onscious--conspiracy to uphold official iniquity. A scandal of this
magnitude cannot be tolerated by the nation, if it is to preserve its
self-respect and become a free partner in the Empire. The All-India
Congress Committee has resolved upon convening a special session of the
Congress for the purpose of considering, among other things, the
situation arising from the report. In my opinion the time has arrived
when we must cease to rely upon mere petition to Parliament for
effective action. Petitions will have value, when the nation has behind
it the power to enforce its will. What power then have we? When we are
firmly of opinion that grave wrong has been done us and when after an
appeal to the highest authority we fail to secure redress, there must be
some power available to us for undoing the wrong. It is true that in the
vast majority of cases it is the duty of a subject to submit to wrongs
on failure of the usual procedure, so long as they do not affect his
vital being. But every nation and every individual has the right and it
is their duty, to rise against an intolerable wrong. I do not believe in
armed risings. They are a remedy worse than the disease sought to be
cured. They are a token of the spirit of revenge and impatience and
anger. The method of violence cannot do good in the long run. Witness
the effect of the armed rising of the allied powers against Germany.
Have they not become even like the Germans, as the latter have been
depicted to us by them?

We have a better method. Unlike that of violence it certainly involves
the exercise of restraint and patience: but it requires also
resoluteness of will. This method is to refuse to be party to the wrong.
No tyrant has ever yet succeeded in his purpose without carrying the
victim with him, it may be, as it often is, by force. Most people choose
rather to yield to the will of the tyrant than to suffer for the
consequences of resistance. Hence does terrorism form part of the
stock-in-trade of the tyrant. But we have instances in history where
terrorism has failed to impose the terrorist's will upon his victim.
India has the choice before her now. If then the acts of the Punjab
Government be an insufferable wrong, if the report of Lord Hunter's
Committee and the two despatches be a greater wrong by reason of their
grievous condonation of those acts, it is clear that we must refuse to
submit to this official violence. Appeal the Parliament by all means, if
necess