2019 Rhetorical Analysis

1

Suggested time—40 minutes.
(This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)
In 1930 Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi led a nonviolent march in India protesting Britain’s colonial monopoly on
and taxation of an essential resource: salt. The Salt March, as it came to be known, was a triggering moment for the
larger civil disobedience movement that eventually won India independence from Britain in 1947. Shortly before the
Salt March, Gandhi had written to Viceroy Lord Irwin, the representative of the British crown in India. The passage
below is the conclusion of that letter. Read the passage carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze the
rhetorical choices Gandhi makes to present his case to Lord Irwin.
I know that in embarking on non-violence, I shall
be running what might fairly be termed a mad risk.
But the victories of truth have never been won
L without risks, often of the gravest character. ine
5 Conversion of a nation that has consciously or
unconsciously preyed upon another, far more
numerous, far more ancient, and no less cultured
than itself, is worth any amount of risk.
I have deliberately used the word conversion. For
10 my ambition is no less than to convert the British
people through non-violence, and thus to make them
see the wrong they have done to India. I do not seek
to harm your people. I want to serve them even as I
want to serve my own. I believe that I have always
15 served them.
I served them up to 1919, blindly. But when my
eyes were opened and I conceived non-co-operation,
the object still was to serve them. I employed the
same weapon that I have, in all humility, successfully
20 used against the dearest members of my family. If I
have equal love for your people with mine, it will not
long remain hidden. It will be acknowledged by them,
even as the members of my family acknowledged,
after they had tried me for several years. If the people
25 join me, as I expect they will, the sufferings they will
undergo, unless the British nation sooner retraces its
steps, will be enough to melt the stoniest hearts.
The plan through civil disobedience will be to
combat such evils as I have sampled out. If we want
30 to sever the British connection it is because of such
evils. When they are removed, the path becomes easy.
Then the way to friendly negotiation will be open. If
the British commerce with India is purified of greed,
you will have no difficulty in recognizing our
35 independence. I invite you then to pave the way for
immediate removal of those evils, and thus open a
way for a real conference between equals, interested
only in promoting the common good of mankind
through voluntary fellowship and in arranging terms
40 of mutual help and commerce equally suited to both.
You have unnecessarily laid stress upon communal
problems that unhappily affect this land. Important
though they undoubtedly are for the consideration of
any scheme of Government they have little bearing
45 on the greater problems which are above communities
and which affect them all equally. But if you cannot
see your way to deal with these evils and my letter
makes no appeal to your heart, on the eleventh day
of this month, I shall proceed with such co-workers of
50 the Ashram1 as I can take, to disregard the provisions
of the salt laws. I regard this tax to be the most
iniquitous of all from the poor man’s standpoint.
As the independence movement is essentially for the
poorest in the land, the beginning will be made with
55 this evil. The wonder is that we have submitted to the
cruel monopoly for so long. It is, I know, open to you
to frustrate my design by arresting me. I hope that
there will be tens of thousands ready, in a disciplined
manner, to take up the work after me, and, in the act
60 of disobeying the Salt Act2, to lay themselves open to
the penalties of a law that should never have
disfigured the statute book.
I have no desire to cause you unnecessary
embarrassment, or any at all, so far as I can help. If
65 you think that there is any substance in my letter, and
if you will care to discuss matters with me, and if to
that end you would like me to postpone publication
of this letter, I shall gladly refrain on receipt of a
telegram to that effect soon after this reaches you.
70 You will, however, do me the favour not to deflect
me from my course, unless you can see your way to
conform to the substance of this letter.
This letter is not in any way intended as a threat,
but is a simple and sacred duty, peremptory on a civil
75 resister. Therefore, I am having it specially delivered
by a young English friend who believes in the Indian
cause and is a full believer in non-violence and whom
Providence seems to have sent to me, as it were, for
the very purpose.
1 A spiritual retreat or monastery for a community of Hindus
2 The India Salt Act (1882) enforced the British colonial government’s
monopoly on the collection, manufacture, and sale of salt in India.