Arrested again

March 10, 2023

On March 10, 1922, Mohandas Gandhi was arrested. Again.

This was no surprise. He’d been including the possibility in his correspondence, hedging his future commitments. Gandhi had even published an article the day before, titled If I Am Arrested, observing that “I myself cannot see how the Government can avoid arresting me” and advising his readers not to engage in civil disobedience and remain nonviolent.

Gandhi’s national campaign had been building since 1919, first organized to demand the repeal of the Rowlatt Act, a piece of legislation that stripped away civil liberties under the guise of fighting terrorism. The first national day of fasting had taken place April 6 of that year, uniting Hindus and Muslims in opposition to British rule. In 1920 he’d promised the nation Swaraj (self-rule) in a year; non-cooperation swept over India, but the British had resisted his ultimatums, preferring mass arrests.

The wave broke in February 1922, when in the village of Chauri Chaura, police taunted some marchers. The confrontation escalated, and 22 officers were brutally murdered. Gandhi’s horrified reaction was to suspend the national campaign. It was a controversial decision, but there was no one to veto it, and the movement ground to a halt. (Somewhat ironically, the Rowlatt Act was repealed later that month, as part of a larger cleaning up of the statutes.)

The British seized on his moment of weakness. The criminal charges were a pretext to further marginalize him as leader of the Indian independence movement, to kick him while he was down.

Gandhi was charged with sedition for various articles that he had written during the campaign. On March 18, he found himself in court. As he had done before, Gandhi cheerfully admitted to breaking an unjust law. He challenged the judge to give him the maximum sentence or resign his commission. Doing neither, Judge Broomfield sentenced him to six years before heading out to play golf, and Gandhi began his fifth prison term nearly a decade after his last one in South Africa.

This tactic strikes to the heart of a satyagraha campaign. Although trained in the law, Gandhi declined to use his skills to argue the absurdity of the government’s case. (He would soon be disbarred for this conviction.) Gandhi metaphorically exposed his chest to his opponent’s sword, trusting in the conscience of the judge. It was that undying faith that humans would do the right thing that earned him the honorific Mahatma, or ‘great soul.’

Is there an unjust law you would cheerfully and publicly admit to breaking?