What Gandhi said about the duty of citizens in dealing with a corrupt administration
Dear Editor,
Eighty- eight years ago, on 25 February 1931, Mahatma Gandhi received a simple one-year imprisonment. He had previously received prison sentences, some much longer, for all kind of infringements based on his philosophy of satyagraha and non-cooperation with the British imperial government. What was unusual about this case was the severity of the charge against him. It was a charge of sedition. He was accused of, “writing seditious articles in Young India so as to cause feelings of contempt and disaffection amongst the people against the Government by law established.”
Gandhi refused to participate in the court proceedings but not before submitting a single simple statement. He remarked, “As distinct from a despotism which cannot lay claim of any loyalty from the subject save that of obedience for fear of the strong arm, a government founded on the freewill of the people it governs can be said to be a ‘Government by law established.’ Has the Government of India any pretence to be styled so?” Gandhi continued, “The people of India owe no more allegiance to this government than does the man in the moon. Where there is no ground for the bond of affection, it naturally follows that I cannot be guilty of spreading disaffection.”
Further down in the same statement, Gandhi added, “As the Government of India is an usurper of the people’s rights and at best its laws are but executive mandates as the Legislatures have no power to pass a bill against the executive’s wish, you have no power arising from the people in whom rests sovereignty.” Speaking to the court he continued, “You’re an arm of the executive and hence you have no jurisdiction over me and it is not for me to participate in this farce of a judicial proceeding.” He then boldly called on the Magistrate to resign, what he termed, “the disreputable connection with a soulless machine that drinks the blood of your people and descending from the throne of the usurper which you now occupy, and come and stand by your own in the hour of their need.”
One of the articles, entitled “The Duty of Disloyalty,” for which Gandhi was hauled before the courts was published almost a year earlier on March 27, 1930 in Young India. Clearly seditious in nature and in obvious response to Justice Stephen who had earlier stated that, “… a man to prove himself not guilty of disaffection must prove himself to be actively affectionate,” Gandhi agreeing said, “There is no half-way house between active loyalty and active disloyalty … In these days of democracy there is no such thing as an active loyalty to a person. You are therefore loyal or disloyal to institutions. When therefore you are disloyal you seek not to destroy persons but institutions. The present State is an institution which, if one knows it, can never evoke loyalty … It is then the duty of those who have realized the awful evil of the system of Indian Government to be disloyal to it and actively and openly preach disloyalty. Indeed, loyalty to a state so corrupt is a sin, disloyalty is a virtue.”
Gandhi continued, “You assist an administration most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil administration never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good man will therefore resist an evil system of administration with his whole soul. Disobedience of the laws of an evil State is therefore a duty. Violent disobedience deals with men who can be replaced. It leaves the evil itself untouched and often accentuates it. Non-violent, i.e., civil, disobedience is the only and the most successful remedy and is obligatory upon him who would dissociate himself from evil.”
Yours faithfully, Swami Aksharananda