This classic and memorable appeal to “Every Briton” at a time when Britain was passing through the most critical phase of national history could not have been addressed, perhaps, by any other person in the world except Mahatma Gandhi. He gave vent to his deep and earnest feelings even at the risk of ridicule. But the utter hollowness of armed victories has been amply demonstrated by the two global holocausts of “blood, toil and tears.” “I know nothing more terrible than a victory except defeat,” remarked the Duke of Wellington who earned the unique honour of crushing Napoleon. The world cannot afford to forget these highly significant and prophetic words of the Iron Duke. Even the Atlantic Charter, which, unfortunately is now dead as the door-nail, had to take cognisance of the truth that “all the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons, must come to the abandonment of the use of force.” The dazzling development of science culminating in the mysterious Atom Bomb would now compel us to discard the weapons of violence and cultivate ‘the non-violence of the brave.’ Virile and dauntless non-violence would successfully defy the arrogant fury of even a fiercer weapon than the Atom Bomb, for a non-violent warrior knows no defeat. A truly non-violent nation would rather smilingly die to a man than meekly submit and owe allegiance to the insolent invader.
