insolent, and godless bureaucracy.  Under that Swaraj the nation will have the power to impose a heavy protective tariff on such foreign goods as are capable of being manufactured in India, as also the power to refuse to send a single soldier outside India for the purpose of enslaving the surrounding or remote nationalities.  The Swaraj that I dream of will be a possibility only, when the nation is free to make its choice both of good and evil.

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I adhere to all I have said in that booklet and I would certainly recommend it to the reader.  Government over self is the truest Swaraj, it is synonymous with moksha or salvation, and I have seen nothing to alter the view that doctors, lawyers, and railways are no help, and are often a hindrance, to the one thing worth striving after.  But I know that association, a satanic activity, such as the Government is engaged in, makes even an effort for such freedom a practical impossibility.  I cannot tender allegiance to God and Satan at the same time.

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The surest sign of the satanic nature of the present system is that even a nobleman of the type of Lord Ronaldshay is obliged to put us off the track.  He will not deal with the one thing needful.  Why is he silent about the Punjab?  Why does he evade the Khilafat?  Can ointments soothe a patient who is suffering from corroding consumption?  Does his lordship not see that it is not the inadequacy of the reforms that has set India aflame but that it is the infliction of the two wrongs and the wicked attempt to make us forget them?  Does he not see that a complete change of heart is required before reconciliation?

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