Miniature Satyagraha
Though I thus took part in the war as a matter of duty, it chanced that I was not only unable directly to participate in it, but actually compelled to offer what may be called miniature satyagraha even at that critical juncture.
I have already said that an officer was appointed in charge of our training, as soon as our names were approved and enlisted. We were all under the impression that this Commanding Officer was to be our chief only so far as technical matters were concerned, and that in all other matters I was the head of our Corps, which was directly responsible to me in matters of internal discipline; that is to say, the Commanding Officer had to deal with the Corps through me. But from the first the officer left us under no such delusion.
Mr. Sorabji Adajania was a shrewd man. He warned me. “Beware of this man,” he said. “He seems inclined to lord it over us. We will have none of his orders. We are prepared to look upon him as our instructor. But the youngsters he has appointed to instruct us also feel as though they had come as our masters.”
These youngsters were Oxford students who had come to instruct us and whom the Commanding Officer had appointed to be our section leaders.
I also had not failed to notice the high-handedness of the Commanding Officer, but I asked Sorabji not to be anxious and tried to pacify him. But he was not the man to be easily convinced.
“You are too trusting. These people will deceive you with wretched words, and when at last you see through them, you will ask us to resort to