The Story of My Experiments with Truth quotes

If the experiments are really spiritual, then there can be no room for self-praise. They can only add to my humility.

The more I reflect and look back on the past, the more vividly do I feel my limitations.

What I want to achieve—what I have been striving and pining to achieve these thirty years—is self-realization, to see God face to face, to attain moksha. I live and move and have my being in pursuit of this goal.

My experiments in the political field are now known, not only to India, but to a certain extent to the “civilized” world. For me, they have not much value; and the title of “Mahatma” that they have won for me has, therefore, even less.

Often the title has deeply pained me; and there is not a moment I can recall when it may be said to have tickled me.

But I should certainly like to narrate my experiments in the spiritual field which are known only to myself, and from which I have derived such power as I possess for working in the political field.

But as long as I have not realized this Absolute Truth, so long must I hold by the relative truth as I have conceived it. That relative truth must, meanwhile, be my beacon, my shield and buckler.

Though this path is straight and narrow and sharp as the razor’s edge, for me it has been the quickest and easiest.

Even my Himalayan blunders have seemed trifling to me because I have kept strictly to this path. For the path has saved me from coming to grief, and I have gone forward according to my light.

The instruments for the quest of truth are as simple as they are difficult. They may appear quite impossible to an arrogant person, and quite possible to an innocent child.

The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him.

Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of truth. The dialogue between Vasishtha and Vishwamitra makes this abundantly clear. Christianity and Islam also amply bear it out.

If anything that I write in these pages should strike the reader as being touched with pride, then he must take it that there is something wrong with my quest, and that my glimpses are no more than mirage.

Let hundreds like me perish, but let truth prevail.

Let us not reduce the standard of truth even by a hair’s breadth for judging erring mortals like myself.

I hope to acquaint the reader fully with all my faults and errors. My purpose is to describe experiments in the science of satyagraha, not to say how good I am.

In judging myself I shall try to be as harsh as truth, as I want others also to be.

Measuring myself by that standard I must exclaim with Surdas:

And I remember days when, at his sudden appearance, we would rush and announce it to her. She would run out to see with her own eyes, but by that time the fugitive sun would be gone, thus depriving her of her meal.

“That does not matter,” she would say cheerfully, “God did not want me to eat today.”

And then she would return to her round of duties.

The result was that all the boys, except myself were found to have spelt every word correctly. Only I had been stupid. The teacher tried later to bring this stupidity home to me, but without effect.

I never could learn the art of “copying.”

Yet the incident did not in the least diminish my respect for my teacher. I was, by nature, blind to the faults of elders. Later I came to know of many other failings of this teacher, but my regard for him remained the same.

Yet the incident did not in the least diminish my respect for my teacher. I was, by nature, blind to the faults of elders. Later I came to know of many other failings of this teacher, but my regard for him remained the same.

For I had learnt to carry out the orders of elders, not to scan their actions.

Two other incidents belonging to the same period have always clung to my memory. As a rule I had a distaste for any reading beyond my school books.

Much as I wish that I had not to write this chapter, I know that I shall have to swallow many such bitter draughts in the course of this narrative.

And I cannot do otherwise, if I claim to be a worshipper of Truth. It is my painful duty to have to record here my marriage at the age of thirteen.

But no coaching is really necessary in such matters. The impressions of the former birth are potent enough to make all coaching superfluous. We gradually began to know each other, and to speak freely together. We were the same age.

But I took no time in assuming the authority of a husband.

that first night.

Two innocent children all unwittingly hurled themselves into the ocean of life.

My brother’s wife had thoroughly coached me about my behaviour on the first night. I do not know who had coached my wife. I have never asked her about it, nor am I inclined to do so now.

The thought made me a jealous husband. Her duty was easily converted into my right to exact faithfulness from her, and if it had to be exacted, I should be watchfully tenacious of the right.

I had absolutely no reason to suspect my wife’s fidelity, but jealousy does not wait for reasons.

I must needs be forever on the lookout regarding her movements, and therefore she could not go anywhere without my permission. This sowed the seeds of a bitter quarrel between us. The restraint was virtually a sort of imprisonment.

I am sure that, had my love for her been absolutely untainted with lust, she would be a learned lady today; for I could then have conquered her dislike for studies.

I know that nothing is impossible for pure love.

I have mentioned one circumstance that more or less saved me from the disasters of lustful love. There is another worth noting. Numerous examples have convinced me that God ultimately saves him whose motive is pure.

I have mentioned one circumstance that more or less saved me from the disasters of lustful love. There is another worth noting.

Numerous examples have convinced me that God ultimately saves him whose motive is pure.

Along with the cruel custom of child marriages, Hindu society has another custom which to a certain extent diminishes the evils of the former. Parents do not allow young couples to stay together long.

I was convicted of lying! That deeply pained me. How was I to prove my innocence? There was no way. I cried in deep anguish.

I saw that a man of truth must also be a man of care.

This was the first and last instance of my carelessness in school. I have a faint recollection that I finally succeeded in getting the fine remitted.

because, counting on my industry, he had recommended my promotion. So the fear of the double discredit kept me at my post. When however, with much effort I reached the thirteenth proposition of Euclid, the utter simplicity of the subject was suddenly revealed to me.

A subject which only required a pure and simple use of one’s reasoning powers could not be difficult.

Ever since that time geometry has been both easy and interesting for me.

True friendship is an identity of souls rarely to be found in this world. Only between like natures can friendship be altogether worthy and enduring. Friends react on one another. Hence in friendship there is very little scope for reform.

I am of opinion that all exclusive intimacies are to be avoided; for man takes in vice far more readily than virtue.

And he who would be friends with God must remain alone, or make the whole world his friend. I may be wrong, but my effort to cultivate an intimate friendship proved a failure.

I have seen since that I had calculated wrongly.

A reformer cannot afford to have close intimacy with him whom he seeks to reform.

True friendship is an identity of souls rarely to be found in this world. Only between like natures can friendship be altogether worthy and enduring. Friends react on one another. Hence in friendship there is very little scope for reform.

I wished to be strong and daring and wanted my countrymen also to be such, so that we might defeat the English and make India free. The word “Swaraj” I had not yet heard. But I knew what freedom meant.

The frenzy of the “reform” blinded me.

And having ensured secrecy, I persuaded myself that mere hiding the deed from parents was no departure from truth.

A servant wrongly suspected may throw up his job, a son in the same case may leave his father’s roof, and a friend may put an end to the friendship.

The wife, if she suspects her husband, will keep quiet, but if the husband suspects her, she is ruined.

Where is she to go? A Hindu wife may not seek divorce in a law-court. Law has no remedy for her. And I can never forget or forgive myself for having driven my wife to that desperation.

But we swallowed two or three seeds nevertheless. We dared not take more. Both of us fought shy of death, and decided to go to Ramji Mandir to compose ourselves, and to dismiss the thought of suicide.

I realized that it was not as easy to commit suicide as to contemplate it.

And since then, whenever I have heard of someone threatening to commit suicide, it has had little or no effect on me.

But I did not dare to speak. Not that I was afraid of my father beating me. No. I do not recall his ever having beaten any of us. I was afraid of the pain that I should cause him.

But I felt the risk should be taken; that there could not be a cleansing without a clean confession.

I decided at last to write out the confession, to submit it to my father, and ask his forgiveness. I wrote it on a slip of paper and handed it to him myself.

He had sat up to read it. He again lay down. I also cried. I could see my father’s agony. If I were a painter I could draw a picture of the whole scene today. It is still so vivid in my mind.

Those pearl-drops of love cleansed my heart, and washed my sin away.

Only he who has experienced such love can know what it is. As the hymn says:

“Only he Who is smitten with the arrows of love, Knows its power.”

This was, for me, an object-lesson in Ahimsa.

Then I could read in it nothing more than a father’s love, but today I know that it was pure Ahimsa. When such Ahimsa becomes all-embracing, it transforms everything it touches. There is no limit to its power.

This sort of sublime forgiveness was not natural to my father. I had thought that he would be angry, say hard things, and strike his forehead. But he was so wonderfully peaceful, and I believe this was due to my clean confession.

A clean confession, combined with a promise never to commit the sin again, when offered before one who has the right to receive it, is the purest type of repentance.

I know that my confession made my father feel absolutely safe about me, and increased his affection for me beyond measure.

But one thing took deep root in me—the conviction that morality is the basis of things, and that truth is the substance of all morality.

Truth became my sole objective.

It began to grow in magnitude every day, and my definition of it also has been ever widening.

Day in and day out the friend would argue, but I had an eternal negative to face him with.

The more he argued, the more uncompromising I became.

Daily I would pray for God’s protection and get it. Not that I had any idea of God. It was faith that was at work—faith of which the seed had been sown by the good nurse Rambha.

But please give me up as foolish or obstinate. I appreciate your love for me and I know you to be my well-wisher. I also know that you are telling me again and again about this because you feel for me. But I am helpless.

A vow is a vow. It cannot be broken.

”

I sought a third teacher to give me lessons in elocution and paid him a preliminary fee of a guinea. He recommended Bell’s Standard Elocutionist as the textbook, which I purchased. And I began with a speech of Pitt’s.

But Mr. Bell rang the bell of alarm in my ear and I awoke.

I had not to spend a lifetime in England, I said to myself. What then was the use of learning elocution? And how could dancing make a gentleman of me? The violin I could learn even in India.

I stopped taking the sweets and condiments I had got from home. The mind having taken a different turn, the fondness for condiments wore away, and I now relished the boiled spinach which in Richmond tasted insipid, cooked without condiments.

Many such experiments taught me that the real seat of taste was not the tongue but the mind.

The economic consideration was of course constantly before me. There was in those days a body of opinion which regarded tea and coffee as harmful and favoured cocoa.

No matter how explicit the pledge, people will turn and twist the text to suit their own purposes. They are to be met with among all classes of society, from the rich down to the poor, from the prince down to the peasant.

Selfishness turns them blind, and by a use of the ambiguous middle they deceive themselves and seek to deceive the world and God.

One golden rule is to accept the interpretation honestly put on the pledge by the party administering it. Another is to accept the interpretation of the weaker party, where there are two interpretations possible.

The religious aspect of the question was not considered until I went to South Africa where I undertook strenuous experiments which will be narrated later. The seed, however, for all of them was sown in England.

A convert’s enthusiasm for his new religion is greater than that of a person who is born in it.

Vegetarianism was then a new cult in England, and likewise for me, because, as we have seen, I had gone there a convinced meat-eater, and was intellectually converted to vegetarianism later.

And whenever the permission is given the speaker generally exceeds the time-limit, asks for more time, and keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time.

My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler.

It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.

In fact I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my advantage. My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure.

Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words.

I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the certificate that a thoughtless word hardly ever escapes my tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever having had to regret anything in my speech or writing.

I do not recollect ever having had to regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and waste of time.

Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth.

Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word.

He will conclude, as well he may, that his religious study or spiritual discipline was at the back of the state of grace within him. But in the hour of his deliverance he does not know whether his spiritual discipline or something else saves him.

Who that has prided himself on his spiritual strength has not seen it humbled to the dust?

A knowledge of religion, as distinguished from experience, seems but chaff in such moments of trial.

But in the hour of his deliverance he does not know whether his spiritual discipline or something else saves him. Who that has prided himself on his spiritual strength has not seen it humbled to the dust?

A knowledge of religion, as distinguished from experience, seems but chaff in such moments of trial.

It was in England that I first discovered the futility of mere religious knowledge. How I was saved on previous occasions is more than I can say, for I was very young then;

Only richer experience can help me to a fuller understanding. But in all my trials—of a spiritual nature, as a lawyer, in conducting institutions, and in politics—I can say that God saved me.

When every hope is gone, “when helpers fail and comforts flee,” I find that help arrives somehow, from I know not where.

Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal.

But in all my trials—of a spiritual nature, as a lawyer, in conducting institutions, and in politics—I can say that God saved me. When every hope is gone, “when helpers fail and comforts flee,” I find that help arrives somehow, from I know not where.

Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking.

It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal.

it is no lip-homage. It springs from the heart. If, therefore, we achieve that purity of the heart when it is “emptied of all but love,” if we keep all the chords in proper tune, they “trembling pass in music out of sight.”

Prayer needs no speech.

It is in itself independent of any sensuous effort. I have not the slightest doubt that prayer is an unfailing means of cleansing the heart of passions. But it must be combined with the utmost humility.

“Oh, no. I shall come to you. I shall also bring with me a Translation Exercise Book.” So we made an appointment. Soon we were close friends.

Narayan Hemchandra was innocent of grammar. “Horse” was a verb with him and “run” a noun.

I remember many such funny instances. But he was not to be baffled by his ignorance. My little knowledge of grammar could make no impression on him. Certainly he never regarded his ignorance of grammar as a matter for shame.

“You civilized fellows are all cowards.

Great men never look at a person’s exterior. They think of his heart.

”

Narayan Hemchandra went to Paris after a few months’ stay in London. He began studying French and also translating French books. I knew enough French to revise his translation, so he gave it to me to read.

It was not a translation, it was the substance.

Finally he carried out his determination to visit America. It was with great difficulty that he succeeded in securing a deck ticket. While in the United States he was prosecuted for “being indecently dressed,” as he once went out in a shirt and dhoti.

And yet in spite of this regard for him I could not enthrone him in my heart as my Guru.

The throne has remained vacant and my search still continues.

I believe in the Hindu theory of Guru and his importance in spiritual realization. I think there is a great deal of truth in the doctrine that true knowledge is impossible without a Guru.

An imperfect teacher may be tolerable in mundane matters, but not in spiritual matters. Only a perfect jnani deserves to be enthroned as Guru. There must, therefore, be ceaseless striving after perfection.

For one gets the Guru that one deserves.

Infinite striving after perfection is one’s right. It is its own reward. The rest is in the hands of God.

I had not sufficient knowledge to learn much. Often I could not follow the cases and dozed off. There were others also who kept me company in this, and thus lightened my load of shame.

After a time, I even lost the sense of shame, as I learnt to think that it was fashionable to doze in the High Court.

If the present generation has also its briefless barristers like me in Bombay, I would commend them a little practical precept about living. Although I lived in Girgaum I hardly ever took a carriage or a tramcar.

He will gain nothing by proceeding against the sahib, and on the contrary will very likely ruin himself. Tell him he has yet to know life.”

The advice was as bitter as poison to me, but I had to swallow it.

I pocketed the insult, but also profited by it.

“Never again shall I place myself in such a false position, never again shall I try to exploit friendship in this way,” said I to myself, and since then I have never been guilty of a breach of that determination.

This shock changed the course of my life.

The advice was as bitter as poison to me, but I had to swallow it.

I pocketed the insult, but also profited by it.

“Never again shall I place myself in such a false position, never again shall I try to exploit friendship in this way,” said I to myself, and since then I have never been guilty of a breach of that determination.

“You will come to know after you have stayed here a few days,” said he. “

Only we can live in a land like this, because, for making money, we do not mind pocketing insults, and here we are.

” With this he narrated to me the story of the hardships of Indians in South Africa.

“If this be the Christianity acknowledged by all Christians, I cannot accept it.

I do not seek redemption from the consequences of my sin. I seek to be redeemed from sin itself, or rather from the very thought of sin.

Until I have attained that end, I shall be content to be restless.”

When I was making preparation for Dada Abdulla’s case, I had not fully realized this paramount importance of facts.

Facts mean truth, and once we adhere to truth, the law comes to our aid naturally.

I saw that the facts of Dada Abdulla’s case made it very strong indeed, and that the law was bound to be on his side.

But both were happy over the result, and both rose in the public estimation. My joy was boundless. I had learnt the true practice of law. I had learnt to find out the better side of human nature and to enter men’s hearts.

I realized that the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder.

The lesson was so indelibly burnt into me that a large part of my time during the twenty years of my practice as a lawyer was occupied in bringing about private compromises of hundreds of cases.

I saw my limitations. The turban that I had insisted on wearing in the District Magistrate’s Court I took off in obedience to the order of the Supreme Court. Not that, if I had resisted the order, the resistance could not have been justified.

But I wanted to reserve my strength for fighting bigger battles.

I should not exhaust my skill as a fighter in insisting on retaining my turban. It was worthy of a better cause.

I saw in later life that this spirit was an essential part of satyagraha. It has often meant endangering my life and incurring the displeasure of friends.

But truth is hard as adamant and tender as a blossom.

The opposition of the Law Society gave me another advertisement in South Africa. Most of the newspapers condemned the opposition and accused the Law Society of jealousy. The advertisement, to some extent, simplified my work.

Carefully kept accounts are a sine qua non for any organization. Without them it falls into disrepute.

Without properly kept accounts it is impossible to maintain truth in its pristine purity.

Another feature of the Congress was service of Colonial-born educated Indians. The Colonial-born Indian Educational Association was founded under the auspices of the Congress. The members consisted mostly of these educated youths. They had to pay a nominal subscription.

The heart’s earnest and pure desire is always fulfilled.

In my own experience I have often seen this rule verified. Service of the poor has been my heart’s desire, and it has always thrown me amongst the poor and enabled me to identify myself with them.

This was the first case in my experience. I felt humiliated and asked him to tie up his scarf. He did so, not without a certain hesitation, but I could perceive the pleasure on his face.

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow-beings.

Mrs. Walton was a very gentle and talented woman. I liked the attitude of this couple. We knew the fundamental differences between us. Any amount of discussion could not efface them.

Yet even differences prove helpful, where there are tolerance, charity and truth.

I liked Mr. and Mrs. Walton’s humility, perseverance and devotion to work, and we met very frequently.

I tried very hard to make amends to the clerk for the unjustice I had done him. It has, however, been my eternal regret that I could never satisfy him fully.

Howsoever you may repair it, a rift is a rift.

Such service can have no meaning unless one takes pleasure in it. When it is done for show or for fear of public opinion, it stunts the man and crushes his spirit.

Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served.

But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.

Next I met Gokhale. I found him on the Fergusson College grounds. He gave me an affectionate welcome, and his manner immediately won my heart. With him too this was my first meeting, and yet it seemed as though we were renewing an old friendship.

Sir Pherozeshah had seemed to me like the Himalaya, the Lokamanya like the ocean. But Gokhale was as the Ganges.

One could have a refreshing bath in the holy river. The Himalaya was unscalable, and one could not easily launch forth on the sea, but the Ganges invited one to its bosom.

The affection showered on me by most of the friends I met and their enthusiasm for the cause were so great that, in spite of my having to communicate with them in English, I felt myself entirely at home.

What barrier is there that love cannot break?

… a searching cross-examination before he began to sympathize with my cause, and he saw that I had spared neither will nor pains to place before him an impartial statement of the case even of the white man in South Africa and also to appreciate it.

My experience has shown me that we win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.

The unexpected help of Mr. Saunders had begun to encourage me to think that I might succeed after all in holding a public meeting in Calcutta, when I received the following cable from Durban: “Parliament opens January. Return soon.”

The ship cast anchor in the port of Durban on the 18th or 19th of December. The Naderi also reached port the same day.

But the real storm was still to come.

Who can say for certain that I was right both when I faced the crowd in the first instance bravely, as it was said, and when I escaped from it in disguise?

It is idle to adjudicate upon the right and wrong of incidents that have already happened.

It is useful to understand them and, if possible, to learn a lesson from them for the future. It is difficult to say for certain how a particular man would act in a particular set of circumstances.

And now after considerable experience with the many public institutions which I have managed, it has become my firm conviction that it is not good to run public institutions on permanent funds.

A permanent fund carries in itself the seed of the moral fall of the institution.

A public institution means an institution conducted with the approval, and from the funds, of the public. When such an institution ceases to have public support, it forfeits its right to exist.

… been without a sense of self-respect and satisfied myself with having for my children the education that other children could not get, I should have deprived them of the object-lesson in liberty and self-respect that I gave them at the cost of the literary training.

And where a choice has to be made between liberty and learning, who will not say that the former has to be preferred a thousand times to the latter?

The youths whom I called out in 1920 from those citadels of slavery—their schools and colleges—and whom I advised that it was far better to remain unlettered and break stones for the sake of liberty than to go in for a literary education in the …

The “Rebellion” did not occupy me for more than six weeks, but this brief period proved to be a very important epoch in my life. The importance of vows grew upon me more clearly than ever before.

I realized that a vow, far from closing the door to real freedom, opened it.

Up to this time I had not met with success because the will had been lacking, because I had had no faith in myself, no faith in the grace of God, and therefore, my mind had been tossed on the boisterous sea of doubt.

To expect them to find money for the work was out of the question. These experiences taught me, better than ever before, that without infinite patience it was impossible to get the people to do any work.

It is the reformer who is anxious for the reform, and not society, from which he should expect nothing better than opposition, abhorrence and even mortal persecution.

Why may not society regard as retrogression what the reformer holds dear as life itself?

Thus service of the Indians in South Africa ever revealed to me new implications of truth at every stage.

Truth is like a vast tree, which yields more and more fruit, the more you nurture it.

The deeper the search in the mine of truth, the richer the discovery of the gems buried there, in the shape of openings or an ever greater variety of service.

For there were lengthy speeches to every resolution, all in English to boot, and every resolution had some well-known leader to back it.

Mine was but a feeble pipe amongst those veteran drums, and as the night was closing in, my heart beat fast.

The resolutions coming at the fag-end were, so far as I can recollect, rushed through at lightning speed. Everyone was hurrying to go. It was 11 o’clock. I had not the courage to speak. I had already met Gokhale, who had looked at my resolution.

I was distressed to see the Maharajas bedecked like women—silk pyjamas and silk achkans, pearl necklaces round their necks, bracelets on their wrists, pearl and diamond tassels on their turbans and, besides all this, swords with golden hilts hanging from their waistbands.

I discovered that these were insignia not of their royalty, but of their slavery.

I had thought that they must be wearing these badges of impotence of their own free will, but I was told that it was obligatory for these Rajas to wear all their costly jewels at such functions.

I do not know how far my information was correct. But whether they wear them on other occasions or not, it is distressing enough to have to attend viceregal durbars in jewels that only some women wear.

How heavy is the toll of sins and wrongs that wealth, power and prestige exact from man!

To my mind the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body.

I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.

But he who has not qualified himself for such service is unable to afford to it any protection. I must go through more self-purification and sacrifice, before I can hope to save these lambs from this unholy sacrifice.

I hold today the same opinion as I held then.

To my mind the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.

I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body. I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.

It is my constant prayer that there may be born on earth some great spirit, man or woman, fired with divine pity, who will deliver us from this heinous sin, save the lives of the innocent creatures, and purify the temple.

How is it that Bengal with all its knowledge, intelligence, sacrifice, and emotion tolerates this slaughter?

Thus equipped I set forth on my travels. Gokhale and Dr. Ray came to the station to see me off. I had asked them both not to trouble to come, but they insisted. “

I should not have come if you had gone first class, but now I had to

,” said Gokhale.

There may be a little improvement now, but the difference between the facilities provided for the first and the third classes is out of all proportion to the difference between the fares for the two classes.

Third class passengers are treated like sheep and their comforts are sheep’s comforts.

In Europe I travelled third—and only once first, just to see what it was like—but there I noticed no such difference between the first and the third classes.

The approach was through a narrow and slippery lane. Quiet there was none. The swarming flies and the noise made by the shopkeepers and pilgrims were perfectly insufferable.

Where one expected an atmosphere of meditation and communion, it was conspicuous by its absence. One had to seek that atmosphere in oneself.

I did observe devout sisters, who were absorbed in meditation, entirely unconscious of the environment. But for this the authorities of the temple could scarcely claim any credit.

People eager to have my darshan would not permit me to have a darshan of the temple.

The woes of mahatmas are known to mahatmas alone.

Otherwise the dirt and the noise were the same as before.

People eager to have my darshan would not permit me to have a darshan of the temple. The woes of mahatmas are known to mahatmas alone. Otherwise the dirt and the noise were the same as before.

If anyone doubts the infinite mercy of God, let him have a look at these sacred places.

How much hypocrisy and irreligion does the Prince of Yogi suffer to be perpetrated in His holy name? He proclaimed long ago:

Two of them were appeals before the Judicial Assistant to the Political Agent in Kathiawad and one was an original case in Jamnagar. This last was rather important. On my saying that I could not trust myself to do it justice, Kevalram Dave exclaimed: “

Winning or losing is no concern of yours. You will simply try your best, and I am of course there to assist you.

”

How was he to understand the needs, habits, idiosyncrasies and customs of the people? How was one, accustomed to measuring things in gold sovereigns, all at once to make calculations in tiny bits of copper?

As the elephant is powerless to think in the terms of the ant, in spite of the best intentions in the world, even so is the Englishman powerless to think in the terms of, or legislate for, the Indian.

But to resume the thread of the story. In spite of my successes I had been thinking of staying on in Rajkot for some time longer, when one day Kevalram Dave came to me and said: “Gandhi, we will not suffer you to vegetate here.

To my mind it is only on such occasions, that a man’s faith is truly tested. Rightly or wrongly it is part of my religious conviction that man may not eat meat, eggs, and the like.

There should be a limit even to the means of keeping ourselves alive. Even for life itself we may not do certain things.

Religion, as I understand it, does not permit me to use meat or eggs for me or mine even on occasions like this, and I must therefore take the risk that you say is likely. But I beg of you one thing.

He peeped in at my chambers twice or thrice every week, often in company with friends whom he wanted me to know, and he kept me acquainted with his mode of work.

But it may be said that God has never allowed any of my own plans to stand. He has disposed them in His own way.

Just when I seemed to be settling down as I had intended, I received an unexpected cable from South Africa: “Chamberlain expected here. Please return immediately.”

The separation from wife and children, the breaking up of a settled establishment, and the going from the certain to the uncertain—all this was for a moment painful, but I had inured myself to an uncertain life.

I think it is wrong to expect certainties in this world, where all else but God that is Truth is an uncertainty.

All that appears and happens about and around us is uncertain, transient. But there is a Supreme Being hidden therein as a Certainty, and one would be blessed if one would catch a glimpse of that certainty and hitch one’s wagon to it.

All that appears and happens about and around us is uncertain, transient. But there is a Supreme Being hidden therein as a Certainty, and one would be blessed if one would catch a glimpse of that certainty and hitch one’s wagon to it.

The quest for that Truth is the summum bonum of life.

I reached Durban not a day too soon. There was work waiting for me. The date for the deputation to wait on Mr. Chamberlain had been fixed. I had to draft the memorial to be submitted to him and accompany the deputation.

As a matter of fact there was nothing wrong about Mr. Chamberlain’s reply. It was well that he did not mince matters. He had brought home to us in a rather gentle way the rule of might being right or the law of the sword.

But sword we had none. We scarcely had the nerve and the muscle even to receive sword-cuts.

Mr. Chamberlain had given only a short time to the subcontinent. If Shrinagar to Cape Comorin is 1,900 miles, Durban to Capetown is not less than 1,100 miles, and Mr. Chamberlain had to cover the long distance at hurricane speed.

He died before he could start for South Africa. His sons had been brought up in the old atmosphere and could not change their course of life. I could not draw them to me. It was not their fault. “

Who can say thus far, no further, to the tide of his own nature?

” Who can erase the impressions with which he is born? It is idle to expect one’s children and wards necessarily to follow the same course of evolution as oneself.

“Who can say thus far, no further, to the tide of his own nature?” Who can erase the impressions with which he is born? It is idle to expect one’s children and wards necessarily to follow the same course of evolution as oneself.

This instance to some extent serves to show what a terrible responsibility it is to be a parent.

Man and his deed are two distinct things. Whereas a good deed should call forth approbation and a wicked deed disapprobation, the doer of the deed, whether good or wicked, always deserves respect or pity as the case may be.

“Hate the sin and not the sinner” is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practised, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.

This ahimsa is the basis of the search for truth. I am realizing every day that the search is vain unless it is founded on ahimsa as the basis.

This ahimsa is the basis of the search for truth. I am realizing every day that the search is vain unless it is founded on ahimsa as the basis.

It is quite proper to resist and attack a system, but to resist and attack its author is tantamount to resisting and attacking oneself.

For we are all tarred with the same brush, and are children of one and the same Creator, and as such the divine powers within us are infinite.

For we are all tarred with the same brush, and are children of one and the same Creator, and as such the divine powers within us are infinite.

To slight a single human being is to slight those divine powers, and thus to harm not only that being but with him the whole world.

Even today I can recall the picture of her chiding me, her eyes red with anger, and pearl drops streaming down her cheeks, as she descended the ladder, pot in hand.

But I was a cruelly kind husband.

I regarded myself as her teacher, and so harrassed her out of my blind love for her.

I put on a brave face, but was really ashamed and shut the gate. If my wife could not leave me, neither could I leave her. We have had numerous bickerings, but the end has always been peace between us.

The wife, with her matchless powers of endurance, has always been the victor.

Today I am in a position to narrate the incident with some detachment, as it belongs to a period out of which I have fortunately emerged. I am no longer a blind, infatuated husband, I am no more my wife’s teacher.

But so long as there is no prohibition from the voice within, I must continue the writing. I must follow the sage maxim that nothing once begun should be abandoned unless it is proved to be morally wrong.

I am not writing the autobiography to please critics. Writing it is itself one of the experiments with truth.

One of its objects is certainly to provide some comfort and food for reflection for my coworkers. Indeed I started writing it in compliance with their wishes. It might not have been written, if Jairamdas and Swami Anand had not persisted in their suggestion.

She had once an occasion to take £40 from me, but she insisted on having it as a loan, and repaid the full amount last year. Her courage was equal to her sacrifice.

She is one of the few women I have been privileged to come across, with a character as clear as crystal and courage that would shame a warrior.

She is a grown-up woman now. I do not know her mind quite as well as when she was with me, but my contact with this young lady will ever be for me a sacred recollection.

It was as though the community thought audibly through this correspondence with me. It made me thoroughly understand the responsibility of a journalist, and the hold I secured in this way over the community made the future campaign workable, dignified and irresistible.

In the very first month of Indian Opinion, I realized that the sole aim of journalism should be service.

The newspaper press is a great power, but just as an unchained torrent of water submerges whole countrysides and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves but to destroy. If the control is from without, it proves more poisonous than want of control.

In the very first month of Indian Opinion, I realized that the sole aim of journalism should be service.

The newspaper press is a great power, but just as an unchained torrent of water submerges whole countrysides and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves but to destroy.

If the control is from without, it proves more poisonous than want of control. It can be profitable only when exercised from within. If this line of reasoning is correct, how many of the journals in the world would stand the test?

Dr. William Godfrey, who was practising in Johannesburg, ran to the rescue as soon as he got the news, and became both nurse and doctor to the patients. But twenty-three patients were more than three of us could cope with.

It is my faith, based on experience, that if one’s heart is pure, calamity brings in its train men and measures to fight it.

I had at that time four Indians in my office—Sjts. Kalyandas, Maneklal, Gunvantrai Desai and another whose name I cannot recollect. Kalyandas had been entrusted to me by his father.

I now realize that a public worker should not make statements of which he has not made sure. Above all, a votary of truth must exercise the greatest caution.

To allow a man to believe a thing which one has not fully verified is to compromise truth.

I am pained to have to confess that, in spite of this knowledge, I have not quite conquered my credulous habit, for which my ambition to do more work than I can manage is responsible.

I believe that I discovered some of my deepest convictions reflected in this great book of Ruskin, and that is why it so captured me and made me transform my life.

A poet is one who can call forth the good latent in the human breast.

Poets do not influence all alike, for everyone is not evolved in an equal measure.

The reference here, therefore, to these experiments is not meant to demonstrate their success. I cannot claim complete success for any experiment. Even medical men can make no such claim for their experiments.

My object is only to show that he who would go in for novel experiments must begin with himself. That leads to a quicker discovery of truth, and God always protects the honest experimenter.

The risks involved in experiments in cultivating intimate contacts with Europeans were as grave as those in the nature cure experiments. Only those risks were of a different kind. But in cultivating those contacts I never so much as thought of the risks.

And let it be remembered that mine would be considered an essentially heterogeneous family, where people of all kinds and temperaments were freely admitted. When we come to think of it, the distinction between heterogeneous and homogeneous is discovered to be merely imaginary.

We are all one family.

I had better celebrate West’s wedding also in this chapter. At this stage of my life, my ideas about brahmacharya had not fully matured, and so I was interesting myself in getting all my bachelor friends married.

She came of a family of shoemakers working in a Leicester factory. Mrs. West had herself some experience of work in this factory. I have called her beautiful, because it was her moral beauty that at once attracted me.

True beauty after all consists in purity of heart.

With Mr. West had come his mother-in-law too. The old lady is still alive. She put us all to shame by her industry and her buoyant, cheerful nature.

… me that I should have more and more occasions for service of the kind I was rendering, and that I should find myself unequal to my task if I were engaged in the pleasures of family life and in the propagation and rearing of children.

In a word, I could not live both after the flesh and the spirit.

On the present occasion, for instance, I should not have been able to throw myself into the fray, had my wife been expecting a baby. Without the observance of brahmacharya, service of the family would be inconsistent with service of the community.

The difficulties are even today staring me in the face. The importance of the vow is being more and more borne in upon me. Life without brahmacharya appears to me to be insipid and animal-like. The brute by nature knows no self-restraint.

Man is man because he is capable of, and only in so far as he exercises, self-restraint.

What formerly appeared to me to be extravagant praise of brahmacharya in our religious books seems now, with increasing clearness every day, to be absolutely proper and founded on experience.

We are not ashamed to sacrifice a multitude of other lives in decorating the perishable body and trying to prolong its existence for a few fleeting moments, with the result that we kill ourselves, both body and soul.

In trying to cure one old disease, we give rise to a hundred new ones; in trying to enjoy the pleasures of sense, we lose in the end even our capacity for enjoyment.

All this is passing before our very eyes, but there are none so blind as those who will not see.

She was really too weak to be consulted in this matter. But I thought it my painful duty to do so. I told her what had passed between the doctor and myself. She gave a resolute reply: “I will not take beef tea.

It is a rare thing in this world to be born as a human being, and I would far rather die in your arms than pollute my body with such abominations.

”

Ultimately these restrictions were modified, though not without much difficulty, but both were wholesome rules of self-restraint.

Inhibitions imposed from without rarely succeed, but when they are self-imposed, they have a decidedly salutary effect.

So, immediately after release from jail, I imposed on myself the two rules. As far as was then possible, I stopped taking tea, and finished my last meal before sunset. Both these now require no effort in the observance.

I must here utter a warning for the aspirants of brahmacharya. Though I have made out an intimate connection between diet and brahmacharya, it is certain that mind is the principal thing.

A mind consciously unclean cannot be cleansed by fasting.

Modifications in diet have no effect on it. The concupiscence of the mind cannot be rooted out except by intense self-examination, surrender to God, and lastly, grace.

Of textbooks, about which we hear so much, I never felt the want. I do not even remember having made much use of the books that were available. I did not find it at all necessary to load the boys with quantities of books.

I have always felt that the true textbook for the pupil is his teacher.

I remember very little that my teachers taught me from books, but I have even now a clear recollection of the things they taught me independently of books.

I have always felt that the true textbook for the pupil is his teacher. I remember very little that my teachers taught me from books, but I have even now a clear recollection of the things they taught me independently of books.

Children take in much more and with less labour through their ears than through their eyes.

I do not remember having read any book from cover to cover with my boys.

It is possible for a teacher situated miles away to affect the spirit of the pupils by his way of living.

It would be idle for me, if I were a liar, to teach boys to tell the truth.

A cowardly teacher would never succeed in making his boys valiant, and a stranger to self-restraint could never teach his pupils the value of self-restraint. I saw, therefore, that I must be an eternal object-lesson to the boys and girls living with me.

It is possible for a teacher situated miles away to affect the spirit of the pupils by his way of living. It would be idle for me, if I were a liar, to teach boys to tell the truth.

A cowardly teacher would never succeed in making his boys valiant, and a stranger to self-restraint could never teach his pupils the value of self-restraint.

I saw, therefore, that I must be an eternal object-lesson to the boys and girls living with me. They thus became my teachers, and I learnt I must be good and live straight, if only for their sakes.

This and similar experiments have shown me that, if good children are taught together with bad ones and thrown into their company, they will lose nothing, provided the experiment is conducted under the watchful care of their parents and guardians.

Children wrapped up in cottonwool are not always proof against all temptation or contamination.

It is true, however, that when boys and girls of all kinds of upbringing are kept and taught together, the parents and the teachers are put to the severest test. They have constantly to be on the alert.

Every day we had to learn something new in this way, for both of us were trying to tread the path of Truth.

In the march towards Truth, anger, selfishness, hatred, etc., naturally give way, for otherwise Truth would be impossible to attain.

A man who is swayed by passions may have good enough intentions, may be truthful in word, but he will never find the Truth. A successful search for Truth means complete deliverance from the dual throng such as of love and hate, happiness and misery.

It was then that I learned that a man emerging from a long fast should not be in a hurry to regain lost strength, and should also put a curb on his appetite.

More caution and perhaps more restraint are necessary in breaking a fast than in keeping it.

In Madeira we heard that the great War might break out at any moment. As we entered the English Channel, we received the news of its actual outbreak. We were stopped for some time.

The opposing friends felt that that was the hour for making a bold declaration of Indian demands and for improving the status of Indians.

I thought that England’s need should not be turned into our opportunity, and that it was more becoming and farsighted not to press our demands while the war lasted.

I therefore adhered to my advice and invited those who would to enlist as volunteers. There was a good response, practically all the provinces and all the religions being represented among the volunteers.

It was quite clear to me that participation in war could never be consistent with ahimsa. But it is not always given to one to be equally clear about one’s duty.

A votary of truth is often obliged to grope in the dark.

Ahimsa is a comprehensive principle. We are helpless mortals caught in the conflagration of himsa. The saying that life lives on life has a deep meaning in it. Man cannot for a moment live without consciously or unconsciously committing outward himsa.

Ahimsa is a comprehensive principle.

We are helpless mortals caught in the conflagration of himsa.

The saying that life lives on life has a deep meaning in it. Man cannot for a moment live without consciously or unconsciously committing outward himsa.

“

What else but grief can you hope to come to after having cast in your lot with me?

” said I. “A Satyagrahi is born to be deceived. Let the Commanding Officer deceive us. Have I not told you times without number that ultimately a deceiver only deceives himself?”

“What else but grief can you hope to come to after having cast in your lot with me?” said I. “

A Satyagrahi is born to be deceived.

Let the Commanding Officer deceive us. Have I not told you times without number that ultimately a deceiver only deceives himself?”

He was a little embarrassed. I had been in the case from the very first. The client fully trusted me, and knew me through and through. He said: “Well, then, you will argue the case and admit the error.

Let us lose, if that is to be our lot. God defends the right.

”

I am prepared to meet both. I propose that you should offer to pay the penalty they fix, and the odds are that they will be agreeable. But if they are not, you must be prepared to go to jail.

I am of opinion that the shame lies not so much in going to jail as in committing the offence.

The deed of shame has already been done. Imprisonment you should regard as a penance. The real penance lies in resolving never to smuggle again.”

This, I know, does not become a votary of truth. Not that my wife was eager to use the bathroom, but a husband’s partiality for his wife got the better of his partiality for truth.

The face of truth is hidden behind the golden veil of maya, says the Upanishad.

It is true that I did not officially become a member of the Society, but I have ever been a member in spirit.

Spiritual relationship is far more precious than physical. Physical relationship divorced from spiritual is body without soul.

I liked the name “Sevashram” but for the absence of emphasis on the method of service. “Tapovan” seemed to be a pretentious title, because though tapas was dear to us we could not presume to be tapasvins (men of austerity).

Our creed was devotion to truth, and our business was the search for and insistence on truth.

I wanted to acquaint India with the method I had tried in South Africa, and I desired to test in India the extent to which its application might be possible.

If the acts of an aspirant after moksha or a servant have no humility or selflessness about them, there is no longing for moksha or service.

Service without humility is selfishness and egotism.

There were at this time about thirteen Tamilians in our party. Five Tamil youngsters had accompanied me from South Africa, and the rest came from different parts of the country. We were in all about twenty-five men and women.

They did not tire of worrying me neither did I tire of gently replying to them. This at last mollified them. Some of them asked me my name and, when I gave it they felt ashamed. They apologized and made room for me.

Patience was thus rewarded.

I was dead tired, and my head was reeling. God sent help just when it was most needed.

“Having studied these cases,” said I, “I have come to the conclusion that we should stop going to law courts. Taking such cases to the courts does little good.

Where the ryots are so crushed and fear-stricken, law courts are useless. The real relief for them is to be free from fear.

We cannot sit still until we have driven tinkathia out of Bihar. I had thought that I should be able to leave here in two days, but I now realize that the work might take even two years.

In consultation with my coworkers I had decided that nothing should be done in the name of the Congress.

What we wanted was work and not name, substance and not shadow.

For the name of the Congress was the bête noire of the Government and their controllers—the planters. To them the Congress was a byword for lawyers’ wrangles, evasion of law through legal loopholes, a byword for bombs and anarchical crime and for diplomacy and hypocrisy.

Rajkumar Shukla was incapable of reaching the thousands of peasants. No political work had yet been done amongst them. The world outside Champaran was not known to them. And yet they received me as though we had been age-long friends.

It is no exaggeration, but the literal truth, to say that in this meeting with the peasants I was face to face with God, Ahimsa and Truth.

When I come to examine my title to this realization, I find nothing but my love for the people. And this in turn is nothing but an expression of my unshakable faith in ahimsa.

That day in Champaran was an unforgettable event in my life and a red-letter day for the peasants and for me.

According to the law, I was to be on my trial, but truly speaking Government was to be on its trial.

The Commissioner only succeeded in trapping Government in the net which he had spread for me.

I had seen that, even where the end might be political, but where the cause was nonpolitical, one damaged it by giving it a political aspect and helped it by keeping it within its nonpolitical limit.

The Champaran struggle was a proof of the fact that disinterested service of the people in any sphere ultimately helps the country politically.

From where to get the teachers was a great problem. It was difficult to find local teachers who would work for a bare allowance or without remuneration. My idea was never to entrust children to commonplace teachers.

Their literary qualification was not so essential as their moral fibre.

So I issued a public appeal for voluntary teachers. It received ready response. Sjt. Gangadharrao Deshpande sent Babasaheb Soman and Pundalik. Shrimati Avantikabai Gokhale came from Bombay and Mrs. Anandibai Vaishampayan from Poona. I sent to the Ashram for Chhotalal, Surendranath and my son Devdas.

This cottage was not an exception, but a type to be found in many Indian villages.

In countless cottages in India people live without any furniture, and without a change of clothes, merely with a rag to cover their shame.

One more experience I will note. In Champaran there is no lack of bamboo and grass. The school hut they had put up at Bhitiharva was made of these materials. Someone—possibly some of the neighbouring planters’ men—set fire to it one night.

I have no other language to express the fact of the matter, to describe this uniform experience of mine.

Human language can but imperfectly describe God’s ways.

I am sensible of the fact that they are indescribable and inscrutable. But if mortal man will dare to describe them, he has no better medium than his own inarticulate speech.

They were ready to pour forth their riches for the success of the cause. It was not easy for them to see that satyagraha could not be conducted simply by means of money.

Money is the thing that it least needs.

In spite of my remonstrance, the Bombay merchants sent us more money than necessary, so that we had some balance left at the end of the campaign.

And yet if they resorted to incivility it would spoil their satyagraha, like a drop of arsenic in milk. I realized later that they had less fully learnt the lesson of civility than I had expected.

Experience has taught me that civility is the most difficult part of satyagraha.

Civility does not here mean the mere outward gentleness of speech cultivated for the occasion, but an inborn gentleness and desire to do the opponent good. These should show themselves in every act of a satyagrahi.

It was impossible for the Government to leave them free. The arrest of Sjt. Mohanlal and his companions added to the people’s enthusiasm.

When the fear of jail disappears, repression puts heart into the people.

Crowds of them besieged the courthouse on the day of the hearing. Pandya and his companions were convicted and sentenced to a brief term of imprisonment.

I was sad that they had not the strength to exercise the right. Although, therefore, the termination was celebrated as a triumph of satyagraha, I could not enthuse over it, as it lacked the essentials of a complete triumph.

The end of a satyagraha campaign can be described as worthy, only when it leaves the satyagrahis stronger and more spirited than they are in the beginning.

The campaign was not, however, without its indirect results which we can see today and the benefit of which we are reaping. The Kheda Satyagraha marks the beginning of an awakening among the peasants of Gujarat, the beginning of their true political education.

It was not for me to enter into the absolute merits of the question, provided there was nothing immoral in their demands.

In matters of religion beliefs differ, and each one’s is supreme for himself. If all had the same belief about all matters of religion, there would be only one religion in the world.

As time progressed I found that the Muslim demand about the Khilafat was not only not against any ethical principle but that the British Prime Minister had admitted the justice of the Muslim demand.

The congratulations and the discovery that I was the first to speak in Hindustani at a Viceregal meeting hurt my national pride. I felt like shrinking into myself.

What a tragedy that the language of the country should be taboo in meetings held in the country, for work relating to the country, and that a speech there in Hindustani by a stray individual like myself should be a matter for congratulation!

Incidents like these are reminders of the low state to which we have been reduced.

I was incapable of reading. I was hardly inclined to talk. The slightest talk meant a strain on the brain.

All interest in living had ceased, as I have never liked to live for the sake of living.

It was such an agony to live on in that helpless state, doing nothing, receiving the service of friends and coworkers, and watching the body slowly wearing away.

Nor could it be right for me to use milk at all, so long as I held that milk is not the natural diet of man. Yet knowing all this I agreed to take goat’s milk.

The will to live proved stronger than the devotion to truth, and for once the votary of truth compromised his sacred ideal by his eagerness to take up the satyagraha fight.

The memory of this action even now rankles in my breast and fills me with remorse, and I am constantly thinking how to give up goat’s milk.

For the moment it seemed to me as if the Viceroy could not but be deeply moved by it, it was so true and so full of feeling.

But you can wake a man only if he is really asleep; no effort that you may make will produce any effect upon him if he is merely pretending sleep.

That was precisely the Government’s position. It was anxious only to go through the farce of legal formality. Its decision had already been made. Shastriji’s solemn warning was, therefore, entirely lost upon the Government.

The people thus had only a short notice of the hartal. As the work had to be started at once, it was hardly possible to give longer notice.

But who knows how it all came about? The whole of India from one end to the other, towns as well as villages, observed a complete hartal on that day.

It was a most wonderful spectacle.

“It is there that I join issue with you,” I replied.

“The people are not by nature violent but peaceful.”

And thus we argued at length. Ultimately Mr. Griffith said, “But suppose you were convinced that your teaching had been lost on the people, what would you do?”

The meeting was held on the Chaupati sands. I spoke at length on the duty of nonviolence and on the limitations of satyagraha, and said: “

Satyagraha is essentially a weapon of the truthful.

A satyagrahi is pledged to nonviolence, and, unless people observe it in thought, word and deed, I cannot offer mass satyagraha.”

A large number of Punjabis used to come and see me whenever I was in Bombay. I ministered to them a word of cheer on these occasions, and that would comfort them.

My self-confidence of that time was infectious.

But my going to the Punjab had to be postponed again and again. The Viceroy would say, “not yet,” every time I asked for permission to go there, and so the thing dragged on.

I once more telegraphed to the Viceroy asking whether I could now go to the Punjab. He wired back in reply that I could go there after a certain date. I cannot exactly recollect now, but I think it was 17th of October.

The scene that I witnessed on my arrival at Lahore can never be effaced from my memory.

The railway station was from end to end one seething mass of humanity. The entire populace had turned out of doors in eager expectation, as if to meet a dear relation after a long separation, and was delirious with joy.

Here, on the contrary, I was faced with a critical, if not hostile, audience, to whom I had to explain and bring home my viewpoint. But I had cast aside all shyness.

I was not there to deliver an address in the faultless, polished Urdu of the Delhi Muslims, but to place before the gathering my views in such broken Hindi as I could command.

And in this I was successful. This meeting afforded me a direct proof of the fact that Hindi–Urdu alone could become the lingua franca of India.

As the Maulana was delivering his speech, it seemed to me that it was vain for him to talk about effective resistance to a Government with which he was cooperating in more than one thing.

If resort to arms was impossible or undesirable, the only true resistance to the Government, it therefore seemed to me, was to cease to cooperate with it.

Thus I arrived at the word noncooperation. I had not then a clear idea of all its manifold implications. I therefore did not enter into details. I simply said: