"The Doctrine of the Sword", in his weekly paper Young India, 11 August 1920
The Law of Our Species
In August 1920 Mahatma Gandhi was in Bombay. Ten days earlier, on 1 August, Bal Gangadhar Tilak died, and on that same day the non-cooperation movement began. Indians were angry about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre at Amritsar from the year before, when troops under General Dyer shot an unarmed crowd. Many critics said that telling people not to fight back was simply asking them to be cowards. Mahatma Gandhi sat down and wrote an answer for Young India, the weekly he edited. He called his essay "The Doctrine of the Sword".
In the essay Gandhiji made a startling point. He wrote that if the choice were only between cowardice and violence, he would advise violence. He said he would rather India took up arms than watch its dishonour without acting. But he said there is a third choice that takes more nerve than striking a blow. As he put it, "Non-violence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute." An animal knows only physical force. A human being can choose restraint, and standing still under an attack demands more spine than hitting back.
Therefore
When you refuse to strike back, make sure you are choosing restraint rather than hiding from fear. The choice only works if you have the nerve to stand your ground.
Young India, 11 August 1920
On 11 August 1920 Gandhiji left Bombay on a train for Madras with the Khilafat leader Maulana Shaukat Ali to make speeches. In September the Indian National Congress met in Calcutta and voted to support the campaign. The words in the essay set the pattern for what followed. Over the next few months thousands of people gave back British medals, left government law courts, walked out of state schools, and sat down to spin cloth. They chose non-cooperation not because they were helpless, but because they had decided to withdraw their consent.
A small reminder, on the desk or the notebook, that restraint takes more courage than striking back.
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