Wishesh June 2015 Online E-Magazine

of three months’ jail and labeled it a matter of shame
to the Sardar and to the government. Gandhi wished
that a person like Sardar Patel should be sentenced
to a term of seven years’ imprisonment or be exiled.
‘It would not befit the Government to sentence me to
three months’ imprisonment. Exile for life or hanging
would be a punishment fit for a person like me. I am
guilty of sedition. It is my dharma to commit sedition
against the Government. I am teaching this dharma
to the people. A regime under which tyranny is being
perpetrated, under which the rich and the poor are
made to pay the same amount of tax on an item like
salt, under which exorbitant sums are being spent
on watchmen, the police and the army, under which
the highest executive receives a salary which is five
thousand times the income of the cultivator, under
which an annual revenue of 25 crores of rupees is
derived from narcotics and liquor, under which foreign
cloth of the value of Rs. 60 cores is imported every
year, and under which crores of persons continue to
remain unemployed, it is one’s dharma to rise against
and destroy such a regime, to pray that fire may
consume its policies34
Meanwhile, the A.I.C.C. held a meeting on the banks
of the Sabarmati on 20 March. Besides the president
Jawaharlal Nehru, it was attended by other prominent
leaders like Maulana Azad, Sarojini Naidu, P.D.
Tandon, Abbas Tyabji, Darbar Gopaldas, J.B. Kripalani,
N.C. Kalelkar, Kasturba Gandhi, Ansuyabehn and
Mrs. Ambalal35 Many members excused themselves
from attendance on the plea that they were busy
with preparations for Civil Disobedience Movement,
in their own areas36 The leaders met under a sense
of ‘heavy’ responsibility and the result was foregone
conclusion.
The Government of India felt much concern over the
resolution of Congress. The Home Member suggested,
‘it is essential that we should able to give timely warning
owing to local Governments’40 He also suggested that
the correspondence of the members of the Working
Committee; the correspondence of the head office of
the Congress and of all provincial Congress offices and
provincial Congress Presidents and of any particular
individual whose correspondence in local government
concerned might regard as likely to yield ‘specially
important’ information, should be censured.41
It was barely ten days ago that Gandhi had begun his
historic march and the actual campaign was yet to be
started. The whole country was already in a state of
fervour for a parallel to which one might recollect the
‘hottest days’ of the Non-Cooperation Movement of
1920-22. People in the provinces were planning to
start the movement, and in some cases preliminary
steps had already been initiated. In Bengal, for instance,
which had for the moment, lost both its outstanding
leaders, a ‘War Council’ had been formed. In the
United Provinces, the Provincial Congress Committee
had started a satyagraha committee consisting of
prominent leaders, including the President of the
Congress himself. Judging from the signs, the whole
country appeared to be in the throes of an agitation of
unprecedented magnitude.
By its principal resolution, the A.I.C.C. confirmed
the Working Committee’s resolution authorising
Gandhi to launch Civil Disobedience Movement. It
laid down the conditions under which the various
provinces should start satyagraha on a mass scale37
The Provincial Congress Committees were given
wide discretion about the manner, the form and the
place of Civil Disobedience. It was open to them, to
prepare their provinces for any form of satyagraha,
best suited to them. But it was clearly laid down
that the salt satyagraha should be undertaken in
every province when it was possible. Other forms
of satyagraha might be prepared for, but should be
reserved for the second stage of the campaign38 In
case Gandhi was arrested, the Provincial Congress
Committees should immediately determine to start
Civil Disobedience, and if he was not arrested, they
should await instructions which he might issue on
reaching his destination. He would give the necessary
signal and the Provincial Congress Committees would
be informed immediately through the A.I.C.C. Office39
JUNE 2015 | WWW.WISHESH.COM
67