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Updated: August 9, 2024
They would have learnt the value of discipline, self-control, joint action, non-violence, organisation and everything else that goes to make a nation great and good, and not merely great. I do not know that I have a right to arrogate greater purity for myself than for our Mussalman brethren. But I do admit that they do not believe in my doctrine of non-violence to the full extent.
The dissociation of the Bábí Faith from every form of political activity and from all secret associations and factions; the emphasis placed on the principle of non-violence; the necessity of strict obedience to established authority; the ban imposed on all forms of sedition, on back-biting, retaliation, and dispute; the stress laid on godliness, kindliness, humility and piety, on honesty and truthfulness, chastity and fidelity, on justice, toleration, sociability, amity and concord, on the acquisition of arts and sciences, on self-sacrifice and detachment, on patience, steadfastness and resignation to the will of God—all these constitute the salient features of a code of ethical conduct to which the books, treatises and epistles, revealed during those years, by the indefatigable pen of Bahá’u’lláh, unmistakably bear witness.
Let not our rock be violence and devilry. Our rock must be non-violence and godliness. Let us, workers, be clear as to what we are about. Swaraj depends upon our ability to control all the forces of violence on our side. Therefore there is no Swaraj within one year, if there is violence on the part of the people.
What I am anxious to show is that non-co-operationists must be true as well to the spirit as to the letter of their vow if they would gain Swaraj within one year. They may forget non-co-operation but they dare not forget non-violence. Indeed, non-co-operation is non-violence. We are violent when we sustain a government whose creed is violence. It bases itself finally not on right but on might.
Mr. Gandhi may go on preaching non-violence, and he may himself still disapprove of violence and refuse to believe that his teachings, as interpreted at least by many of his followers, are as certain to produce violence as the night is to produce darkness; but that "Non-co-operation" more and more frequently spells violence is beyond dispute, and more and more faint-hearted to put it very mildly are his reprobations of violence.
I have claimed in private conversations with English friends that it is because of my incessant preaching of the gospel of non-violence and my having successfully demonstrated its practical utility that so far the forces of violence, which are undoubtedly in existence in connection with the Khilafat movement, have remained under complete control.
Any conceivable prospect is, in my opinion, less black than the present unmanly and helpless condition. And we cannot do better than following out fearlessly and with confidence the open and honourable programme of non-violence and sacrifice that we have mapped for ourselves. The spirit of non-violence necessarily leads to humility. Non-violence means reliance on God, the Rocks of ages.
Now all the words that I have used here are absolutely necessary and the two adjectives 'progressive' and 'non-violent' are integral part of a whole. With me non-violence is part of my religion, a matter of creed. But with the great number of Mussalmans non-violence is a policy, with thousand, if not millions of Hindus, it is equally a matter of policy.
Besant's meeting in Bombay, at some places in Delhi, Bengal, and even in Gujarat. The people are assimilating day after day the spirit of non-violence, not necessarily as a creed, but as an inevitable policy. I expect most startling results, more startling than, say, the discoveries of Sir J.C. Bose, or the acceptance by the people of non-violence.
I urge non-violence in language and in deed. If non-violence is essential in our dealings with Government, it is more essential in our dealings with our leaders. And it grieves me deeply to hear of recent instances of violence reported to have been used in East Bongal against our own people.
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