After my experience of last evening¹ I have decided not to hold the prayers till every man present in the audience is ready for it. I have never imposed anything on anybody, then how can I impose a highly spiritual thing like prayer? The prompting to pray or not to pray should come from within. There is no question at all of pleasing me. My prayer meetings have become really popular. It appears that millions of people have been benefited from these meetings. But in these times of mutual tension I very well understand the anger of the people who have undergone great hardships. My only condition for holding the prayer is that I should not be expected to omit that particular portion to which there may be some objection. Either the prayer should be heartily accepted as a whole or it should be rejected. For me the recitation from the Koran is that part of the prayer which cannot be discontinued.
I can understand your resentment and the impatience it generates. But if you wish to qualify yourselves to deserve your freedom, you will have to curb your anger and will have to depend on your Government to get the fullest justice done to you. I am not proposing to you my method of non-violence, much as I would like to, for I know that today no one is going to listen to my talk about non-violence. That is why I have suggested that you should adopt the ways followed by all democratic countries. In democracy, every individual has to abide by the wishes of the people, that is, the Government, and has to direct his own wishes in that light. If every man takes the law into his own hands the State cannot function. It would mean anarchy, which means end of social order. That is, the State would not exist. That is the way to lose our independence. I believe that if you would let the Government carry out its tasks, there is no doubt that every Hindu and Sikh refugee would return home with honour and respect. But you cannot expect these things to happen if you want your Muslim compatriots to be driven out of India. I find any such thing dreadful. You cannot secure justice by doing injustice to the Muslims. Apart from that, if it is true that the minorities, that is, the Hindus and the Sikhs have been treated very badly in Pakistan, it is also true that in East Punjab the minority people, that is the Muslims, have been badly treated. For both the countries the right way to arrive at a proper agreement is that both sides should acknowledge their mistakes with clean hearts and arrive at a mutual settlement. If it is not possible to come to a settlement they must resort to arbitration and accept the arbitrator’s decision. Another way is the uncivilized way of war. I hate the very idea of war. But there would be no alternative to war in the absence of mutual settlement or decision by an arbitrator. I therefore hope that in such circumstances people will give up their madness and come to their senses and reassure their Muslim neighbours who have chosen not to go to Pakistan, and persuade them to return to their hearths by promising safety and protection to them. This thing cannot be accomplished with the help of the army. It can be achieved only when people come to their senses. I have decided not to live to witness the country being ruined by fratricide. I am constantly praying to God that He should take me away before any calamity befalls this sacred and beautiful land of ours. I request you all to join me in this prayer.
I am grateful to the Hindu and Muslim workers² for working together in amity. If you would work with perfect unity, you would provide a worthy example to the country. The working class should not allow communalism to come anywhere near them. Have I not said that if only you knew your own power and continued to do constructive work with understanding, you would become true owners and rulers and your employers would be your trustees and friends to help you in the times of difficulty? That happy moment can come only when they realize that rather than gold and silver which only the workers bring out from the earth, the workers themselves are the true wealth.
[From Hindi]
Prarthana Pravachan—I, pp. 318-20
Notes
- 1. At the prayer meeting on September 16, as soon as the recitation from the Koran had commenced, someone in the gathering shouted: “To the recitation of these verses, our mothers and sisters were dishonoured, our dear ones killed. We will not let you recite these verses here.” Some shouted: “Gandhi murdabad” (death to Gandhi). All efforts to restore order having failed, the prayer was abandoned.
- 2. Gandhiji had earlier attended a large gathering of workers of the Delhi Cloth Mills.
Notes
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