Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/532

 442 EARLIER INDIAN SPEECHES.

circumstances attending their introduction. The Bills must intensify the hatred and ill-will against the State of which the deeds of violence are undoubtedly an evidence. The Indian covenanters, by their determination to under- go every form of suffering make an irresistible appeal to the Government, towards which they bear no ill-will, and provide to the believers in the efficacy of violence, as a means of securing redress of grievances with an infallible remedy, and withal a remedy that blesses those that use it and also those against whom it is used. If the convenanters know the use of this remedy, I fear no ill from it, I have no business to doubt their ability They must ascertain whether the disease is sufficiently great to justify the strong remedy and whether all milder ones have been tri-sd They have convinced them- selves that the disease is serious enough, and that milder measures have utterly failed. The rest lies in the lap of the gods.

THE PLEDGE

Being conscientiously of opinion that the Bills kvown of 1919, and the Criminal Law (Emergency Powers) Bill No. II of 1919, are unjust, subversive of the principle of liberty and justice, and destructive of the elementary rights of individuals on which the safety of the com' munify as a whole aud the State itself is based, we solemnly affirm that in the event of these Bills becoming law until they are withdrawn, we shall refuse civilly to obey these laws and such other laws as a committee to be hereafter appointed may think Jit and further affirm that in this struggle we will faithfully follow truth and refrain from violence to life, person or property.

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