Freedom's Battle. Mohandas K. Gandhi

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      After the great war it is difficult to point out a single nation that is happy; but this has come out of the war, that there is not a single nation outside India that is not either free or striving to be free.

      It is said that we, too, are on the road to freedom, that it is better to be on the certain though slow course of gradual unfoldment of freedom than to take the troubled and dangerous path of revolution whether peaceful or violent, and that the new Reforms are a half-way house to freedom.

      The new constitution granted to India keeps all the military forces, both in the direction and in the financial control, entirely outside the scope of responsibility to the people of India. What does this mean? It means that the revenues of India are spent away on what the nation does not want. But after the mid-Eastern complications and the fresh Asiatic additions to British Imperial spheres ​of action, this Indian military servitude is a clear danger to national interests.

      The new constitution gives no scope for retrenchment and therefore no scope for measures of social reform except by fresh taxation, the heavy burden of which on the poor will outweigh all the advantages of any reforms. It maintains all the existing foreign services, and the cost of the administrative machinery high as it already is, is further increased.

      The reformed constitution keeps all the fundamental liberties of person, property, press, and association completely under bureaucratic control. All those laws which give to the irresponsible officers of the Executive Government of India absolute powers to override the popular will, are still unrepealed. In spite of the tragic price paid in the Punjab for demonstrating the danger of unrestrained power in the hands of a foreign bureaucracy and the inhumanity of spirit by which tyranny in a panic will seek to save itself, we stand just where we were before, at the mercy of the Executive in respect of all our fundamental liberties.

      Not only is Despotism intact in the Law, but unparalleled crimes and cruelties against the people have been encouraged and even after boastful admissions and clearest proofs, left unpunished. The spirit of unrepentent cruelty has thus been allowed to permeate the whole administration.

      ​To understand our present condition it is not enough to realise the general political servitude. We should add to it the reality and the extent of the injury inflicted by Britain on Islam, and thereby on the Mussalmans of India. The articles of Islamic faith which it is necessary to understand in order to realise why Mussalman India, which was once so loyal, is now so strongly moved to the contrary are easily set out and understood. Every religion should be interpreted by the professors of that religion. The sentiments and religious ideas of Muslims founded on the traditions of long generations cannot be altered now by logic or cosmopolitanism, as others understand it. Such an attempt is the more unreasonable when it is made not even as a bonafide and independent effort of proselytising logic or reason, but only to justify a treaty entered into for political and worldly purposes.

      The Khalifa is the authority that is entrusted with the duty of defending Islam. He is the successor to Muhammad and the agent of God on earth. According to Islamic tradition he must possess sufficient temporal power effectively to protect Islam against non-Islamic powers, and he should be one elected or accepted by the Mussalman world.

      The Jazirat-ul-Arab is the area bounded by the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, and ​the waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates. It is the sacred Home of Islam and the centre towards which Islam throughout the world turns in prayer. According to the religious injunctions of the Mussalmans, this entire area should always be under Muslim control, its scientific border being believed to be a protection for the integrity of Islamic life and faith. Every Mussalman throughout the world is enjoined to sacrifice his all, if necessary, for preserving the Jazirat-ul-Arab under complete Muslim control.

      The sacred places of Islam should be in the possession of the Khalifa. They should not merely be free for the entry of the Mussalmans of the world by the grace or the license of non-Muslim powers, but should be the possession and property of Islam in the fullest degree.

      It is a religious obligation on every Mussalman to go forth and help the Khalifa in every possible way where his unaided efforts in the defence of the Khilafat have failed.

      The grievance of the Indian Mussalmans is that a government that pretends to protect and spread peace and happiness among them has no right to ignore or set aside these articles of their cherished faith.

      According to the Peace Treaty imposed on the nominal Government at Constantinople, the Khalifa far from having the temporal authority or ​power needed to protect Islam, is a prisoner in his own city. He is to have no real fighting force, army or navy, and the financial control over his own territories is vested in other Governments. His capital is cut off from the rest of his possessions by an intervening permanent military occupation. It is needless to say that under these conditions he is absolutely incapable of protecting Islam as the Mussalmans of the world understand it.

      The Jazirat-ul-Arab is split up; a great part of it given to powerful non-Muslim Powers, the remnant left with petty chiefs dominated all round by non-Muslim Governments.

      The Holy places of Islam are all taken out of the Khalifa's kingdom, some left in the possession of minor Muslim chiefs of Arabia entirely dependent on European control, and some relegated to newly-formed non-Muslim states.

      In a word, the Mussalman's free choice of a Khalifa such as Islamic tradition defines is made an unreality.

THE HINDU DHARMA

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       The age of misunderstanding and mutual warfare among religions is gone. If India has a mission of its own to the world, it is to establish the unity and the truth of all religions. This unity ​is established by mutual help and understanding between the various religions. It has come as a rare privilege to the Hindus in the fulfilment of this mission of India to stand up in defence of Islam against the onslaught of the earth-greed of the military powers of the west.

      The Dharma of Hinduism in this respect is placed beyond all doubt by the Bhagavat Gita.

      Those who are the votaries of other Gods and worship them with faith—even they, O Kaunteya, worship me alone, though not as the Shastra requires—IX. 23.

      Whoever being devoted wishes in perfect faith to worship a particular form, of such a one I maintain the same faith unshaken.—VII. 21.

      Hinduism will realise its fullest beauty when in the fulfilment of this cardinal tenet, its followers offer themselves as sacrifice for the protection of the faith of their brothers, the Mussalmans.

      If Hindus and Mussalmans attain the height of courage and sacrifice that is needed for this battle on behalf of Islam against the greed of the West, a victory will be won not alone for Islam, but for Christianity itself. Militarism has robbed the crucified God of his name and his very cross and the World has been mistaking it to be Christianity! After the battle of Islam is won, Islam and Hinduism together can emancipate Christianity itself from the lust for power and wealth which have ​strangled it now and the true Christianity of the Gospels will be established. This battle of non-cooperation with its suffering and peaceful withdrawal of service will once for all establish its superiority over the power of brute force and unlimited slaughter.

      What a glorious privilege it is to play our part in the history of the world, when Hinduism and Christianity will unite on СКАЧАТЬ