Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/847

 appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The only course open to you, the Judge and the Assessors, is either to resign your posts and thus dissociate yourselves from evil if you feel that the law you are called upon to administer is an evil and that in reality I am innocent, or to inflict on me the severest penalty if you believe that the system and the law you are assisting to administer are good for the people of this country and that my activity is therefore injurious to the public weal.

THE JUDGMENT.

[After Mr. Gandhi had made his statement Mr. Brootnfield the Sessions Judge, pronounced the following judgment :]

Mr. Gandhi, you have made my task easy one way by pleading guilty to the charge. Nevertheless, what remains namely, the determination of a just sentence is perhaps as difficult a proposition as a judge in this country could have to face. The law is no respecter of persons. Nevertheless, it will be impossible to ignore the fact that you are in a different category from any person I have ever tried or am likely to buve to try. It would be impos- sible to ignore the fact that in the eyes of millions of your country- men you are a great patriot and a great leader. Even those who differ from you ir> politics look upon you as a man of high ideals and of noble and even saintly life. I have to deal with you in one character only. It is not my duty and I do not presume to judge or criticise you in any other character. It is my duty to judge you as a man subject to the law who has by his own admis- sion broken the law and committed, what to an ordinary man must appear to be, grave offences against the State. I do not forget that you have consistently preached against violence and that you have on many occasions, as I am willing to believe, done much to prevent violence. But having regard to the nature of political teaching and the nature of many of those to whom it was addressed how you could have continued to believe that violence would not be the inevitable consequence, it passes my capacity to understand. There are probably few people in India who do not sincerely regret that you should have made it impossible for any Government to leave you at liberty. But it is so. I am trying to balance what is due to you against what appears to me to be neces- sary in the interest of the public, and I propose in passing sentence to follow the precedent of a case in many respects similar to this ca e that was decided some twelve years ago. I mean the case against Mr Bal Gangadnar Tilak under the same section. The

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