Gandhi and Anarchy

by Sir C. Sankaran Nair

But all that hope was shattered. The Khilafat promise was not to be redeemed. The Punjab crime was white-washed and most culprits went not only unpunished but remained in service and some continued to draw pensions from the Indian revenue, and in some cases were rewarded. I saw too that not only did the reforms not mark a change of heart, but they were only a method of further draining India of her wealth and of prolonging her servitude.

I came reluctantly to the conclusion that the British connection had made India more helpless than she ever was before, politically and economically. A disarmed India has no power of resistance against any aggressor if she wanted to engage in an armed conflict with him. So much is this the case that some of our best men consider that India must take generations before she can achieve the Dominion status. She has become so poor that she has little power of resisting famines. Before the British advent India spun and wove in her millions of cottages just the supplement she needed for adding to her meagre agricultural resources. The cottage industry, so vital for India's existence, has been ruined by incredibly heartless and inhuman processes as described by English witnesses. Little do town-dwellers know how the semi-starved masses of Indians are slowly sinking to lifelessness. Little do they know that their miserable comfort represents the brokerage they get for the work they do for the foreign exploiter, that the profits and the brokerage are sucked from the masses. Little do they realise that the Government established by law in British India is carried on for this exploitation of the masses. No sophistry, no jugglery in figures can explain away the evidence the skeletons in many villages present to the naked eye. I have no doubt whatsoever that both England and the town-dwellers of India will have to answer, if there is a God above, for this crime against humanity which is perhaps unequalled in history. The law itself in this country has been used to serve the foreign exploiter. My unbiased examination of the Punjab Martial Law cases has led me to believe that at least ninety-five per cent of convictions were wholly bad. My experience of political cases in India leads me to the conclusion that in nine out of every ten the condemned men were totally innocent. Their crime consisted in love of their country. In ninety-nine cases out of hundred justice has been denied to Indians as against Europeans in the Court of India. This is not an exaggerated picture. It is the experience of almost every Indian who has had anything to do with such cases. In my opinion the administration of the law is thus prostituted consciously or unconsciously for the benefit of the exploiter.

The greatest misfortune is that Englishmen and their Indian associates in the administration of the country do not know that they are engaged in the crime I have attempted to describe. I am satisfied that many English and Indian officials honestly believe that they are administering one of the best systems devised in the world and that India is making steady though slow progress. They do not know that a subtle but effective system of terrorism and an organised display of force on the one hand and the deprivation of all powers of retaliation or self-defence on the other have emasculated the people and induced in them the habit of simulation. This awful habit has added to the ignorance and the self-deception of the administrators. Section 124-A under which I am happily charged is perhaps the prince among the political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen. Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law. If one has no affection for a person or thing one should be free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection so long as he does not contemplate, promote or incite to violence. But the section under which Mr. Banker and I are charged is one under which mere promotion of disaffection is a crime. I have studied some of the cases tried under it, and I know that some of the most loved of India's patriots have been convicted under it. I consider it a privilege therefore, to be charged under it. I have endeavoured to give in their briefest outline the reasons for my disaffection. I have no personal ill-will against any single administrator, much less can I have any disaffection towards the King's person. But I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected towards a Government which in its totality has done more harm to India than any previous system. India is less manly under the British rule than she ever was before. Holding such a belief, I consider it to be a sin to have affection for the system. And it has been a precious privilege for me to be able to write what I have in the various articles tendered in evidence against me.

In fact I believe that I have rendered a service to India and England by showing in non-co-operation the way out of the unnatural state in which both are living. In my humble opinion, non-co-operation with evil is as much a duty as is co-operation with good. But in the past, non-co-operation has been deliberately expressed in violence to the evildoer. I am endeavouring to show to my countrymen that violent non-co-operation only multiplies evil and that as evil can only be sustained by violence, withdrawal of support of evil requires complete abstention from violence. Non-violence implies voluntary submission to the penalty for non-co-operation with evil. I am here, therefore, to invite and submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The only course open to you, the Judge and the Assessors, is either to resign your posts and thus dissociate yourselves from evil if you feel that the law you are called upon to administer is an evil and that in reality I am innocent, or to inflict on me the severest penalty if you believe that the system and the law you are assisting to administer are good for the people of this country and that my activity is therefore injurious to the public weal.

M. K. GANDHI.

APPENDIX XXII
Lists of Riots or Disturbances

List of riots or Disturbances since the year 1919.

Province Date Place of Disturbance.	Brief description.
Bombay 26th May 1919 Godhra, Panch Mahals.	A leading wealthy member of the Gandhi community was celebrating the marriages of some of his sons and nephews. It appears that feeling was running high between the two sections of the community as some of the brides had previously been betrothed or promised to persons of the other party. The trouble began when one of the party let off potash bombs. The Gandhis then began to assemble and an altercation ensued which ended in a fight in which broken bricks and pieces of wood were freely used. The police on the spot finding that the fracas became serious, had to resort to firing. On arrival of more police, the crowd dispersed. The District Magistrate succeeded in getting both the parties reconciled to each other. Two rioters were injured; six policemen received injuries from bricks.
Bombay 11th June 1919 Deesa Cantonment.	Some military sepoys on duty purchased liquor, and when the police constable on duty demanded the name of the purchaser in accordance with the Cantonment Magistrate's orders, they refused to give the name and beat the constable. When one sepoy was arrested, the others interfered and attacked the constable. Three sepoys were then arrested and put in the lock up. The Sub-Inspector of Police persuaded about 200 of the men to leave the bazaar but not before the lock up was broken, the prisoners released and several policemen were injured. Six policemen were injured, two of them being in a serious condition.
Bombay 18th June 1919 Kanoda, Panch Mahals.	One Sania Dipsing of Kanoda was terrorizing the neighbourhood, committing robbery, frequently though mostly of trivial articles. When warrants were issued for his and his brothers arrest he openly defied the authorities and even threatened to kill the police or anyone who tried to arrest him with a dharaia. As he could not be persuaded to surrender the District Magistrate ordered the arrest of the brothers, by using force if necessary. Sania's brothers and parents all armed with dharaia, clubs and pickaxes, and Sania armed with a gun resisted the arrest. The police were compelled to fire in self-defence with fatal results. Sania's mother and two brothers were killed. Sania himself was wounded.
Madras 22nd September 1919 Nellore.	In an attempt to enforce a decree obtained in the civil court the Hindus with police protection took a procession with music through the main bazar where there are mosques. They and the police were attacked by the Muhammadans and the police compelled to fire. Two Muhammadens killed and two wounded.
Bombay 20th January 1920 Bombay.	Abnormal conditions in Bombay due to general strike of mill-hands and other industrial unrest. One striker killed. One seriously wounded, 8 policemen, 1 police officer, 1 lorry driver and a Magistrate injured. One private individual killed and one woman injured by strikers stoning trams.
Do. 26th January 1920 Do.	Renewed attack made by strikers, police were compelled to fire. One striker was wounded.
Do. 30th January 1920 Nandvaji village Bijapur district.	A police party was engaged in protecting a faction in the village against the attacks of the rival faction when it found itself in the presence of a large body of rioters with sticks, axes and stones and fearing attack on themselves the police fired two shots in the air and one on the men in front. Three wounded.
Do. 16th February 1920 Sholapur.	During the strike of mill-hands at Sholapur some 8,000 mill-hands who had struck work surrounded the District Magistrate and refused to disperse when ordered to do so, by the District Magistrate. They became violent and began to stone officers and troops. The District Magistrate was compelled to order firing. It was only after the military arrived that the disturbance ceased. Four killed. Huzur Deputy Commissioner was injured.
Bihar and Orissa 15th March 1920 Jamshedpur.	A general strike of the workers at the Tata iron and steel Works, Jamshedpur began on the 24th February and continued for nearly a month. As the strike proceeded, the attitude of the strikers grew more hostile, those men who wished to work were intimidated, the gates of the works were picketed and the guards at the gates more than once stoned. The local Government despatched a large body of armed and military police to the spot for the protection of life and property and were compelled also to obtain assistance of regular British troops from Calcutta. On the 15th March the strikers obstructed the railway lines between the works and Tatanagar Railway station and made a most determined attack on the armed police sent out to clear the obstruction. The police were compelled to fire in self-defence and to fall back towards the works. Killed 5, wounded 23.
Bombay 14th April 1920 Jalalani Nawabshah.	A fracas took place in the Hur Criminal Tribes settlement of Jalalai Nawabshah, Sind, in the course of which one Fatu Mari was attacked by a number of Hurs who belaboured him with lathis and blows. As his wife was in danger a Sub-Inspector ordered the mob to stop. The crowd made an attempt to attack the Sub-Inspector who finding his own life in danger ordered firing in self-defence and also with the object of quelling the disturbance. Six wounded.
Madras April 1920 Perungamanallur, Madura distt.	The attempt to register the kallars under Criminal Tribes Act brought about a serious collision between them and the police. On account of their defiant and aggressive attitude, the police had to open fire. Eleven killed.
Do. May 1920 Muthupet in Tanjore district.	A Hindu marriage procession passing a mosque came into conflict with the Muhammadans. A fight ensued and to clear the street the police had to open fire. One man was slightly wounded.
Do. 17th May 1920 Madras.	During a strike in the Burma Oil Company some Pathans were brought from Bombay to carry on the work. An altercation between them and the local coolies resulted in a riot which required the presence of the armed police reserve to quell it. One Pathan was killed; there was also minor casualties on both sides.
Bombay 29th May 1920 Dubar Sukkur District.	On 29th May an affray took place between the police and certain Jagiranis near Durbar in the Sukkur district, Sind. The police received a complaint that two buffaloes had been stolen by some Jagiranis. A Police party went in search of the criminals and having found them seized and arrested the offenders. On their return journey they were attacked by about 30 Jagiranis two of whom were armed with guns. Those guns were fired at the police party and the Jagiranis closed in with their lathis. A general free fight ensued and the police seeing that they were overwhelmed by weight of numbers, fired in self defence. The Jagiranis then ran off, leaving their wounded. One killed, one wounded, also five policemen injured.
North-West Frontier Province 8th July 1920 Kachagarhi.	At Kachagarhi a collision occurred between troops and Muhajarins. Killed one Muhajir.
Punjab 25th August 1920 Kasur.	The Khilafat party asked a theatrical company to give the proceeds of their last performance to the Khilafat Fund. The company declined and was attacked at night. The police arrived on the Scene and used fire-arms. One killed and two wounded.
United Provinces 23rd September 1920 Pilibhit.	During the Muharram festival an attack was made on a Hindu temple at Pilibhit. The police fired a few rounds in the air. One wounded who subsequently died.
Madras 9th December 1920 Madras.	Buckingham Mills. Perambur. The police lorry which was taking the coolies from the mills to the harbour was subjected to persistent and violent stoning by strikers. The police opened fire. Sixteen persons were wounded, two of whom died.