Category: Gandhi

Thus, whilst this movement for the preservation of non-violence was making steady though slow progress, on the one hand, the Government’s policy of lawless repression was in full career on the other, and was manifesting itself in kindnessaders were put under arrest, martial law, which in other words meant no law, was proclaimed, special tribunals were set up. These tribunals were not courts of justice but instruments for carrying out the arbitrary will of an autocrat. Sentences were passed unwarranted by evidence and in flagrant violation of justice. In Amritsar, innocent men and women were made to crawl like worms on their bellies. Before this outrage, the Jalianwala Bagh tragedy paled into insignificance in my eyes, though it was this massacre principally that attracted the attention of the people of India and the world. I was pressed to proceed immediately in disregard of the consequences. I wrote and also telegraphed to the Viceroy asking for permission to go there but in vain. If I proceeded without the necessary permission, I should not be allowed to cross the boundary of Punjab, but left to find what satisfaction I could from civil disobedience. I was thus confronted by a serious dilemma. As things stood, to break the order against my entry into Punjab could, it seemed to me, hardly be classed as civil disobedience, for I did not see around me the kind of peaceful atmosphere that I wanted, and the unbridled repression in Punjab had further served to aggravate and deepen the feelings of resentment. For me, therefore, to offer civil disobedience at such a time, even if it were possible, would have been like fanning the flame. I, therefore, decided not to proceed to Punjab despite the suggestion of friends. It was a bitter pill for me to swallow. Tales of rank injustice and oppression came pouring in daily from Punjab, but all I could do was to sit helplessly by and gnash my teeth. Just then Mr Horniman, in whose hands The Bombay Chronicle had become a formidable force, was suddenly spirited away by the authorities. This act of the Government seemed to me to be surrounded by a foulness that still stinks in my nostrils. I know that Mr Horniman never desired lawlessness. He had not liked my breaking the prohibitory order of the Punjab Government without the permission of the Satyagraha Committee, and had fully endorsed the decision to suspend civil disobedience. I had even announced my decision to that effect. Only owing to the distance between Bombay and Ahmedabad I got the letter after the announcement. His sudden deportation, therefore, caused me as much pain as a surprise. As a result of these developments, I was asked by the directors of The Bombay Chronicle to take up the responsibility of conducting that paper. Mr Brelvi was already there on the staff, so not much remained to be done by me, but as usual with my nature, the responsibility would have become an additional tax. But the Government came as it were to my rescue, for by its order the publication of The Chronicle had to be suspended. The friends who were directing the management of The Chronicle, Viz, Messrs. Umar Sobani and Shankarlal Banker, were at this also controlling Young India. They suggested that, given the suppression of The Chronicle, I should now take up the editorship of Young India, and that, to fill the gap left by the former, Young India should be converted from a weekly into a biweekly organ. This was what I felt also. I was anxious to expound the inner meaning of Satyagraha to the public, and also hoped that through this effort I should at least be able to do justice to the Punjab situation. For, behind all I wrote, there was potential Satyagraha, and the Government knew as much. I therefore readily accepted the suggestion made by these friends. But how could the general public be trained in Satyagraha through the medium of English? My principal field of work lay in Gujarat. Sjt. Indulal Yajnik was at that time associated with the group of Messrs. Sobani and Banker. He was conducting the Gujarati monthly Navajivan which had the financial backing of these friends. They placed the monthly at my disposal and further Sjt. Indulal offered to work on it. This monthly was converted into a weekly. In the meantime, The Chronicle was resuscitated. Young India was therefore restored to its original weekly form. To have published the two weeklies from two different places would have been very inconvenient to me and involved more expenditure. As Navajivan was already being published from Ahmedabad Young India was also removed there at my suggestion. There were other reasons besides this change. I had already learnt from my experience of Indian Opinion that such journals needed a press of their own. Moreover, the press laws in force in India at that time were such that, if I wanted to express my views untrammelled, the existing printing presses, which were naturally run for business, would have hesitated to publish them. The need for setting up a press of our own, therefore, became all the more imperative, and since this could be conveniently done only at Ahmedabad, Young India too had to be taken there. Through these journals, I now commenced to the best of my ability the work of educating the reading public in Satyagraha. Both of them had reached a very wide circulation, which at one time rose to the neighbourhood of forty thousand each. But while the circulation of Navajivan went up at a bound, that of Young India increased only by slow degrees. After my incarceration, the circulation of both these journals fell to a low ebb, and today stands below eight thousand. From the very start, I set my face against taking advertisements in these journals. I do not think that they have lost anything thereby. On the contrary, I believe that it was in no small measure that helped them to maintain their independence. Incidentally, these journals helped me also to some extent to remain at peace with myself for, whilst immediate resort to civil disobedience was out of the question, they enabled me freely to ventilate my views and to put heart into the people. Thus I feel that both the journals rendered good service to the people in this hour of trial, and did their humble bit towards lightening the tyranny of martial law. ~ ‘NAVAJIVAN’ AND ‘YOUNG INDIA’

Sir Michael O’Dwyer held me responsible for all that had happened in Punjab, and some irate young Punjabis held me responsible for the martial law. They asserted that, if only I had not suspended civil disobedience, there would have been no Jalianwala Bagh massacre. Some of them even went to the length of threatening me with assassination if I went to Punjab. But I felt that my position was so correct and above question that no intelligent person could misunderstand it. I was impatient to go to Punjab. I had never been there before, and that made me all the more anxious to see things for myself. Dr Satyapal, Dr Kitchly and Pandit Rambhaj Dutt Chowdhary, who had invited me to Punjab, were at this time in jail. But I felt sure that the Government could not dare to keep them and the other prisoners in prison for long. A large number of Punjabis used to come and see me whenever I was in Bombay. I ministered to them a word of cheer on these occasions, and that would comfort them. My self-confidence at that time was infectious. But my going to ad to be postponed again and again. The Viceroy would say, ‘not yet,’ every time I asked for permission to go there, and so the thing dragged on. In the meantime, the Hunter Committee was announced to hold an inquiry in connection with the Punjab Government’s doings under martial law. Mr C. F. Andrews had now reached Punjab. His letters gave a heart-rending description that the martial law atrocities were even worse than the press reports had shown. He pressed me urgently to come and join him. At the same time, Malaviyaji sent telegrams asking me to proceed to Punjab at once. I once more telegraphed to the Viceroy asking whether I could now go to Punjab. He wired back in reply that I could go there after a certain date. I cannot exactly recollect now, but I think it was the 17th of October. The scene that I witnessed on my arrival at Lahore can never be effaced from my memory. The railway station was from end to end one seething mass of humanity. The entire populace had turned out of doors in eager expectation, as if to meet a dear relation after a long separation, and was delirious with joy. I was put up at the late Pandit Rambhaj Dutt’s bungalow, and the burden of entertaining me fell on the shoulders of Shrimati Sarala Devi. A burden it truly was, for even then, as now, the place where I was accommodated became a veritable caravanserai. Owing to the principal Punjab leaders being in jail, their place, I found, had been properly taken up by Pandit Malaviyaji, Pandit Motilalji and the late Swami Sharddhanandji. Malaviyaji and Shraddhanandji I had known intimately before, but this was the first occasion on which I came in close personal contact with Motilalji. All these leaders, as also such local leaders as had escaped the privilege of going to jail, at once made me feel perfectly at home amongst them so that I never felt like a stranger in their midst. How we unanimously decided not to lead evidence before the Hunter Committee is now a matter of history. The reasons for that decision were published at that time, and need not be recapitulated here. Suffice it to say that, looking back upon these events from this distance of time, I still feel that our decision to boycott the Committee was correct and proper. As a logical consequence of the boycott of the Hunter Committee, it was decided to appoint a non-official Inquiry Committee, to hold almost a parallel inquiry on behalf of Congress. Pandit Motilal Nehru, the late Deshbandhu C. R. Das, Sjt. Abbas Tyabji, Sjt. M.R.Jayakar and myself were appointed to this Committee, virtually by Pandit Malaviyaji. We distributed ourselves over various places for purposes of inquiry. The responsibility for organizing the work of the Committee devolved on me, and as the privilege of conducting the inquiry in the largest number of places fell to my lot, I got a rare opportunity of observing at close quarters the people of Punjab and the Punjab villages. In the course of my inquiry, I made acquaintance with the women of Punjab also. It was as if we had known one another for ages. Wherever I went they came flocking and laid before me their heaps of yarn. My work in connection with the inquiry brought home to me the fact that Punjab could become a great field for Khadi work. As I proceeded further and further with my inquiry into the atrocities that had been committed on the people, I came across tales of the Government’s tyranny and the arbitrary despotism of its officers such as I was hardly prepared for, and they filled me with deep pain. What surprised me then, and what continues to fill me with surprise, was the fact that a province that had furnished the largest number of soldiers to the British Government during the war, should have taken all these brutal excesses lying down. The task of drafting the report of this Committee was also entrusted to me. I would recommend a perusal of this report to anyone who wants to have an idea of the kind of atrocities that were perpetrated on the Punjab people. All that I wish to say here about it is that there is not a single conscious exaggeration in it anywhere, and every statement made in it is substantiated by evidence. Moreover, the evidence published was only a fraction of what was in the Committee’s possession. Not a single statement, regarding the validity of which there was the report. This report, prepared as it was solely to bring out the truth and nothing but the truth, will enable the reader to see to what lengths the British Government is capable of going, and what inhumanities and barbarities it is capable of of of perpetrating to maintain its power. So far as I am aware, not a single statement made in this report has ever been disproved. ~ IN THE PUNJAB

Mr Kallenbach had accompanied me to England to go to India. We were staying together and of course, wanted to sail by the same boat. Germans, however, were under such strict surveillance that we had our doubts about Mr Kallenbach getting a passport. I did my best to get it, and Mr Roberts, who was in favour of his getting his passport, sent a cable to the Viceroy on this behalf.

Pp But straight came Lord Hardinge’s reply: ‘Regret Government of India not prepared to take any such risk.’ All of us understood the force of the reply. It was a great wrench for me to part from Mr Kallenbach, but I could see that his pang was greater. Could he have come to India, he would have been leading today the simple happy life of a farmer and weaver.

Now he is in South Africa, leading his old life and doing brisk business as an architect. We wanted a third-class passage, but as there was none available on P. and O. boats, we had to go second. We took with us the dried fruit we had carried from South Africa, as most of it would not be procurable on the boat, where fresh fruit was easily available. Dr Jivraj Mehta had bandaged my ribs with ‘Mede’s Plaster’ and had asked me not to remove it till we reached the Red Sea. For two days I put up with the discomfort, but finally, it became too much for me. It was with considerable difficulty that I managed to undo the plaster and regain the liberty of having a proper wash and bath.

My diet consisted mostly of nuts and fruits. I found that I was improving every day and felt very much better by the time we entered the Suez Canal. I was weak but felt entirely out of danger, and I gradually went on increasing my exercise. The improvement I attributed largely to the pure air of the temperate zone. Whether it was due to experience or to any other reason, I do not know, but the kind of distance I noticed between the English and Indian passengers on the boat was something I had not observed even on my voyage from South Africa. I did talk to a few Englishmen, but the talk was mostly formal.

There were hardly any cordial conversations such as had certainly taken place on the South African boats. The reason for this was, I think, to be found in the conscious or unconscious feeling at the back of the Englishman’s mind that he belonged to the ruling race and the feeling at the back of the Indian’s mind that he belonged to the subject race.

I was eager to reach home and get free from this atmosphere. On arriving at Aden we already began to feel somewhat at home. We knew the Adenwallas very well, having met Mr Kekobad Kavasji Dinshaw in Durban and come in close contact with him and his wife. A few days more and we reached Bombay. It was such a joy to get back to the homeland after an exile of ten years.

Gokhale had inspired a reception for me in Bombay, where he had come despite his delicate health. I had approached India in the ardent hope of merging myself in him and thereby feeling free. But fate had willed it otherwise. ~ HOMEWARD