THE COLONY
·11
endeavored to learn Scripture and to follow the old religion in all its
precepts. But he had begun too late, for the literature of the West was
already read the works of European socialists. He understood the
was still struggling with the first chapter of the Text, while he had
already read the works of European socialists. He understood the
destiny and the suffering of his country far better by looking to her
socialist future than by considering her religious past.
As
for acquiring
grace, he realized he would never learn the full list of sacred veg–
etables, or receive more than sentimental satisfaction from prayer.
Even during the early period of his association with Bapu, which had
been marked by incessant controversy, he had felt no need-a self–
confidence rare among the old man's followers-to apologize for his
Western instincts. He had accepted science; he believed himself a
materialist, and he hoped that some day the country would
be
fully
industrialized. And yet politics is politics, practical truth lacks sym–
metry and even the most consistent revolutionary is, at heart, a foe
of progress.
If,
as he was convinced, a violent struggle was not feasible,
if an unarmed country could never oust an armed oppressor by blood–
shed, then one should be thankful for backwardness insofar as
it
is the
condition of that country's liberation. For non-violence could draw on
endless resources: poverty, misery, disease, humiliation, even ignorance
and superstition. But what little supply of arms a violent revolution
could amass would soon be exhausted; whereafter violence would be
reduced to a useless expenditure of lives.
And then, was there any assurance even if the country were
armed, that violence would prove a success? War after war had been
fought, revolution after revolution-why, some revolutions had even
been "successful"-but all they had ever accomplished might as well
never have been attained, for a single war had wiped out every trace
of enlightenment and left a ravaged and exhausted world, its strength
squandered, its culture degraded, its men turned into beasts, whose
only instinct now was to prepare for further violence. The West had
died. All that had survived was what it had set out to destroy. The
achievement of liberation
anc~
the establishment of a socialist society
required a more reliable means than violence. And the only alternative
tQ violence was non-violence.
There was also the desire for power, characteristic of all ruling–
groups. Satya had warned the people against the expropriation of
power by their own party leaders in an anonymous article he had
written, attacking himself. The authorship of the article- was soon
discovered and the word spread, but it had carried its point remark-
