Dalip Singh Saund
My Mother India

VI. INDIA'S EXPERIMENT WITH PASSIVE RESISTANCE

IN A PREVIONS chapter we discussed the character and spirit of Mahatma
Gandhi into whose hands has fallen the duty of leading a country of
300 million people through a political revolution. It must be
understood, however, that Gandhi is the leader of the revolution and
not its creator. Modern thinkers universally admit that individuals or
small groups of reformers do not make revolutions. "Agitators or men
of genius and ability in a backward community might stir up sporadic
revolts and cause minor disturbances, but no human agency can ever
create mass revolutions. A successful revolution requires a state of
political and social evolution ready for the desired transformation.
The history of the world's important political and social revolutions
furnishes sufficient evidence in support of this theory." [Hyndman]
The insurrection of the slaves headed by the able Spartacus, in spite
of their early admirable victories, could not overthrow Roman
domination. The early attempts of the proletarian revolutionists, sup-
ported as they were by leaders of genius and daring, were doomed to
failure. India's revolt against English rule in 1857 was ably led, yet
it could not succeed. In all these cases the same argument holds. The
time was not ripe for the desired change. In the present case, Gandhi
has been eminently successful because India was prepared beforehand
for a mass revolution. Passive resistance, or no passive resistance,
the Indian revolution was bound to come as a necessary consequence of
the country's long continued political oppression and economic
exploitation. The people were already growing desperate when a united
mass uprising was precipitated by the English government's brutal
actions of 1919. During the war the English parliament had promised a
measure of self-government to the people of India as a reward for
their loyalty to the Empire. Early in 1919, when the country was
agitating for the promised self-government, the English government of
India forcibly passed against the unanimous opposition from all
sections of the people, special repressive measures in order to check
the spread of nationalism in India. Peaceful demonstrations directed
against the newly passed bills were organized all over the
country. Once again the government acted harshly in using inhuman
methods in the form of public flogging, crawlings and so forth, in the
effort to suppress the rising spirit of freedom throughout the
land. Just at this time Gandhi came on the stage, and proposed to his
countrymen the use of passive resistance for the accomplishment of
their political revolution. His resolution of non-violent
non-cooperation was officially adopted by the Indian National
Congress, and the nation in its fight for freedom pledged itself to
non-violence. What are passive resistance and non-violent
non-cooperation?

"The ethics of passive resistance is very simple and must be known
to every student of the New Testament. Passive resistance in its
essence is submission to physical force under protest. Passive
resistance is really a misnomer. No thought is farther away from the
heart of the passive resister than the thought of passivity. The soul
of his ideal is resistance, and he resists in the most heroic and
forceful manner." The only difference between his heroism and our
common conception of the word is in the choice of the weapon. His main
doctrine is to avoid violence and to substitute for physical force the
forces of love, faith, and sacrifice. "Passive resistance resists, but
not blow for blow. Passive resistance calls the use of the physical
weapon in the hands of man the most cowardly thing in life." Passive
resistance teaches men to resist heroically the might and injustice of
the untrue and unrighteous. But they must fight with moral and
spiritual weapons. They must resist tyranny with forbearance, hatred
with love, wrong with right, and injustice with faith. "To hurl back
the cowardly weapon of the wicked and the unjust is useless. Let it
fall. Bear your suffering with patience. Place your faith in the
strength of the divine soul of man." "The hardest fibre must melt
before the fire of love. When the results do not correspond, the fire
is not strong enough." "The indomitable tenacity and magic of the
great soul will operate and win out; force must bow down before heroic
gentleness." This is the technique of passive resistance.

The actual application of this principle to politics requires
explanation. Individuals or groups have a right to refuse submission
to the authority of government which they consider unjust and
brutal. "The people of India," says Gandhi, "have been convinced,
after long and fearful trials, that the English government of India is
Satanic. It is based on violence. Its object is not the good of the
people, but rapine and plunder. It works not in the interests of the
governed, and its policies are not guided by their consent. It bases
itself finally not on right but on might. Its last appeal is not to
the reason, nor the heart, but to the sword. The country is tired of
this creed and it has risen against it." Under these conditions the
most straightforward course to follow is to seek the destruction of
such an institution. The people of India can destroy the thing by
force, or else they can refuse their cooperation with its various
activities and render it helpless; then refuse their submission to its
authority and render it useless.

Just consider the case of a country where all government officers
resign from their offices, where the people boycott the various
governmental institutions such as public schools and colleges, law
courts, and legislatures; and where the taxpayers refuse to pay their
taxes. The people can do all this without resort to force, and so stop
the machinery of the government dead, and make it a meaningless thing
without use and power. To quote Thoreau once again: "When the officer
has resigned office, and the subject has refused allegiance, the
revolution is accomplished." This is exactly what the people of India
have set out to do by their present policy of passive
resistance. However simple the theory may be, the practice of it is
difficult and perilous. When a people resort to these peaceful means
for the accomplishment of political revolution, they must be prepared
to undergo unlimited suffering. The enemy's camp will be determined
and organized; from it will issue constant provocations and brutal
exhibitions of force. Under these difficult circumstances, the only
chance for the success of the passive resister is in his readiness for
infinite and courageous suffering, qualities that in turn imply a
powerful reserve of self-control and an utter dedication to the
ideal. Evidently to prepare a nation of 300 million people for this
tremendous task must take time and require great patience and
courage. To quote Gandhi:

"Non-cooperation is not a movement of brag, bluster, or
bluff. It is a test of our sincerity. It requires solid and
silent self-sacrifice. It challenges our honesty and our
capacity for national work. It is a movement that aims at
translating ideas into action."

The people of India are moving on the road to freedom with
dignity. They are slowly nearing their goal. On their way the passive
resisters are learning their lessons from bitter experience, and are
growing stronger in faith every day. That they are headed in the right
direction and are quietly pushing forward we do know in a definite
way, but when they will emerge victorious we cannot say. To help the
reader to catch the subtle spirit behind this movement, we shall
quote a few more lines from the pen of its leader:

"I am a man of peace. I believe in peace. But I do not want
peace at any price. I do not want the peace that you find in stone. I
do not want the peace that you find in the grave; but I do want peace
which you find embedded in the human breast, which is exposed to the
arrows of the whole world, but which is protected from all harm by the
power of the Almighty God."

The wearing of home-spun cloth by all classes of people, rich and
poor alike, is one of the most important items in the non-cooperative
program. Yet every time I have tried to justify it before my American
friends, I have received as response a shrug of the shoulders. Not
only the layman, but serious students of economics have replied: "That
is going back into mediaeval ways. In these days of machinery
home-spinning is sheer foolishness." Yet one does not have to be an
economist to know that "labor spent on home-spinning and thus used in
the creation of a utility, is better spent than wasted in idleness."
The majority of the population of India lives directly upon the
produce of the soil. They remain in forced idleness for a greater part
of the year. There are no industries in the country, cottage or
urban. So the people have nothing to occupy them during their idle
months. Before the English conquest, agricultural India had its
supplementary industries on which the people could fall during their
idle time. But these industries have been completely destroyed by the
English fiscal policy for India, which was formulated with the desire
to build England's own fabric and other industries upon the ruins of
India's industries. The country produces more cotton than is needed
for its own use. Under ordinary conditions this cotton is exported out
of the country, and cloth manufactured in the mills of England is
imported into the country for its consumption. For want of a
substitute people are forced to buy this foreign cloth. And they are
so miserably poor that the great majority of them cannot afford one
meal a day. Nothing could be more sensible for these people
than to adopt home-spinning during their idle hours. This will help to
save them, partially at least, from starvation. Let me quote Gandhi on
this subject:

"I claim for the spinning-wheel the properties of a musical
instrument, for whilst a hungry and a naked woman will refuse to
dance to the accompaniment of a piano, I have seen women beaming
with joy to see the spinning-wheel work, for they know that they
can through that rustic instrument both feed and clothe
themselves. "Yes, it does solve the problem of India's chronic
poverty and is an insurance against famine. . . .

"When spinning was almost compulsorily stopped nothing replaced
it except slavery and idleness. Our mills cannot today spin
enough for our wants, and if they did, they will not keep down
prices unless they were compelled. They are frankly money-makers
and will not therefore regulate prices according to the needs of
the nation. Hand-spinning is therefore designed to put millions
of rupees in the hands of poor villagers. Every agricultural
country requires a supplementary industry to enable the peasants
to utilise the spare hours. Such industry for India has always
been spinning. Is it such a visionary ideal-an attempt to revive
an ancient occupation whose destruction has brought on slavery,
pauperism and disappearance of the inimitable artistic talent
which was once all expressed in the wonderful fabric of India
and which was the envy of the world?"

The people of India have made mistakes in the past, and they will
probably make others in the future. But that in sticking to
non-violence they are fulfilling the noblest ideal ever conceived by
man, and in staying loyal to the spirit of passive resistance they are
following a truer and a richer light will not be questioned. Will
humanity at large see the wisdom of passive resistance? To me in our
present state that seems very doubtful. It will be easy to convince
the common man of the virtue and wisdom of non-violence. But
unfortunately the reins of our destiny are not in the hands of common
people. Those who hold the power over the nations of the world have
other interests to look after than the common interests of the average
man. They are pledged to the service of other masters whose welfare is
not the welfare of the whole race. "The world is ruled at the present
day by those who must oppress and kill in order to exploit." So long
as this condition continues, there is little hope for the reformation
of human society. We must all suffer because we would not learn.

Mankind will not always refuse to listen to the voice of reason. A
time will come when the great masses all over the world will refuse to
fight, when exploitation and wars will cease, and the different groups
of the human race will consent to live together in cooperation and
peace.

An illustration of the might of passive resistance was furnished
during the conflict between the British Government of India and the
Akali Sikhs over the management of their shrines. This incident shows
to what heights of self-sacrifice and suffering human beings can reach
when they are under the spell of noble idealism. Sikhs are a virile
race of fighting people. They are all members of a religious
fellowship and form nearly one-sixth of the population of the province
of Punjab in the northwest part of India. They constitute by
themselves a very important community, which is closely bound together
by a feeling of common brotherhood. They all go by the name of Singh,
meaning the lion, and are rightly proud of their history, which though
brief in scope of time, is yet full of inspiring deeds committted by
the Sikh forefathers in the defense of religious freedom and justice
during the evil days of a few corrupt and fanatic Moghul rulers of
India. As a rule Sikhs belong to the agriculturist class and both men
and women are stalwart and healthy-looking. Their men are
distinguished by their long hair and beards. They are born with
martial characteristics and are naturally very bold and brave in their
habits. Once aroused to sense of duty towards the weak and the
oppressed, they have always been found willing to give their lives
without remorse or regret. Sikhs constitute a major portion of the
military and police forces of India and of several British colonies.
Those tourists who have been in the East will recall the tall, bearded
Sikh policemen of the British principalities of Shanghai and
Hongkong. Since the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, Sikhs have always been
regarded as the most loyal and devoted subjects of the British Crown
in India. "On the battlefields of Flanders, Mesopotamia, Persia, and
Egypt they have served the Empire faithfully and well. Their deeds of
heroism were particularly noticed during the most trying moments of
the World War."

Before the British acquired the province in 1849 Sikhs were the
rulers of the Punjab. During the period of their rule Sikh princes had
made rich grants of land and other property to the historic temples
and shrines of their religion. Because of the introduction of
irrigation canals some of these properties have acquired immense
values in recent years, their annual incomes in several cases running
up to a million rupees or more.

The Sikhs have always regarded the temple properties as belonging
to the community. And when it was brought to the notice of their
progressive leaders that the hereditary priests at some of the
historic and rich Sikh centers had become corrupt and were wasting the
temple money in vicious pleasures, the Sikhs organized the Central
Shrine Management Committee. The object of the committee was to take
away the management of all important Sikh shrines from the corrupt
priests and to vest it in the community. The committee was first
organized in November, 1920, and its members were elected on the basis
of universal franchise open to both sexes. The method of procedure
followed by the committee was that of arbitration. A local
subcommittee, consisting of the leading Sikhs in the neighborhood, was
formed to watch over the affairs of every shrine. This sub-committee
was to act in cooperation with the temple priest, who was henceforth
to be a subordinate and not the sole master. Whenever the priests
agreed to arbitrate the matter in a fair manner, they were allowed
free use of their residence quarters and were awarded liberal salaries
for household expenses. By this method the Central Shrine Committee in
a short time became masters of some of the very rich and important
Sikh shrines.

While in several of the smaller place such transfer of ownership
was accomplished through peaceful means, in some of the bigger temples
the community had to undergo heavy losses in life. For instance at
Nanakana Sahib, the Jerusalem of the Sikhs, a band of one hundred
unarmed followers of the Central Committee were surrounded by a band
of armed hirelings of the priest. They were first shot at, then
assaulted with rifle butt-ends, and later cut into small pieces or
burnt alive after being previously soaked with kerosene oil. The
priest personally supervised this whole affair of daylight butchery
which did not finish until the last one of the Sikhs had been consumed
by the bloody bonfire. Later it was discovered that the priest had
prepared for the bloodshed long before, and that he had hired the
armed ruffians and barricaded the temple premises after consultation
with the local English Justice of the Peace. The leading dailies of
the country openly stated that the English civil commissioner was a
co-partner in the crime, but the government took no notice of the
fact. The Hindu population was not surprised that the priest who had
murdered one hundred innocent, inoffensive, devout Sikhs escaped
capital punishment in the British courts or that in his prison he was
surrounded with all the princely luxuries of his former palace.

Guru Ka Bagh is a historic Sikh temple, situated at a distance of
nearly eight miles from the central headquarters of the Sikhs in the
city of Amritsar. Through an agreement drawn between the Central
Shrine Committee and the temple priest on January 31, 1921, Guru Ka
Bagh had come under the management of a local board assisted by the
priest. Six months later, presumably at the suggestion of the civil
commissioner, the priest burned all the temple records and drove the
representative of the Central Committee out of the temple premises;
whereupon the Central Committee took full charge of the temple. They
were in uncontested possession of the premises until trouble started,
a year later, from the arrest of five Akali Sikhs, who had gone out to
cut firewood from the surrounding grounds attached to the Guru Ka
Bagh. A formal complaint was obtained by the civil commissioner from
the ousted priest to the effect that in cutting wood for use in the
temple kitchen the Akalis were trespassing on his property rights. The
cutting of wood on the premises went on as usual until the police
began to make wholesale arrests of all so-called trespassers.

This procedure continued for four days till the police found out
that large numbers of Akalis (immortals) were pouring in from all
sides, everyone eager to be arrested in protecting the rights of his
community. Then the police began to beat the Akali bands with bamboo
sticks six feet long and fitted with iron knobs on both ends. As soon
as Akalis, in groups of five, started to go across for cutting wood,
they were assaulted by the police armed with these bamboo sticks and
were mercilessly beaten over their heads and bodies until they became
unconscious and had to be carried away by the temple ambulance
workers.

The news of this novel method of punishment at once spread
throughout the country like wild fire and thousands of Sikhs started
on their way to Amritsar. The government closed the sale of railroad
tickets to all Akali Sikhs wearing black turbans, which constituted
their national uniform. The various highways leading into the city of
the Golden Temple, Amritsar, were blocked by armed police. But after a
call for them had been issued at the official headquarters of the
Central Shrine Management Committee, nothing could stop the Akalis
from crowding into the city. Where railroads refused passage they
walked long distances on foot, and when river and canal bridges were
guarded against them, both men and women swam across the waters to
reach their holy temple at Amritsar. In the course of two days the
huge premises of the Golden Temple were filled with Akalis of every
sort and kind-boys of twelve with feet sore with blisters from
prolonged walking, women of all ages-and still many were fast pouring
in.

"Among them were medaled veterans of many wars who had fought for
the English in foreign lands and won eminent recognition, and had now
rushed to Amritsar to, win a higher and nobler merit in the service of
their religion and country. They had assembled there to be ruthlessly
beaten and killed by the agents of the same government for whose
protection they had fought at home and across the seas." These old
warriors, disillusioned by their English friends, who were now
conspiring to take from them the simple rights of worship in their own
temples, had not lost their independence and courage. They had always
been the first to leap before the firing guns of the enemy on the
battlefields of England; they were first again here to throw
themselves at the feet of their Central Shrine Committee, willing to
sacrifice their lives at its bidding. All were eager, one more than
the other, to offer themselves for the beating at Guru Ka Bagh.

Seeing that their efforts to stop the Akalis from gathering at
Armitsar had been wholly unsuccessful, the Government issued strict
orders against any person or group of persons from proceeding to Guru
Ka Bagh. Sizing up the whole situation, the assembled leaders of the
community represented in the Central Shrine Committee at once resolved
on two things. First, the community would contest its right of
peaceful pilgrimage and worship at Guru Ka Bagh and other temples
until the last among the Sikhs had been killed in the
struggle. Secondly, they would steadfastly adhere to the letter and
spirit of Mahatma Gandhi's teachings of non-violence. Thirdly, they
decided to send Akalis to Guru Ka Bagh in batches of a hundred each,
in direct defiance of the orders of the British Government. Before
starting on the march, each Akali was required to take an oath of
strict non-violence; that he would not use force in action or speech
under any provocation whatsoever; that if assaulted he would submit to
the rough treatment with resignation and humility; that whatever might
be the nature of his ordeal he would not turn his face backward. He
would either reach Guru Ka Bagh and go out for chopping wood when so
instructed, or he would be carried to the committee's emergency
hospital unconscious, dead or alive.

The first batch started towards Guru Ka Bagh on August 31, 1922,
after previously taking the vow of non-violence. The Akalis were
dressed in black turbans with garlands of white flowers wrapped around
their heads. On their way, as the Akalis sang their religious hymns in
chorus, they were met by a band of policemen armed with bamboo
sticks. Simultaneously the Akalis sat down and thrust their heads
forward to receive blows. An order was given by the English
superintendent, and on rushed the police with their long bamboo rods
to do their bloody work. They beat the non-resisting Sikhs on the
heads, backs, and other delicate parts of their bodies, until the
entire one hundred was maimed and battered and lay there in a mass
unconscious, prostrate, bleeding. While the volunteers were passively
receiving blows from the police, the English superintendent sportively
ran his horse over them and back. His assistants pulled the Sikhs by
their sacred hair, spat upon their faces, and cursed and called them
names in the most offensive manner. Later, their unconscious bodies
were dragged away by the long hair and thrown into the mud on either
side of the road. From the ditches they were picked up by the
ambulance workers and brought to the emergency hospital under the
management of the Central Shrine Committee.

In this way batches of one hundred, pledged to the principle of
non-violence, were sent every day to be beaten by the police in this
brutal fashion and then were picked up unconscious by the ambulance
service. After the tenth day Akalis were allowed to proceed freely on
their way. But the beatings in Guru Ka Bagh at the stop where wood for
kitchen use had been cut, continued till much later. After a few over
fifteen hundred non-resistant and innocent human beings had been thus
sacrificed, several hundred of whom had died of injuries received and
many others had been totally disabled for life, the Government
withdrew the police from Guru Ka Bagh and allowed the Sikhs free use
of the temple and its adjoining properties.

It was an acknowledgment of defeat on the part of the British
Government and a definite victory for the passive
resisters. Non-violence had triumphed over brute force. The meek Sikhs
had established their moral and spiritual courage beyond a
doubt. Those who earlier had laughed at Gandhi's doctrines now began
to reconsider their opinions and wondered if it were not true that the
soul force of man was the mightiest power in the world, more powerful
than the might of all its armies and navies put together. "Socrates
and Christ are both dead, but their spirits live and will continue to
live." Their bodies were destroyed by those who possessed physical
force, but their souls were invincible. Who could conquer the spirit
of Socrates, Christ, or Gandhi when that spirit refused to be
conquered? At the time of the Guru Ka Bagh incident the physical
Gandhi was locked behind iron bars in a jail of India, but his spirit
accompanied every Sikh as he stepped across the line to receive the
enemy's cowardly blows.

The amazing part of this whole story is the perfect peace that
prevailed throughout its entire course. The program of passive
resistance was carried to completion without one slip of action on the
part of the passive resisters. No community in the whole length and
breadth of India is more warlike and more inflammable for a righteous
cause than the Sikhs; and nothing is more provoking to a Sikh than an
insult offered to his sacred hair. Yet in hundreds of cases their
sacred hair was smeared with mud and trampled upon, while the bodies
of non-resisting Sikhs were dragged by their hair in the most
malicious manner by the police; but the passive resisters remained
firm in their resolve to the last and thereby proved their faith both
in themselves and in their principles.

Those who have not grasped the subtle meaning of passive resistance
will call the Akali Sikhs cowards. They will say: "Well, the reason
why the Akalis did not return the blows of the police was because they
were afraid; and it was cowardice and not courage that made them
submit to such insults as the pulling of their sacred hair and so
forth. A truly brave person, who has a grain of salt in him, will
answer the blows of the enemy under those conditions and fight in the
defense of his honor until he is killed." Although we do not agree
with the first part of our objecting friend's argument, we shall admit
the truth of his statement that it takes a brave man to defend his
honor at the risk of death itself. Yet we hold that the Akali who,
while defending his national rights, voluntarily allowed himself to be
beaten to death without thoughts of malice or hatred in his heart
against anybody was a more corageous person than even the hero of our
objecting friend. Why? To use Gandhi's illustration : "What do you
think? Wherein is courage required-in blowing others to pieces from
behind a cannon or with a smiling face approaching a cannon and being
blown to pieces? Who is the true warrior-he who keeps death as a
bosom-friend or he who controls the death of others? Believe me that a
man devoid of courage and manhood can never be a passive resister."

Let us stretch the point a little further in order to make it more
clear. During the martial law days at Amritsar in 1919, the commanding
officer ordered that all persons passing through a certain lane, where
previously an Englishwoman had been assaulted by a furious mob, should
be made to crawl on the bellies. Those living in the neighborhood had
submitted to this humiliation at the point of British bayonets.
Later, when Mahatma Gandhi visited the lane, he is reported to have
made a speech from the spot which may be summarized thus: "You
Punjabees, who possess muscular bodies and have statures six feet
tall; you, who call yourselves brave, submitted to the soul-degrading
crawling order. I am a small man and my physique is very weak. I weigh
less than a hundred pounds. But there is no power in this world that
can make me crawl on my belly. General Dyer's soldiers can bind my
body and put me in jail, or with their military weapons they can take
my life; but when he orders me to crawl on my belly I shall say `Oh
foolish man, don't you see, God has given me two feet to walk on? Why
shall I crawl on my knees, then?"' This is an instance of passive
resistance. Under these circumstances, would you call Gandhi a
coward? You must remember this distinction between a coward and a
passive resister: a coward submits to force through fear; while a
passive resister submits to force under protest. In our illustration
of the crawling order those persons who had submitted to the order
because they were afraid of the punishment involved if they disobeyed
it were cowards of the first degree. But Gandhi would be a passive
resister, and you would not call him a coward, would you?

Let me give you a sample of the sublime heroism displayed by the
Akalis at Guru Ka Bagh. In one instance the policeman's blow struck an
Akali with such violence that one of his eyeballs dropped out. His eye
was bleeding profusely, but still he walked forward towards his goal
until he was knocked down the second time and fell on the ground
unconscious. Another Akali, Pritipal Singh, was knocked down eight
times. Each time as soon as he recovered his senses, he stood on his
feet and started to go forward, until after the eighth time he lay on
the ground wholly prostrate. I have known Pritipal Singh in India. We
went to school together for five years. Pritipal was a good boy in
every way. He was the strongest person in our school and yet the
meekest of all men. He had a very jolly temper, and I can hear to this
day his loud ringing laugh. Inoffensive in his habits, he was a
cultured and a loving friend. When I read his name in the papers and
later discovered how cruelly he suffered from the injuries which
finally resulted in his premature death, I was indeed sorrowful. That
such a saintly person as Pritipal Singh should be made to go through
such hellish tortures and that his life should be thus cruelly ended
in the prime of youth was enough to give anyone a shock. But when I
persuaded myself that with the passing of that handsome youth there
was one more gone for truth's sake, I felt peaceful and happy once
more.

Lest the reader be at a loss to know what this
whole drama of horrible tortures on the one hand and
supsernatural courage on the other was all about, we
shall give the gist of the whole affair as follows:

At the time when the issue was precipitated in Guru Ka Bagh the
Central Shrine Management Committee had already acquired control over
many of the rich Silt shrines, and become a powerful force in the
uplift of the community. The committee was receiving huge incomes from
the various shrine properties, which it proposed to spend on
educational and social service work. Those at the helm of affairs were
profoundly nationalistic in their views. Naturally, the British
Government began to fear their power, which it desired to break
through suppression. Hence the issue at Guru Ka Bagh was not the
chopping of fuel wood. The ghastly motive of the Government was to cow
the Sikhs and crush their spirits through oppression. How it started
to demonstrate its power and how shamefully it failed in its sinister
purpose has already been explained.

Many other examples of the victory of soul force over brute
strength could be cited from the recent history of India. I chose the
Guru Ka Bagh affair as the subject of my illustration for two
reasons. In the first place, it was the most simple and yet the most
prominent demonstration of the holiness and might of passive
resistance; and secondly, the drama was performed in my own home town
by actors who belonged to my own community and were kith and kin to me
in the sense that I could know fully their joys and sorrows, their
hopes and fears.