Additional Primary Sources: The Letters and Speeches of Mohandas Gandhi

Transcription

1 Additional Primary Sources: The Letters and Speeches of Mohandas Gandhi Standards Alignment Biographical Text Images of the life of Gandhi with student analysis sheets Speech at a Reception in Madras Text To Every Englishman in India Significance and Text Statement In The Great Trial of 1922 Trial Notes and Speech Speech On The Eve Of Historic Dandi March Text Letter to Lord Irwin Text Letter to Carl Heath Text Letter to Herr Hitler Text Letter to Adolf Hitler Text Letter to Winston Churchill Text Letter to M. A. Jinnah Regarding the Lahore Pakistan Resolution Text Letter to Jawaharlal Nehru Text Letter to Madame Edmond Privet Text Speech on the Kashmir Issue Text Lesson: The following sources can be used in the classroom for writing, reading, and speaking in a variety of ways. It is suggested that the documents be used in a compare and contrast chart to gain a point of view perspective of Mohandas Gandhi and the historical accounts of the British controlled India and South Africa, as well as his belief in nonviolent protesting. Based on students knowledge of other historical events and documents, the teacher may also choose to discuss the relationship of these documents and significance to these events. Additional parallels can be drawn to global freedom movements and notable events in history. Students are encouraged to do a research component and write an analytical summary piece of Gandhi. Using the documents provided and their research for a piece on the lasting impact of Gandhi on political and social actions and freedom movements.

2 Standards Alignment California State Standards for Grade Students analyze patterns of global change in the era of New Imperialism in at least two of the following regions or countries: Africa, Southeast Asia, China, India, Latin America, and the Philippines. 1. Describe the rise of industrial economies and their link to imperialism and colonialism (e.g., the role played by national security and strategic advantage; moral issues raised by the search for national hegemony, Social Darwinism, and the missionary impulse; material issues such as land, resources, and technology). 2. Discuss the locations of the colonial rule of such nations as England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Portugal, and the United States. 3. Explain imperialism from the perspective of the colonizers and the colonized and the varied immediate and long-term responses by the people under colonial rule. 4. Describe the independence struggles of the colonized regions of the world, including the roles of leaders, such as Sun Yat-sen in China, and the roles of ideology and religion. Common Core Reading Standards for Literacy in History/Social Science for Grades 9 & 10 Students: RH 1 - Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information. RH 2 - Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text. RH 4 - Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary describing political, social, or economic aspects of history/social studies. RH 5 - Analyze how a text uses structure to emphasize key points or advance an explanation or analysis. RH 9 - Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources. Common Core Writing Standards for Literacy in History/Social Science for Grades 9 & 10 Students: WHST 2 - Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/ experiments, or technical processes. a. Introduce a topic and organize ideas, concepts, and information to make important connections and distinctions; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., figures, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension. b. Develop the topic with well-chosen, relevant, and sufficient facts, extended definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples appropriate to the audience s knowledge of the topic. c. Use varied transitions and sentence structures to link the major sections of the text, create cohesion, and clarify the relationships among ideas and concepts. d. Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to manage the complexity of the topic and convey a style appropriate to the discipline and context as well as to the expertise of likely readers. e. Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing. f. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the information or explanation presented (e.g., articulating implications or the significance of the topic). WHST 4 - Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. WHST 5 - Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. WHST 6 - Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically. WHST 7 - Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation. WHST 8 - Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation. WHST 9 - Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

3 Biography of Mahatma Gandhi Born: 10/02/1869, Died: 01/30/1948 Birthplace: Porbandar, Gujarat, India Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, more commonly known as Mahatma (meaning Great Soul ) was born in Porbandar, Gujarat, in North West India, on 2nd October 1869, into a Hindu Modh family. His father was the Chief Minister of Porbandar, and his mother s religious devotion meant that his upbringing was infused with the Jain pacifist teachings of mutual tolerance, non-injury to living beings and vegetarianism. Born into a privileged caste, Gandhi was fortunate to receive a comprehensive education, but proved a mediocre student. In May 1883, aged 13, Gandhi was married to Kasturba Makhanji, a girl also aged 13, through the arrangement of their respective parents, as is customary in India. Following his entry into Samaldas College, at the University of Bombay, she bore him the first of four sons, in Gandhi was unhappy at college, following his parent s wishes to take the bar, and when he was offered the opportunity of furthering his studies overseas, at University College London, aged 18, he accepted with alacrity, starting there in September Determined to adhere to Hindu principles, which included vegetarianism as well as alcohol and sexual abstinence, he found London restrictive initially, but once he had found kindred spirits he flourished, and pursued the philosophical study of religions, including Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism and others, having professed no particular interest in religion up until then. Following admission to the English Bar, and his return to India, he found work difficult to come by and, in 1893, accepted a year s contract to work for an Indian firm in Natal, South Africa. Although not yet enshrined in law, the system of apartheid was very much in evidence in South Africa at the turn of the 20th century. Despite arriving on a year s contract, Gandhi spent the next 21 years living in South Africa, and railed against the injustice of racial segregation. On one occasion he was thrown from a first class train carriage, despite being in possession of a valid ticket. Witnessing the racial bias experienced by his countrymen served as a catalyst for his later activism, and he attempted to fight segregation at all levels. He founded a political movement, known as the Natal Indian Congress, and developed his theoretical belief in non-violent civil protest into a tangible political stance, when he opposed the introduction of registration for all Indians, within South Africa, via non-cooperation with the relevant civic authorities. On his return to India in 1916, Gandhi developed his practice of non-violent civic disobedience still further, raising awareness of oppressive practices in Bihar, in 1918, which saw the local populace oppressed by their largely British masters. He also encouraged oppressed villagers to improve their own circumstances, leading peaceful strikes and protests. His fame spread, and he became widely referred to as Mahatma or Great Soul. As his fame spread, so his political influence increased: by 1921 he was leading the Indian National Congress, and reorganising the party s constitution around the principle of Swaraj, or complete political independence from the British. He also instigated a boycott of British goods and institutions, and his encouragement of mass civil disobedience led to his arrest, on 10th March 1922, and trial on sedition charges, for which he served 2 years, of a 6-year prison sentence. The Indian National Congress began to splinter during his incarceration, and he remained largely out of the public eye following his release from prison in February 1924, returning four years later, in 1928, to campaign for the granting of dominion status to India by the British. When the British introduced a tax on salt in 1930, he famously led a 250-mile march to the sea to collect his own salt. Recognising his political influence nationally, the British authorities were forced to negotiate various settlements with Gandhi over the following years, which resulted in the alleviation of poverty, granted status to the untouchables, enshrined rights for women, and led inexorably to Gandhi s goal of Swaraj : political independence from Britain.

4 Gandhi suffered six known assassination attempts during the course of his life. The first attempt came on 25th June 1934, when he was in Pune delivering a speech, together with his wife, Kasturba. Travelling in a motorcade of two cars, they were in the second car, which was delayed by the appearance of a train at a railway level crossing, causing the two vehicles to separate. When the first vehicle arrived at the speech venue, a bomb was thrown at the car, which exploded and injured several people. No investigations were carried out at the time, and no arrests were made, although many attribute the attack to Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fundamentalist implacably opposed to Gandhi s non-violent acceptance and tolerance of all religions, which he felt compromised the supremacy of the Hindu religion. Godse was the person responsible for the eventual assassination of Gandhi in January 1948, 14 years later. During the first years of the Second World War, Gandhi s mission to achieve independence from Britain reached its zenith: he saw no reason why Indians should fight for British sovereignty, in other parts of the world, when they were subjugated at home, which led to the worst instances of civil uprising under his direction, through his Quit India movement. As a result, he was arrested on 9th August 1942, and held for two years at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune. In February 1944, 3 months before his release, his wife Kasturbai died in the same prison. May 1944, the time of his release from prison, saw the second attempt made on his life, this time certainly led by Nathuram Godse, although the attempt was fairly half-hearted. When word reached Godse that Gandhi was staying in a hill station near Pune, recovering from his prison ordeal, he organised a group of like-minded individuals who descended on the area, and mounted a vocal anti-gandhi protest. When invited to speak to Gandhi, Godse declined, but he attended a prayer meeting later that day, where he rushed towards Gandhi, brandishing a dagger and shouting anti-gandhi slogans. He was overpowered swiftly by fellow worshippers, and came nowhere near achieving his goal. Godse was not prosecuted at the time. Four months later, in September 1944, Godse led a group of Hindu activist demonstrators who accosted Gandhi at a train station, on his return from political talks. Godse was again found to be in possession of a dagger that, although not drawn, was assumed to be the means by which he would again seek to assassinate Gandhi. It was officially regarded as the third assassination attempt, by the commission set up to investigate Gandhi s death in The British plan to partition what had been British-ruled India, into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India, was vehemently opposed by Gandhi, who foresaw the problems that would result from the split. Nevertheless, the Congress Party ignored his concerns, and accepted the partition proposals put forward by the British. The fourth attempt on Gandhi s life took the form of a planned train derailment. On 29th June 1946, a train called the Gandhi Special, carrying him and his entourage, was derailed near Bombay, by means of boulders, which had been piled up on the tracks. Since the train was the only one scheduled at that time, it seems likely that the intended target of derailment was Gandhi himself. He was not injured in the accident. At a prayer meeting after the event Gandhi is quoted as saying: I have not hurt anybody nor do I consider anybody to be my enemy, I can t understand why there are so many attempts on my life. Yesterday s attempt on my life has failed. I will not die just yet; I aim to live till the age of 125. Sadly, he had only eighteen months to live. Placed under increasing pressure, by his political contemporaries, to accept Partition as the only way to avoid civil war in India, Gandhi reluctantly concurred with its political necessity, and India celebrated its Independence Day on 15th August Keenly recognising the need for political unity, Gandhi spent the next few months working tirelessly for Hindu-Muslim peace, fearing the build-up of animosity between the two fledgling states, showing remarkable prescience, given the turbulence of their relationship over the following half-century.

5 Unfortunately, his efforts to unite the opposing forces proved his undoing. He championed the paying of restitution to Pakistan for lost territories, as outlined in the Partition agreement, which parties in India, fearing that Pakistan would use the payment as a means to build a war arsenal, had opposed. He began a fast in support of the payment, which Hindu radicals, Nathuram Godse among them, viewed as traitorous. When the political effect of his fast secured the payment to Pakistan, it secured with it the fifth attempt on his life. On 20th January a gang of seven Hindu radicals, which included Nathuram Godse, gained access to Birla House, in Delhi, a venue at which Gandhi was due to give an address. One of the men, Madanla Pahwa, managed to gain access to the speaker s podium, and planted a bomb, encased in a cotton ball, on the wall behind the podium. The plan was to explode the bomb during the speech, causing pandemonium, which would give two other gang members, Digambar Bagde and Shankar Kishtaiyya, an opportunity to shoot Gandhi, and escape in the ensuing chaos. The bomb exploded prematurely, before the conference was underway, and Madanla Pahwa was captured, while the others, including Godse, managed to escape. Pahwa admitted the plot under interrogation, but Delhi police were unable to confirm the participation and whereabouts of Godse, although they did try to ascertain his whereabouts through the Bombay police. After the failed attempt at Birla House, Nathuram Godse and another of the seven, Narayan Apte, returned to Pune, via Bombay, where they purchased a Beretta automatic pistol, before returning once more to Delhi. On 30th January 1948, whilst Gandhi was on his way to a prayer meeting at Birla House in Delhi, Nathuram Godse managed to get close enough to him in the crowd to be able to shoot him three times in the chest, at point-blank range. Gandhi s dying words were claimed to be Hé Rām, which translates as Oh God, although some witnesses claim he spoke no words at all. When news of Gandhi s death reached the various strongholds of Hindu radicalism, in Pune and other areas throughout India, there was reputedly celebration in the streets. Sweets were distributed publicly, as at a festival. The rest of the world was horrified by the death of a man nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize. Godse, who had made no attempt to flee following the assassination, and his co-conspirator, Narayan Apte, were both imprisoned until their trial on 8th November They were convicted of Gandhi s killing, and both were executed, a week later, at Ambala Jail, on 15th November The supposed architect of the plot, a Hindu extremist named Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, was acquitted due to lack of evidence. Gandhi was cremated as per Hindu custom, and his ashes are interred at the Aga Khan s palace in Pune, the site of his incarceration in 1942, and the place his wife had also died. Gandhi's memorial bears the epigraph Hé Rām ( Oh God ) although there is no conclusive proof that he uttered these words before death. Although Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times, he never received it. In the year of his death, 1948, the Prize was not awarded, the stated reason being that there was no suitable living candidate that year. Gandhi's life and teachings have inspired many liberationists of the 20th Century, including Dr. Martin Luther King in the United States, Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko in South Africa, and Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar. His birthday, 2nd October, is celebrated as a National Holiday in India every year. Works Cited Mohatma Gandhi." The History Channel website. November 1, 2013, 11:34

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10 Image Response Select one image that stands out to you to analyze further. Describe the image, completing the following information. Content Describe what you see. What do you notice first? What people and objects are shown? Connections How does this connect with what you already know? Citation: Context What is going on in the world, country, region, or locality when this was created? Conclusions What can you learn from examining this image? Image Response Summary

11 Image Response Select one image that stands out to you to analyze further. Describe the image, completing the following information and summarize your thoughts. General description: This is an image of Number of people: Number of men/boys: Number of women or girls: Describe clothing: Describe facial expressions: Describe the objects in the image: Describe what is happening in the image: Setting of the Image Describe as many details as you can identify about the place where the image was taken or is depicting: Image Response Summary

12 Image Response Select one image that stands out to you to analyze further. Describe the image, completing the following information and summarize your thoughts. Observe Reflect Question - Citation (if present): who created the image and when? If no citation, what do you think? - Describe what you see. - What is happening in the image? - What is the image trying to tell you? - What questions would you want to ask the creator of the image? - What are things you don t understand or want more information about? Image Response Summary

13 Reception In Madras April 21 st, 1915 Speech by Mohandas Gandhi at Victoria Public Hall On behalf of the Indian South African League Mr. Chairman and Friends, - On behalf of my wife and myself I am deeply grateful for the great honour this you here in Madras, and may I say, this Presidency, have done to us and the affection that has been lavished upon us in this great and enlightened - not benighted - Presidency. If there is anything that we have deserved, as has been stated in this beautiful address, I can only say I lay it at the feet of my Master under whose inspiration I have been working all this time under exile in South Africa. (Hear, hear). In so far as the sentiments expressed in this address are merely prophetic. Sir, I accept them as a blessing and as a prayer from you and from this great meeting that both my wife and I myself may possess the power, the inclination, and the life to dedicate whatever we may develop in this sacred land of ours to the service of the Motherland. (Cheers). It is no wonder that we have come to Madras. As my Friend, Mr. Natesan, will perhaps tell you, we have been overdue and we have neglected Madras. But we have done nothing of the kind. We know that we had a corner in your hearts and we knew that you will not misjudge us if we did not hasten to Madras before going to the other presidencies and to other towns. But, Sir, if one-tenth of the language that has been used in this address is deserved by us, what language do you propose to use for those who have lost their lives, and therefore finished their work on behalf of your suffering countrymen in South Africa? What language do you propose to use for Magappan and Narayansawmy, lads of seventeen or eighteen years, who braved in simple faith all the trials, all the sufferings, and all the indignities for the sake of the honour of the Motherland (Cheers). What language do you propose to use with reference to Valliamma, that sweet girl of seventeen years who was discharged from Maritzburg prison, skin and bone suffering from fever to which she succumbed after about a month's time (Cries of shame). It was the Madrasis who of all the Indians were singled out by the great Divinity that rules over us for this great work. Do you know that in the great city of Johannesburg, the Madarasis look on a Madrasis as dishonored if he has not passed through the jails once or twice during this terrible crisis that your countrymen in South Africa went through during these eight long years? You have said that I inspired these great men and women, but I cannot accept that proposition. It was they, the simple-minded folk, who worked away in faith, never expecting the slightest reward, who inspired me, who kept me to the proper level, and who inspired me by their great sacrifice, by their great faith, by their great trust in the great God, to do the work that I was able to do. (Cheers). It is my misfortune that my wife and I have been obliged to work in the lime-light, and you have magnified out of all proportion (cries of 'No? No?') this little work we have been able to do. Believe me, my dear friends, that if you consider, whether in India or in South Africa, it is possible for us, poor mortals-the same individuals, the same stuff of which you are made if you consider that it is possible for us to do anything whatsoever without your assistance and without your doing the same thing that we would be prepared to do, you are lost, and we are also lost, and our services will be in vain, I do not for one moment believe that the inspiration was given by us. The inspiration was given by them to us, and we were able to be interpreters between the powers who called themselves the Governors and those men for whom redress was so necessary. We were simply links between those two parties and nothing more. It was my duty, having received the education that was given to me by my parents to interpret what was going on in our midst to those simple folk, and they rose to the occasion. They realised the might of religious force, and it was they who inspired us, and let them who have finished their work, and who have died for you and me, let them inspire you and us. We are still living and who knows whether the devil will not possess us tomorrow and we shall not forsake the post of duty before any new danger that may face us, But these three have gone for ever.

14 An old man of 75 from the United Provinces, Harbart Singh, has also joined the majority and died in jail in South Africa; and he deserved the crown that you would seek to impose upon us. These young men deserve all the adjectives that you have so affectionately, but blindly lavished upon us. It was not only the Hindus who struggled, but there were Mohamedans, Parsis and Christians, and almost every part of India was represented in the struggled. They realised the common danger, and they realised also what their destiny was an Indians, and it was they, and they alone, who matched the soul-forces against the physical forces. (Loud applause.)

15 Significance of the Publication To Every Englishman in India According to Mahatma Gandhi, the open letter excerpted in the primary source was written with the purpose of apprising the common Englishman about the unjust policies and initiatives of the British Empire in India. In his letter, Gandhi mentions that the only way for India to seek independence from British rule is through non-cooperation. The widely reproduced letter attracted favorable responses from many Englishmen. One of the replies reprinted in 2003 as part of an E-book titled Freedom's Battle, by Mahatma Gandhi stated, "May we say at once that in so far as the British Empire stands for the domination and exploitation of other races for Britain's benefit, for degrading treatment of any, for traffic in intoxicating liquors, for repressive legislation, for administration such as that which to the Amritsar incidents, we desire the end of it as much as you do? We quite understand that in the excitement of the present crisis, owing to certain acts of the British Administration, which we join with you in condemning " Similarly, there were others who exhibited resonance and camaraderie with the Indian people on this issue. Gandhi's letter marked the beginning of the non-cooperation movement. This movement attains great significance because it shattered the economic might of the British Empire in India. During the noncooperation movement, the Indian society did not cooperate in any economic or social activity associated with the British Empire. There was no movement of goods, telegraph lines did not work, and foreign produce such as clothes manufactured in English mills were boycotted. Many Indians gave up their titles and posts across national and local bodies. Eventually, many daily services that were dependent on Indians for smooth operation were disrupted. Ensuing an episode of violence, the non-cooperation movement came to a premature end on February 12, A group of policemen assaulted a few nationalist demonstrators in the town of Chauri Chaura in the north east state of Uttar Pradesh. Enraged by such actions, the demonstrators killed more than twenty policemen. Disturbed by these acts of violence, Mahatma Gandhi suspended the noncooperation movement. Though the movement did not last long, it is considered by many to be instrumental in the Indian independence struggle. The non-cooperative movement laid the foundation for several other initiatives such as the Salt March of Dandi, and the Quit India movement. The British rule could not withstand an opponent that did not indulge in violence or break any laws. Eventually, India attained independence on August 15, Other British colonies are also known to have followed Gandhi's philosophies. Besides, eminent personalities, such as Martin Luther King, who successfully campaigned for Black rights in North America in the 1960s, and Nelson Mandela, who waged a relentless struggle against apartheid in South Africa, were deeply inspired by his principles of non-cooperation and non-violence. Gandhian principles of non-cooperation and non-violence have seen resurgence with political developments in the twenty-first century, especially among human rights advocates. Source Citation "To Every Englishman in India." Human and Civil Rights: Essential Primary Sources. Ed. Adrienne Wilmoth Lerner, Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, and K. Lee Lerner. Detroit: Gale, World History In Context. Web. 4 Nov

16 Letter to Every Englishman In India Published October 20, 1920 Written by Mohandas Ghandhi Dear Friend, I wish that every Englishman will see this appeal and give thoughtful attention to it. Let me introduce myself to you. In my humble opinion, no Indian has co-operated with the British government more than I have for an unbroken period of twenty nine years of public life in the face of circumstances that might well have turned any other man into a rebel. I ask you to believe me when I tell you that my co-operation was not based on the fear of punishments provided by your laws or any selfish motives. It was a free and voluntary co-operation based on the belief that the sum total of the activity of the British Government was for the benefit of India. I put my life in peril four times for the sake of the Empire,- at the time of the Boer War when I was in charge of the Ambulance corps whose work was mentioned in the General Buller's dispatches, at the time of the Zulu revolt in Natal when I was in charge of a similar corps, at the time of the commencement of the late War when I raised an Ambulance corps and as a result of strenuous training had a severe attack of pleurisy, and lastly, in fulfillment of my promise to Lord Chelmsford at the war conference in Delhi, I threw myself in such an active recruiting campaign in Kaira district involving long and trying marches, that I had an attack of dysentery, which proved almost fatal. I did all this in the full belief that acts such as mine must gain for my country an equal status in the Empire. So late as last December I pleaded hard for a trustful cooperation. I fully believed that Lloyd George would redeem his promise to the Mussalmans and that the revelations of the official atrocities in the Punjab would secure full reparation for the Punjabis. But the treachery of Mr. Lloyd George and its appreciation by you, and the condonation of the Punjab atrocities have completely shattered my faith in the good intentions of the Government and the nation which is supporting it. But though my faith in your good intentions is gone, I recognize your bravery, and i know that what you will not yield to justice and reason, you will gladly yield to bravery. See what this Empire means to India : Exploitation of India's resources for the benefits of Great Britain, an ever increasing military expenditure, and a civil service the most expensive in the world, extravagant working of every department in utter disregard of India's poverty, disarmament and consequent emasculation of a whole nation lest an armed nation might imperil the lives of a handful of you in our midst, traffic in intoxicating liquors and drugs for the purpose of sustaining a top heavy administration, progressive repressive legislation in order to suppress an ever-growing agitation seeking to give expression to a nation's agony, degrading treatment of Indians residing in your dominions and you have shown total disregard of our feelings by glorifying the Punjab administration and flouting the Mussulman sentiment. I know you would not mind if we could fight and wrest scepter form your hands. You know that we are powerless to do that, for you have ensured our incapacity to fight in open and honourable battle. Bravery on the battle field is impossible for us. Bravery of the soul still remains open to us. I know you will respond to that also. I am engaged in evoking that bravery. Non-co-operation means nothing less than training in self- sacrifice. Why should we co-operate with you when we know that by your administration of this great country we are being daily enslaved in an increasing degree? This response of the people to my appeal is not due to my personality. I would like you to dismiss me, and for the matter the Ali brothers too, from your consideration. My personality will fail to evoke any response to anti-muslim cry if I were foolish enough to raise it, as the magic name of the Ali brothers would fail to inspire the Mussalmans with enthusiasm if they were madly to raise an anti- Hindu cry. People flock in their thousands to listen to us because we today represent the voice of a nation groaning under your iron heels. The Ali brothers were your friends as I was, and still am.

17 My religion forbids me to bear any ill towards you. I would not raise my hand against you even if I had the power. I expect to conquer you only by my suffering. The Ali brothers will certainly draw swords, if they could in defense of their religion and their country. But they and I have made common cause with the people of India in their attempt to voice their feelings and to find a remedy for their distress. You are in search of a remedy to suppress this rising ebullition of national feeling. I venture to suggest to you that the only way to suppress it is to remove the causes. You have yet the power. You can repent the wrongs done to Indians. You can compel the viceroy to retire favour of a better one, you can revise your ideas about Sir Michel O' Dwyer and General Dyer. You can compel the government to summon a conference of the recognized leaders of the people, duly elected by them and representing all shades of opinion so as to revise means for granting Swaraj is accordance with the wishes of the people of India. But this you cannot do unless you consider every Indian to be in reality your equal and brother. I ask for no patronage, I merely point out to you, as a friend, an honourable solution, namely repression, is open to you. I prophesy that it will fail. It has begun already. The government has already imprisoned two brave men of Panipat for holding and expressing their opinions freely. Another is on his trial in Lahore for having expressed similar opinions. One in the Oudh District is already imprisoned. Another awaits judgment. You should know what is going on in your midst. Our propaganda is being carried on in anticipation of repression. I invite you respectfully to choose the better way and make common cause with the people of India whose salt you are eating. To seek to thwart their aspirations is disloyalty to the country. I am, Your faithful friend, M. K. GANDHI

18 Statement In The Great Trial of 1922 March 18 th, 1922 Statement authored and read by Mohandas Gandhi The historical trial of Mahatma Gandhi and Shri. Shankarlal Ghelabhai Banker, editor, and printer and publisher respectively of Young India, on charges under Section 124 A of the Indian Penal Code, was held on Saturday, 18th March 1922, before Mr. C. N. Broomfield, I. C. S., District and Sessions Judge, Ahmedabad. Sir J. T. Strangman, Advocate-General, with Rao Bahadur Girdharlal Uttamram, Public Prosecutor of Ahmedabad, appeared for the Crown. Mr. A. C. Wild, Remembrancer of Legal Affairs, was also present. Mahatma Gandhi and Shri Shankarlal Banker were undefended. Among the members of the public who were present on the occasion were : Kasturba Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu, Pandit M. M. Malaviya, Shri N. C. Kelkar, Smt. J. B. Petit, and Smt. Anasuyaben Sarabhai. The Judge, who took his seat at 12 noon, said that there was slight mistake in the charges were then read out by the Registrar. These charges were of bringing or attempting to excite disaffection towards His Majesty s Government established by law in British India, and thereby committing offences punishable under Section 124 A of the Indian Penal Code, the offences being in three articles published in Young India of September 29 and December 15 of 1921, and February 23 of The offending articles were then read out : first of them was, Tampering with Loyalty ; and second, The Puzzle and its Solution, and the last was Shaking the Manes. The Judge said that the law required that the charges should not be read out but explained. In this case it would not be necessary for him to say much by way of explanation. The charge in each case was that of bringing or attempting to excite into hatred or contempt or exciting or attempting to excite disaffection towards His Majesty s Government, established by law in British India. Both the accused were charged with the three offences under Section 124 A, contained in the articles read out, written by Mahatma Gandhi and printed by Shri Banker. The charges having been read out, the Judge called upon the accused to plead to the charges. He asked Gandhiji whether he pleaded guilty or claimed to be tried. Gandhiji said : I plead guilty to all the charges. I observe that the King s name has been omitted from the charge, and it has been properly omitted. ] The Judge asked Shri banker the same question and he too readily pleaded guilty. The Judge wished to give his verdict immediately after Gandhiji had pleaded guilty, but Sir Strangman insisted that the procedure should be carried out in full. The Advocate-General requested the Judge to take into account the occurrences in Bombay, Malabar and Chauri Chaura, leading to rioting and murder. He admitted, indeed, that in these articles you find that non-violence is insisted upon as an item of the campaign and of the creed, but the added of what value is it to insist on non-violence, if incessantly you preach disaffection towards the Government and hold it up as a treacherous Government, and if you openly and deliberately seek to instigate others to overthrow it? These were the circumstances which he asked the Judge to take into account in passing sentence on the accused. As regards Shri Banker, the second accused, the offence was lesser. He did the publication but did not write. Sir Strangman s instructions were that Shri Banker was a man of means and he requested the court to impose a substantial fine in addition to such term of imprisonment as might be inflicted upon. Court : Mr. Gandhi, do you wish to make any statement on the question of sentence? Gandhiji : I would like to make a statement. Court : Could you give me in writing to put it on record? Gandhiji : I shall give it as soon as I finish it. [Gandhiji then made the following oral statement followed by a written statement that he read.]

19 Before I read this statement I would like to state that I entirely endorse the learned Advocate- General s remarks in connection with my humble self. I think that he has made, because it is very true and I have no desire whatsoever to conceal from this court the fact that to preach disaffection towards the existing system of Government has become almost a passion with me, and the Advocate-General is entirely in the right when he says that my preaching of disaffection did not commence with my connection with Young India but that it commenced much earlier, and in the statement that I am about to read, it will be my painful duty to admit before this court that it commenced much earlier than the period stated by the Advocate-General. It is a painful duty with me but I have to discharge that duty knowing the responsibility that rests upon my shoulders, and I wish to endorse all the blame that the learned Advocate-General has thrown on my shoulders in connection with the Bombay occurrences, Madras occurrences and the Chauri Chuara occurrences. Thinking over these things deeply and sleeping over them night after night, it is impossible for me to dissociate myself from the diabolical crimes of Chauri Chaura or the mad outrages of Bombay. He is quite right when he says, that as a man of responsibility, a man having received a fair share of education, having had a fair share of experience of this world, I should have known the consequences of every one of my acts. I know them. I knew that I was playing with fire. I ran the risk and if I was set free I would still do the same. I have felt it this morning that I would have failed in my duty, if I did not say what I said here just now. I wanted to avoid violence. Non-violence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed. But I had to make my choice. I had either to submit to a system which I considered had done an irreparable harm to my country, or incur the risk of the mad fury of my people bursting forth when they understood the truth from my lips. I know that my people have sometimes gone mad. I am deeply sorry for it and I am, therefore, here to submit not to a light penalty but to the highest penalty. I do not ask for mercy. I do not plead any extenating act. I am here, therefore, to invite and cheerfully submit to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime, and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The only course open to you, the Judge, is, as I am going to say in my statement, either to resign your post, or inflict on me the severest penalty if you believe that the system and law you are assisting to administer are good for the people. I do not except that kind of conversion. But by the time I have finished with my statement you will have a glimpse of what is raging within my breast to run this maddest risk which a sane man can run. [He then read out the written statement : ] I owe it perhaps to the Indian public and to the public in England, to placate which this prosecution is mainly taken up, that I should explain why from a staunch loyalist and co-operator, I have become an uncompromising disaffectionist and non-co-operator. To the court too I should say why I plead guilty to the charge of promoting disaffection towards the Government established by law in India. My public life began in 1893 in South Africa in troubled weather. My first contact with British authority in that country was not of a happy character. I discovered that as a man and an Indian, I had no rights. More correctly I discovered that I had no rights as a man because I was an Indian. But I was not baffled. I thought that this treatment of Indians was an excrescence upon a system that was intrinsically and mainly good. I gave the Government my voluntary and hearty co-operation, criticizing it freely where I felt it was faulty but never wishing its destruction. Consequently when the existence of the Empire was threatened in 1899 by the Boer challenge, I offered my services to it, raised a volunteer ambulance corps and served at several actions that took place for the relief of Ladysmith. Similarly in 1906, at the time of the Zulu revolt, I raised a stretcher bearer party and served till the end of the rebellion. On both the occasions I received medals and was even mentioned in dispatches. For my work in South Africa I was given by Lord Hardinge a Kaisar-i-Hind gold medal.

20 When the war broke out in 1914 between England and Germany, I raised a volunteer ambulance cars in London, consisting of the then resident Indians in London, chiefly students. Its work was acknowledge by the authorities to be valuable. Lastly, in India when a special appeal was made at the war Conference in Delhi in 1918 by Lord Chelmsford for recruits, I struggled at the cost of my health to raise a corps in Kheda, and the response was being made when the hostilities ceased and orders were received that no more recruits were wanted. In all these efforts at service, I was actuated by the belief that it was possible by such services to gain a status of full equality in the Empire for my countrymen. The first shock came in the shape of the Rowlatt Act-a law designed to rob the people of all real freedom. I felt called upon to lead an intensive agitation against it. Then followed the Punjab horrors beginning with the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh and culminating in crawling orders, public flogging and other indescribable humiliations. I discovered too that the plighted word of the Prime Minister to the Mussalmans of India regarding the integrity of Turkey and the holy places of Islam was not likely to be fulfilled. But in spite of the forebodings and the grave warnings of friends, at the Amritsar Congress in 1919, I fought for co-operation and working of the Montagu-Chemlmsford reforms, hoping that the Prime Minister would redeem his promise to the Indian Mussalmans, that the Punjab wound would be healed, and that the reforms, inadequate and unsatisfactory though they were, marked a new era of hope in the life of India. But all that hope was shattered. The Khilafat promise was not to be redeemed. The Punjab crime was whitewashed and most culprits went not only unpunished but remained in service, and some continued to draw pensions from the Indian revenue and in some cases were even rewarded. I saw too that not only did the reforms not mark a change of heart, but they were only a method of further raining India of her wealth and of prolonging her servitude. I came reluctantly to the conclusion that the British connection had made India more helpless than she ever was before, politically and economically. A disarmed India has no power of resistance against any aggressor if she wanted to engage, in an armed conflict with him. So much is this the case that some of our best men consider that India must take generations, before she can achieve Dominion Status. She has become so poor that she has little power of resisting famines. Before the British advent India spun and wove in her millions of cottages, just the supplement she needed for adding to her meagre agricultural resources. This cottage industry, so vital for India s existence, has been ruined by incredibly heartless and inhuman processes as described by English witness. Little do town dwellers how the semi-starved masses of India are slowly sinking to lifelessness. Little do they know that their miserable comfort represents the brokerage they get for their work they do for the foreign exploiter, that the profits and the brokerage are sucked from the masses. Little do realize that the Government established by law in British India is carried on for this exploitation of the masses. No sophistry, no jugglery in figures, can explain away the evidence that the skeletons in many villages present to the naked eye. I have no doubt whatsoever that both England and the town dweller of India will have to answer, if there is a God above, for this crime against humanity, which is perhaps unequalled in history. The law itself in this country has been used to serve the foreign exploiter. My unbiased examination of the Punjab Marital Law cases has led me to believe that at least ninety-five per cent of convictions were wholly bad. My experience of political cases in India leads me to the conclusion, in nine out of every ten, the condemned men were totally innocent. Their crime consisted in the love of their country. In ninety-nine cases out of hundred, justice has been denied to Indians as against Europeans in the courts of India. This is not an exaggerated picture. It is the experience of almost every Indian who has had anything to do with such cases. In my opinion, the administration of the law is thus prostituted, consciously or unconsciously, for the benefit of the exploiter.

21 The greater misfortune is that the Englishmen and their Indian associates in the administration of the country do not know that they are engaged in the crime I have attempted to describe. I am satisfied that many Englishmen and Indian officials honestly systems devised in the world, and that India is making steady, though, slow progress. They do not know, a subtle but effective system of terrorism and an organized display of force on the one hand, and the deprivation of all powers of retaliation or self-defense on the other, as emasculated the people and induced in them the habit of simulation. This awful habit has added to the ignorance and the self-deception of the administrators. Section 124 A, under which I am happily charged, is perhaps the prince among the political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen. Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law. If one has no affection for a person or system, one should be free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection, so long as he does not contemplate, promote, or incite to violence. But the section under which mere promotion of disaffection is a crime. I have studied some of the cases tried under it; I know that some of the most loved of India s patriots have been convicted under it. I consider it a privilege, therefore, to be charged under that section. I have endeavored to give in their briefest outline the reasons for my disaffection. I have no personal ill-will against any single administrator, much less can I have any disaffection towards the King s person. But I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected towards a Government which in its totality has done more harm to India than any previous system. India is less manly under the British rule than she ever was before. Holding such a belief, I consider it to be a sin to have affection for the system. And it has been a precious privilege for me to be able to write what I have in the various articles tendered in evidence against me. In fact, I believe that I have rendered a service to India and England by showing in non-co-operation the way out of the unnatural state in which both are living. In my opinion, non-co-operation with evil is as much a duty as is co-operation with good. But in the past, non-co-operation has been deliberately expressed in violence to the evil-doer. I am endeavoring to show to my countrymen that violent non-cooperation only multiples evil, and that as evil can only be sustained by violence, withdrawal of support of evil requires complete abstention from violence. Non-violence implies voluntary submission to the penalty for non-co-operation with evil. I am here, therefore, to invite and submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is deliberate crime, and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The only course open to you, the Judge and the assessors, is either to resign your posts and thus dissociate yourselves from evil, if you feel that the law you are called upon to administer is an evil, and that in reality I am innocent, or to inflict on me the severest penalty, if you believe that the system and the law you are assisting to administer are good for the people of this country, and that my activity is, therefore, injurious to the common weal.