Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/659

 OPEN LETTER TO THE DUKE OF CONN AUGHT,

[Mr. Gandhi addressed the following open letter to H. R. H the Duke of Con naught in the first week of February 1921 : ]

Sir, Your Royal Highness must have heard a great deal about Non Co-operation, Non-Co-operationists, and their methods and incidentally of me, its humble author. I fear that the infoimaticn given Your Royal Highness- must have been in its natuie 01 e-sided. I owe it to you, to* my frier ds and myself that I should place before you what I conceive to be the scope of Non- Co-operation, as followed not only by ire, but my closest associates, such as Messrs. Shaukat AH and Mahomed Ali.

For me it is no joy ard pleasure to be actively associated in the boycott of Your Royal Highness* visit, k have tencVicd loyal, voluntary assistance to Government for an unbicken period cf r early 30 yeais in the full belief that through that lay the path of fr cede m for my country. It. was therefore, ho slight thing for me to suggest to my count)} men that we should take no part in welcoming Your Ro}al Highness. Not one among us has anything against jou as an English gentlemen. We hold your person as- sacred as that of a dearest frier. d. I do not know any of iry fiier.ds who would not guaid it with his life if he found. it in danger.

We aie not at war with individual Englishmen. We- seek not to destroy English life. We do desiie to destroy the &}Stem that has emasculated cur country in body, mind' ard scul. We are dc'er mired to battle uith all our might against that in English nature which has made O'Dwyerism-

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