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duty towards a groaning world by adopting a simple but ennobled life by developing
her thousands of cottages and living at peace with the world. High thinking is
inconsistent with complicated material life based on high speed imposed on us by
Mammon worship. All the grace of life are possible only when we learn the art of living
nobly.
There may be sensation in living dangerously. We must draw the distinction between
living in the face of danger and living dangerously. A man who dares to live alone in a
forest infested by wild beasts and wilder men without a gum and with God as his only
Help, lives in the face of danger. A man who lives perpetually in mid-air and dives to
the earth below to the admiration of a gaping world lives dangerously. One is a
purposeful, the other a purposeless life.
Whether such plain living is possible for an isolated nation, however large
geographically and numerically in the face of a world, armed to the teeth, and in the
midst of pomp and circumstances, is a question open to the doubt of a sceptic. The
answer is straight and simple. If plain life is worth living, then the attempt is worth
making, even though only an individual or a group makes the effort.
At the same time I believe that some key industries are necessary. I do not believe in
armchair or armed socialism. I believe in action according to my belief, without
waiting for wholesale conversion. Hence, without having to enumerate key industries, I
would have State ownership, where a large number of people have to work together.
The ownership of the products of their labour, whether skilled or unskilled, will vest in
them through the State. But as I can conceive such a State only based on non-violence,
I would not dispossess moneyed men by force but would invite their co-operation in the
process of conversion to State ownership. There are no pariahs of society, whether
they are millionaires or paupers. The two are sores of the same disease. And all are
men for a that.
And I avow this belief in the face of the inhumanities we have witnessed and may still
have to witness in India as elsewhere. Let us live in the face of danger.
Harijan, 1-9-46

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Chapter 08
CLASS WAR
I do not teach the masses to regard the capitalists as their enemies, but I teach them
that they are their own enemies.
Young India, 26-11-31

The class war is foreign to the essential genius of India which is capable of evolving
communism broad-based on fundamental rights of all on equal justice. The Ramarajya
of my dream ensures the right alike of prince and pauper.
Amrita Bazar Patrika, 2-8-34

I never said that there should be co-operation between the exploiter and the exploited
so long as exploitation and the will to exploit persists. Only I do not believe that the
capitalists and the landlords are all exploiters by an inherent necessity, or that there is
a basic or irreconcilable antagonism between their interests and those of the masses.
All exploitation is based on co-operation, willing or forced, of the exploited. However
much we detest admitting it, the fact remains that there would be no exploitation if
people refuse to obey the exploiter. But self comes in and we hug the chains that bind
us. This must cease. What is needed is not the extinction of landlords and capitalists,
but a transformation of the existing relationship between them and the masses into
something healthier and purer.
The idea of class war does not appeal to me. In India a class war is not only not
inevitable, but it is avoidable if we have understood the message of non-violence.
Those who talk about class war as being inevitable have not understood the
implications of non-violence or have understood them only skin-deep.
Let us not be obsessed with catchwords and seductive slogans imported from the West.
Have we not our distinct Eastern tradition? Are we not capable of finding our own
solution to the question of labour and capital? What is the system of Varnashrama but a
means of harmonizing the difference between high and low, as well as between capital
and labour? All that comes from the West on this subject is tarred with the brush of
violence. I object to it because I have seen the wreckage that lies at the end of this

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road. The more thinking set even in the West today stand aghast at the abyss for which
their system is heading. And I owe whatever influence I have in the West to my
ceaseless endeavour to find a solution which promises an escape from the vicious circle
of violence and exploitation. I have been a sympathetic student of the Western social
order and I have discovered that underlying the fever that fills the soul of the West
there is a restless search for truth. I value that spirit. Let us study our Eastern
institutions in that spirit of scientific enquiry and we shall evolve a truer socialism and
a truer communism than the world has yet dreamed of. It is surely wrong to presume
that Western socialism or communism is the last word on the question of mass poverty.
Amrita Bazar Patrika, 3-8-34

I do not want to destroy the zamindar, but neither do I feel that the zamindar is
inevitable. I expect to convert the zamindar and other capitalists by the non-violent
method, and therefore there is for me nothing like an inevitable of class conflict. For it
is an essential part of non-violence to go along the line of least resistance. The
moment the cultivators of the soil realize their power, the zamindari evil will be
sterilized. What can the poor zamindar do when they say that they will simply not work
the land unless they are paid enough to feed and clothe and educate themselves and
their children in a decent manner? In reality the toiler is the owner of what he
produces. If the toilers intelligently combine, they will become an irresistible power.
That is how I do not see the necessity of class conflict. If I thought it inevitable, I
should not hesitate to preach it and teach it.
Harijan, 5-12-36

The problem is not to set class against class, but to educate labour to a sense of its
dignity. Moneyed men after all form microscopic minority in the world. They will act
on the square, immediately labour realizes its power and yet acts on the square. To
inflame labour against moneyed men is to perpetuate class hatred and all the evil
consequences flowing form it. The strife is a vicious circle to be avoided at any cost. It
is an admission of weakness, a sign of inferiority complex. The moment labour
recognizes its own dignity, money will find its rightful place, i.e. it will be held in trust
for labour. For labour is more than money.

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Chapter 09
STRIKES
Strikes are the order of the day. They are a symptom of the existing unrest. All kinds of
vague ideas are floating in the air. A vague hope inspires all, and great will be the
disappointment if that vague hope does not take definite shape. The labour world in
India, as elsewhere, is at the mercy of those who set up as adviser and guides. The
latter are not always scrupulous and not always wise even when they are scrupulous.
The labourers are dissatisfied with their lot. They have every reason for dissatisfaction.
They are being taught, and justly, to regard themselves as being chiefly instrumental
in enriching their employers. And so it requires little effort to make them lay down
their tools. The political situation too is beginning to affect the labourers of India. And
there are not wanting labour leaders who consider that strikes may be engineered for
political purposes.
In my opinion, it will be a most serious mistake to make use of labour strikes for such a
purpose. I dont deny that such strikes can serve political ends. But they do not fall
within the plan of non-violent non-co-operation. It does not require much effort of the
intellect to perceive that it is a most dangerous thing to make political use of labour
until labourers understand the political condition of the country and are prepared to
work for the common good. This is hardly to be expected of them all of a sudden and
until they have bettered their own condition so as to enable them to keep body and
soul together in a decent manner.
Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, p.1049

The greatest political contribution that labourers can make is to improve their own
condition, to become better informed, to insist on their rights, and even to demand
proper use by their employers of the manufactures in which they have had such an
important hand. The proper evolution, therefore, would be for the labourers to raise
themselves to the status of proprietors.
Strikes, therefore, for the present should only take place for the direct betterment of
the labourers lot, and when they have acquired the spirit of patriotism, for the
regulation of prices of the manufactures.

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The conditions of a successful strike are simple. And when they are fulfilled a strike
never need fail.
1. The cause of the strike must be just.
2. There should be practical unanimity among the strikers.
3. There should be no violence used against non-strikers.
4. Strikers should be able to maintain themselves during the strike period without
falling back upon union funds and should therefore occupy themselves in some useful
and productive temporary occupation.
5. A strike is no remedy when there is enough other labour to replace strikers. In that
case in the event of unjust treatment or inadequate wages or the like, resignation is
the remedy.
6. Successful strikes have taken place even when the above conditions have not been
fulfilled, but that merely proves that the employers were weak and had a guilty
conscience.
Young India, 16-2-21

Obviously there should be no strike which is not justifiable on merits. No unjust strike
should succeed. All public sympathy must be withheld from such strikes. The public has
no means of judging the merits of a strike, unless it is backed by impartial persons
enjoying public confidence. Interested men cannot judge the merits of their own case.
Hence, there must be an arbitration accepted by the parties or a judicial
adjudication.
As a rule, the matter does not come before the public when there is accepted
arbitration or adjudication. Cases have, however, happened when haughty employers
have ignored awards or misguided employees, conscious of their power to assert
themselves, have done likewise and have decided upon forcible extortion.
Harijan, 11-8-46

Strikes for economic betterment should never have a political end as an ulterior
motive. Such a mixture never advances the political end and generally brings trouble
upon strikers, even when they do not dislocate public life, as in the case of public

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