Civil Disobedience in Indian Tradition, with Some Early Nineteenth Century Documents c3.10

c3.10

The saddest part of the story Shri Dharampal unfolds in the following pages tells of the conscious and calculated efforts of the British to destroy every vestige of the old tradition, which they looked upon as a continuing challenge to the very foundations of their rule. Whether it was to assert the 'dignity of the State' or for the 'maintenance of public tranquility' or for 'upholding those sentiments of respect which it appeared so essential that the community should entertain for the public authority' the traditional right of the people of peaceful resistance had to be given no quarter. The reason Shri Dharampal gives, with which I am in agreement, is the feeling the British rulers had of extreme insecurity. They could not feel safe until they had beaten the people into a state of unquestioning obedience. The ultimate sanction they relied upon to achieve this end was military force. Thus was brought about the spiritual death of the people of this country, which the Congress Working Committee must have had in mind when in its Declaration of Independence of 1930 (which used to be reiterated at tens of thousands of public meetings every 26th of January), speaking of the fourfold ruin of India—economic, political, cultural and spiritual—wrought by the British, it pinpointed ‘compulsory disarmament’ of the people and the ‘presence of an alien army of occupation, employed with deadly effect to crush in us the spirit of resistance’ as being the means of the country’s spiritual ruin.