n these circumstances the only course open to one like me is either in
despair to sever all connection with British rule, or, if I still
retained faith in the inherent superiority of the British constitution
to all others at present in vogue to adopt such means as will rectify
the wrong done, and thus restore confidence. I have not lost faith in
such superiority and I am not without hope that somehow or other justice
will yet be rendered if we show the requisite capacity for suffering.
Indeed, my conception of that constitution is that it helps only those
who are ready to help themselves. I do not believe that it protects the
weak. It gives free scope to the strong to maintain their strength and
develop it. The weak under it go to the wall.

It is, then, because I believe in the British constitution that I have
advised my Mussalman friends to withdraw their support from your
Excellency's Government and the Hindus to join them, should the peace
terms not be revised in accordance with the solemn pledges of Ministers
and the Muslim sentiment.

Three courses were open to the Mahomedans in order to mark their
emphatic disapproval of the utter injustice to which His Majesty's
Ministers have become party, if they have not actually been the prime
perpetrators of it. They are:--

(1) To resort to violence,

(2) To advise emigration on a wholesale scale,

(3) Not to be party to the injustice by ceasing to co-operate with the
Government.

Your Excellency must be aware that there was a time when the boldest,
though the most thoughtless among the Mussulmans favoured violence, and
the "Hijrat" (emigration) has not yet ceased to be the battle-cry. I
venture to claim that I have succeeded by patient reasoning in weaning
the party of violence from its ways. I confess that I did not--I did not
attempt to succeed in weaning them from violence on moral grounds, but
purely on utilitarian grounds. The result, for the time being at any
has, however, been to stop violence. The School of "Hijrat" has received
a check, if it has not stopped its activity entirely. I hold that no
repression could have prevented a violent eruption, if the people had
not had presented to them a form of direct action involving considerable
sacrifice and ensuring success if such direct action was largely taken
up by the public. Non-co-operation was the only dignified and
constitutional form of such direct action. For it is the right
recognised from times immemo