Is Empire goods’ boycott indefensible?

IN the last issue of Young India, Mahatma Gandhi has definitely stated that the boycott of Empire goods is indefensible. He says it is curious how this question has engaged public attention from time to time. The reason is very simple, though the Mahatma does not see it. In their daily intercourse with one another, people, when insulted and put to great annoyance, refuse to have any dealings with the offender. The other alternative, generally avoided, is to challenge the aggressor to an open fight. This is the experience of the people in everyday life. Similarly, when the Indians feel themselves insulted and cruelly wronged by the Empire, they resort to the only course left to them for showing their resentment by resolving to boycott the Empire goods as far as possible. They know that they have no power to demonstrate their resentment in any other practicable way. It may be ‘impotent rage’, but if the nation resolves to carry out the boycott by a united effort, it can certainly make its action felt. But the resolve has not proved successful for several reasons. Mahatmaji says that from the standpoint of non-violent non-cooperation, Empire goods’ boycott is indefensible because it is “retaliation pure and simple and as such punitive”. It may be doubted if the term ‘retaliation’ can be appropriately used to express the state of mind in which the injured Indian finds himself when he is ill-treated and wronged by one who is very powerful. In ordinary social intercourse, when a big man insults a small man, the latter does not ‘retaliate’. For, he knows he is too weak to do that. He declines to have any social or business dealings with the former. 

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