Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/639

 Much laughter has been indulged in at my expense for having told the Congress audience at Calcutta that, if there was sufficient response to my programme of Non-Co-opera- tion, Swaraj would be attained in one year. Some have ignored my condition and laughed because of the impossi- bility of getting Swaraj anyhow within one year. Others have spelt the " if " in capitals and suggestei that if " ifs " were permissible in argument, any absurdity could be proved to be a possibility. My proposition, however, is based on a mathematical calculation. And I venture to say that true Swaraj is a practical impossibility without due fulfilment of my conditions. Swaraj means a state such that we can maintain our separate existence without the presence of the English. If it is to be a partnership, it muu bs a partrier- shipatwill. There can be no Swaraj without our feeling and being the equals of Englishmen. To-day we feel that we are dependent upon them for our internal and external security, for an armed peace between the Hindus and the 'Mussulmans, for our education and for the supply of daily wants, nay, even for the settlement of our religious squabbles. The Rajahs are. dependent upon the British for their powers and the millionaires for their millions. The British know our helplessness and Sir Thomas Holland cracks jokes quite legitimately at the expense of Non-Co-op erationists. To get Swaraj then is to get rid of our helplessness. The problem is no doubt stupendous, even as it is for the fabled lion who, having been brought up in the company of goats, found it impossible to feel that ha was a lion. As Tolstoy used to put it, mankind often laboured under hypnotism* ^Under its spell continuously we feel the feeling of helpless- ness. The British themselves cannot be expected to help us out of it. On the contrary, they din into our ears that we shall be fit to govern ourselves only by slow educative processes. The Times suggested that, if we boy cott the

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