"The Doctrine of the Sword", in his weekly paper Young India, 11 August 1920
The Law of Our Species
On 1 August 1920 Mahatma Gandhi launched the non-cooperation movement in India. The nationalist leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak died in Bombay on that same day. People across India were still angry about the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, where British troops under General Dyer had shot down an unarmed crowd in April 1919. Many critics in the Indian National Congress told Gandhiji that refusing to cooperate without taking up arms was cowardice. They said he was asking an injured nation to lie down. Ten days later, he answered them in print.
Gandhiji answered his critics plainly in his essay. He wrote that if the only choice was cowardice or violence, he would choose violence. Then he offered the harder path: "Non-violence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute." An animal knows only physical force, but a person can choose ahimsa (ah-HIM-sah), which means not harming. Meeting an attack with restraint takes more nerve than striking back. Anyone who keeps their voice steady during a bitter argument knows that restraint is not weakness.
Therefore
Do not confuse restraint with cowardice. Walking away from a fight out of fear is running away, but refusing to strike while holding your ground takes courage.
Young India, 11 August 1920
The essay appeared under the title "The Doctrine of the Sword" in Young India, the weekly paper he edited. On the day it came out, Gandhiji arrived in Madras on a speaking tour. Many senior politicians still doubted him and warned that ordinary people could not show such discipline. But in September 1920, the Indian National Congress met in Calcutta and voted to support his plan. Over the next year, thousands of Indians returned British titles, walked out of government schools, and left law courts. They took up the charkha (spinning wheel) and spun their own cloth. The movement showed that unarmed people could stop an empire simply by refusing to cooperate.
A small reminder, on the desk or the notebook, that choosing not to hurt someone is an act of strength.
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