Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/799

 laugh at moral reform aud social service is to laugh at Swaraj, the Khilafat and the Punjab.

Even the organisation of schools was laughed at. Let us see what it means. We have demolished the prestige of Government schools. It was perhaps neces- sary in 1920 to do the picketing and certainly not to mind the boys being neglected, but it would be criminal any longer to picket Government schools or to neglect National institutions. We can now only draw more boys and girls by putting existing National schools on a better footing. They have the advantage of being in institutions where they breathe free air and where they are not shadowed. But the advantage of scientific training in carding, hand-spinning and hand-weaving and of having intellectual training in keeping with the requirements of the country must be added. We shall show by successful experiment the superiority of training in National schools and colleges.

Even the^Panchayats came in for ridicule, Little did the critics realise that the masses in many parts of India had ceased to resort to law courts. If we do not organise honest Pavchayats, they will certainly go back to the existing law courts.

Nor is a single step devoid of vast political results. Adequate manufacture and universal use of khaddar means a permanent boycott of foreign cloth and automatic distribution of sixty crores of rupees annually among the poor people, permanent disappearance of the drink and the opium evils mean an annual saving of seventeen crores to the people and a diminution of that revenue for the Government. Constructive effort for the untouchables means the addition to the Congress ranks of s'x crores of men and women who will for

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