Religion Practice and Science of Non Violence

Author(s): O P Jaggi
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt Ltd

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Religion, Practice and Science of Non-Violence
right to appeal.' This act also provided powers to arrest and confine persons suspected of acts threatening public safety; and with powers to demand suspected persons to furnish security, to reside in a particular place, or to abstain from any specified act.
According to the Indian masses and leaders, such a Bill was ‘unjust, subversive of the principles of liberty and justice, destructive of the elementary rights of an individual on which the safety of India as a whole and of the State itself was based.' Furthermore, the Bill appeared to be a denial of the promises made by British statesmen during the First World War and confirmed the suspicion that Britain intended to deprive India's progress to independence.
Gandhi appealed to the Viceroy to withhold his assent. He also informed him that in case the Bill became law, no other course was open to him but to lead a mass satyagraha against it. The Viceroy and the government, however, showed no disinclination in proceeding further with the Bill.
Of this situation Gandhi wrote later in the following words: “We daily discussed together plans of the fight, but beyond the holding of public meetings, I could not then think of any other programme. I felt myself at a loss to discover how to offer civil disobedience against the Rowlatt Bill if it was finally passed into law. One could disobey it only if the Government gave one the opportunity for it. Failing that, could we civilly disobey other laws? And if so, where was the line to be drawn?
“... While these cogitations were still going on, news was received that the Rowlatt Bill had been published as an Act. That night I fell asleep while thinking over the question. Towards the small hours of the morning I woke up somewhat earlier than usual. I was still in that twilight condition between sleep and consciousness when suddenly the idea broke upon me- it was as if in a dream. Early in the morning I related the whole story to Rajagopalachari: “The idea came to me last night in a dream that we should call upon the country to observe a general hartal. Satyagraha is a process of selfpurification, and ours is a sacred fight, and it seems to me to be in the fitness of things that it should be commenced with an act of self-purification. Let all the people of India, therefore, suspend their business on that day and observe the day as one of fasting and prayer. ..."