Audio recording of Tirthaji

Click here to listen to an audio recording of Sri Bharati Krsna Tirthaji answering a question from British historian Arnold Toynbee in 1958 in the U.S.A.

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Below is a transcript of the recording, as it is not very clear in places.

"For the purpose of explaining the freedom of religious worship and religious belief and so on, and with that to start with a genesis of a different American government, present American state, United states of America I mentioned later on that Washington had to oppose and stand up before the might of the British empire of those days and from the way that I talked about it, it must have been clear that I regarded the war of Independence under George Washington in the time of King George the third of England, that was a just war, a righteous war and absolutely no objection to it.

"I did not go into details of it because I thought this would be sufficient for the purpose. And then when the question came up, they said when you are here, the trouble about the negros and so on, even there I, I have already explained and I still repeat that as regards that war, as an Indian, a just war and an unavoidable war. And when war comes down at the necessity of duty, in the interests of righteousness, in the interest of peace with honour, then well there is no doubt of it, there is no shirking of it, there is no shrinking from it, the duty has to be performed. There is no doubt about that but there is no difficulty about that question at all.

"It is only where war is avoidable, and war is inevitable, because then this party is absolutely unnamable to it. It is there that war is justified, if and when there is the possibility, still possibilities all unexplored for bringing about peace with honour, it is then that I wish to say, and wish to repeat again and again, that as a pacifist, well I am for a pacifist measures as not under all circumstances, not with dishonour as the price of peace."

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