MAHATMA - Volume 3 (1930-1934) - Mahatma Gandhi

MAHATMA - Volume 3 (1930-1934)
superior disdain for all help. But it does mean complete severance of the British
bondage, be it ever so slight or well concealed. It must be clearly understood
that the largest nationalist party in India will no longer submit to the position
of a dependent nation or to the process of helpless exploitation. It will run any
risk to be free from the double curse. The nation wants to feel its power more
even than to have independence. Possession of such power is independence.
"That the civil disobedience may resolve itself into violent disobedience is, I anl
sorry to have to confess, not an unlikely event. But I know that it will not be
the cause of it. Violence is already corroding the whole body politic. Civil
disobedience will be but a purifying process and may bring to the surface what
is burrowing under and into the whole body. With the evidence I have of the
condition of the country and the unquenchable faith I have in the method of
civil resistance, I must not be deterred from the course the inward voice seems
to be leading me to.
"But whatever I do and whatever happens, English friends will accept my word,
that whilst I am impatient to break the British bondage, I am no enemy of
Britain."
On the eve of Independence Day, Gandhi wrote :
"Remember that 26th is the day not to declare independence but to declare
that we will be satisfied with nothing less than Complete Independence as
opposed to dominion status so called. Remember that on 26th we do not start
civil disobedience, but merely hold meetings to declare our determination to
attain Purna Swaraj and to that end to carry out Congress instructions that may
be issued from time to time. Remember that since we desire to attain our end
by non-violent and truthful means, we can do so only through self-purification.
We should devote the day to doing such constructive work as lies in our power
to do. Remember that at the meetings there are to be no speeches. There is to
be mere recitation and approval by show of hands of the declaration. The
recitation should be in the provincial language."
The text of the declaration to be made on January 26 was:
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