Part 9 (2/2)

These demands are not demands, but they show our mental state. We will get nothing by asking; we shall have to take what we want, and we need the requisite strength for the effort and that strength will be available to him only who

1. will, only on rare occasions, make use of the English language;

2. if a lawyer, will give up his profession and take up a hand-loom;

3. if a lawyer, will devote his knowledge to enlightening both his people and the English;

4. if a lawyer, will not meddle with the quarrels between parties, but will give up the courts and from his experience induce the people to do likewise;

5. if a lawyer, will refuse to be a judge, as the will give up his profession;

6. if a doctor, will give up medicine, and understand that rather than mending bodies, he should mend souls;

7. if a doctor, will understand, that no matter to what religion he belongs, it is better that bodies remain diseased rather than that they are cured through the instrumentality of the diabolical vivisection that is practised in European schools of medicine;

8. although a doctor, will take up a hand-loom and, if any patients come to him, will tell them the cause of their diseases, and will advise them to remove the cause, rather than pamper them by giving useless drugs; he will understand that, if by not taking drugs, perchance the patient dies, the world will not come to grief, and that he will have been really merciful to him;

9. although a wealthy man, regardless of his wealth, will speak out his mind and fear no one;

10. if a wealthy man, will devote his money to establis.h.i.+ng hand-looms, and encourage others to use hand-made goods by wearing them himself;

11. like every other Indian, will know that this is a time for repentance, expiation and mourning;

12. like every other Indian, will know that to blame the English is useless, that they came because of us, and remain also for the same reason, and that they will either go or change their nature, only when we reform ourselves;

13. like others, will understand that, at a time of mourning, there can be no indulgence, and that, whilst we are in a fallen state, to be in gaol or in banishment is much the best;

14. like others, will know that it is superst.i.tion to imagine it necessary that we should guard against being imprisoned in order that we may deal with the people;

15. like others, will know that action is much better than speech; that it is our duty to say exactly what we think and face the consequences, and that it will be only then that we shall be able to impress anybody with our speech;

16. like others, will understand that we will become free only through suffering;

17. like others, will understand that deportation for life to the Andamans is not enough expiation for the sin of encouraging European civilization;

18. like others, will know that no nation has risen without suffering; that, even in physical warfare, the true test is suffering and not the killing of others, much more so in the warfare of pa.s.sive resistance;

19. like others, will know that it is an idle excuse to say that we will do a thing when the others also do it; that we should do what we know to be right, and that others will do it when they see the way; that when I fancy a particular delicacy, I do not wait till others taste it; that to make a national effort and to suffer are in the nature of delicacies; and that to suffer under pressure is no suffering.

READER: This is a large order. When will all carry it out?

EDITOR: You make a mistake. You and I have nothing to do with the others. Let each do his duty. If I do my duty, that is, serve myself, I shall be able to serve others. Before I leave you, I will take the liberty of repeating.

1. Real home-rule is self-rule or self-control.

2. The way to it is pa.s.sive resistance: that is soul force or love-force.

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