Implications of non-violence

THE fuss that has been made by the Anglo-Indian Press over what has come to be known as the Gopinath Saha resolution and the strength and earnestness with which that resolution has been condemned by the great majority of Indian-edited newspapers as well as by Mahatma Gandhi and his professed adherents make it pertinent to enquire if on either side there is a proper and adequate understanding of all the implications of non-violence as an effective political creed. It cannot be too often or too loudly asserted that just as the crying of peace when there is no peace is not the best way to bring peace into existence, so that crying of non-violence when the atmosphere is full of the spirit of bitterness and acrimony, the usual precursor to violence, is not the best way to promote non-violence in thought, in word, and in deed. There are two implications, two basic assumptions of non-violence, in particular which it is in the highest degree necessary for all those who are interested in promoting real non-violence to bear in mind, and to perpetually insist upon in all that they say and do. The more obvious one is that all those who profess to prefer non-violence to violence, especially the Government of the country and its habitual supporters, should in actual practice show their preference for non-violence over violence by treating the former on a differential basis as compared with the latter. It must be remembered that it is not everybody with whom non-violence is a matter of religion, who, like the Mahatma, would be non-violent not only under all sorts of provocations, but to the very end of the chapter.