Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/915

Rh besides ourselves with ludicrous joyfulness. A death makes us indulge in orgies of loud lamentation which condemn the neighbourhood to sleeplessness for the night. If we wish to attain Swaraj, and if having attained it we wish to make it something to be proud of we perfectly renounce this unseemly sight.

And what is imprisonment to the man who is fearless of death itself? If the reader will bestow a little thought upon the matter, he will find that if Swaraj is delayed, it is delayed because we are not prepared calmly to meet death and inconveniences less than death.

As larger and larger numbers of innocent men come out to welcome death, their sacrifice will become the potent instrument for the salvation of all others; and there will be a minimum of suffering. Suffering cheerfully endured ceases to be suffering and is transmuted into an ineffable joy. The man who flies from suffering is the victim of endless tribulation before it had come to him, and is half dead when it does come. But one who is cheerfully ready for anything and everything that comes, escapes all pain, his cheerfulness acts as an anaesthetic.

I have been led to write about this subject because we have got to envisage even death if we will have Swaraj this very year. One who is previously prepared often escapes accident and this may well be the case with us. It is my firm conviction that Swadeshi constitutes this preparation. When once Swadeshi is a success neither this Government nor any one else will feel the necessity of putting us to any further test.

Still it is best not to neglect any contingency whatever. Possession of power makes men blind and deaf, they cannot see things which are under their very nose,