Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 29.djvu/7

 notable for its quiet strength. On January 28, writing again in Young India on the South African Question, he observed: “The principle of the measure is itself wrong the history since 1914 is a history of a series of attacks upon the Indian position” (p. 431). On February 4, 1926, he wrote: “The measure is a manifest breach of the Smuts-Gandhi Agreement” (p. 439).

Another matter that received Gandhiji’s attention was the Vykom Satyagraha. On January 21, 1926, he issued an appeal to the Travancore Government pleading for temple-entry ultimately (p. 425).

Gandhiji explained the genesis and underlying motives of his fast of November 1925 thus: “I am a searcher after truth. My experiments I hold to be infinitely more important than the best-equipped Himalayan expeditions. And the results ? If the search is scientific, surely there is no comparison between the two. Let me therefore go my way. I shall lose my usefulness the moment I stifle the still small voice within I can but do the will of God as I feel it. The result is in His disposing. This suffering for things great and small is the keynote of satyagraha If I am to identify myself with the grief of the least in India, aye, if I have the power, the least in the world, let me identify myself with the sins of the little ones who are under my care. And so doing in all humility I hope some day to see God—Truth—face to face” (pp. 290-1).

In “Indulgence or Self-denial”, he describes his identification with the masses and tells of “the affection of the masses between whom and myself there is a bond which defies description but is nevertheless felt alike by them and me. I see in the fellowship with them the God I adore. I derive from that fellowship all my consolation, all my hope and all the sustaining power I possess. If I had not realized that bond in South Africa, now fully thirty years ago, life would not be worth living for me. But I know that whether I live in the Ashram or whether in their midst, I work for them, think of them and pray for them. I want to live only for them and so for myself” (p. 382). Spinning served as a symbol of this living union: “Spinning for me is an emblem of fellowship with the poorest of the land and its daily practice is a renewal of the bond between them and ourselves. Thus considered, it is for me a thing of beauty and joy for ever. I would rather go without a meal than without the wheel and I would like you to understand this great implication of the wheel” (p. 454).

Among the valuable documents in this volume is the Trustdeed stating the aims of the Satyagraha Ashram (pp. 434-6). The