"That you cannot accept my views at once is only right. If you will read the literature on this subject, you will have some idea of it. The Parliament is without a real master, under the Prime Minister, its movement is not steady, but it is buffeted about like a prostitute. The Prime Minister is more concerned about his power than about the welfare of the Parliament. His energy is concentrated upon securing the success of his party. His care is not always that the Parliament shall do right. Prime Ministers are known to have made the Parliament do things merely for party advantage. All this is worth thinking over."
It is no wonder that he called upon all his followers to boycott the Indian Councils. I shall deal with this when dealing with the boycott question.
After all this one would naturally think that if we expel the English from India we would be happy. Not a bit, says Mr. Gandhi whose views about independence are peculiar. Look, he says, at Italy. He thinks that Italy has not gained anything by independence of Austrian domination. He adds:—
"If you believe that because Italians hold Italy, the Italian nation is happy, you are groping in darkness. What substantial gain did Italy obtain after the withdrawal of the Austrian troops? The gain is only nominal. You do not want therefore to reproduce the same conditions in India. India to gain her independence can fight like Italy only when she has arms and in order to gain her independence India has to be armed and to arm India on a large scale is to Europeanise it. Then her condition will be just as pitiable as that of Europe. This means in short, that India must accept European civilisation ... but the fact is that the Indian nation will not adopt arms and it is well that she does not."
She must not therefore use force to fight the English.
But what is it she has to do. She must obtain Swaraj or Home Rule by 'soul force'. What is it?:—
"When we are slaves we think that the whole universe is enslaved. Because we are in an abject condition, we think that the whole of India is in that condition. As a matter of fact, it is not so, but it is as well to impute our slavery to the whole of India. But if we bear in mind the above fact we can see that if we become free, India is free. And in this thought you have definition of 'swaraj.' It is 'swaraj' when we earn to rule ourselves. It is therefore in the palm of our hands. Do not consider this 'swaraj' to be like a dream. Hence there is no idea of sitting still. The 'swaraj' that I wish to picture before you and me is such that, after we have once realised it, we will endeavour to the end of our lifetime to persuade others to do likewise. But such 'swaraj' has to be experienced by each one for himself."
The assumption made by a few persons that Mr. Gandhi is only condemning parliamentary government for its inutility is unfounded. The extracts already given might lend some colour to that view. But such is not the fact. In England Parliamentary government is denounced by certain persons on the ground that it will always be under the influence of a capitalist Press and therefore unable to redress the evils from which the people of the country other than the capitalists are suffering. Mr. Gandhi's objection is not based on any such ground; he is against not only Parliamentary Government but practically against any Government in any form as is apparent from the extracts given above. The doctrine that Governments have very little to do with our happiness which depends upon self-control or 'soul force' has many advocates, but to deduce it as a doctrine from the alleged failure of Parliamentary Government in England is ludicrous. I shall not stop here to justify Parliamentary government which has justified itself by its results; it is only ignorance of the work that has been done which is responsible for opinions like those to which Mr. Gandhi has given expression.
Towards the end of the book he says:—
Before I leave you, I will take the liberty of repeating:—