[The letter reproduced below was written by Gandhiji in the Christmas week of 1941, but the Government of India would not allow it to be transmitted to the Nazi dictator.]
Dear Friend,
That I address you as a friend is no formality. I own
ho foes. My business in life has been for the past thirty-three
years to enlist the friendship of the whole humanity by befriending
mankind, irrespective of race, colour or creed.
I hope you will have the time and desire to know how
a good portion of humanity who have been living under the influence
of that doctrine of universal friendship view your actions. We have
no doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do
we believe that you are the monster described by your opponents. But
your own writings and pronouncements and those of your friends and
admirers leave no room for doubt that many of your acts are
monstrous and unbecoming of human dignity, especially in the
estimation of men like me who believe in universal friendliness.
Such are your humiliation of Czechoslovakia, the rape of Poland and
the swallowing of Denmark. I am aware that your view of life regards
such spoliations as virtuous acts. But we have been taught from
childhood to regard them as acts degrading humanity. Hence we cannot
possibly wish success to your arms. But ours is a unique position.
We resist British Imperialism no less than Nazism. If there is a
difference, it is in degree. One-fifth of the human race has been
brought under the British heel by means that will not bear scrutiny.
Our resistance to it does not mean harm to the British people. We
will convert them, not defeat them on the battlefield. Ours is an
unarmed revolt against the British rule. But whether we convert them
or not we are determined to make their rule impossible by
non-violent non-co-operation. It is a method in its nature
undefeatable. It is based on the knowledge that no spoliator can
compass his end without a certain degree of co-operation, willing or
compulsory, of the victim. Our rulers can have our land and bodies,
but not our souls. They can have the former only by destruction of
every Indian, man, woman, and child. That all may not rise to that
degree of heroism and that a fair amount of frightfulness can bend
the back of the revolt is true, but the argument would be beside the
point. For, if a fair number of men and women can be found in India
who would be prepared without any ill-will against the spoliators
to lay down their lives rather than bend the knee to them, they
would have shown the way to freedom from the tyranny of violence. I
ask you to believe me when I say that you will find an unexpected
number of such men and women in India. They have been having that
training for the past twenty years.
We have been tidying for the past half a century to
throw off the British rule. The movement of independence has been
never so strong as now. The most powerful political organization, I
mean the Indian National Congress, is trying to achieve this end. We
have attained a very fair measure of success through non-violent
effort. We are groping for the right means to combat the most
organized violence in the world, which the British power represents.
You have challenged it. It remains to be seen which is the better
organized, the German or the British.
We know what the British heel means for us and the
non-European races of the world. But we would never wish to end
British rule with German aid. We have found in non-violence a force
which, if organized, can without doubt match itself against a
combination of all the most violent forces in the world. In
non-violent technique, as I have said, there is no such thing as
defeat. It is all "do or die" without killing or hurting. It can be
used practically without money and obviously without the aid of the
science of destruction, which you have brought to such perfection.
It is a marvel to me that you do not see it is
nobody's monopoly. If not the British, some other power will
certainly improve upon your method and beat you with your own
weapon. You are leaving no legacy to your people of which they would
feel proud. They cannot take pride in a recital of cruel deeds,
however skillfully planned.
I, therefore, appeal to you in the name of humanity
to stop the war. You will lose nothing by referring all the matters
of dispute between you and Great Britain to an International
Tribunal of your joint choice. If you attain success in the war, it
will not prove that you were in the right. It will only prove that
your power of destruction was greater, whereas an award, by an
impartial tribunal, will show as far as it is humanly possible,
which party was in the right.
You know that not long ago I made an appeal to every
Briton to accept my method of non-violent resistance. I did it
because the British know me as a friend, though a rebel. I am a
stranger to you and your people. I have not the courage to make to
you the appeal I made to every Briton. Not that it would not apply
to you with the same force as to the British. But my present
proposal is much simpler because it is much more practical and
familiar. During this season when the hearts of the peoples of
Europe yearn for peace, we have suspended even our peaceful
struggle. Is it too much to ask you to make an effort for peace
during a time which may mean nothing to you personally, but must
mean much to the millions of Europeans, whose dumb cry for peace I
hear, for my ears are attuned to hearing the dumb millions? I had
the privilege of meeting Signor Mussolini when I was in Rome during
my visit to England as a delegate to the Round Table Conference. I
hope he will take this as addressed to him also with the necessary
changes.
I am,
Yours sincere friend,
M.K. Gandhi
This Was Bapu, (Ed. 1959), pp. 155-58