SECTION II : Extracts From Letters

Chapter 13: India's Freedom

It is very difficult to get rid of our fondness for Parliament. It was no doubt barbarious when people tore off the skin, burned persons alive and cut off their ears or nose; but the tyranny of Parliament is much greater than that of Chengiz Khan, Tamerlane and others.

Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. X, p. 204, 2-4-1910

Swaraj is for those who understand it. You and I can enjoy it even today. All the others will have to learn to do likewise. What is secured for us by others is not Swaraj but pararaj, i.e. foreign rule, whether they be Indians or Englishmen.

Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. X, p. 205, 2-4-1910

The more experience I gain, the more I realize that machinery will keep us in permanent slavery, and I find that what I said about it in Hind Swaraj is literally true. About Satyagraha, too, I have been discovering new truths. I see that, for the weak as for the strongest, it is a weapon of the utmost purity.

Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol.XV p. 340, 1-6-1919

[The] highest honesty must be introduced in the political life of the country if we are to make our mark as a nation. This presupposes at the present moment a very firm and definite acceptance of the creed of Truth at any cost.

Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. XVII, p. 97, 18-3-1920

My belief is that the instant India is purified India becomes free and not a moment earlier.

Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol.XIX, p. 15, 23-9-1920

I am gathering together all the forces of hate and directing them in a proper channel. Hatred is a sign of weakness as contempt of insolent power. If I could but show our countrymen that we need not fear the English, we will cease to hate them. A brave man or woman never hates. Hatred is essentially the vice of cowards. N [on-] C [o-] o [peration] is self-purification. Even as the dirt comes to the surface when you are purifying sugar, so does our weakness come to the surface whilst we are purifying ourselves.

Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. XIX p. 137, 17-12-1920

Let the students understand that Swaraj is not to be obtained by learning but by an exhibition in their own lives of the qualities necessary for Swaraj, viz., openness, truthfulness, courage, cohesion, fellowship and self-sacrifice. If they have these qualities, they must take them to their villages and spread them.

Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. XIX, p. 292, 29-1-1921

The economic and the moral salvation of India... rests mainly with you. The future of India lies on your knees, for you will nurture the future generation. You can bring up the children of India to become simple, god-fearing and brave men and women, or you can coddle them to be weaklings unfit to brave the storms of life and used to foreign finery which they would find it difficult in after life to discard.

Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. XX, p. 497, 11-8-1921

My goal is to attain self-government for India. The means adopted to attain the end are Non-violence and Truth. Therefore, Indian self-government not only means no menace to the world, but will be of the greatest benefit to humanity if she attains her end through those means and those means alone. The spinning-wheel is the external symbol of internal reform, and its universal re-adoption in India ensures her economic salvation and frees millions of Indian peasants from growing pauperism.

Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, XXIII, p. 361, 5-4-1924

It would be the nicest thing to achieve and run Swaraj if everyone sincerely felt that he was nothing and that the cause was everything.

Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. XXIII, p. 330, 28-3-1924

Salutation of the national flag is in my opinion unobjectionable. I see nothing inherently wrong about it. A national spirit is necessary for national existence. A flag is a material aid to the development of such a spirit.

Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. XXVI, p. 544, 25-4-1925