Page:Gandhi - Young India, Viking Press, 1924-1926.pdf/24

 Young India will be stale when Truth becomes stale. I want to see God face to face. God I know is Truth. For me the only certain means of knowing God is non-violence—Ahimsa—love.

I live for India’s freedom and would die for it, because it is part of Truth. Only a free India can worship the true God. I work for India’s freedom because my Swadeshi teaches me that being born in it and having inherited her culture, I am fittest to serve her and she has a prior claim to my service. But my patriotism is not exclusive; it is calculated not only not to hurt any other nation but to benefit all in the true sense of the word. India’s freedom as conceived by me can never be a menace to the world.

But if it is not to be such a menace, the means ad opted for gaining it must be strictly non-violent. My interest in India’s freedom will cease if she adopts violent means, for their fruit will be not freedom but slavery in disguise. And if we have not yet attained our freedom, it is because we have not been non-violent in thought, word and deed. It is true that non violence has been adopted as policy i. e. because we are convinced that by no other means can India achieve her freedom. Our policy is not, must not be, a camouflage. We may not harbour violence under cover of non-violence. Whilst we claim to be non-violent for a particular purpose and a particular period, our thought and word must accord with our practice for that purpose and that period. Even so does an honest gaoler act towards a condemned man. He protects his life at the peril of his own till the date of the extreme penalty. He thinks and speaks of his safety. He is, for the time and the person, non-violent in thought, word and deed.

We pledged ourselves to be non-violent towards