In the first place, I would like to state that this settlement, such as it is, would have been impossible without the Viceroy's inexhaustible patience and equally inexhaustible industry and unfailing courtesy. I am aware that I must have, though quite unconsciously, given him causes for irritation. I must have also tried his patience but I cannot recall an occasion when he allowed himself to be betrayed into irritation or impatience. I must add that he was frank throughout these very delicate negotiations and I believe he was determined, if it was at all possible, to have a settlement. I must confess that I approached the negotiations in fear and trembling. I was also filled with distrust but at the very outset he disarmed my suspicions and put me at ease. For myself, I can say without fear of contradiction that when I wrote my letter inviting the invitation to see him, I was determined not to be outdone in the race for reaching a settlement, if it could be reached at all honourably. I am, therefore, thankful to the Almighty that the settlement was reached and the country has been spared, at least for the time being, and I hope for all time, the sufferings which in the event of a breakdown would have been intensified a hundredfold.
For a settlement of this character, it is not possible nor wise to say which is the victorious party. If there is any victory, I should say it belongs to both. The Congress has never made any bid for victory.
In the very nature of things the Congress has a definite goal to reach and there can be no question of victory without reaching the goal. I would, therefore, urge all my countrymen and all my sisters instead of feeling elated, if they find in the terms any cause for elation, to humble themselves before God and ask Him to give them strength and wisdom to pursue the course that their mission demands for the time being, whether it is by way of suffering or by way of patient negotiation, consultation and conference.
I hope, therefore, that the millions who have taken part in this struggle of suffering during the past twelve months will now, during the period of conference and construction, show the same willingness, the same cohesion, the same effort and the same wisdom that they have in an eminent degree shown during what I would describe as a heroic period in the modern history of India.
But I know that, if there would be men and women who will feel elated by the settlement, there are, also those who will be, and are, keenly disappointed.
Heroic suffering is like the breath of their nostrils. They rejoice in it as in nothing else. They will endure unendurable sufferings, be they ever so prolonged, but when suffering ceases they feel their occupation gone and feel also that the goal has receded from the view. To them I would only say, 'Wait, watch, pray and hope.'
Suffering has its well-defined limits. Suffering can be both wise and unwise, and when the limit is reached, to prolong it would be not unwise but the height of folly.
It would be folly to go on suffering when the opponent makes it easy for you to enter into a discussion with him upon your longings. If a real opening is made, it is one's duty to take advantage of it and, in my humble opinion, the settlement has made a real opening. Such a settlement has necessarily to be provisional as this is. The peace arrived at is conditional upon many other things happening. The largest part of the written word is taken up with what may be called 'Terms of Truce'. This had to be naturally so. Many things had to happen before the Congress could participate in the deliberations of the Conference. A recital of these was absolutely necessary. But the goal of the Congress is not to get a redress of past wrongs important though they are : its goal is purna swaraj which, indifferently rendered in English, has been described as complete independence.
It is India's birthright, as it is of any other nation worthy of that name, and India cannot be satisfied with anything less and throughout the settlement one misses that enchanting word. The clause which carefully hides that word is capable, and intentionally capable, of a double meaning.
Federation may be a mirage or it may mean a vital organic state in which the two limbs might work so as to strengthen the whole. Responsibility, which is the second girder, may be a mere shadow or it may be tall, majestic, unbending and unbendable oak. Safeguards in the interests of India may be purely illusory and so many ropes tying the country hand and foot and strangling her by the neck, or they may be like so many fences protecting a tender plant requiring delicate care and attention.
One party may give one meaning and another may give the three girders the other meaning. It is open under that clause to either party to work along its own lines and the Congress if it has shown readiness to take part in the deliberation of the Conference, it is because it seeks to make Federation, Responsibility, Safeguards, reservations, or whatever other names they may be known by, such as would promote the real growth of the country along political, social, economic and moral lines.
If the Congress succeeds in making its position acceptable to the Conference, then, I claim that the fruit of that effort will be complete independence. But I know that the way to it is weary. There are many rocks, many pitfalls, to be found across the way. But if Congressmen will approach the new task to which they are called, with confidence and courage, I have no misgivings about the result. It is, therefore, in their hands either to make something noble and worth looking at out of the new opportunity that has come to them or, by lack of self-confidence and want of courage, to fritter away the opportunity.
But I know that in this task Congressmen will require the aid of the other parties, the aid of the great Princes of India, and last but by no means the least the aid of Englishmen. I need not make any appeal at the present juncture to the different parties. I have little doubt that they are no less eager than Congressmen for the real freedom of their country.
But the Princes are a different proposition.Their acceptance of the idea of Federation was certainly for me a surprise, but if they will become equal partners in Federated India, I venture to suggest that of their own free will they should advance towards the position that what is called British India has been all these long years seeking to occupy.
An undiluted autocracy, however benevolent it may be, and an undiluted democracy are an incompatible mixture bound to result in an explosion. It is, therefore, I think, necessary for them not to take up an uncompromising attitude and impatiently refuse to listen to an appeal from or on behalf of the would-be partner. If they refused any such appeal they would make the position of the Congress untenable and, indeed, most awkward. The Congress represents, or endeavours to represent, the whole of the people of India. It recognizes no distinction between those who reside in British India or in Indian States.
The Congress has, with great wisdom and equally great restraint, refrained from interfering with the doings and affairs of the States and it has done so in order, not to unnecessarily wound the susceptibilities of the States, but, also, by reason of the self-imposed restraint, to make its voice heard by the States on a suitable occasion. I think that, that occasion has now arrived. May I then hope that the great Princes will not shut their ears to the Congress appeal on behalf of the people of the States?
I would like to make a similar appeal to the English. If India is to come to her own through conference and consultation, the goodwill and active help of Englishmen are absolutely necessary. I must confess, that what seems to have been yielded by them at the Conference in London is not even half enoughΓÇôno approach to the goal that India has in view. If they will render real help, they must be prepared to let India feel the same glow of freedom which they themselves would die in order to possess. These English statesmen would have to dare to let India wander away into the woods through errors. Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err and even to sin. If God Almighty has given the humblest of His creatures the freedom to err, it passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.
Anyway, the implication of inviting the Congress to join the Conference is most decidedly that the Congress may not be deterred from any consideration, save that of incapacity, from pressing for the fullest freedom. And the Congress does not consider India to be a sickly child requiring nursing, outside help, and other props.
I would like also to register my appeal to the people of the great American Republic and the other nations of earth. I know that this struggle based as it is on truth and non-violence from which, alas, we the votaries have on occasion undoubtedly strayed, has fired their imagination and excited their curiosity. From curiosity they, and specially America, has progressed to tangible help in the way of sympathy. And I can say on behalf of the Congress and myself that we are all truly grateful for all that sympathy. I hope that in the difficult mission in which the Congress is now about to embark, we shall not only retain their sympathy but that it will grow from day to day. I venture to suggest, in all humility, that if India reaches her destiny through truth and non-violence, she will have made no small contribution to the world peace for which all the nations of the earth are thirsting and she would also have, in that case, made some slight return for the help that those nations have been freely giving to her.
My last appeal is to the Police and the Civil Service departments. The settlement contains a clause which indicates that I had asked for an inquiry into some of the police excesses which are alleged to have taken place. The reason for waiving that inquiry is stated in the settlement itself. The Civil Service is an integral part of the machinery which is kept going by the police department. If they really feel that India is soon to become mistress in her own household and they are to serve her loyally and faithfully as her servants, it behoves them, even now, to make the people feel that when they have to deal with the members of the Civil Service and the police department, they are really dealing with their servants, honoured and wise undoubtedly, but nevertheless servants and not masters.
I owe a word to hundreds, if not thousands, of my erst-while fellow-prisoners on whose behalf I have been receiving wires and who will still be languishing in jails when satyagrahi prisoners who were jailed during the past 12 months will have been discharged. Personally, I do not believe in imprisoning, by way of punishment, even those who commit violence. I know that those who have done violence through political motives are entitled to claim, if not the same wisdom, certainly the same spirit of love and self-sacrifice that I would claim for myself. And, therefore, if I could have justly secured their liberty in preference to my own or that of fellow-satyagrahis I should truthfully have secured it.
But I trust they will realize that I could not in justice ask for their discharge. But that does not mean that I or the members of the Working Committee have not them in mind.
The Congress has embarked deliberately, though provisionally, on a career of co-operation. If congressmen honourably and fully implement the conditions applicable to them of the settlement, the Congress will obtain an irresistible prestige and would have inspired Government with confidence in its ability to ensure peace, as I think it has proved its ability to conduct disobedience.
And if the people in general will clothe the Congress with that power and prestige, I promise that it will not be long before every one of these political prisoners is discharged including the detenus, the Meerut prisoners and all the rest.
There is, no doubt, a small but active organization in India which would secure India's liberty through violent action. I appeal to that organization, as I have done before, to desist from its activities, if not yet out of conviction, then out of expedience. They have perhaps somewhat realized what great power non-violence has. They will not deny that the almost miraculous mass awakening was possible only because of the mysterious and yet unfailing effect of non-violence. I want them to be patient, and give the Congress, or if they will, me, a chance to work out the plan of truth and non-violence. After all it is hardly yet a full year since the Dandi march. One year in the life of an experiment affecting 300 millions of human beings is but a second in the cycle of time. Let them wait yet awhile. Let them preserve their precious lives for the service of the Motherland to which all will be presently called and let them give to the Congress an opportunity of securing the release of all the other political prisoners and maybe even rescuing from the gallows those who are condemned to them as being guilty of murder.
But I want to raise no false hopes. I can only state publicly what is my own and the Congress aspiration. It is for us to make the effort. The result is always in God's hands.
One personal note and I have done. I believe that I put my whole soul into the effort to secure an honourable settlement. I have pledged my word to Lord Irwin that in making good the terms of the settlement in so far as they bind the Congress, I should devote myself heart and soul to the task. I worked for the settlement, not in order to break it to pieces at the very first opportunity, but in order to strain every nerve to make absolutely final what today is provisional and to make it a precursor of the goal to attain which the Congress exists.
Lastly, I tender my thanks to all those who have been unceasing in their efforts in making the settlement possible.
