Primary Source Document - Gandhi: "Non-Violence Is the
First Article of My Faith"
After Gandhi is arrested for writing articles and
speaking out against the British Government in India, he gives the following
speech to a British judge at his hearing.
Non-violence is the first article of my faith. It is the
last article of my faith and it is everything in between. I write because I had to make my choice. I
had either to accept a system, which I think has done an irreparable [terrible]
harm to my country or watch the mad fury of my people bursting forth in a
violent way. 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 am here, therefore, to invite
and submit to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law
is a deliberate crime but appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen.
The only course open to you, Mr. Judge, is, as I am just going to say in my
statement, either to resign your post in protest of my free speech rights being
violated or inflict on me the severest penalty if you believe that the system
and law you are assisting to administer will allow. I do not expect that kind of conversion. But
by the time I have finished with my statement you will, perhaps, have a glimpse
of what is raging within my heart to run this maddest risk which a sane man can
run.
Little do people know how the semi-starved masses of Indians
are slowly sinking to lifelessness. Little do they know that their miserable
lives represent the little rights that they get for the work they do for the
foreign exploiter [the British], and that the profits are sucked away from the
people. Little do they realize that the government established by law in
British India is carried on for this exploitation of the people. Nothing can
explain away the misery of the people. No one can explain away the evidence the
skeletons in many villages present to the naked eye. I have no doubt whatsoever
that both England and the people of India will have to answer, if there is a
God above, for this crime against humanity is perhaps unequalled in world
history. The law itself in this country has been used to serve the foreign
exploiter [British]. My experience of political cases in India leads me to the
conclusion that in nine out of every ten the condemned men were totally
innocent. Their crime consisted in love of their country. In ninety-nine cases
out of a 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 been prostituted, whether it be
consciously or unconsciously for the benefit of the exploiter [British].
The greatest misfortune is that 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
English and Indian officials honestly believe that they are administering one
of the best systems devised in the world and that India is making steady though
slow progress. These men do not know that a subtle but effective system of
terrorism and an organized display of force that is being used. Indians are deprived of all powers of
retaliation or self-defence, which has emasculated [made them less of a man]
the people. 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.
The section under
which Mr. Banker [a volunteer who worked with Gandhi] and I are charged is one
under which mere promotion of disaffection [disagreement] of British rule is a
crime. I have studied some of the cases tried under it, and 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 it. I have no personal ill will
against any single British administrator; much less can I have any disaffection
towards the King's people. But I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected
[disagreeable] 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 [praise] for the system. And it has been a precious privilege for me
to be able to write [against British rule] what I have in the various articles
being used evidence against me.
In fact I believe that I have rendered a service to India
and England by showing in non-cooperation the way out of the unnatural state in
which both groups are living. In my humble opinion, non-cooperation with evil
is as much a duty as is cooperation with good. But in the past, non-cooperation
has been deliberately expressed in violence to the evildoer. I am attempting to
show to my countrymen that violent non-cooperation only multiplies evil and
that as evil can only be sustained by violence. Non-violence implies voluntary
submission to the penalty for non-cooperation 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 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 evil and that in reality I am
innocent. If not, you should 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 public will.
ምንም አስተያየቶች የሉም:
አስተያየት ይለጥፉ