Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/789

 THE DELHI RESOLUTIONS 699*

say, 'on a false issue '. It is not any imprisonment that will lead to Swaraj. It is not every disobedience that will fire us with the spirit of obedience and discipline. Jails are no gate-way to liberty for the confirmed criminal. They are temples of liberty only for those who ate innocence personified. The execution of Socrates made immortality a living reality for us, not so the execution of coantless murderers. There is no warrant for supposing that we can steal Swaraj by the imprisonment of thousands of nominally non-violent men with hatred, ill- will and violence raging in their breasts.

It would be otherwise if we were fighting with arms, giving and receiving blow for blow. The imprison- ment of those who may be caught intimidating, assault- ing and murdering will certainly embarrass the Government and when they are tired, they would as- elsewhere yield. But such is not our fight to-day, Let us be truthful. If it is through ' show of force * that we wish to gain Swaraj, let us drop non- violence and- offer such violence as we may. It would be a manly, honest and sober attitude an attitude the world has been used to for ages past. No one can then accuse us of the terrible charge of hypocricy.

But the majority will not listen to me in spite of all my warnings and passionate plea for rejecting my resolution, if they did not believe in non-violence as indispensable for the attainmentof our goal. They accepted, it without a single material change. I would ask them therefore to realise their responsibility. They are now bound not to rush to civil disobedience but to settle down, to the quiet work of construction. I would urge them to be indifferent to the clamour for immediate action

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