Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/786

 696 NON-CO-OPERATION

I know that the only thing that the Government dread is this huge majority I seem to command. They little know that I dread it even more than they. I have become literally sick of the adoration of the unthinking multitude. I would feel certain of my ground, if I was spat upon by them. Then there would be no need for confession of Himalayan and other miscalculations, no retracing, no re-arranging.

But it was not to be.

picketing regarding foreign cloth is as necessary as liquor-picket- ing, the All-India Congress Committee authorises such picketing of a bona fide character on the same terms as liquor-picketing mentioned in the Bardoli resolutions.

The All-India Congress Committee wishes it to be under stood that the resolutions of the Working Committee do no mean any abandonment of the originaJ Coiress program tie of non-co-operation or permanent abandonment of Mass Civil Dis obedience but considers that an atmosphere of necessary mass non violence can be established by the workers concentrating upon th constructive programme framed by the Working Committee at Bardoli.

The All-India Congress Committee holds Civil Disobedience to be the right and duty of the people to be exercised and per- formed whenever the State opposes the declared will of the people.

Note : Individual Civil Disobedience is disobedience of orders or laws by a single individual or an ascertained number or group of individuals. Therefore a prohibited public meeting where admission is regulated by tickets and to which no unauthor- ised admission is allowed, is an instance of Individual Civil Dis- obedience, whereas a prohibited meeting to which the general public is admitted without any restriction is an instance of Mass Civil Disobedience. Such Civil ^Disobedience is defensive whtn a prohibited public roe?dng is held for conducting a normal acti- vity although it may result in arrest. It would be aggressive if it is held not for any normal activity but merely for the purpose of courting arrest and imprisonment.

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