Page:Gandhi and Saklatvala - Is India different.pdf/24



AHMEDABAD, March 16th. "Comrade" Saklatvala is dreadfully in earnest. His sincerity is transparent. His sacrifices are great. His passion for the poor is unquestioned. I have therefore given his fervent, open appeal to me that close attention which that of a sincere patriot and humanitarian must command. But in spite of all my desire to say "Yes" to his appeal, I must say "No" if I am to return sincerity for sincerity, or if I am to act according to my faith. But I can say "Yes" to his appeal after my own fashion. For underneath his intense desire that I should co-operate with him on his terms there is the emphatic implied condition that I must say "Yes" only if his argument satisfies my head and heart. A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a "Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.

In spite of all the desire to offer hearty co-operation, I find myself against a blind wall. His facts are fiction and his deductions based upon fiction are necessarily baseless. And where these facts are true my whole energy is con centrated upon nullifying their (to me) poisonous results. I am sorry, but we do stand at opposite poles. There is, however, one great thing in common between us. Both claim to have the good of the country and humanity as our only goal. Though, therefore, we may for the moment seem to be going in opposite directions, I expect we shall meet some day. I promise to make ample amends when I discover my error. Meanwhile, however, my error, since I do not recog nise it as such, must be my shield and my solace.

For unlike "comrade" Saklatvala, I do not believe that multiplication of wants and machinery contrived to supply them is taking the world a single step nearer its goal. "Comrade" Saklatvala swears by the modern rush. I whole heartedly detest this mad desire to destroy distance and time, to increase animal appetites and go to the ends of the earth in search of their satisfaction. If modern civilisation stands for all this, and I have understood it to do so, I call it satanic, and with it the present system of government, its best