Hooliganism in Karnataka : Gandhiji

[ The correspondent had referred to a charity
show for Indians organized in Dharwad by a sympathetic(to non-cooperation movement) European lady. The original
idea of a play by Indian schoolgirls had been changed at the guardians' instance into a
programme of singing and recitations. During and after the entertainment a mob of
young men, instigated, the correspondent alleged, by non-co-operationists, had
stoned the organizers and guests. Source : Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi ]

HOOLIGANISM
The columns of Young India are open to all who have any
grievance against non-co-operators. ‘One who knows’ has sent to the
Editor a letter which I gladly publish. He has in a covering letter
giving his name pleaded for the publication of his letter. Such
pleading was unnecessary in connection with a matter of public
importance. If the facts related by the correspondent are true, they
reflect no credit on the young men of Dharwad. The correspondent
has connected the incident with non-co-operation. It is the fashion
nowadays to connect every incident of indecent behaviour with

non-co-operation. I wish that the incident had been brought to my
notice when I was at Dharwad. I would then have been able to,
investigate the matter and deal with it then. I may state that stones were
thrown at a meeting of Dharwad students that was held by me in the
open. One boy narrowly escaped being seriously hurt. And it was a
pleasure to watch the audience remaining unmoved in spite of the
stone-throwing. I was told too that stone-throwing at meetings was not
an unusual occurrence at Dharwad in connection with the
non-Brahmin movement. I state this fact only to show that Dharwad
enjoys the unenviable reputation for stone-throwing in a special
manner. I must therefore decline to connect the incident either with
non-co-operation or with any anti-European movement. Though the
correspondent’s letter is obscure on the point, it is evident from what
he says that resentment was felt at the idea of girls taking part in a
drama. The correspondent says that the drama was dropped “in the
nick of time at the desire of the guardians”. There must have been
persistence to provoke resentment.
But my position is clear. No amount of provocation could
possibly justify the hooliganism of the “mob of young men’. They
had no right to prevent the performance that was at last determined
upon, if the guardians of the girls did not mind it. The truest test of
democracy is in the ability of anyone to act as he likes, so long as he
does not injure the life or property of anyone else. It is impossible to
control public morals by hooliganism. Public opinion alone can keep
a society pure and healthy. If the young men of Dharwad did not like
a public exhibition of Dharwad girls on the stage, they should have
held public meetings and otherwise enlisted public opinion in their
favour. The movement of non-co-operation is intended to check all
such abuses. Non-co-operationists are undoubtedly expected, not only
to refrain from taking part in such violent scenes as are represented to
have taken place at Dharwad, but they are expected also to prevent
them on the part of others. The success of non-co-operation depends
upon the ability of non-co-operationists to control all forces of
violence. All may not take part in the programme of self-sacrifice but
all must recognize the necessity of non-violence in word and deed.
I am surprised that the correspondent in his covering letter
speaks of the hooliganism at Dharwad in the same breath as the
massacre of Jallianwala Bagh. He loses all sense of proportion when
he compares the cold-blooded and calculated butchery of innocent
men, who had given no provocation, with the undisciplined and
thoughtless demonstration of a “mob of young men”, who were

labouring under a fancied or real wrong. Both acts are worthy of
condemnation. But there is as much difference between the
programme of the Dharwad boys and the Dyerism at Amritsar as there
is between an attempt at simple hurt and a completed murder.
Young India, 1-12-1920
Gandhiji.

Civil Liberty / M.K. Gandhi

Gurudev has given the poetry of civil liberty . It bears reproduction in a weekly journal like Harijan although the statement has gone round the world. The reader will find it in another post. It is a paraphrase of "Work out Thine Own Salvation" ,or "Man Is His Own Enemy and His Own Friend". Civil liberty is not criminal liberty.When law and order are under popular control , the ministers in charge of the department cannot hold the portfolio for a day , if they act against the popular will . It is true that the Assemblies are not sufficiently representative of the whole people . Nevertheless the suffrage is wide enough to make it representative of the nation in matters of law and order . In seven provinces the Congress rules . It seems to be assumed by some persons that ,in these provinces at least, individuals can say and do what they like . But so far as I know the Congress mind , it will not tolerate any such license . Civil liberty means the fullest liberty to say and do what one likes within the ordinary law of the land . The word 'ordinary' has been purposely used here . The Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code, not to speak of the Special Powers Legislation, contains provisions which the foreign rulers have enacted for their own safety. These provisions can be easily identified , and must be ruled out of operation . Te real test, however , is the interpretation by the Working Committee of the power of the Ministers of Law and Order . Subject , therefore,to the general instructions laid down by the Working Committee for the guidance of Congress Ministers , the statutory powers limited in the manner indicated by me , must be exercised by the ministers against those who , in the name of civil liberty , preach lawlessness in the popular sense of the term . It has been suggested that Congress ministers who are pledged to non-violence cannot resort to legal processes involving punishments . Such is not my view of the non-violence accepted by the Congress . I have, personally , not found a way out of punishments and punitive restrictions in all conceivable cases . No doubt punishments have to be non-violent, if such an expression is permissible in this connection . Just as violence has its own technique , known by the military science , which has invented means of destruction unheard of before , non-violence has its own science and technique . Non-violence in politics is a new weapon in the process of evolution . Its vast possibilities are yet unexplored . The exploration can take place only if it is practised on a big scale and in various fields . Congress ministers , if they have faith in non-violence, will undertake the explorations. But whilst they are doing this,or whether they do so or not,there is no doubt that they cannot ignore incitements to violence and manifestly violent speech , event though they may themselves run the risk of being styled violent . When they are not wanted , the public will only have to signify its disapproval , through its representatives . In the bsence of definite instructions from the Congress,it would be proper for the ministers to report,what they consider is a violent behaviour of any member of the public , to their own Provincial Congress Committee, or the Working Committee , and seek instructions . If the superior authority does not approve of their recommendations , they may offer to resign .They may not allow things to drift so far as to have to summon the aid of the military . In my opinion, it would amount to political bankruptcy, when any minister is obliged to fall back on the military , which does not belong to the people , and which , in any scheme of non-violence,must be ruled out of count for the observance of internal peace . One interpretation I put upon the India Act is that it is an unconscious challenge to Congressmen to demonstrate the virtue of non-violence and the sincerity of their conviction about it . If the Congress can give such a demonstration , most of the safeguards fall into desuetude, and the Congress can achieve its goal without a violent struggle , and also without civil disobedience . If the Congress has not impregnated the people with the non-violent spirit , it has to become a minority , and remain in opposition , unless it will alter its creed. Harijan , 23-10-'37 , p 308

Economic constitution of India / M.K. Gandhi

    According to me the economic constitution of India and for that matter of that of the world , should be such that no one under it should suffer from want of food and clothing . In other words everybody should be able to get sufficient work to enable him to make the two ends meet . And this ideal can be universally realized only if the means of production of elementary necessaries of life remain in the control of the masses . These should be freely available to all as God's air and water are ought to be ; they should not be made a vehicle of traffic for the exploitation of others . Their monopolization by any country , nation or group of persons would be unjust . The neglect of this simple principle is the cause of the destitution that we witness today not only in this unhappy land but in other parts of the world too .M.K. Gandhi ,  Young India , 15-11-1928 , p. 381.

Liberty Of The Press : M.K.Gandhi

200. LIBERTY OF THE PRESS
One by one the pretensions of the Government that the reforms represent more liberty and more concession to popular feeling are dropping out under the stress of circumstances. The pretensions can be justified only if they can stand the test under a severe strain. Liberty of speech means that it is unassailed even when the speech hurts; liberty of the Press can be said to be truly respected only when the Press can comment in the severest terms upon and even
misrepresent matters, protection against misrepresentation or violence being secured not by an administrative gagging order, not by closing down the Press but by punishing the real offender, leaving the Press itself unrestricted Freedom of association is truly respected when assemblies of people can discuss even revolutionary projects, the State relying upon the force of public opinion and the civil police, not the savage military at its disposal, to crush any actual outbreak of revolution that is designed to confound public opinion and the State representing it.
The Government of India is now seeking to crush the three powerful vehicles of expressing and cultivating public opinion and is thus once more, but happily for the last time, proving its totally arbitrary and despotic character. The fight for swaraj, the Khilafat, the Punjab means fight for this threefold freedom before all else.
The Independent is no longer a printed sheet. The Democrat is no more. And now the sword has descended upon the Pratap and the Kesari of Lahore. The Vande Mataram, Lalaji’s child, has warded off the blow by depositing Rs. 2,000 as security. The other two have had
their first security forfeited and are now given ten days’ notice to deposit Rs. 10,000 each or close down. I hope that the security of Rs. 10,000 will be refused.
I assume that what is happening in the United Provinces and the Punjab will happen in the others in due course unless the infection is prevented from spreading by some action on the part of the public.
In the first place I would urge the editors of the papers in question to copy the method of the Independent and publish their views in writing. I believe that an editor who has anything worth
saying and who commands a clientele cannot be easily hushed so long as his body is left free. He has delivered his finished message as soon as he is put under duress. The Lokamanya spoke more eloquently from the Mandalay fortress than through the columns of the printed Kesari. His influence was multiplied a thousandfold by his incarceration and his speech and his pen had acquired much greater power after he was discharged than before his imprisonment. By his
death he is editing his paper without pen and speech through the sacred resolution of the people to realize his life’s dream. He could not possibly have done more if he were today in the flesh preaching his mantra . Critics like me would perhaps be still finding fault with this expression of his or that. Today all criticism is hushed and his mantra alone rules millions of hearts which are determined to raise a permanent living memorial by the fulfilment of his mantra in their
lives.
Therefore, let us first break the idol of machinery and leaden type. The pen is our foundry and the hands of willing copyists our printing machine. Idolatry is permissible in Hinduism when it subserves an ideal. It becomes a sinful fetish when the idol itself becomes the ideal. Let us use the machine and the type whilst we can to give unfettered expression to our thoughts. But let us not feel helpless when they are taken away from us by a “paternal” Government watching and controlling every combination of types and every movement of the printing machine.
But the handwritten newspaper is, I admit, a heroic remedy meant for heroic times. By being indifferent to the aid of the printing room and the compositor’s stick we ensure their free retention or restoration for all time.
We must do something more. We must apply civil disobedience for the restoration of that right before we think of what we call larger things. The restoration of free speech, free association and free Press is almost the whole swaraj. I would, therefore, respectfully urge the
conference2 that is meeting on Saturday next3 at the instance of Pandit Malaviyaji and other distinguished sons of India to concentrate upon the removal of these obstacles on which all can heartily join than upon the Khilafat, the Punjab and swaraj. Let us take care of these precious
pennies and that pound will take care of itself.
Young India, 12-1-1922, p.29

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451. A BRILLIANT CAREER
Forward, a creation of Deshbandhu, fully lived up to its name and the aspirations of its distinguished founder. By its dash, enterprise, resourcefulness and, above all, fearlessness it proved a thorn in the side of the Government. It was therefore marked out for destruction by means fair or foul. It has had several prosecutions launched againstit for daring to speak out the nation’s mind by calling a spade a spade. But it outlived all the prosecutions. It rather thrived upon themand the imprisonment of its editor and printer. But it was impossible for a moneyless newspaper to survive vindictive damages. The Judge’s verdict may be right though his leanings one can read in his judgment. But the Government’s action and, which is the same thing, the Railway Company’s action was wrong. If the article of the Forward was an overstatement, surely neither of the parties attacked could suffer pecuniary damage, for they were too powerful. And no damage exacted by them could possibly recoup them if they did suffer material damage at all. If it was a question of moral damage, I suggest that neither the Government nor the Company had any reputation to keep in such matters as were the subject-matter of criticism by the Forward. In any case their amour-propre should have been satisfied by the obtaining of the precious verdict.
But the application for compulsory liquidation shows that the object of the action was not compensation for the plaintiffs but it was destruction of the defendant. Well, they have had their satisfaction. They are welcome to it. Only they are riding for a fall. The Forward so vindictively crushed will live in the lives of the people. The fire lighted by it will rage with redoubled fury in the breasts of thousandsas it will no longer be able to find legitimate vent through the columns of their favourite paper. Though during my tour in the villages of Andhra I cannot follow the events in their proper sequence, I observe that a mean attempt is being made even to prevent the publication of the New Forward. The legal resourcefulness of the brains that are backing the national movement in Bengal against
tremendous odds may circumvent the Government. But even if they cannot cope with the legal and extra-legal powers possessed and unscrupulously used by the Government, they will still have deserved the gratitude of the country for bravely and fearlessly engaging in an unequal fight with the Government. A spirit has been awakened that cannot be crushed by any power on earth. Forward is dead, long live Forward.
Young India, 9-5-1929,p.145
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DR. LOHIA’S CHALLENGE
It would appear from newspaper reports that Dr. Lohia3 went to Goa at the invitation of Goans and was served with an order to refrain from making speeches. According to Dr. Lohia’s statement, for 188 years now, the people of Goa have been robbed of the right to hold
meetings and form organizations. Naturally he defied the order. He has thereby rendered a service to the cause of civil liberty and especially to the Goans. The little Portuguese settlement which merely exists on the sufferance of the British Government can ill afford to ape its bad manners. In free India Goa cannot be allowed to exist as a separate entity in opposition to the laws of the free State. Without a shot being fired, the people of Goa will be able to claim and receive the rights of citizenship of the free State. The present Portuguese Government will no longer be able to rely upon the protection of British arms to isolate and keep under subjection the inhabitants of Goa against their will. I would venture to advise the Portuguese Government of Goa to recognize the signs of the times and come to honourable terms with its inhabitants rather than function on any treaty that might exist between them and the British Government.
To the inhabitants of Goa I will say that they should shed fear of the Portuguese Government as the people of other parts of India have shed fear of the mighty British Government and assert their fundamental right of civil liberty and all it means. The differences of religion among the inhabitants of Goa should be no bar to common civil life. Religion is for each individual, himself or herself, to live. It should never become a bone of contention or quarrel between
religious sects.
NEW DELHI, June 26, 1946
Harijan, 30-6-1946