If non-violent non-co-operation fails!

IN his letter to us, Bhai Parmanand raises a question which is not only of the first importance in itself but which a large number of people are actually asking. That question is, what will happen if non-violent non-co-operation will fail? Bhai Parmanand thinks that in that event the old process will repeat itself, and there will again arise a physical force party in the country, and having regard to the fact that the ideal of Swaraj has to-day captivated the minds of a larger number of people than was the case ever before, there is every risk of India drifting into the position of Ireland or of Egypt. That the apprehension is not without foundation only a little reflection will show. A priori nothing seems more natural than that when a certain ideal has taken possession of the minds of a large number of people the failure of non-violent methods for its realisation should afford an opportunity to the more impetuous and the more excitable to try the opposite method of violence. And history seems to support the same conclusion. Bhai Parmanand refers to the most conspicuous case in our own history. The anarchical movement, he says, followed directly in the wake of the failure of the old Congress with its then accepted methods of probes, petitioning and prayer. This, it must be remembered, is the view not of Bhai Parmanand and others of his way of thinking alone, but of reputed leaders of the old school. It is easy to recall a hundred speeches of which the one theme was that anarchism was the direct outcome of the failure of constitutional agitation to secure the reversal of the partition. The view may be only partially true. It is arguable that the fascination of a new method, which, it was believed by persons concerned, had produced good results elsewhere had at least as much to do with the birth of anarchism as the failure of non-violent methods.