Gandhi to the Communists

TALK WITH COMMUNIST WORKERS
June 8, 1947

I will tell you the same thing that I told those Socialist friends on two days. All of you should think first of the interest of the
country as a whole. Instead of doing that, you are wasting your time over minor grievances. The moment you come upon some error by somebody, real or imaginary, without any investigation you Communists start making inflammatory speeches, denounce the Government and incite the people. Is there not a single act of Government deserving your co-operation? Just think for a moment. If you were in the place of Nehru, what would you do? You should, therefore, either take the places of Nehru or Sardar—I stand guarantee that they will step down the moment you ask them to do so—or cooperate with them. That will be for your own good. In any case you should stop making speeches full of baseless allegations.

Your principles are fine indeed. But you do not seem to follow them in practice, for you do not seem to know the difference between truth and falsehood or justice and injustice. What is more saddening about you is that, instead of having faith in India and drawing inspiration from its unrivalled culture, you wish to introduce Russian civilization here as if Russia was your motherland. I disapprove of relying on any outside power, however much that may materially benefit us, for I believe in the principle that your eating is not going to satisfy my hunger, that I can satisfy my hunger only be eating myself. I tell Rajendra Babu the same thing every day, that in the matter of food we should not depend upon any foreign country. It would be more
honourable for us to share among ourselves the food that we have than to live on other people’s charity. Let us be worthy of our freedom. We may certainly accept useful and beneficial ideas from foreign countries, but this does not mean that we should uncritically admire everything foreign. There are good and bad things in every country. It is a grave error to believe that everything in our country is bad and in other countries good. Some things in foreign countries are good while some features of our culture are unrivalled.

You also use the work ‘satyagraha’ as part of your jargon. But anybody who uses this word should realize that by doing so he accepts a great responsibility. A satyagrahi should rely wholly on truth. He cannot then afford to be ambiguous in his attitudes. He cannot jump on to a bandwagon. In brief, he cannot depart from his principles in the smallest
degree. A satyagrahi cares for nothing but truth. He will give no pain or do no injustice whatever to anybody either in thought, word or deed. And he must always have perfect clarity in his thoughts.

All of you are servants of the country and are eager to serve it. Such as we are, we are brothers and sisters born in the same country. As such, we should supplement one another’s work, give up slandering one another and stop fruitless arguments, be generous and mutually forgiving. Let us give up out narrow-mindedness, cultivate generosity of heart and raise the good name of the country to the highest point in the whole world. In that lies everybody’s happiness, peace and prosperity.

All of you are like my own children. Since you heard me patiently, I poured out my heart to you. You can come to me
whenever you wish. I want your help. I can do something only if I have it. What can I do by myself? One cannot clap with only one hand, as the saying is.