[IMC-Editorial] [India Thinkers Net] The Mischievous advertisement .

[India Thinkers Net at Zinester.com]

Mischievous advertisement issued by the 
Department of Information and Broadcasting, 
Government of India, on Gandhi Jayanti day 
(2-10-2003).

Date: 4th Oct 2003

We were horrified to see the advertisement issued 
by the Department of Information and 
Broadcasting, Government of India, on Gandhi 
Jayanti, quoting Gandhi on the need to take up 
arms rather than suffer dishonour. The 
mischievous intent of the advertisement is 
obvious. Given its preoccupation with reinventing 
histories to suit its agendas, and the discomfort 
of living with the internationally-famed Gandhian 
legacy of non-violence, it is no surprise that 
the present government would choose to select a 
line from Gandhis writings, totally removed from 
its context, to prove that even the great Apostle 
of Peace endorsed violence in the name of 
nationalism.
The quote used in the advertisement is a line 
from Gandhis article in Young India dated 11 
August 1920, titled The Doctrine of the Sword. 
The article was written by Gandhi in the wake of 
country-wide violence following the passing of 
the Rowlatt Bills and the Jallianwallah Baug 
massacre in 1919, and centred on the call for 
non-cooperation from 1st August 1920. It sought 
to explain his concept of non-violent 
non-cooperation, and the spirit of non-violence 
itself. The article, unlike its misrepresentation 
by the line used in the advertisement, is devoted 
to the real possibility of non-violence as a 
political strategy, and its moral significance. 
The opening sentence of the article reads: In 
this age of the rule of brute force, it is almost 
impossible for anyone to believe that anyone else 
could possibly reject the law of the final 
supremacy of brute force.Gandhi goes on to 
explain how violence can be resorted to where 
there is only a choice between cowardice and 
violence. However, the real intent of the article 
is made clear in the sections following the line 
quoted in the advertisement issued by the 
Government on Gandhi Jayanti: But I believe that 
non-violence is infinitely superior to violence. 
Gandhi goes on to explain how violence is 
resorted to by the helpless, whereas the people 
of India should not see themselves as being 
helpless. The advertisement could just as well 
have quoted his other famous lines in this 
article: I am not a visionary. I claim to be a 
practical idealist. The religion of non-violence 
is not meant merely for the rishis and saints. It 
is meant for the common people as well. 
Non-violence is the law of our species as 
violence is the law of the brute. The spirit lies 
dormant in the brute and he knows no law but that 
of physical might. The dignity of man requires 
obedience to a higher law to the strength of the 
spirit; or: I am not pleading for India to 
practise non-violence because it is weak. I want 
her to practise non-violence being conscious of 
her strength and power. No training in arms is 
required for realization of her strength. We seem 
to need it because we seem to think that we are 
but a lump of flesh. I want India to recognize 
that she has a soul that cannot perish and that 
can rise triumphant above every physical weakness 
and defy the physical combination of whole world.
Perhaps the most apt quotation that could have 
been used to honour Gandhi in these 
conflict-ridden times would have been one of the 
closing lines from the same article: Indias 
acceptance of the doctrine of the sword will be 
the hour of my trial.More than eighty years 
later, this is precisely what is coming about: we 
seem to be accepting the doctrine of the sword, 
subverting Gandhis ideals to legitimate an agenda 
of violence. That this is now being done even 
through an official agency of the Government like 
the Department of I & B, is a shame and a 
tragedy. Gandhi could only have grieved if he 
were alive today.

Human Right Activists
Rohit Prajapati Nandini Manjrekar
Anand Mazgaonkar Johannes Manjrekar
Trupti Shah Deeptha Achar
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Young India, 11-8-1920
VOL. 21 : 1 JULY, 1920 - 21 NOVEMBER, 1920

In this age of the rule of brute force, it is 
almost impossible for anyone to believe that 
anyone else could possibly reject the law of the 
final supremacy of brute force. And so I receive 
anonymous letters advising me that I must not 
interfere with the progress of non-co-operation 
even though popular violence may break out. 
Others come to me and assuming that secretly I 
must be plotting violence, inquire when the happy 
moment for declaring open violence will arrive. 
They assure me that the English will never yield 
to anything but violence secret or open. Yet 
others, I am informed, believe that I am the most 
rascally person living in India because I never 
give out my real intention and that they have not 
a shadow of a doubt that I believe in violence 
just as much as most people do.
Such being the hold that the doctrine of the 
sword has on the majority of mankind, and as 
success of non-co-operation depends principally 
on absence of violence during its pendency and as 
my views in this matter affect the conduct of a 
large number of people, I am anxious to state 
them as clearly as possible.
I do believe that where there is only a choice 
between cowardice and violence I would advise 
violence. Thus when my eldest son asked me what 
he should have done, had he been resent when I 
was almost fatally assaulted in 1908,1 whether he 
should have run away and seen me killed or 
whether he should have used his physical force 
which he could and wanted to use, and defended 
me, I told him that it was his duty to defend me 
even by using violence. Hence it was that I took 
part in the Boer War, the so-called Zulu 
rebellion and the late War. Hence also do I 
advocate training in arms for those who believe 
in the method of violence. I would rather have 
India resort to arms in order to defend her 
honour than that she should in a cowardly manner 
become or remain a helpless witness to her own 
dishonour.
But I believe that non-violence is infinitely 
superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly 
than punishment. Forgiveness adorns a soldier. 
But abstinence is forgiveness only when proceed 
from a helpless creature. A mouse hardly forgives 
a cat when it allows itself to be torn to pieces 
by her. I, therefore, appreciate the sentiment of 
those who cry out for the condign punishment of 
General Dyer and his like. They would tear him to 
pieces if they could. But I do not believe India 
to be helpless. I do not believe myself to be a 
helpless creature. Only I want to use Indias and 
my strength for a better purpose.
Let me not be misunderstood. Strength does not 
come from physical capacity. It comes from an 
indomitable will. An average Zulu is any way more 
than a match for an average Englishman in bodily 
capacity. But he flees from an English boy, 
because he fears the boys revolver or those who 
will use it for him. He fears death and is 
nerveless in spite of his burly figure. We in 
India may in a moment realize that one hundred 
thousand Englishmen need not frighten three 
hundred million human beings. A definite 
forgiveness would therefore mean a definite 
recognition of our strength. With enlightened 
forgiveness must come a mighty wave of strength 
in us, which would make it impossible for a Dyer 
and a Frank Johnson to heap affront upon Indias 
devoted head. It matters little to me that for 
the moment I do not drive my point home. We feel 
too downtrodden not to be angry and revengeful. 
But I must not refrain from saying that India can 
gain more by waiving the right of punishment. We 
have better work to do, a better mission to 
deliver to the world.
I am not a visionary. I claim to be a practical 
idealist. The religion of non-violence is not 
meant merely for the rishis and saints. It is 
meant for the common people as well. Non-violence 
is the law of our species as violence is the law 
of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the 
brute and he knows no law but that of physical 
might. The dignity of man requires obedience to a 
higher law to the strength of the spirit.
I have therefore ventured to place before India 
the ancient law of self-sacrifice. For satyagraha 
and its off-shoots, non-co-operation and civil 
resistance, are nothing but new names for the law 
of suffering. The rishis, who discovered the law 
of non-violence in the midst of violence, were 
greater geniuses than Newton. They were 
themselves greater warriors than Wellington. 
Having themselves known the use of arms, they 
realized their uselessness and taught a weary 
world that its salvation lay not through violence 
but through non-violence.
Non-violence in its dynamic condition eans 
conscious suffering. It does not mean meek 
submission to the will of the evildoer, but it 
means the putting of ones soul against the will 
of the tyrant. Working under this law of our 
being, it is possible for a single individual to 
defy the whole might of an unjust empire to save 
his honour, his religion, his soul and lay the 
foundation for that empires fall or its 
regeneration.
And so I am not pleading for India to practise 
non-violence because it is weak. I want her to 
practise non-violence being conscious of her 
strength and power. No training in arms is 
required for realization of her strength. We seem 
to need it because we seem to think that we are 
but a lump of flesh. I want India to recognize 
that she has a soul that cannot perish and that 
can rise triumphant above every physical weak- 
ness and defy the physical combination of whole 
world. What is the meaning of Rama, a mere human 
being, with his host of monkeys, pitting himself 
against the insolent strength of ten-headed 
Ravana surrounded in supposed safety by the 
raging waters on all sides of Lanka? Does it not 
mean the conquest of physical might by spiritual 
strength? However, being a practical man, I do 
not wait till India recognizes the practicability 
of the spiritual life in the political world. 
India considers herself to be powerless and 
paralysed before the machineguns, the tanks and 
the aeroplanes of the English. And she takes up 
non-co-operation out of her weakness. It must 
still serve the same purpose, namely, bring her 
delivery from the crushing weight of British 
injustice if a sufficient number of people 
practise it.
I isolate this non-co-operation from Sinn 
Feinism, for, it is so conceived as to be 
incapable of being offered side by side with 
violence. But I invite even the school of 
violence to give this peaceful non-co-operation a 
trial. It will not fail through its inherent 
weakness. It may fail because of poverty of 
response. Then will be the time for real danger. 
The high-souled men, who are unable to suffer 
national humiliation any longer, will want to 
vent their wrath. They will take to violence. So 
far as I know, they must perish without 
delivering themselves or their country from the 
wrong. If India takes up the doctrine of the 
sword, she may gain momentary victory. Then India 
will cease to be pride of my heart. I am wedded 
to India because I owe my all to her. I believe 
absolutely that she has a mission for the world. 
She is not to copy Europe blindly. Indias 
acceptance of the doctrine of the sword will be 
the hour of my trial. I hope I shall not be found 
wanting. My religion has no geographical Limits. 
If I have a living faith in it, it will transcend 
my love for India herself. My life is dedicated 
to service of India through the religion of 
non-violence which I believe to be the root of 
Hinduism.
Meanwhile I urge those who distrust me, not to 
disturb the even working of the struggle that has 
just commenced, by inciting to violence in the 
belief that I want violence. I detest secrecy as 
a sin. Let them give non-violent non-co-operation 
a trial and they will find that I had no mental 
reservation whatsoever.

Rohit Prajapati / Trupti Shah
37, Patrakar Colony, Tandalja Road,
Post-Akota, Vadodara - 390 020
GUJARAT, INDIA

-----------------------------------------------------------
Courtesy:Harsh Kapoor/SACW


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