Page:Holmes - World Significance of Mahatma Gandhi.djvu/4

 the movement for independence. This man holds absolutely in his hands today the destinies of his people. When Gandhi speaks, it is India that speaks. When Gandhi acts, it is India that acts. When Gandhi is arrested, it is India that is outraged and humiliated. More truly, I believe, than any other man who has ever lived, this great Indian is the incarnation of a people’s soul.

Thirdly, as an explanation of Gandhi’s fame and influence at this moment, there is the repressive policy recently adopted by the English government. Why any government should turn to repression in a crisis like this, is explicable only on the supposition that governments are utterly ignorant of history and human psychology, and learn nothing from experience. For repression has never worked. I challenge anybody to point me to a single episode in either ancient or modern history, which proves that repression has even once achieved the end to which it has been directed. This policy has certainly been no success in English hands. It failed in America in 1775, it failed in English domestic affairs in the ’20s and the ’40s of the last century, it failed in South Africa after the Boer War, it failed in Ireland yesterday, and it will fail in India tomorrow. If repression succeeds in anything, it is in advertising the cause of the enemy. “We are advertised by our loving friends,” says Shakespeare; to which I would make the addition that we are advertised as well by our fearful enemies! Nothing that the Indians could have done of themselves would have spread such knowledge of, and won such sympathy for, their movement for independence as the policy of the British authorities in recent months. When the Ali brothers were arrested, for example, news of the event spread to the remotest corners of the Mohammedan world, and made every Moslem a champion of freedom for India. When Lajpat Rai was seized and imprisoned, thousands of Englishmen and Americans were immediately aroused, for they knew this man to be a scholar and a gentleman, and could not understand the nature of a situation which made necessary his confinement. So also, now with Gandhi himself! Millions of people the world around know him today, and will believe in and love him passionately tomorrow, because they see a saint doomed to martyrdom by the tyranny of imperialism.

Lastly, as an indication of what has been going on in recent months, I would remind you of the visit of the Prince of Wales to India. For sheer stupidity I know of nothing to compare with this event. We are told that this trip was planned in order to demonstrate