Page:Mahatma Gandhi, his life, writings and speeches.djvu/127

The Duties of British Citizenship if passive resistance is generally accepted, it will once and for ever avoid the contingency of a terrible death-struggle and bloodshed in the event (not impossible) of the natives being exasperated by a stupid mistake of our legislators.

It has been said that those who do not like the law may leave the country. This is all very well spoken from a cushioned chair, but it is neither possible nor becoming for men to leave their homes because they do not subscribe to certain laws enacted against them. The inlanders of the Boer regime complained of harsh laws; they, too, were told that if they did not like them they could retire from the country. Are Indians, who are fighting for their self-respect, to slink away from the country for fear of suffering imprisonment or worse? If I could help it, nothing would remove Indians from the country save brute force. It is no part of a citizen's duty to pay blind obedience to the laws imposed on him. And if my countrymen believe in God and the existence of the soul, then, while they may admit that their bodies belong to the state to be imprisoned and deported, their minds, their wills, and 15