propaganda to inflate demand for our goods, but greater production.”

“Then, surely, you will bless my effort, if I am already engaged in that very thing,” I asked.

“How can that be?” he exclaimed, a bit puzzled, “but maybe you are thinking of promoting the establishment of new mills, in which case you certainly deserve to be congratulated.”

“I am not doing exactly that,” I explained, “but I am engaged in the revival of the spinning wheel.”

“What is that?” he asked, feeling still more at sea. I told him all about the spinning wheel, and the story of my long quest after it, and added, “I am entirely of your opinion; it is no use my becoming virtually an agent for the mills. That would do more harm than good to the country. Our mills will not be in want of custom for a long time to come. My work should be, and therefore is, to organize the production of handspun cloth, and to find means for the disposal of the khadi thus produced. I am, therefore, concentrating my attention on the production of khadi. I swear by this form of Swadeshi, because through it I can provide work to the semi-starved, semi-employed women of India. My idea is to get these women to spin yarn, and to clothe the people of India with khadi woven out of it. I do not know how far this movement is going to succeed; at present it is only in the incipient stage. But I have full faith in it. At any rate it can do no harm. On the contrary to the extent that it can add to the cloth production of the country, be it ever so small, it will represent so much solid gain. You will thus perceive that my movement is free from the evils mentioned by you.”

He replied, “If you have additional production in view in organizing your movement, I have nothing to say against it. Whether the spinning wheel can make headway in this age of power machinery is another question. But I for one wish you every success.”

XLII

Its Rising Tide

I must not devote any more chapters here to a description of the further progress of khadi. It would be outside the scope of these chapters to give a history of my various activities after they came before the public eye, and I must not attempt it, if only because to do so would require a treatise on the subject. My object in writing these chapters is simply to describe how certain things, as it were spontaneously, presented themselves to me in the course of my experiments with truth.

To resume, then, the story of the noncooperation movement. Whilst the powerful Khilafat agitation set up by the Ali brothers was in full progress, I had long discussions on the subject with the late Maulana Abdul Bari and the other ulemas, especially, with regard to the extent to which a Mussalman could observe the rule of nonviolence. In the end they all agreed that Islam did not forbid its followers from following nonviolence as a policy and further, that, while they were pledged to that policy, they were bound faithfully to carry it out. At last the noncooperation resolution was moved in the Khilafat conference, and carried after prolonged deliberations. I have a vivid recollection how once at Allahabad a committee sat all night deliberating upon the subject. In the beginning the late Hakim Saheb was sceptical as to the practicability of nonviolent noncooperation. But after his scepticism was overcome he threw himself into it heart and soul, and his help proved invaluable to the movement.

Next, the noncooperation resolution was moved by me at the Gujarat Political Conference that was held shortly afterwards. The preliminary contention raised by the opposition was that it was not competent to a provincial conference to adopt a resolution in advance of the Congress. As against this, I suggested that the restriction could apply only to a backward movement; but as for going forward, the subordinate organizations were not only fully competent, but were in duty bound to do so, if they had in them the necessary grit and confidence. No permission, I argued, was needed to try to enhance the prestige of the parent institution, provided one did it at one’s own risk. The proposition was then discussed on its merits, the debate being marked by its keenness no less than the atmosphere of “sweet reasonableness” in which it was conducted. On the ballot being taken the resolution was declared carried by an overwhelming majority. The successful passage of the resolution was due not a little to the personality of Sjt. Vallabhbhai and Abbas Tyabji. The latter was the president, and his leanings were all in favour of the noncooperation resolution.

The All-India Congress Committee resolved to hold a special session of the Congress in September 1920 at Calcutta to deliberate on this question. Preparations were made for it on a large scale. Lala Lajpat Rai was elected President. Congress and Khilafat specials were run to Calcutta from Bombay. At Calcutta there was a mammoth gathering of delegates and visitors.

At the request of Maulana Shaukat Ali I prepared a draft of the noncooperation resolution in the train. Up to this time I had more or less avoided the use of the word nonviolent in my drafts. I invariably made use of this word in my speeches. My vocabulary of the subject was still in process of formation. I found that I could not bring home my meaning to purely Muslim audiences with the help of the Sanskrit equivalent for nonviolent. I therefore asked Maulana Abul Kalam Azad to give me some other equivalent for it. He suggested the word ba-aman; similarly for noncooperation he suggested the phrase tark-i-mavalat.

Thus, while I was still busy devising suitable Hindi, Gujarati and Urdu phraseology for noncooperation, I was called upon to frame the noncooperation resolution for that eventful Congress. In the original

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