द इण्डियन स्ट्रगल / भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम (नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस - ऐतिहासिक विश्लेषण)

206 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE give solid support to the coming campaign. After much searching of heart, on February 27th, the Mahatma announced his plan of campaign. The next few moves taken by him will stand out for all time as some of the most brilliant achievements of his leadership and they reveal the height to which his statesmanship can ascend in times of crises. Writ- ing in Young India on February 27th, 1930, he said: 'This time on my arrest, there is to be no mute passive non-violence, but non-violence of the most active type should be set in motion so that not a single believer in non- violence as an article of faith for the purpose of achieving India's goal, should find himself free or alive at the end of the effort. . . . So far as I am concerned, my intention is to start the movement only through the inmates of the Ashrama (meaning—his own Ashrama) and those who have submitted to its discipline and assimilated the spirit of its methods.' Referring to the possibility of a suspension of civil dis- obedience in the event of an outbreak of violence, as in 1922, the Mahatma wrote: 'Whilst, therefore, every effort imaginable and possible should be made to restrain the forces of violence, civil disobedience once begun this time cannot be stopped and must not be stopped so long as there is a single civil resister left free or alive.' The last statement helped to reassure all those people who had taken strong exception to the Bardoli retreat in 1922 following the manifestation of mob violence at Chauri Chaura. The Mahatma further announced his intention of defying the Salt Law along with seventy-eight of his chosen followers —the members of his Ashrama. He would commence a march from Ahmedabad to the sea-coast—his pilgrimage to the sea—on March 12th and after arriving there, would launch the civil-disobedience campaign. That would be the signal for the whole country to take up the movement. The Mahatma decided to start this particular campaign, because it would appeal to the country as a whole, and especially to the poor. From time immemorial the people had been accustomed to manufacture salt from sea-water or from the soil. That right had been taken away from the people by the British Government. Now the Salt Law as adminis-