Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Gandhi criticizes the British Arms Act and suggests that helping the government could lead to its repeal and the right to bear arms.
- In plain terms
- He criticizes a law banning arms and suggests helping the government might remove this ban.
- What can you take from it?
- Strategic cooperation can sometimes achieve policy changes better than opposition.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Should you help an oppressor to gain rights?
- Is disarmament a sign of weakness?
Another view
Helping a colonial government may strengthen the oppressor rather than secure rights.
More from Mahatma Gandhi
An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.
Permalink to quote #38 God is absolute.
Permalink to quote #40 I am a Hindu by birth. And yet I do not know much of Hinduism, and I know less of other religions. In fact I do not know where I am, and what is and what shoul…
Permalink to quote #37
Related quotes
As first a man cannot lay down the right of resisting them, that assault him by force, to take away his life; because he cannot be understood to aim thereby, a…
Thomas HobbesThomas Hobbes quote #29 The Labour Party should oppose the Government arms plan root and branch.
Aneurin BevanAneurin Bevan quote #1 'Abu Ghraib is unbelievable in the innocent times of 1961. That we would torture people that way and on the instructions of the President of the United States …
Ramsey ClarkRamsey Clark quote #1