So I attended the conference. The Viceroy was very keen on my
supporting the resolution about recruiting. I asked for permission
to speak in Hindi-Hindustani. The Viceroy acceded to my request, but
suggested that I should speak also in English. I had no speech to
make. I spoke but one sentence to this effect: 'With a full sense of
my responsibility I beg to support the resolution.'
Many congratulated me on my having spoken in Hindustani. That was,
they said, the first instance within living memory of anyone having
spoken in Hindustani at such a meeting. The congratulations and the
discovery that I was the first to speak in Hindustani at a Viceregal
meeting hurt my national pride. I felt like shrinking into myself.
What a tragedy that the language of the country should be taboo in
meetings held in the country, for work relating to the country, and
that a speech there in Hindustani by a stray individual like myself
should be a matter for congratulation! Incidents like these are
reminders of the low state to which we have been reduced.
The one sentence that I uttered at the conference had for me
considerable significance. It was impossible for me to forget either
the conference or the resolution I supported. There was one
undertaking that I had to fulfill while yet in Delhi. I had to write
a letter to the Viceroy. This was no easy thing for me. I felt it my
duty both in the interests of the Government and of the people to
explain therein how and why I attended the conference, and to state
clearly what the people expected from Government.
In the letter I expressed my regret for the exclusion from the
conference of leaders like Lokamanya Tilak and the Ali Brothers, and
stated the people's minimum political demand as also the demands of
the Muslims on account of the situation created by the war. I asked
for permission to publish the letter, and the Viceroy gladly gave
it.
The letter had to be sent to Simla, where the Viceroy had gone
immediately after the conference. The letter had for me considerable
importance, and sending it by post would have meant delay. I wanted
to save time, and yet I was not inclined to send it by any messenger
I came across. I wanted some pure man to carry it and hand it
personally at the Viceregal Lodge. Dinabandhu Andrews and Principal
Rudra suggested the name of the good Reverend Ireland of the Cambridge
Mission. He agreed to carry the letter if he might read it and if it
appealed to him as good. I had no objection as the letter was by no
means private. He read it, liked it and expressed his willingness to
carry out the mission. I offered him the second class fare, but he
declined it saying he was accustomed to travelling intermediate.
This he did though it was a night journey. His simplicity and his
straight and plainspoken manner captivated me. The letter thus
delivered at the hands of a pure-minded man had, as I thought, the
desired result. It eased my mind and cleared my way.
The other part of my obligation consisted in raising recruits. Where
could I make a beginning except in Kheda? And whom could I invite to
be the first recruits except my own co-workers? So as soon as I
reached Nadiad, I had a conference with Vallabhbhai and other
friends. Some of them could not easily take to the proposal. Those
who liked the proposal had misgivings about its success. There was
no love lost between the Government and the classes to which I
wanted to make my appeal. The bitter experience they had had of the
Government officials was still fresh in their memory.
And yet they were in favour of starting work. As soon as I set about
my task, my eyes were opened. My optimism received a rude shock.
Whereas during the revenue campaign the people readily offered their
carts free of charge, and two volunteers came forth when one was
needed, it was difficult now to get a cart even on hire, to say
nothing of volunteers. But we would not be dismayed. We decided to
dispense with the use of carts and to do our journeys on foot. At
this rate we had to trudge about twenty miles a day. If carts were not
forthcoming, it was idle to expect people to feed us. It was hardly
proper to ask for food. So it was decided that every volunteer must
carry his food in his satchel. No bedding or sheet was necessary as
it was summer.
We had meetings wherever we went. People did attend, but hardly one
or two would offer themselves as recruits. 'You are a votary of
Ahimsa, how can you ask us to take up arms?' 'What good has
Government done for India to deserve our co-operation?' These and
similar questions used to be put to us.
However, our steady work began to tell. Quite a number of names were
registered, and we hoped that we should be able to have a regular
supply as soon as the first batch was sent. I had already begun to
confer with the Commissioner as to where the recruits were to be
accommodated.
The Commissioners in every division were holding conferences on the
Delhi model. One such was held in Gujarat. My co-workers and I were
invited to it. We attended, but I felt there was even less place for
me here than at Delhi. In this atmosphere of servile submission I
felt ill at ease. I spoke somewhat at length. I could say nothing to
please the officials, and had certainly one or two hard things to
say.
I used to issue leaflets asking people to enlist as recruits. One of
the arguments I had used was distasteful to the Commissioner: '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.' The
Commissioner referred to this and said that he appreciated my
presence in the conference in spite of the differences between us.
And I had to justify my standpoint as courteously as I could.
Here is the letter to the Viceroy referred to above:
As you are aware, after careful consideration, I felt constrained
to convey to Your Excellency that I could not attend the Conference
for reasons stated in the letter of the 26th instant (April), but,
after the interview you were good enough to grant me, I persuaded
myself to join it, if for no other cause, then certainly out of my
great regard for yourself. One of my reasons for abstention and
perhaps the strongest was that Lokamanya Tilak, Mrs. Besant and the
Ali Brothers, whom I regard as among the most powerful leaders of
public opinion, were not invited to the Conference. I still feel
that it was a grave blunder not to have asked them, and I
respectfully suggest that blunder might be possibly repaired if
these leaders were invited to assist the Government by giving it the
benefit of their advice at the Provincial Conferences, which, I
understand, are to follow. I venture to submit that no Government can
afford to disregard the leaders, who represent the large masses of
the people as these do, even though they may hold views
fundamentally different. At the same time it gives me pleasure to be
able to say that the views of all parties were permitted to be
freely expressed at the Committees of the Conference. For my part, I
purposely refrained from stating my views at the Committee at which
I had the honour of serving, or at the Conference itself. I felt
that I could best serve the objects of the Conference by simply
tendering my support to the resolutions submitted to it, and this I
have done without any reservation. I hope to translate the spoken
word into action as early as the Government can see its way to
accept my offer, which I am submitting simultaneously herewith in a
separate letter.
I recognize that in the hour of its danger we must give, as we have
decided to give, ungrudging and unequivocal support to the Empire of
which we aspire in the near future to be partners in the same sense
as the Dominions overseas. But it is the simple truth that our
response is due to the expectation that our goal will be reached all
the more speedily. On that account, even as performance of duty
automatically confers a corresponding right, people are entitled to
believe that the imminent reforms alluded to in your speech will
embody the main general principles of the Congress-League Scheme,
and I am sure that it is this faith which has enabled many members
of the Conference to tender to the Government their full-hearted
co-operation.
If I could make my countrymen retrace their steps, I would make
them withdraw all the Congress resolutions, and not whisper 'Home
Rule' or 'Responsible Government' during the pendency of the war. I
would make India offer all her able-bodied sons as a sacrifice to
the Empire at its critical moment, and I know that India, by this
very act, would become the most favoured partner in the Empire, and
racial distinctions would become a thing of the past. But
practically the whole of educated India has decided to take a less
effective course, and it is no longer possible to say that educated
India does not exercise any influence on the masses. I have been
coming into most intimate touch with the ryots ever since my return
from South Africa to India, and I wish to assure you that the desire
for Home Rule has widely penetrated them. I was present at the
sessions of the last Congress, and I was a party to the resolution that full Responsible Government should be granted to
British India within a period to be fixed definitely by a
Parliamentary Statute. I admit that it is a bold step to take, but I
feel sure that nothing less than a definite vision of Home Rule to
be realized in the shortest possible time will satisfy the Indian
people. I know that there are many in India who consider no
sacrifice as too great in order to achieve the end, and they are
wakeful enough to realize that they must be equally prepared to
sacrifice themselves for the Empire in which they hope and desire to
reach their final status. It follows then that we can but accelerate
our journey to the goal by silently and simply devoting ourselves
heart and soul to the work of delivering the Empire from the
threatening danger. It will be national suicide not to recognize
this elementary truth. We must perceive that, if we serve to save
the Empire, we have in that very act secured Home Rule.
Whilst, therefore, it is clear to me that we should give to the
Empire every available man for its defence, I fear that I cannot say
the same thing about financial assistance. My intimate intercourse
with the ryots convinces me that India has already donated to the
Imperial Exchequer beyond her capacity. I know that in making this
statement I am voicing the opinion of the majority of my countrymen.
The conference means for me, and I believe for many of us, a
definite step in the consecration of our lives to the common cause,
but ours is a peculiar position. We are today outside the
partnership. Ours is a consecration based on hope of better future.
I should be untrue to you and to my country if I did not clearly and
unequivocally tell you what that hope is. I do not bargain for its fulfillment, but you should know that disappointment of hope means
disillusion.
There is one thing I may not omit. You have appealed
to us to sink domestic differences. If the appeal involves the
toleration of tyranny and wrongdoing on the part of officials, I am
powerless to respond. I shall resist organized tyranny to the
uttermost. The appeal must be to the officials that they do not
ill-treat a single soul, and that they consult and respect popular
opinion as never before. In Champaran by resisting an
age-long tyranny I have shown the ultimate sovereignty of British
justice. In Kheda a population that was cursing the Government now
feels that it, and not the Government, is the power when it is
prepared to suffer for the truth it represents. It is, therefore,
losing its bitterness and is saying to itself that the Government
must be a Government for people, for it tolerates orderly and
respectful disobedience where injustice is felt. Thus Champaran and
Kheda affairs are my direct, definite and special contribution to
the war. Ask me to suspend my activities in that direction and you
ask me to suspend my life. If I could popularize the use of
soul-force, which is but another name for love-force, in place of
brute force, I know that I could present you with an India that
could defy the whole world to do its worst. In season and out of
season, therefore, I shall discipline myself to express in my life
this eternal law of suffering, and present it for acceptance to
those who care, and if I take part in any other activity, the motive
is to show the matchless superiority of that law.
Lastly, I would like you to ask His Majesty's Ministers to give
definite assurance about Mohammedan States. I am sure you know that
every Mohammedan is deeply interested in them. As a Hindu, I cannot
be indifferent to their cause. Their sorrows must be our sorrows. In
the most scrupulous regard for the rights of those States and of
the Muslim sentiment as to their places of worship, and your just
and timely treatment of India's claim to Home Rule lies the safety
of the Empire. I write this, because I love the English nation, and
I wish to evoke in every Indian the loyalty of Englishmen.