Hatred is in the air and impatient lovers of the country will gladly
take advantage of it, if they can, through violence, to further the
cause of independence. I suggest that it is wrong at any time and
everywhere. But it is more wrong and unbecoming in a country where
fighters for freedom have declared to the world that their policy is
truth and non-violence. Hatred, they argue, cannot be turned into
love. Those who believed in violence will naturally use it by
saying, 'kill your enemy, injure him and his property wherever you
can, whether openly or secretly as necessity requires'. The result
will be deeper hatred and counter hatred, and vengeance let loose on
both sides. The recent war, whose members have yet hardly died,
loudly proclaims the bankruptcy of this use of hatred. And it
remains to be seen whether the so-called victors have really won or
whether they have not depressed themselves in seeking and trying to
depress their enemies. It is a bad game at its best. Some
philosophers of action in this country improve upon the model and
say, 'We shall never kill our enemy but we shall destroy his
property.' Perhaps I do them an injustice when I call it 'his
property', for the remarkable thing is that the so-called enemy has
brought no property of his own and what little he has brought he
makes us pay for. Therefore, what we destroy is really our own. The
bulk of it, whether in men or things, he produces here. So what he
really has is the custody of it. For the destruction too we have to
pay through the nose and it is the innocent who are made to pay.
That is the implication of punitive tax and all it carries with it.
Nonviolence in the sense of mere non-killing does not appear to me,
therefore, to be any improvement on the technique of violence. It
means slow torture and when slowness becomes ineffective we shall
immediately revert to killing and to the atom bomb, which is the
last word in violence today. Therefore, I suggested in 1920 the use
of nonviolence and its inevitable twin companion truth, for
canalizing hatred into the proper channel. The hater hates not for
the sake of hatred but because he wants to drive away from his
country the hated being or beings. He will, therefore, as readily
achieve his end by non-violent as by violent means. For the past 25
years, willingly or unwillingly, the Congress has spoken to the
masses in favour of non-violence as against violence for regaining
our lost liberty. We have also discovered through our progress that
in the application of non-violence we have been able to reach the
mass mind far more quickly and far more extensively than ever
before. And yet, if truth is told as it must be, our non-violent
action has been half-hearted. Many have preached non-violence
through the lips while harbouring violence in the breast. But the
unsophisticated mass mind has read the secret meaning hidden in our
breast and the unconscious reaction has not been altogether as it
might have been. Hypocrisy has acted as an ode to virtue, but it
could never take its place. And so I plead for non-violence and yet
more non-violence. I do so not without knowledge but with sixty
years' experience behind me. This is the critical moment, for the
dumb masses are today starving. There are many ways that will
suggest themselves to the wise reader as to how to apply the canons
of non-violence to the present needs of the country. The hypnotism
of the I.N.A.* has cast its spell upon us. Netaji's name is one to
conjure with. His patriotism is second to none. (I use the present
tense intentionally). His bravery shines through all his actions. He
aimed high but failed. Who has not failed? Ours is to aim high and
to aim well. It is not given to everyone to command success. My
praise and admiration can go no further. For I knew that his action
was doomed to failure, and that I would have said so even if he had
brought his I.N.A. victorious to India, because the masses would not
have come into their own in this manner. The lesson that Netaji and
his army bring to us is one of self-sacrifice, unity irrespective of
class and community, and discipline. If our adoration will be wise
and discriminating, we will rigidly copy this trinity of virtues,
but we will as rigidly abjure violence. I would not have the I.N.A.
man think or say that he and his can ever deliver the masses of
India from bondage by force of arms. But if he is true to Netaji and
still more so to the country, he will spend himself in teaching the
masses, men, women and children, to be brave, self-sacrificing and
united. Then we will be able to stand erect before the world. But if
he will merely act the armed soldiers, he will only lord it over the
masses and the fact that he will be a volunteer will not count for
much. I, therefore, welcome the declaration made by Capt. Shah
Nawaz that to be worthy of Netaji, on having come to Indian soil, he
will act as a humble soldier of non-violence in Congress ranks.
Sevagram,
15-2-'46
Harijan, 24-2-1946