It should be noted that when Gandhi stepped into the political field as leader of the opposition to the Rowlatt bills, he was moved only by a desire to spare the country from violence.[25] The revolt was bound to come; he knew there was no possibility of avoiding it. The point, therefore, was to turn it into non-violent channels.

To understand Gandhi's activity, it should be realized that his doctrine is like a huge edifice composed of two different floors or grades. Below is the solid groundwork, the basic foundation of religion. On this vast and unshakable foundation is based the political and social campaign. It is not the ideal continuation of the invisible foundation, but it is the best structure possible under present conditions. It is adapted to conditions.

In other words, Gandhi is religious by nature, and his doctrine is essentially religious. He is a political leader by necessity, because other leaders disappear, and the force of circumstances obliges him to pilot the ship through the storm and give practical political expression to his doctrine. These developments are interesting, but the essential part of the edifice is the crypt, which is deep and well built and meant to uphold a very different cathedral from the structure rapidly rising above it. The crypt alone is durable. The rest is temporary and only designed to serve during the transition years, until the plans for a cathedral worthy of the groundwork can be worked out. An understanding of the principles on which the vast subterranean crypt is based is essential, therefore, for here Gandhi's thought finds its real expression. It is into the depths of this crypt that he descends every day to seek inspiration and strength to carry on the work above.

Gandhi believes in the religion of his people, in Hinduism. But he is not a scholar, attached to the punctilious interpretation of texts, nor is he a blind believer accepting unquestioningly all the traditions of his religion. His religion must satisfy his reason and correspond to the dictates of his conscience.

I would not make a fetish of religion and condone evil in its sacred name.[26]

My belief in the Hindu scripture does not require me to accept every word and every verse as divinely inspired. I decline to be bound by any interpretation however learned it may be if it is repugnant to reason or moral sense.[27]
Nor does he look upon Hinduism as the only religion, and this is a very important point.

I do not believe in the exclusive divinity of the Vedas. I believe the Bible, the Koran and the Zend-Avesta to be as divinely inspired as the Vedas.... Hinduism is not a missionary religion. In it there is room for the worship of all the prophets in the world ... Hinduism tells every one to worship God according to his own faith or Dharma and so it lives in peace with all religions.[28]
He sees the errors and vices that have crept into religion through the centuries, and he brands them, but he adds:

I can no more describe my feeling for Hinduism than for my own wife. She moves me as no other woman in the world can. Not that she has no faults; I dare say, she has many more than I see myself. But the feeling of an indissoluble bond is there. Even so I feel about Hinduism with all its faults and limitations. Nothing elates me so much as the music of the Gitâ or the Ramayana by Tulasidas, the only two books in Hinduism I may be said to know. I know that vice is going on to-day in all the great Hindu shrines but I love them in spite of their failings. I am a reformer through and through. But my zeal never takes me to the rejection of any of the essential things of Hinduism.[29]
What are the essential things in which Gandhi believes? In an article written October 6,1921, Gandhi defines his conception of Hinduism:

1. He believes, he says, in the "Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas and all that goes by the name of Hindu scriptures." He believes, therefore, in Avataras and rebirth.

2. He believes in the Varnashrama Dharma[30] or the "Discipline of the Castes," in a sense which he considers "strictly Vedic," but which may not correspond to the present "popular and crude sense."

3. He believes in the "protection of the cow in a much larger sense than the popular."

4. He does not "disbelieve in idol worship."

Every Occidental who reads Gandhi's "Credo" and stops at these lines is apt to feel that they reveal a mentality so different from ours and so far removed in time and space as to make comparison with our ideals impossible, owing to the lack of a common measure. But if he will read on, he will find, a few lines below, the following words, which express a doctrine more familiar to us:

I believe implicitly in the Hindu aphorism that no one truly knows the Shastras who has not attained perfection in Innocence [Ahimsa], Truth [Satya], and Self-Control [Brahma-Charya] and who has not renounced all acquisition or possession of wealth.
Here the words of the Hindu join those of the Gospel. And Gandhi was aware of their similarity. To an English clergyman who asked him in 1920 which books had influenced him most, Gandhi replied, "The New Testament."[31]

The last words of Gandhi's "Ethical Religion" are a quotation from the New Testament,[32] and he claims that the revelation of passive resistance came to him after reading the Sermon on the Mount in 1893.[33] When the clergyman asked him, in surprise, if he had not found the same message in Hindu scriptures, Gandhi replied that while he has found inspiration and guidance in the Bhagavad Gitâ, which he reveres and admires, the secret of passive resistance was made clear to him through the New Testament. A great joy welled up in him, he says, when the revelation came to him, and again when the Gitâ confirmed this revelation.[34] Gandhi also says that Tolstoi's ideal, that the kingdom of God is within us, helped him mold his own faith into a real doctrine.[35]

It should not be forgotten that this Asiatic believer has translated Ruskin[36] and Plato[37] and quotes Thoreau, admires Mazzini, reads Edward Carpenter, and that he is, in short, familiar with the best that Europe and America have produced.

There is no reason why a Westerner should not understand Gandhi's doctrine as well as Gandhi understands those of our great men, provided the Westerner will take the trouble to study Gandhi a little deeply. It is true that the mere words of Gandhi's creed may surprise him, and that two paragraphs, in fact, if read superficially, may seem so different from our mentality as to form an almost insurmountable barrier between the religious ideals of Asia and Europe. One of these paragraphs refers to cow-protection and the other to the caste system. As for Gandhi's reference to idol-worship, it requires no special study. Gandhi explains his attitude when he says that he has no veneration for idols but believes idol-worship to be part of human nature. He considers it inherent to the frailty of the human mind, because we all "hanker after symbolism" and must needs materialize our faith in order really to understand it. When Gandhi says he does not disbelieve in idol-worship, he means no more than what we countenance in all our ritualistic churches of the West.

"Cow-protection," says Gandhi, is the central fact of Hinduism. He looks upon it as one of the "most wonderful phenomena of human evolution." Why? Because the cow, to him, is taken as the symbol of the entire "sub-human world." Cow-protection means that man concludes a pact of alliance with his dumb brethren; it signifies fraternity between man and beast. According to Gandhi's beautiful expression, by learning to respect, revere, an animal, man is "taken beyond his species and is enjoined to realize his identity with all that lives."

If the cow was selected in preference to other creatures it was because in India the cow was the best companion, the giver of plenty. Not only did she give the milk but she made agriculture possible. And Gandhi sees in "this gentle animal" a "poem of pity."

But there is nothing idolatrous about Gandhi's cow-worship, and no one condemns more harshly than he the fetishism of many so-called believers, who observe the letter of "cow-worship" without exercising a spirit of compassion "for the dumb creatures of God." Whoever understands the spirit of compassion and fellow-feeling that Gandhi would have men feel for their dumb brethren,—and who would have understood this better than the poverello Assisi?—is not surprised that Gandhi lays such stress on cow-protection in his creed. From this point of view he is quite justified in saying that cow-protection is the "gift of Hinduism to the world." To the precept of the gospel, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," Gandhi adds, "And every living being is thy neighbor."[38]

Gandhi's belief in the caste system is almost more difficult for a European or Western mind to understand—it seems more foreign, almost, than the idea of the fellowship of all living beings. I should perhaps say "European or Western mind of to-day," for while we still believe in a certain equality, Heaven knows how we will feel in the future, when we become thoroughly imbued with the consequences of the evolution, democratic in name only, which we are undergoing! I do not imagine that at our present stage of development my explanation of Gandhi's views will make them seem acceptable as regards the caste system; nor am I anxious to have them seem so. But I would like to make it clear that Gandhi's conception of the caste system is different from what we usually mean by that term, since he does not base it on pride or vain notions of social superiority, but on duties.

I am inclined to think [he says] that the law of heredity is an eternal law, and that any attempt to alter it must lead to utter confusion ... Varnashrama or the caste system, is inherent in human nature. Hinduism has simply reduced it to a science.
Gandhi believes in four classes or castes. The Brahmans, the intellectual and spiritual class; the the military and governmental class; the Vaishyas, the commercial, industrial class; and the Shudras, manual workers and laborers. This classification does not imply any superiority or inferiority. It simply stands for different vocations. "These classes define duties, they confer no privileges."[39]

It is against the genius of Hinduism to arrogate to oneself a higher status or assign others to a lower. All are born to serve God's creation, the Brahman with his knowledge, the Kshatriya with his power of protection, the Vaishya with his commercial ability, the Shudra with his bodily labor.

This does not mean that a Brahman is absolved from bodily labor but it does mean that he is predominantly a man of knowledge and fittest by training and heredity to impart it to others. There is nothing again to prevent a Shudra from acquiring all the knowledge he wishes. Only he will best serve with his body and need not envy others their special qualities for service. A Brahman who claims superiority by right of knowledge falls and has no knowledge. Varnashrama is self-restraint and conservation of economy and energy....
Gandhi's caste system is based, therefore, on "abnegation and not on privileges." It should not be forgotten, moreover, that according to Hinduism reincarnation reestablishes a general equilibrium, as in the course of successive existences a Brahman becomes a Shudra, and vice versa.

The caste system, which deals with different classes of equal rank, bears no relation whatsoever to the attitude of Hindus to the "untouchables," or pariahs. We will study later on Gandhi's passionate appeals for the pariahs. His campaign in favor of the "suppressed classes" is one of the most appealing phases of his apostleship. Gandhi regards the pariah system as a blot on Hinduism; it is a vile deformation of the real doctrine, and he suffers intolerably by it.

I would rather be torn to pieces than disown my brothers of the suppressed classes.... I do not want to be reborn, but if I have to be reborn, I should be "untouchable" so that I may share their sorrows, sufferings and the affronts leveled at them in order that I may endeavor to free them from their miserable condition.
And he adopts a little "untouchable" girl and speaks with emotion of this charming little imp of seven who rules the household with her gay prattle.

I have said enough to show Gandhi's great evangelical heart beating under his Hindu creed. Gandhi is a Tolstoi in a more gentle, appeased, and, if I dared, I would say, in a more Christian sense, for Tolstoi is not so much a Christian by nature as by force of will.

The resemblance between the two men is greatest, or perhaps Tolstoi's influence has been strongest, in their condemnation of European and Occidental civilization.

Ever since Rousseau our Western civilization has been attacked by the freest and broadest minds of Europe. When Asia began to wake to a realization of her own power and revolt against Western oppression, she had only to peer into Europe's own files to compile formidable records of the iniquity of her so-called civilized invaders. Gandhi did not fail to do so, and in his "Hind Swaraj" he cites a list of books, many of which were written by Englishmen, condemning European civilization. But the document to which there can be no rejoinder is that which Europe herself has traced in the lifeblood of races oppressed and despoiled in the name of lying principles and, above all, in the brazen revelation of Europe's lies, greed, and ferocity as unfolded during the last war, called the "War for Civilization." And in it Europe sank to such depths that in her insanity she even invited the peoples of Asia and Africa to contemplate her nudity. They saw her and judged her.

The last war has shown as nothing else has the Satanic[40] nature of the civilization that dominates Europe to-day. Every canon of public morality has been broken by the victors in the name of virtue. No lie has been considered too foul to be uttered. The motive behind every crime is not religious or spiritual but grossly material... Europe to-day is only nominally Christian. In reality it is worshipping Mammon.[41]
You will find sentiments such as these expressed again and again, during the last five years, both in India and Japan. Leaders too prudent to voice them openly show by their attitude that such is their inmost conviction. This is not the least disastrous result of the Pyrrhic victory of 1918.

Gandhi, however, had seen the real face of Western civilization long before 1914. It had revealed itself to him unmasked during his twenty years' campaign in South Africa, and in 1908, in his "Hind Swaraj," he calls modern civilization the "great vice."

Civilization, says Gandhi, is civilization in name only. In reality it corresponds to what ancient Hinduism called the dark ages. It has set material well-being up as the only goal of life. It scorns spiritual values. It maddens Europeans, leads them to worship money only, and prevents them from finding peace or cultivating the best within them. Civilization in the Western sense means hell for the weak and for the working classes. It saps the vitality of the race. But this Satanic civilization will destroy itself. Western civilization is India's real enemy, much more than the English, who, individually, are not bad, hut simply suffer from their civilization. Gandhi criticizes those of his compatriots who would want to drive out the English, to develop India themselves, and civilize her according to European standards. This, he says, would be like having the nature of a tiger without the tiger. India's aim should be to repudiate Western civilization.

In his arraignment of Western civilization Gandhi scores three categories of men particularly: magistrates, doctors, and teachers.

Gandhi's objection to teachers is quite comprehensible, since they have brought the Hindus up to scorn or neglect their own language and to disown their real aspirations; in fact, the teachers in India have inflicted a sort of national degradation on the schoolchildren in their charge. Besides, Western teachers appeal to the mind only; they neglect the education of the heart and of the character. Finally, they depreciate bodily labor, and to spread a purely literary education in a country where eighty per cent of the population is agricultural and ten per cent industrial is positively criminal.

The profession of magistrate is immoral. In India the courts are an instrument of British domination; they encourage dissensions among Indians, and in a general way they foster and increase misunderstanding and animosity. They stand for a fattening, lucrative exploitation of the worst instincts.

As for the medical profession, Gandhi admits he was attracted to it at first, but he soon realized it was not honorable. For Western medical science is concerned with giving relief to suffering bodies only. It does not strive to do away with the cause of suffering and disease, which, as a rule, is nothing but vice. In fact, Western medical science may almost be said to encourage vice by making it possible for a man to satisfy his passions and appetites at the least possible risk. It contributes, therefore, to demoralize people; it weakens their will-power by helping them to cure themselves with "black magic" prescriptions instead of forcing them to strengthen their character by disciplinary rules for body and soul.[42] In opposition to the false medical science of the West, which Gandhi has often criticized unfairly, he places preventive medical science. He has written a little pamphlet on the subject entitled "A Guide to Health," which is the fruit of twenty years' experience. It is a moral as well as a therapeutic treatise, for, according to Gandhi, "disease is the result of our thoughts as much as of our acts." He considers it a relatively simple matter to establish certain rules that will prevent disease. For all disease springs from the same origin, i. e., from neglect of the natural laws of health. The body is God's dwelling-place. It must be kept pure. There is truth in Gandhi's point of view, but he refuses a little too obstinately to recognize the efficacy of remedies that have really proved to be useful. His moral precepts are also extremely rigid.[43]

But the nucleus of modern civilization, its heart, so to speak, is machinery. Age of iron! Heart of iron! The machine has become a monstrous idol. It must be done away with. Gandhi's most ardent desire is to see machinery wiped out of India. To a free India, heir to British machinery, he would prefer an India dependent on the British market. It would be better to buy materials manufactured in Manchester than to set up Manchester factories in India. An Indian Rockefeller would be no better than a European capitalist. Machinery is the great sin which enslaves nations, and money is a poison as much as sexual vice.

Indian progressives, however, imbued with modern ideas, ask what would become of India if she were to have no railroads, tramways, or industries? To this Gandhi asks if India did not exist before they were invented? For thousands of years India has resisted, alone, unshaken, the changing flood of empires. Everything else has passed. But thousands of years ago India learned the art of self-control and mastered the science of happiness. She has nothing to learn from other nations. She does not need the machinery of large cities. Her ancient prosperity was founded on the plow and the spinning-wheel, and on a knowledge of Hindu philosophy. India must go back to the sources of her ancient culture. Not all at once, of course, but gradually. And every one must help in the evolution.[44]

This is Gandhi's fundamental argument. It is a very important one, and demands discussion. For it stands for a denial of progress and, virtually, of Europe's scientific achievement.[45] This medieval conception is apt, therefore, to clash with the volcanic forward march of the human mind and incurs the risk of being blown to bits. But, first of all, it would perhaps be wiser to say, the "forward march of a certain phase of the human mind," for if one may believe, as I believe, in the symphonic unity of the universal spirit, one must realize that it is made up of many different voices, each one singing its own part. Our youthful Occident carried away by its own score, does not realize sufficiently that it has not always led the song, nor that its own law of progress is subject to eclipses, backslidings, and recommencements; that the history of human civilization is really a history of human civilizations, and that while within the domain of each civilization a certain progress may be discernible, a progress irregular, chaotic, broken, and at times completely halted, it would be wrong to say that the predominance of one great civilization over another necessarily implies general human progress.

But without entering into a discussion as to the European dogma of progress and merely bearing in mind that this dogma, such as it is, conflicts with Gandhi's faith, we must realize that no conflict will weaken Gandhi's faith. To believe anything else would be to show a total ignorance of the workings of the Oriental mind. As Gobineau says: "Asiatics are much more obstinate than we, in every way. They will wait centuries, if necessary, for the fulfilment of their ideal, and when it rises triumphant after such a long slumber it does not seem to have aged or lost any of its vitality." Centuries mean nothing to a Hindu. Gandhi is prepared for the triumph of his cause within the year. But he is equally prepared for it within the course of several centuries. He does not force time. And if time makes haste slowly, he regulates his gait by its march.

If, therefore, in the course of his campaign Gandhi finds India insufficiently prepared to understand and practise the radical reforms he wishes to impose, he will adapt his doctrine to conditions. He will bide his time. That is why it is not astonishing to hear the irreconcilable enemy of machinery declare, in 1921:

I would not weep over the disappearance of machinery or consider this a calamity. But for the time being I have no designs on machinery as such.[46]
Or:

The law of complete Love is the Law of my being. But I am not preaching this final law through the political measures I advocate. I know that any such attempt is foredoomed to failure. To expect a whole mass of men and women to obey that law all at once is not to know its working.[47] I am not a visionary. I claim to be a practical idealist.[48]
Gandhi never asks men for more than they can give. But he asks for all that they can give. And this is much in a nation like India—a formidable nation, through its numerical power, its force of duration, and its abysmal soul. From the very first Gandhi and India have formed a pact; they understand each other without words. Gandhi knows what he can demand of India, and India is prepared to give whatever Gandhi may demand.

Between Gandhi and India there reigns, first of all, absolute agreement as to goal: Swaraj, home rule, for the nation.[49]

"I know," he says, "that Swaraj is the object of the nation and not non-violence."

And he adds—words amazing on his lips, "I would rather see India freed by violence than enchained like a slave to her foreign oppressors."

But, he continues, correcting himself at once, this is an impossible supposition, for violence can never free India. Swaraj can only be attained by soul-force. This is India's real weapon, the invincible weapon of love and truth. Gandhi expresses it by the term Satyagraha, which he defines as truth-force and love-force.[50] Gandhi's genius revealed itself when, by the preaching of this gospel, he revealed to his people their real nature and their hidden strength.

Gandhi used the word Satyagraha in South Africa to explain the difference between his ideal and that of passive resistance. Particular stress must be laid on the difference between these two movements. Nothing is more false than to call Gandhi's campaign a movement of passive resistance. No one has a greater horror of passivity than this tireless fighter, who is one of the most heroic incarnations of a man who resists. The soul of his movement is active resistance—resistance which finds outlet, not in violence, but in the active force of love, faith and sacrifice. This threefold energy is expressed in the word Satyagraha.

Let not the coward try to hide his cowardice under Gandhi's banner! Gandhi drives him out of the community. Better violence than cowardice!

Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence I advise violence....[51] I cultivate the quiet courage of dying without killing. But to him who has not this courage I advise that of killing and of being killed, rather than that of shamefully fleeing from danger. For he who runs away commits mental violence; he runs away because he has not the courage to be killed while he kills.[52]

I would risk violence a thousand times rather than emasculation of the race.[53] I would rather have India resort to arms to defend her honor than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless victim to her own dishonor.[54]

But I believe that non-violence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness more manly than punishment. Forgiveness adorns a soldier. Abstinence is forgiveness only when there is power to punish; it is meaningless when it pretends to proceed from a helpless creature.... I do not believe India to be helpless. One hundred thousand Englishmen need not frighten three hundred million human beings.

Besides.

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. Non-violence does not mean meek submission to the will of the evil-doer but the putting of one's whole soul against the will of the tyrant. Working under this law of our being it is possible for a single individual to defy the whole might of an unjust empire and lay the foundation for that empire's fall or its regeneration.
But at the cost of what? Of suffering—the great law.

Suffering is the mark of the human tribe. It is an eternal law.[55] The mother suffers so that her child may live. Life comes out of death. The condition of wheat growing is that the seed grain should perish. No country has ever risen without being purified through the fire of suffering.... It is impossible to do away with the law of suffering which is the one indispensable condition of our being. Progress is to be measured by the amount of suffering undergone ... the purer the suffering, the greater is the progress.[56]

Non-violence in its dynamic condition means conscious suffering.... I have ventured to place before India the ancient law of self-sacrifice, the law of suffering. The Rishis who discovered the law of non-violence in the midst of violence were greater geniuses than Newton, greater warriors than Wellington. Having themselves known the use of arms they realized their uselessness and taught a weary world that salvation lay not through violence but through non-violence.... The religion of non-violence is not meant merely for the Rishis and saints. It is meant for the common people as well. Non-violence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute. The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law—to the strength of the spirit.... I want India to practise non-violence being conscious of her strength and power. I want India to recognize that she has a soul that cannot perish and that can rise triumphant above every physical weakness and defy the physical combination of a whole world.[57]
Exalted pride, his proud love of India, demands she should scorn violence as unworthy and be ready to sacrifice herself. Non-violence is her title of nobility. If she abandons it she falls. Gandhi cannot bear the thought.

If India made violence her creed I would not care to live in India. She would cease to evoke any pride in me. My patriotism is subservient to my religion. I cling to India like a child to its mother's breast because I feel that she gives me the spiritual nourishment I need. If she were to fail me, I would feel like an orphan, without hope of ever finding a guardian. Then the snow altitudes of the Himalayas must give what rest they can to my bleeding soul....[58]

But Gandhi does not doubt India's endurance. In February, 1919, he decided to start the Satyagraha movement, whose efficacy had already been tested during the agrarian revolt in 1918.

The campaign is not at all political, as yet: Gandhi is still a loyalist. And he remains one as long as he retains a grain of faith in England's loyalty. Until January, 1920, he advocated cooperation with the empire, even though the nationalists criticized him bitterly therefore.[59] Gandhi's arguments are inspired by his sincere conviction, and during the first year of his campaign against the Government he could truthfully assure Lord Hunter that he believed the disciples of Satyagraha to be the most loyal supporters of the Constitution. Only the narrow-minded obstinacy of the Government forced India's moral guide finally to tear up the contract of loyalty by which he considered himself hound.

To begin with, therefore, the Satyagraha campaign takes the form of constitutional opposition to the Government. It is a respectful appeal for certain urgent reforms. The Government is guilty of passing an unjust law. The Satyagrahi, who are law-abiding people, will disobey this law deliberately, because they consider it unjust. If their attitude does not convince the Government of the necessity of repealing the law, they will extend their disobedience to other laws, and eventually they may cease all cooperation with the Government. But how different is the meaning which India gives to this word from that which we in the West give to it! Such extraordinary religious heroism as is contained in it!

As the Satyagrahi are not allowed to use violence in advancing their cause (the idea being that the adversary, too, is sincere, since what seems truth to one person may seem untruth to another, while violence never carries conviction),[60] they must rely solely on the love-force that radiates from their faith and on their willingness to accept suffering and sacrifice joyously, freely.[61] This constitutes irresistible propaganda. With it the cross of Christ and his little flock conquered the Roman Empire.

In order to emphasize the religious character of the people's willingness to sacrifice themselves for the eternal ideals of justice and liberty, the Mahatma inaugurated the movement by setting April 6, 1919,[62] aside as a day of prayers and fasting, by imposing a hartal of all India.[63] This was the first step.

This first step went right to the heart of the people, stirred their inmost consciousness. For the first time all classes of India united in the same ideal. India found herself.

Order reigned everywhere. At Delhi only there were a few disturbances.[64] Gandhi set out to quiet them. But the Government had him arrested and sent him back to Bombay. The news of his arrest caused riots in Punjab; at Amritsar some houses were looted, and a few people were killed. In the night of April 11 General Dyer arrived with his troops and occupied the city. Order reigned everywhere. The fifteenth was a great Hindu feast-day. A meeting was to take place at an open space called Jallianwalla Bagh. The crowd was peaceful and numbered many women and children. The night before General Dyer had sent out an order forbidding public meetings, but no one had heard about it. The general, however, came to Jallianwalla Bagh with his machine-guns and without warning opened fire on the defenseless mass of people. The firing lasted about ten minutes, till the ammunition was used up. As the grounds were surrounded by high walls, no one could escape. From five to six hundred Hindus were killed, and a much larger number wounded. There was no one to care for the dead and wounded. As the result of the massacre, martial law was proclaimed, and a reign of terror spread over Punjab. Aëroplanes threw bombs on the unarmed crowds. The most honorable citizens were dragged to court, flogged, and forced to crawl on their knees, and subjected to the most shocking indignities. It was as if a wind of madness swept over the English rulers. It was as if the law of non-violence, proclaimed by India, stirred European violence to frenzy. Gandhi saw bloodshed and suffering were ahead. But he had not promised to lead his people to victory along a white road. He had warned them that the path would be washed with blood. Jallianwalla Bagh was only the beginning:

We must be prepared to contemplate with equanimity not a thousand murders of innocent men and women but many thousands before we attain a status in the world that shall not be surpassed by any nation.... We hope, therefore, that all concerned will take rather than lose heart and treat hanging as an ordinary affair of life.[65]
Owing to the rigorous military censorship, the news of the horrors of Punjab did not leak out for several months. But when it did leak out[66] a wave of indignation swept over India and alarmed even English opinion. An investigation was ordered, and Lord Hunter presided over the commission.

In the meantime, the National Indian Congress formed a subcommission to carry on investigations independently of the Government, but along the same lines. It was to the obvious interest of the Government, as all intelligent Englishmen realized, to punish those guilty of the massacre of Amritsar. Gandhi did not demand as much as that. In his admirable moderation he did not ask for the punishment of General Dyer and the guilty officers. While denouncing them, he felt no bitterness and sought no vengeance. One bears no ill will to a madman. But one must put him where he can do no damage. Gandhi, therefore, merely asked that General Dyer be recalled. But quos vult perdere.... Before the results of the investigation could be published, the Government passed an indemnity act to protect official employees. Though Dyer was removed from his post, he was rewarded with money contributed from private sources.

While India was still in effervescence after the Punjab affair, a second conflict arose between the Government and the people, a more serious one this time, because it implied a flagrant violation of solemn promises. The Government's attitude shattered whatever confidence India still had in the good faith of the English rulers, and brought on the great revolt.

The European War had placed the Moslems of India in a very painful dilemma. They were torn between their duty as loyal citizens of the empire and faithful followers of their religious chief. They agreed to help England when she promised not to attack the sultan's or the caliph's sovereignty. It was the sense of Moslem opinion in India that the Turks should remain in Turkey in Europe and that the sultan should retain not only authority over the Holy Places of Islam, but over Arabia as delimited by Mohammedan scholars with the enclaves of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine. This Lloyd George and the viceroy solemnly promised. When the war was over, however, all pledges were forgotten. And when the rumors of the peace terms to be imposed on Turkey began to circulate in 1919, the Moslems in India began to grow restless, and their discontent finally started the Khilafat or Califat movement.

It began October 17,1919 (Khilafat day), with an imposing peaceful demonstration, which was followed, about a month later (November 24), by the opening of an All-India Khilafat Conference at Delhi. Gandhi presided. With his quick glance he had realized that the Islamic agitation might be made into the instrument of Indian unity. The problem of uniting the various races in India was a most difficult one. The English had always taken advantage of the natural enmity between Hindus and Moslems; Gandhi even accuses them of having fostered it. At any rate, they had never tried to conciliate the two peoples, who challenged each other childishly. To annoy the Mohammedans, for instance, the Hindus used to make a point of singing when they passed the mosques where silence should reign, while the Mohammedans lost no opportunity of jeering the Hindus' cow-worship. Mutual ill will and persistent animosity reigned between the two races, who never associated with each other and were not allowed to intermarry or even eat in common. The English Government rested sweetly on the cushion of implicit trust in the impossibility of the two ever agreeing and adopting a common policy. When Gandhi's voice, therefore, proclaimed the identity of the Hindu and the Moslem cause, it awoke with a start. In an outburst of generosity, which happened to be sound politics, Gandhi urged the Hindus to do all in their power to advance Mohammedan claims.

Hindus, Parsees, Christians, or Jews, if we wish to live as one nation, the interest of any one of us must be the interest of all. The only deciding consideration can be the justice of a particular cause.
Mohammedan blood had already mixed with that of the Hindus in the tragic massacre of Amritsar. The two people now had to seal their alliance, an unconditional alliance. The Moslems were the most advanced and audacious element in India. And they were the first to announce, at this Khilafat Conference, that they would refuse to cooperate with the Government if their demands were not met. Gandhi approved of this measure, but in his innate horror of going to extremes he refused at the time to advocate the boycott of British goods, for he looked upon the boycott as an expression of weakness or thirst for vengeance. A second Khilafat Conference met at Amritsar in the end of December, 1919, and decided to send a deputation to Europe to inform the English Government and the Supreme Council of India's attitude. It also voted for the sending of an ultimatum to the viceroy, warning him of trouble if the peace terms should prove unsatisfactory. Finally a third conference, meeting in Bombay in February, 1920, issued a manifesto which, in its violent arraignment of Great Britain's policy, was a forerunner of the coming storm.

Gandhi realized the storm was brewing, and instead of trying to call it forth he did all in his power to break its violence.

It seemed as if England also realized the danger. By belated concessions she seemed to be making desperate efforts to avert the consequences of her former attitude. An Indian Reform Act based on the Montagu-Chelmsford report gave the people in India more influence in the Central Government as well as in local administrations. The king approved the act by a proclamation of December 24, 1919, in which he invited the people of India and the functionaries to cooperate with the Government in every way, while he also urged the viceroy to pardon political offenses and recommended a general amnesty. Gandhi, always ready to believe in the adversary's good faith, interpreted these measures as signifying a sort of tacit agreement to deal more justly with India, and he called upon the people to welcome the reforms. He confessed that they were insufficient, but he said they should be accepted as the starting-point for greater victories. He urged the conference to approve them unreservedly. After a heated debate the National Indian Congress adopted his view.

But soon it became evident that Gandhi's hopes were built on illusions. The viceroy did not heed the king's appeal for clemency, and instead of setting prisoners free, the doors of the jails opened only for executions. It became evident that the promised reforms would remain inoperative.

On top of this came the news of the peace conditions imposed on Turkey, May 14, 1920. In a message to the people the viceroy admitted they would prove disappointing, but he advised the Moslems to resign themselves to the inevitable.

Then came the publication of the official report on the Amritsar massacres. It was the last straw.

India's national consciousness was aroused. All ties were broken.

The Khilafat Committee, meeting at Bombay, May 28, 1920, passed a resolution adopting Gandhi's non-cooperation policy, and this resolution was ratified unanimously by the Moslem Conference of Allahabad, June 80, 1920.

Gandhi, in the meantime, wrote an open letter to the viceroy informing him that the movement of non-cooperation would begin. He explained why he had recourse to it, and his arguments are worth studying, for they prove that even then Gandhi was hoping to avoid a break with England. In the bottom of his heart he still hoped that the Government might be brought to mend its ways by purely legal methods:

The only course open to me is either in despair to sever all connection with British rule or, if I still retain faith in the inherent superiority of the British Constitution, to adopt such means as will rectify the wrong done and thus restore confidence. I have not lost faith in the superiority of the British Constitution and it is because I believe in it that I have advised my Moslem friends to withdraw their support from Your Excellency's Government, and advised the Hindus to join them.
And this noble citizen of the empire the blind pride of the empire spurned.

***

[25]November 5, 1919.
[26]October 27, 1920.
[27]October 6, 1921.
[28]All religions are like different roads leading to the same goal. ("Hind Swaraj.") "All religions are founded on the same moral laws. My ethical religion is made up of laws which bind men all over the world." ("Ethical Religion.")
[29]October 6, 1921.
[30]Etymologically, varna, color, class or caste; ashrama, place of discipline; dharma, religion. Society, in other words, stands for "discipline of the castes."
[31]February 25, 1920. In a second line Gandhi adds, "Ruskin and Tolstoi."
[32]"Seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you."
[33]"Young India," February 25, 1920.
[34]He says to Joseph J. Doke in 1908 that God has been incarnate throughout the ages, in different forms, because, as explained in the Gitâ, Krishna says: "When religion falls into decadence and unbelief prevails, I manifest myself. For the protection of all that is good, and the destruction of all that is evil, for the establishment of Dharma, I must be born and reborn, for ever and ever." Christianism is part of Gandhi's theology. Christ is a radiant revelation of God. But not the only revelation. He is not seated on the throne alone.
[35]The "Hind Swaraj" contains a list of about sixty of Tolstoi's works which Gandhi recommends to his followers, among them, "The Kingdom of God Is within You, What Is Art?" and "What Shall We Do?" He tells Joseph Doke that Tolstoi influenced him deeply, but that he does not agree with Tolstoi's political ideals. To a question asked him in 1921 as to his feeling for and opinion of Count Tolstoi, Gandhi replies (in "Young India" of October 25, 1921), "My relation to him was that of a devoted admirer who owes him much in life."
[36]He was particularly fond of Ruskin's "Crown of Wild Olives."
[37]"Apologia and Death of Socrates," translated by Gandhi, was one of the books confiscated by the Indian Government in 1919.
[38]In regard to cow-worship see "Young India," March 16, June 8, June 29, August 4, 1920, and May 18, October 6, 1921. In regard to castes see articles December 8, 1920, and October 6, 1921.
[39]This is in accordance with the Upanishads, for when the primitive classes hardened into proud castes, in the course of centuries, these Hindu scriptures express protest and disapproval.
[40]A term often used by Gandhi. "Untouchability is an invention of Satan." (June 19, 1921.)
[41]September 8, 1920.
[42]It should not be forgotten that one of Gandhi's main arguments against the medical science of Europe is its use of vivisection, which he brands as "man's blackest crime."
[43]Particularly in regard to sexual relations. Gandhi's doctrine resembles that of St. Paul in its rigorism.
[44]"Hind Swaraj."
[45]Although Gandhi does not approve of European science, he realizes the necessity of scientific achievement. He admires the disinterested zeal and the spirit of self-sacrifice of European men of science and frequently calls their abnegation greater than that of Hindu believers. But he disapproves the goal they are pursuing even though he admires their state of mind. There is an evident antagonism between Gandhi and European science. And in this connection we will see, later on, how Tagore protests against Gandhi's medievalism.
[46]January 19, 1921.
[47]March 9, 1920.
[48]August 11, 1920.
[49]Etymology: Swa, self; raj, government, autonomy. The word is as old as the Vedas, but it was adopted by Dadabhai, Gandhi's Parsee master, who made it part of the political vocabulary.
[50]Etymology: Satya, just right; Agraha, attempt, effort. Hence, Satyagraha, a just effort, in the sense of meaning non-acceptation of or resistance to injustice. Gandhi defines it, November 5, 1919, as meaning "holding on to truth, hence, truth-force." And he adds, "I have also defined it as love-force or soul-force."
[51]August 11, 1920.
[52]October 20, 1921.
[53]August 4, 1920.
[54]August 11, 1920. One of the rules of the Satayagraha Ashram, the school founded by Gandhi, is "absence of fear." The spirit must be freed from fear of kings, nations, castes, family, men, wild beasts, and death. It is also the fourth condition of non-violent resistance in the Hindra. The others are chastity, poverty, and truth.
[55]June 16, 1920.
[56]August 11, 1920.
[57]April 6, 1921.
[58]A few months before his imprisonment Gandhi replies to the criticisms as to "illogic" of his conduct. His critics jeer at the assistance he tendered England in South Africa and during the World War. Gandhi, in replying, does not try to evade the issue. He honestly believed, he says, that he was a citizen of the empire; it was not his business to judge the Government. He would consider it wrong for every man to look upon himself as justified in criticizing the Government. He had confidence in England's wisdom and loyalty as long as possible. The Government's aberration has destroyed his faith in it. Let the Government take the consequences! (November 17, 1921.)
[59]April 6, 1921.
[60]On the contrary, violence degrades the person who makes use of it. The Allies' violence made them like unto the Germans, whose acts they flayed, in the beginning of the war. (June 9, 1920.)
[61]The hardest fiber must melt in the fire of love. If it does not melt it is because the fire is not strong enough. (March 9, 1920.) Those joining the Satyagraha movement had to promise to disobey the laws declared by the Satyagraha committee to be unjust, to follow in the path of truth, and to abstain from all violence against the lives, persons, or property of their adversaries.
[62]March 23, 1919.
[63]This Hindustani word of Mohammedan origin means cessation of work.
[64]Delhi, incidentally, made a mistake in the date of the hartal and celebrated it March 30.
[65]April 7, 1920.
[66]Gandhi, to quiet the effervescence instead of trying to exploit it as an ordinary revolutionary leader would have done, suspended the movement on April 18.