Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/634

 544 NON-CO-OPERATION stand before ycu in fear of Gcd and a sense of duty to put this before you for your hearty acceptance.

I ask you to dismiss me, for the time being, from your consideration. I have been charged of saintliness and a desire for dictatorship. I venture to say that I do not stand before you either as a saint or a candidate for dictatorship. I stand before you to present to you the results of my many years' practical experience in non-co-operation. I deny the charge that it is a new thing in the country. It has been accepted at hundreds of meetings attended by thousands of men, and has been placed in working order since the first of Aug ust by the Mussalmars, and many of the things in the programme are being enforced in a more or less intense form. I ask you again to dismiss personalities in the con- sideration of this important question, and bring to bear patient and calm judgment on it. But a mere acceptance of the icsolution does not end the work. Every individual has to enforce the items of the resolution in so far as they apply to him. I beseech you to give me a patient hearing. 1 ask you neither to clap nor to hiss. I do not mind them so far as lam concerned, but clapping hinders the flow oi thought, clapping and hissing hinder the process of corres- ponf dence between a speaker and his audience. You will not h rss out of the stage any single speaker. For non-co- oper at ion is a treasure of discipline and sacrifice and it de- mands patience and respect for opposite views. And unless we were able to evolve a spirit of mutual toleration for dia- metrically opposite views, non-co-operation is an impossi- bility. Non-co-operation in an angry atmosphere is an i mpo'ssibilfty. I have leaint through bitter experience r the cue fupreflre lesson to conserve my anger, and as* tieSt ccnsened is transmuted inlb energy, even so our

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