Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/610

 COURTS, AND SCHOOLS

[ Even before the special Congres Mri Gandhi had enunciated his scheme of non-co-operation and began his agitation in the press and platform urging his conntrymen f to follow the various terms in 'his programme. In the Young, India, in August 1920, Mr. Gandhi laid special stress on the need for boycotting courts and schools. He wrote:]

The Non-Co-operation Cjihmitee has included, in the first stage, boycott of law-courts by lawyers and of Govern- ment schools and colleges by Brents or scholars as the case may be. I know that it is only my reputation as a worker and fighter, which has saved me from an open charge of lunacy for having given the advice about boycott of courts and schools.

I venture however to claim some method about my madness. It does not require much reflection to see that it is through courts that a government establishes its author- ity and it is through schools that it manufactures clerks and other employees. They are both healthy institutio ns when the government in charge of them is on the whole just* They are death-traps when the government is unjus t. FIRST AS TO LAWYERS.

No newspaper has combated my views on non-co- operation with so much pertinacity and ability as the Allaha- bad Leader. It has ridiculed my views on lawyers expressed in my booklet, Indian Home Rule/ written h^ me in 1908. I adhere to the views then expressed. A'id if f find time I hope to elaborate them in these columns. But 1 refrain from so doing for the time being as my special views have no- ihing to do with my advice on the necessity of lawyers sus- pending practice. I submit that national non-co-operation requires suspension of their practice by lawyers. P erhaps

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