ACROSS THE SALT RANGE 115

verge of extinction. Until these civil warfares die out,
there can be no united people and no reign of peace/'
As has been already stated in these pages, these blood-
feuds Badshah Khan deplores most and believes that if
non-violence takes deep root in the Pathan heart the sense-
less feuds will die and the Pathan will live.

But whatever the virtues and defects of the Pathan
character may be, non-violence has not in the long past
been one of them. And so Gandhiji took pains to explain
to the Khudai Khidmatgars that what he had come to tell
them was not any addition to or extension of what they
had known and practised but in several ways its reverse.
" I have now had the assurance from your own lips of
what I had from Badshah Khan already/7 he remarked
to the Khudai Khidmatgars at Paniala. " You have adopt-
ed non-violence not merely as a temporary expedient but
as a creed for good. Therefore, mere renunciation of the
sword, if there is a sword in your heart, will not carry
you far. Your renunciation of the sword cannot be said
to be genuine unless it generates in your hearts a power,
the opposite of that of the sword and superior to it. Hither-
to revenge or retaliation has been held amongst you as a
sacred obligation. If you have a feud with anybody that
man becomes your enemy for all time and the feud is
handed down from father to son. In non-violence even
if somebody regards you as his enemy, you may not so
regard him in return, and of course, there can be no ques-
tion of revenge/' He asked them: " Who could be more
cruel or bloodthirsty than the late General Dyer ? * Yet
the Jallianwalla Bagh Congress "Inquiry Committee, on my

* On April 13, 1919, General Dyer killed (according to the official
figure) 327 and wounded 1,200, by giving the order to fire on a peaceful
and unarmed gathering of men, women and children in Jallianwalla
Bagh at Amritsar, that had assembled to protest against the repressive
Rowlatt Act, against which Gandhiji had launched Satyagraha. This
was followed by the Introduction of Martial Law. A committee of
inquiry was appointed by the Indian National Congress to report
on the massacre and the " Punjab Martial Law atrocities ". Gandhiji
who was on the Committee opposed the idea of demanding punish-
ment of General Dyer but asked that he be relieved of his charge.