Dreams of Youth 51Shaukat Ali for calling on Indian soldiers not to serve the British. “I
have no hesitation in saying,” Gandhi had proclaimed in September
1921, “that it is sinful for anyone, either soldiers or civilians, to serve
this Government which has proved treacherous to the Mussalmans of
India, and which has been guilty of the inhumanities of the Punjab.”
When the time was ripe, he would not hesitate, “at the peril of being
shot, to ask the Indian sepoy individually to leave his ser vice and be-
come a weaver.” He spelled out his reasons in unambiguous terms:For, has not the sepoy been used to hold India under subjection, has he
not been used to murder innocent people at Jalianwala Bagh, has he
not been used to drive away innocent men, women, and children dur-
ing that dreadful night at Chandpur, has he not been used to subjugate
the proud Arab of Mesopotamia, has he not been utilized to crush the
Egyptian? How can any Indian having a spark of humanity in him, and
any Mussalman having any pride in his religion, feel otherwise than as
the Ali Brothers have done? The sepoy has been used more often as a
hired assassin than as a soldier defending the liberty or the honor of
the weak and the helpless.^8For nearly six months, the British had been forced to tolerate such
stinging indictments of their rule. “We are challenging the might of
this Government because we consider its activity to be wholly evil,”
Gandhi had written in another article. “We want to overthrow the Gov-
ernment.” In yet another essay, Gandhi had described the British Em-
pire as one “based upon or ga nized exploitation of physically weaker
races of the earth, and upon a continuous exhibition of brute force.”
Such an entity could not last if there was “a just God ruling the uni-
verse.”^9 The Mahatma paid the price for his outspoken criticism. He
was sentenced by a British judge and sent to Poona to be imprisoned in
Yeravda Jail.
Subhas, con fined in the Alipur Central Jail of Calcutta, was taking
part in confabulations that C. R. Das had initiated on the nationalists’
future course of action. Das contended that the boycott of the legisla-
tures did not make any further sense, now that Gandhi had scuppered
the mass movement. It simply allowed loyalists of the British raj to