E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & TimesAt the preliminary hearing the day after his arrest, Gandhi gave his age as fiftythreeand his profession 'farmer and weaver" and pleaded guilty. The chargewas writing three seditious articles in Young India. Mr. S. G. Banker, the printerof the magazine, was arraigned at the same time. Gandhi was kept in prison fortrial.The first of the seditious articles appeared in Young India on September 19,1921, entitled Tampering with Loyalty'. 'I have no hesitation in saying", Gandhiwrote, 'that it is sinful for anyone, either soldier or civilian, to serve thisgovernment— sedition has become the creed of Congress ... Non-co-operation,though a religious and strictly moral movement, deliberately aims at theoverthrow of the government, and is therefore legally seditious ... We ask forno quarter; we expect none from the government.'These words made the government case easy. If there was doubt, Gandhi madeit even more explicit in a second article, A Puzzle and Its Solution', in YoungIndia of December 15, 1921. 'Lord Reading’, he wrote, 'must understand thatNon- co-operators are at war with the government. They have declaredrebellion against it ... Lord Reading is entitled therefore to put them out ofharm's way.'The third seditious article, 'Shaking the Manes', in Young "dia of February 23,1922, cried out in the opening sentence, 'How can there be any compromisewhilst the British lion continues to shake his gory claws in our faces?' Thensarcastically he informed the British that 'the rice-eating, puny millions of Indiaseem to have resolved upon achieving their own destiny without any furthertutelage and without arms'. Adding that 'no empire intoxicated with the redwine of power and plunder of weaker races had yet lived long in the world',Gandhi said. 'The fight that was commenced in 1920 is a fight to the finish,whether it lasts one month or one year or many months or many years ...'Gandhi's only surprise was that he had not been arrested after the first orsecond of these articles.The Great Trial', as it came to be known, was held in Government Circuit Houseat Ahmedabad on March 18, 1922, before Mr. Justice C. N. Broomfield, Districtwww.mkgandhi.org Page 228