SOCIAL BOYCOTT 80S
one terrible sanction, exercised with great effect. Ib is based upon the notion that a community is not bound to extend its hospitality or service to an ex-communicated, It answered when every village was?a self-contained unib, and the occasions of re-oaloitranoy]were3rare. But when opinion is divided, as it is to-day, on the merits of Non- Oo-operation, when its new application is having a trial, a summary use of social boycott in order to bend a minority to the will of the mojority is a species of unpar. donable violence. If persisted in, such boycott is bound to destroy the movement. Social boycott is applicable and effective when it is nob felt as a punishment and -accepted by the object of boycott as a measure of disci- pline. Moreover, social boycott bo be admissible in a campaign of non-violence must never savour of inhu- manity. It must be civilised. It) must cause pain to the party using it, if it causes inconvenience to its object. Thus, depriving a man of the services of a meiioal man, as is reported to have been done in Jhansi, is an act of inhumanity tantamount in the moral code to an attempt to murder. I see no difference in murdering a man and withdrawing medical aid If com 'a man who is on the point of dying, Even the laws of war, I apprehend, require the giving of medical relief to the!enemy in need of it, To deprive a man of the use of an only village-well is notice to him to quit that village.. Surely, Non-Oo-opera- tors have acquired no right to use that extreme pressure against those who do not see eye to>ye ! with them. Im- patience and intolerance will surely kill this great religious movement. We may not make people pure by compul- sion, Much less may we compel them by violence to respect our opinion. Ifi is utterly against the spirit ot the democracy we want 60 cultivate,
�� �
