________________
130
JAINISM AND WORLD PROBLEMS
the bad both, I am sure our dislike of the Bureaucrats does not justify our destroying ourselves immediately in a mad attempt to be rid of them.
As for the idea of the soul-force of which one hears so much now-a-days in connection with the non-cooperation movement, that unfortunately is not a marketable commodity so that you cannot go and invest your two-anna bit in its purchase at your grocer's. Those who talk of it should know that in the days gone by there were many more Yogis and Mahatmas in India than there are to-day, and yet rio soul-force was able to keep out the hated idol-breaker of Ghazni from the Hindu domains or to prevent the subsequent Musalman hordes from seitling down in India to the complete chagrin, annoyance and disgust of every Hindu and the utter sacrilege of everything pertaining to his Dharma. And it was a case of combined failure on the part of Hindu and Muslim soul-force when the cow-and-porkeating feringhee was suffered to implant his foot in the land. In the face of these facts it is idle to talk of soul.force as a political weapon, and we hope we shall not hear of it any inore. I shall have something to say about the real soul. force later on when I come to deal with the true, i.e., the constructive side of the programme of non-cooperation ; for the present I shall look into the picture that India will present if this infant prodigy–Swaraj-is ushered in our midst in nine months. I do not think many words are needed to describe the situation ; the departure of the English will simply mean the departure of all order, organization and control from the land, with ourselves just lying idle in our non-cooperation beds or addressing monster crowds of gaping rustics on the virtues of the movement. The goodness of “Mr. Tommy" may not allow him to help himself to the property of the non-cooperator when he is departing from the Indian shores, but quite apart from the uncertain doings of “ Tommy Atkins" there will have been let loose in the land
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org