By
Mahatma Gandhi
Gandhiji said that the present was his second visit to Motiaburz. The first was when Maulana Saheb Abul Kalam Azad and he visited them years ago because there was a fight between Hindu and Muslim workmen. Fortunately when they reached the scene of trouble, it was almost over but they got undeserved credit. The present was a happy occasion. The Hindus and the Muslims had adjusted their differences and had become friends. He hoped that this was a lasting friendship. He wanted to say a few words to the workmen in the working men’s locality. He hoped that there was no distinction between the Hindus and the Muslims in labour. They were all labourers. If the communal canker entered the labour ranks, both would weaken labour and therefore, themselves and the country. Labour was a great leveller of all distinctions. If they realized that truth, he would like them to go a step further. Labour, because it chose to remain unintelligent, either became subservient or insolently believed in damaging capitalists’ goods and machinery or even in killing capitalists. He was a labourer by conviction and a Bhangi. As such his interests were bound with those of labour and he wished to tell them that violence would never save them. They would be killing the goose that laid golden eggs. What he had been saying for years was that labour was far superior to capital. Without labour gold, silver and copper were a useless burden. It was labour which extracted precious ore from the bowels of the earth. He could quite conceive of labour existing without metal. Labour was priceless, not gold. He wanted marriage between capital and labour. They could work wonders in co-operation. But that could happen only when labour was intelligent enough to co-operate with itself and then offer co-operation with capital on terms of honourable equality. Capital controlled labour because it knew the art of combination. Drops in separation could only fade away; drops in cooperation made the ocean which carried on its broad bosom ocean greyhounds. Similarly, if all the labourers in any part of the world combined together, they could not be tempted by higher wages or helplessly allow themselves to be attracted for a pittance. A true and non-violent combination of labour would act like a magnet attracting to it all the needed capital. Capitalists would then exist only as trustees. When that happy day dawned, there would be no difference between capital and labour. The labour will have ample food, good and sanitary dwellings, all the necessary education for their children, ample leisure for self-education and proper medical assistance.
Then he came to the nationalist Muslims who had sent him the following note:
You have expressed the opinion that the nationalist Muslims should join the League. Then does it imply that the Congress has now become a communal organization?
Gandhiji said that he was not guilty of asking them to discard nationalism or of expecting the Congress to be another Hindu Sabha. He hoped that the Congress would never commit suicide by being a communal organization. When the Congress ceased to represent all who were proud to call themselves Indians, whether prince or pauper, Hindus, Muslims or any other, it will have destroyed itself. Therefore, he could not advise a Muslim Congressman to join the League if the condition of joining the League was to discard or suppress his Congress membership. He would vote for those resolutions of the League which were in the nation’s interest and against those which were contrary to the nation’s interest. He had in mind several Muslims of staunch faith who were neither in the Congress nor in the League. He advised the nationalist Muslim friends to join the League if they wanted to affect the Muslim masses. Real nationalists needed no encouragement from him or anyone else. Nationalism, like virtue, was its own reward. His one warning was that they should never think of power or bettering their worldly prospects by joining the one or the other organization. A nationalist would ever think of service, never of power or riches. There could be one President of the Congress or the League. Presidentship came by merit and strength of service. The League had become what it was, not by his or Congress cajolery. The Qaid-e-Azam was an able President, whom neither riches nor titles could buy. He was a front-rank barrister and a rich man. Being the son of a merchant he knew how to multiply his earnings as a lawyer by wise investments. This acknowledgement did not mean that Gandhiji liked all his ways or that the latter had led the Muslims in the right way. He had his differences with the Qaid-e-Azam and the League. But he could not withhold merit where it was due. It was, he hoped, clear to the nationalist Muslims under what conditions he advised them to join the League.
Gandhiji then came to the question addressed to him by some members of the Azad Hind Fauj.¹
Harijan, 7-9-1947
Notes
- 1. The meeting came to a close as it started raining. For Gandhiji’s reply to members of the Indian National Army, vide pp. 104-5.
Notes
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