Freedom's Battle eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 277 pages of information about Freedom's Battle.

Freedom's Battle eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 277 pages of information about Freedom's Battle.
to Islam and the injury to the manhood of the Punjab, that we feel bound to wipe out by non-co-operation.  We have prayed, petitioned, agitated, we have passed resolutions.  Mr. Mahomed Ali supported by his friends is now waiting on the British public.  He has pleaded the cause of Islam in a most manful manner, but his pleading has fallen on deaf ears and we have his word for it that whilst France and Italy have shown great sympathy for the cause of Islam, it is the British Ministers who have shown no sympathy.  This shows which way the British Ministers and the present holders of office in India mean to deal by the people.  There is no goodwill, there is no desire to placate the people of India.  The people of India must therefore have a remedy to redress the double wrong.  The method of the west is violence.  Wherever the people of the west have felt a wrong either justly or unjustly, they have rebelled and shed blood.  As I have said in my letter to the Viceroy of India, half of India does not believe in the remedy of violence.  The other half is too weak to offer it.  But the whole of India is deeply hurt and stirred by this wrong, and it is for that reason that I have suggested to the people of India the remedy of non-co-operation.  I consider it perfectly harmless, absolutely constitutional and yet perfectly efficacious.  It is a remedy in which, if it is properly adopted, victory is certain, and it is the age-old remedy of self-sacrifice.  Are the Mussalmans of India who feel the great wrong done to Islam ready to make an adequate self-sacrifice?  All the scriptures of the world teach us that there can be no compromise between justice and injustice.  Co-operation on the part of a justice-loving man with an unjust man is a crime.  And if we desire to compel this great Government to the will of the people, as we must, we must adopt this great remedy of non-co-operation.  And if the Mussalmans of India offer non-co-operation to Government in order to secure justice in the Khilafat matter, I believe it is duty of the Hindus to help them so long as their moans are just.  I consider the eternal friendship between the Hindus and Mussalmans is more important than the British connection.  I would prefer any day anarchy and chaos in India to an armed peace brought about by the bayonet between the Hindus and Mussalmans.  I have therefore ventured to suggest to my Hindu brethren that if they wanted to live at peace with Mussalmans, there is an opportunity which is not going to recur for the next hundred years.  And I venture to assure you that if the Government of India and the Imperial Government come to know that there is a determination on the part of the people to redress this double wrong they would not hesitate to do what is needed.  But in the Mussalmans of India will have to take the lead in the matter.  You will have to commence the first stage of non-co-operation in right earnest.  And if you may not help this Government, you may not receive help from it. 
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Freedom's Battle from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.