Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/850

 760 JAIL LIFE IN INDIA

is unfit for human consumption. It would be rejected when it is offered in an insulting manner. In other words it should be rejected when acceptance would prove us to be slaves of hunger.

WHY SUFFER.

Let there be no mistake about the meaning of these imprisonments. They are not courted with the object of embarrassing the Government, though as a matter of fact they do. They are courted for the sake of dis- cipline and suffering. They are courted because we consider it to be wrong to be free under a Government we hold to bj wholly bad. No stone should be left unturned by us to rpake the Government realise that we are in no way amenable to its control. And no Government has yet tolerated such open defiance however respectful it maybe. It might safely therefore be said that 11 we are yet outside the prison walls, the cause lies as much with us as with the Government. We are moving cautiously in our corporate capacity. We are still voluntarily obeying many of its laws. There was, for instance nothing to prevent me from disregarding the Madras Government's order and courting arrest, but I avoided it. There is nothing to prevent me save my prudence or weakness from going without permission into the barracks and being arrested for trespass. I certainly believe the barracks to be the nation's property and not of a Government which I no longer recognise as representative of the people. Thus there is an apparent inconsistency between the statement on the one hand that it is painful to remain outside the the prison walls under a bad Government and this deliberate avoidance on the other hand of ^arrest upon

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