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

MAHATMA - Volume 3 (1930-1934)
things: total prohibition; restoration of the exchange rate to is. 4d.; fifty per
cent reduction of land revenue; abolition of the salt tax; reduction of military
expenditure by at least fifty per cent to begin with; reduction of civil service
salaries by half; a protective tariff against foreign cloth; enactment of a coastal
reservation bill; discharge of all political-prisoners save those condemned for
murder; abolition of the C.I.D.; and issue of licenses for the fire-arms for selfdefence,
subject to popular control. He pleaded: "Let the Viceroy satisfy us
with regard to these very simple but vital needs of India. He will then hear no
talk of civil disobedience."
"We refuse to be satisfied with the airy peace," remonstrated Gandhi. "We
would rather risk the dark anarchy if, perchance, thereby we can be released
from the grinding pauperism. The threat of dire vengeance uttered against civil
and criminal resisters is idle and, therefore, uncalled for. There is this in
common between both. Both have counted the cost. They are out for suffering.
Would that their means were also common.
Unfortunately, instead of being complementary, they neutralize each other. I
know that the non-violent revolutionary like me impedes the progress of the
violent revolutionary. I wish the latter would realize that he impedes my
progress more than I do his, and that I, being a mahatma, if left unhampered by
him, am likely to make greater progress than he can ever hope to make. Let
him realize too that he has never yet given me a fair chance. I want full
suspension of his activity. If it will please him, I am free to admit that I dread
him more than I dread Lord Irwin's wrath."
Gandhi's eleven points raised a storm of indignation in the British press. In reply
Gandhi wrote in Young India:
"It is not difficult to understand the resentment felt in England over the
'demands', nor the hysterics of Sir Malcolm Hailey over the idea of repudiating
debts in any circumstance whatsoever. Yet that is precisely what every ward,
when he comes of age, has the right to do. If he finds the trustee having
buttered his bread at the ward's expense, he makes the trustee pay for his
malpractices or misappropriation or breach of trust or whatever other name by
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