98 A PILGRIMAGE FOR PEACE
home. But in their heart of hearts, said Gandhiji, many
had the feeling that if only they had sufficient armed
strength they would resort to fighting. They accepted
non-violence because there was nothing else. In other
wordSj there was violence in the heart. Only it was given
up in action. It was non-violence of the weak, not of the
brave. Even so it had made them stronger. He was there
to tell them that it was a big mistake to regard non-vio-
lence as a weapon of the weak or to adopt it as such. If
the Khudai Khidmatgars fell into that mistake, it would
be a tragedy. " If you give up the sword at Badshah
Khan's word, but retain it in your hearts, your non-vio-
lence will be, a short-lived thing — not even a nine days*
wonder. After a few years you will want to revert to it
but, may be, you will then find that you have got out of
the habit and are lost to both the ideals. Nothing will, in '
that event, remain to you but vain regret. What I want
of you is a unique thing, i. e., that you will disdain to use
the sword although you have got the capacity and there is
no doubt as to victory. Even if the opponent is armed
with a broken sword, you will oppose your neck to it.
.And this, not with anger or retaliation in your hearts but
only love. If you have really understood non-violence in
this sense, you will never want to use the sword because
you will have got something infinitely superior in its
place.
"You will ask, 'How will all this have any effect
on the British Government ?' My reply is that by uniting
all the people of India in a common bond of love through
bur selfless service, we can transform the atmosphere in
the country so that the Britisher will not be able to resist
it. You will say that the Britisher is impervious to love.
My thirty years' unbroken experience is to the contrary.
Today 17,000 Englishmen can rule over three hundred
millions of Indians because we are under a spell of fear.
If we learn to love one another, if the gulf between Hindu
and Muslim, caste and outcaste, and rich and poor, is obli-
terated, a handful of Englishmen would not dare to con-
tinue their nlle over us.