Part 5

I am further of opinion that the Congress should take up the work of Labour and Peasant organisation. With regard to labour there is a resolution of the Nagpur Congress, but I am sorry to say that it has not been acted upon. There is an apprehension in the minds of some non-co-operators that the cause of non-co-operation will suffer if we exploit Labour for Congress purposes. I confess again I do not understand the argument. The word "exploitation" has got an ugly association, and the argument assumes that Labour and Peasants are not with us in this struggle of Swaraj. I deny the assumption. My experience has convinced me that labour and the Peasantry of India to-day are, if anything, more eager to attain Swaraj than the so called middle and educated classes. If we are "exploiting" boys of tender years and students of colleges, if we are exploiting the women of India, if we are exploiting the whole of the middle classes irrespective of their creed and caste and occupation, may I ask what justification is there for leaving out Labourers and the Peasants? I suppose the answer is that they are welcome to be the members of the Congress Committees but that there should not be a separate organisation of them. But Labour has got a separate interest and they are often oppressed by foreign capitalists and the Peasantry of India is often oppressed by a class of men who are the standard bearers of the Bureaucracy. Is the service of this special interest in any way antagonistic to the service of nationalism? To find bread for the poor, to secure justice to a class of people who are engaged in a particular trade or avocation--how is that work different from the work of attaining Swaraj? Anything which strengthens the national cause, anything which supports the masses of India is surely as much a matter of Swaraj as any other items of work which the Congress has in hand. My advice is that the Congress should lose no time in appointing a Committee, a calm workable Committee to organise labour, and the peasantry of India. We have delayed the matter already too long. If the Congress fails to do its duty, you may expect to find organisations set up in the country by labour and peasants detached from you, dissociated from the cause of Swaraj which will inevitably bring within the arena of a peaceful evolution class struggles and the war of special interests. If the object of the Congress be to avoid that disgraceful issue let us take labour and the peasantry in hand, and let us organise them both from the point of view of their own special interests and also from the point of view of the higher ideal which demands the satisfaction of their special interests and the devotion of such interests to the cause of Swaraj. Here again we have to make use of very selfishness of the labourers and peasants, as we know that the fulfilment of that very selfishness requires its just and proper contribution to the life of the nation.

WORK ALREADY TAKEN UP

I now turn to the work which the Congress has already taken up. I may at once point out that it is not my desire that any work which the Congress has taken up should be surrendered. The change of direction which I advocate and the other practical change which I have mentioned is not by way of surrendering anything that is already on the plank but it is simply by way of addition.

BOYCOTT OF SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES

I am firmly of opinion that the boycott of schools and colleges should be carried on as effectively as before. I defer from the Civil Disobedience Enquiry Committee when they propose the abandonment of the withdrawal of boys from such schools and colleges. The question to my mind is of vital importance. It is on the youth of the country that the cause of Swaraj largely depends--and what chance is there for a nation which willingly, knowingly sends its boys, its young men to schools and colleges to be stamped with the stamps of slavery and foreign culture? I do not desire to enter into the question more minutely. I have expressed my views on the subject so often that I find it unnecessary to repeat them. I, however, agree with the recommendation of the Enquiry Committee that national schools and colleges should also be started.

BOYCOTT OF LAW COURTS AND LAWYERS

With regard to the question of the boycott of lawyers and the legal institutions I agree with the main recommendations of the Committee. Many questions have been raised as to whether the right of defence should be allowed or not and on what occasions, and for what purposes. I have never been in love with formal rules, and I think it impossible to frame rules which will cover all the circumstances which may arise in particular cases. All that I desire to insist on, is the keeping in view of the principle of the boycott of courts.

HINDU-MUSLIM UNITY

With regard to the question of Hindu-Muslim Unity, untouchability and such matters, I agree with the recommendations of the Enquiry Committee. I desire to point out however the true unity of all sections of the Indian nation can only be based on a proper co-operation and the recognition by each section of the rights of the others--that is why I proposed that there should be a compact between different sections, between the different communities of India. We will do little good to the section known as untouchables if we approach them in a spirit of superiority. We must engage them in the work before us, and we must work with them side by side and shoulder to shoulder.

KHADDAR

I now come to the question of khaddar which I regard as one of the most important questions before us. As I have already said, I am opposed to the manufacture of Khaddar on a commercial basis. I said among the other things when I seconded the Bezwada resolution on the 31st of March in 1921 proposed by Mahatma Gandhi:

"Our reason in asking the people to take to Charka was not based upon any desire to enter into any competition with foreign capitalist production either from without or from within. Our idea is to enable the people to understand and fashion for themselves, their economic life and utilise the spare time of their families and opportunities with a view to create more economic goods for themselves and improve their own condition." The idea is to make the people of this country self-reliant and self-contained. This work is difficult but essential and should be carried on with all our strength. I would much rather that few families were self-contained than that factories were started on a large scale. Such factories represent a short-sighted policy, and there is no doubt that though it would satisfy the present need it will create an evil which it would be difficult to eradicate. I am naturally opposed to the creation of a new Manchester in India of which we have had sufficient experience. Let us avoid that possibility, if we can.

It is often stated that Khaddar alone will bring us Swaraj. I ask my countrymen in what way is it possible for khaddar to lead us to Swaraj? It is in one sense only that the statement may be true. We must regard khaddar as the symbol of Swaraj. As the khaddar makes us self-contained with regard to a very large department of our national life, so it is hoped that the inspiration of khaddar will make the whole of our national life self-contained and independent. That is the meaning of the symbol. To my mind such symbol worship requires the spreading out of all non-co-operation activities in every possible direction. It is only thus and only thus that the speedy attainment of Swaraj is possible.

CONCLUSION

It remains to me to deliver to you a last message of hope and confidence. There is no royal road to freedom, and dark and difficult will be the path leading to it. But dauntless is your courage, and firm your resolution; and though there will be reverses, sometimes severe reverses, they will only have the effect of speeding your emancipation from the bondage of a Foreign Government. Do not make the mistake of confusing achievements with success. Achievement as in appearances are often deceptive. I contend that, though we cannot point to a great deal as solid achievement of the movement, the success of it is assured. That success is proclaimed by the bureaucracy in the repeated attempts which were made, and are still being made, to crush the growth of the movement, and to arrest its progress, in the refusal to repeal some of the most obnoxious of the repressive legislation, in the frequent use that has been made of the arbitrary or discretionary authority that is vested in the executive Government and in sending to prison our beloved leader, who offered himself as a sacrifice to the wrath of the Bureaucracy. But though the ultimate success of the movement is assured, I warn you that the issue depends wholly on you and how you conduct yourselves in meeting the forces that are arrayed against you. Christianity rose triumphant when Jesus of Nazareth offered himself as a sacrifice to the excessive worship of law and order by the Scribes and the Pharisees. The forces that are arrayed against you are the forces not only of the bureaucracy but of the modern Scribes and Pharisees whose interest it is to maintain the Bureaucracy in all its pristine glory. Be it yours to offer yourself as sacrifice in the interest of truth and justice, so that your children and your children's children may have the fruit of your sufferings. Be it yours to wage a spiritual warfare so that the victory, when it comes does not debase you, nor tempt you to retain the power of Government in your own hands. But if yours is to be a spiritual warfare, your weapons must be those of the spiritual soldier. Anger is not for you, hatred is not for you, nor for you is pettiness, meanness or falsehood.

For you is the hope of dawn and the confidence of the morning, and for you is the song that was sung by Titan, chained and imprisoned, but the champion of man in the Greek fable:

To Suffer woes with Hope, things infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy power which seems Omnipotent: To love, and bear, to hope till Hope creates From its own wreck, the thing it contemplates; Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; This like thy glory, Titan, is to be Good, Great and joyous, beautiful and free; This alone Life, Joy, Empire and Victory.

BANDE MATARAM.

IMPERIALISM IN PRACTICE AND IN THEORY

BY K. M. Panikkar. Re. 1

(_Late Scholar of Christ Church, Oxford_).

Press Opinions.

Mr. K. M. Panikkar, lately Chairman of the Department of History in Aligarh University; has done a distinct service to the country by his able analysis of the processes of aggrandisement with which the Br. Empire was built up. In his small book he has laid bare the selfishness which underlies the foundation of the British Empire. "What it stands for," says Mr. Panikkar, "is a white oligarchy exploiting coloured nations. It is in fact a British Empire Co., Ltd." The Book is a valuable addition to the growing Indian Political Literature.--_Bombay Chronicle._

We have learnt to associate Mr. Panikkar's name with first class work and our expectations have not been disappointed in this volume. The vulgar pretensions of Imperialism have been shown up with perfect candour, but the days of Imperialism, according to the author, are numbered in Asia though not in Africa. It has done the great service of calling forth the mighty spirit of Asia from its decaying cell.--_Modern Review, Calcutta._

"Your remarkable little book _on Imperialism_ which I have read _three times_--I have been anxious to write a review on it appreciating it."--_C. F. Andrews._

_ARKA PUBLISHING HOUSE_,

George Town, Madras.

BOOKS WORTH READING

Struggle for Swaraj by Pandit Motilal Nehru. As. 4

India and the Empire by Edward Carpenter. " 4

Voice of Bengal by Mrs. C. R. Das. " 4

A Guide to Matrimonial Alliance by Aristotle " 12

Non-co-operation in Other Lands by Fenner Brockway (cloth bound) Re. 1-8

National Education by Arabinda Gose Re. 1

Indian Industrialism by K. V. Ganapathy Aiyar with introduction by Hon. V. G. Kale "

Indian Boy Scouts Hand Book by F. G. Pearce Re. 1-8

The New Russia by R. U. Postgate & T. A. Jackson As. 12

Amritsar and Our Duty to India by B. G. Horniman Rs. 2-10

My Childhood and Boyhood by Tolstoy Re. 1-12

My Youth by Tolstoy Re. 1-12

Life and Writings of Bal Gangadhar Tilak Rs. 4

Tolstoy's Teachings As. 6

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_George Town, MADRAS_.

The RELATIONS OF THE SEXES

BY COUNT LEO TOLSTOY

Translated by V. T. and A. C. F., Principally from private letters, diaries and unpublished Mss.

Price Re. 1.

_Some Extracts._

Women who demand masculine work and liberty equal to that of man are generally unconsciously demanding the liberty of License, and in consequence descend to a plane lower than the family one, while imagining they are ascending higher....

I think that a man who has entered upon physical connection with a woman cannot, and must not, forsake her especially when there is or may be a child....

Chastity is an ideal after which one should always; under all conditions, strive. The nearer you are realising it the more you--not to say attain a merit before God--attain a greater degree of your own well being. Man may serve God more by being chaste than by giving himself up to carnal life....

Attacks of sexual lust engender confusion of thought. The absence of thought rather--the whole world darkens. Man loses his relation to it--chance, blackness and failure....

One thing is rational: "Be perfect, as your Father", and this perfection is in purity and then in Love, deduction: first, purity, then preservation of the race....

_ARKA PUBLISHING HOUSE_,

G. T., MADRAS.