THE ROAD TO NOWSHERA	69
where by the people as their natural protectors and friends
in need, I shall know that, at last, we have got in our
midst a body of men who have really assimilated the spirit
of non-violence and the hour of India's deliverance is close
at hand."
Throughout these talks with the Khudai Khidmatgars
Badshah Khan acted as interpreter, and a finer interpre-
ter Gandhiji could hardly have had or wished for. He
did his work with rare devotion and zeal and put his whole
soul into it. After explaining to the Khudai Khidmatgars
in Pushtu what Gandhiji had said, he uttered the memo-
rable words 2 " I know it is difficult to curb one's anger
altogether. But you have pledged yourselves to it before
God. Man is by nature weak but God is all powerful. By
yourselves you may fail in your efforts to be completely
non-violent but God helping, you will succeed. It may
not be all at once. The progress will be slow and there
will be set-backs. But each effort will take you a step
higher on your path. Do not lose heart." Simple words
and straight, that proceeded from the depths of a soul
aglow with faith in God and went straight to the hearts
of his disciples !
Swabi Tahsil constitutes the north-easternmost part of
Mardaii District from which it is separated by the Kalpani
or Chhalpani (literally, the 'deceitful river'). It is one
of the strongholds of the Khudai Khidmatgar movement.
During the Civil Disobedience days, along with Utmanzai
it became a storm-centre of the fight which gave occasion
for ruthless repression on the one side, and a rare non-
violent heroism on the other. Gandhiji's speech here was
a passionate appeal to the Khudai Khidmatgars to turn
the searchlight inward. In it he propounded the philoso-
phy of courting imprisonment. It was not the going to
prison by itself but the moral qualification that lay behind
it which constituted the real sanction in Satyagraha. He
warned them too that if they cquld not bear insults and in-
dignities in jail without anger in their hearts, it would
be better for them to give up the Khudai Khidmatgars'
uniform. They had proved their mettle by marching to