Page:Mahatma Gandhi, his life, writings and speeches.djvu/397

 done so in response to a pressing invitation to come and help the raiyats, who urge they are not being fairly treated by the indigo planters. I could not render any help without studying the problem. I have therefore, come to study it with the assistance, if possible of the administration and the planters. I have no other motive, and I cannot believe that my coming here can in any way disturb public peace or cause loss of life. I claim to have considerable experience in such matters. The administration, however, have thought differently. I fully appreciate their difficulty, and I admit too, that they can only proceed upon information they receive. As a law-abiding citizen, my first instinct would be as it was to obey the order served upon me. I could not do so without doing violence to my sense of duty to those for whom I came. I feel that I could just now serve them only by remaining in their midst, I could not, therefore, voluntarily retire. Amid this conflict of duty, I could only throw the responsibility of removing me from them on the administration. I am fully conscious of the fact that a person, holding in the public life of India a position such as I do, has to be most careful in setting examples. It is my firm belief that, in the complex constitution under which we are living, the safe and honourable course for a self respecting man is, in the circumstances such as that face me, to do what I have decided to