Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/718

 IY. APPEAL TO HIS CO-WORKERS.

[Late on the 22nd evening^ Mr. Gandhi issued the following manifesto to his co-workers : ]

Comrades, The past few days had been a fiery ordeal for me, and God is to be thanked that some of us had not been found wanting. The broken heads before me and the dead bodies of which I have heard from an unimpeachable authority, are sufficient evidence of the fact. Workers have lost their limbs, or their lives, or have suffered bruises in the act of preserving peace, of weaning mad countrymen from their wrath. These deaths and injuries show that, in spite of the error of many of our countrymen, some of us are prepared to die for the attainment of our goal. If all of us had imbibed the spirit of non-violence, or if some had, and others had remained passive, no blood need have been spilt, but it was not to be. Some must, therefore, voluntarily give their blood in order that a bloodless atmosphere may be created, so long as there are people weak enough to seek the aid of those who have superior skill or means for doing it. And that is why the Parsis and Christians sought" and received assistance of the Gov- ernment, so that the Government openly took sides and armed and aided the latter in retaliatory madness and criminally neglected to protect a single life among those who, though undoubtedly guilty in the first instance, were victims of unparadonable wrath of the Parsis, Christians and Jews. The Government have thus appeared in their nakedness as party doing violence not jnerely to preserve the peace but to sustain aggressive-

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