Gandhiji spoke both in the Subjects Committee and the open Congress on the resolution on provisional settlement. Here is a report of the English speech in the Subjects Committee :
Though the resolution before you is very brief, I venture to suggest to you that it is very comprehensive and capable of passing the most rigorous test that a man who believes in complete independence can exact. The resolution makes it incumbent upon any delegation that may take part in the Conference deliberations to bear in mind the Congress goal, or as it is called the Congress objective of purna swaraj as stated in the Lahore resolution, and not in the Madras resolution which was a pious wish. Purna swaraj is not a pious wish today. Purna swaraj is the incessant yearning of the soul of the nation which is impatient to get it, and its impatience was demonstrated during the past twelve months. And so it is the immediate objective that the delegation has got to keep in view in agreeing to any single thing that may happen in the Conference. But that is not enough. Some idea or some inkling of purna swaraj or complete independence has also been given here as essential, and so it is incumbent upon your delegation to obtain control over the defence forces, etc.
But the trapΓÇöor sting as you would call itΓÇöis in the tail of the resolution : "Provided, however, the Congress delegation would be free to accept such adjustments as may be necessary in the interests of India." Now in this there is a trap and there is no trap. There is no trap if you will choose your delegation well and trust it.There is a trap because 'adjustments' is really synonymous with 'safeguards'. The principle of safeguards is accepted in the terms of the settlement, but the safeguards that might be accepted have to be in the interests of India,and they must be demonstrably necessary,not merely absolutely necessary as it has been suggested in one of the many amendments. Demonstrably for our purpose is a superior word to absolutely. I have given my meaning of the 'safeguards' very fully elsewhere and I will not dilate upon it.
Having said this, I want to say something about another amendment that has been suggested, that whatever action the delegates may take should be subject to ratification by a special session of the Congress or by the All-India Congress Committee. I venture to suggest to you with all the force at my command, that this is not only unnecessary but unbecoming of a Congress that has lived progressively for the past 45 years and has acquired a prestige unrivalled by any other organization in India and a prestige now acquired by it throughout the world. Surely this Congress is not so poor as not to be able to produce representatives who can fully represent the Congress at any conference or any assembly. Therefore if you send your delegation, that delegation should have the same powers as if the whole Congress was being transported to the Conference. Without that matters such as those that confront us really cannot be adjusted. We will be one among many parties. Those who go to the Conference are expected to have full credentials and full authority to bind their principals. But if they go there and have to say, 'We have come here, we will discuss; but we cannot bind our principals, we shall have to refer to our principals', the procedure becomes interminable, cumbrous and wholly ineffective for the purpose in view. Hence it is absolutely necessary not to put any such proviso as has been suggested.
What is the position of the Congress, inter se? What is the position of the Congress with reference to the intermediate bodies, the All-India Congress Committee and the Working Committee? Although the committees are given a general power of attorney to act on behalf of the Congress, still the right of repudiation is a right of which the Congress can never divest itself. No organization or no principal can really divest himself of this right. The power of attorney to be given to your delegation is to act within the four corners of this resolution. So long as your delegation acts within the four corners of this power of attorney, it would be improper for you to repudiate them. If they go beyond this resolution, you have every right to repudiate them. That is one thing. But the more effective repudiation comes into play when they have turned traitors and have sold your cause, or when they have become so idiotic, so unintelligent as not to be able to see the many traps that might have been laid for them and thus fall into one of these traps. Even then they would have gone outside the four corners of their power of attorney. In that case, you have absolute right to repudiate all that they may have done, and that power is good against the whole world. The power of repudiation is absolute if your agents act outside the power that you give them. You may take it from me that this is the legal position, if I may so call it. Hence I suggest to you that it is not only superfluous, not only unnecessary, for you to attach the condition of ratification to this resolution, it is unbecoming of you to do so. It will really hamper the progress of the very thing you want them to do. Therefore I hope you will, without entering upon any further discussion, withdraw this particular amendment.
I would next suggest to you,if you will follow the warning I have uttered from this platform so often, that having brought into being your Working Committee,you should not thoughtlessly or hastily interfere with the build of the resolution that the Working Committee may place before you, because you should give the credit to the Working Committee for having examined all the pros and cons and all the objections that might possibly be raised against the several parts of the resolution. It will really be like interfering with the creation of your own architects. But you can do one thing, and that is to exercise the precious right which you possess, viz., the right of total rejection of this resolution. Although the thing itself is a completed whole, and you may not therefore interfere with it in detail, still you have the right of totally rejecting it. I would therefore urge you, that if you really feel that the resolution does not satisfy you as a whole, you will marshal all your forces, intellect, and resourcefulness in a full-dress debate and reject the resolution. The choice before you is either to reject or accept the resolution as it stands, because it is a resolution framed by your trusted representatives after many and anxious hours of thought which you could never give to this resolution; for one thing, you have not the leisure for it, nor can such a large body of people give one mind to a resolution of this character. So far, therefore, as the body of this resolution is concerned, tear it to pieces if you like, examine it as mercilessly as you please, and then if you come to the conclusion that after all it is not in the interest of the nation, then destroy the resolution. But if you feel that the nation cannot lose but will gain by endorsing the settlement, you must say so boldly and act up to it. Endorsement means an honest endeavour to act up to it cent per cent. I do not want you to accept this resolution in a niggardly or half-hearted spirit, or because it is a Mahatma who is behind it, or because the Working Committee is behind it. You, as representatives of the nation, will not lose in dignity or in the estimation of the world, if you, after the fullest deliberation, come to the conclusion that it should be rejected, because this settlement is, in your opinion, not worth considering and that it is really a trap laid for the people. It will then be your bounden duty to reject it.
But do not for heaven's sake let the recent executions be an obsession in your way. We shall have provocations in our march towards the goal, in our march towards the Conference. Let no provocation deflect you from the right course. Let no provocation blind your judgment. Use your intellect in an absolutely unbiased manner. Examine the settlement on its own merits. Do not be carried away also by the fact that all the prisoners covered by the truce or the provisional settlement have not yet been discharged. Let not that worry you. It is up to the Working Committee to see that all those who are covered by the truce are discharged. If a single prisoner covered by the truce remains in prison, it must be a point of honour with the Working Committee to repudiate the truce. Therefore you must not be turned away from your course by any side issues. What you should concentrate upon is this. What does the settlement amount to? What scope does the settlement give the Congress to assert its claim? What scope is there in this resolution for the delegation, even unconsciously, to go beyond the authority it confers on them? If you find it is not sufficiently comprehensive to tie down the hands of the delegation, no matter how clever it may be, you have every right summarily to reject the resolution.
I warn the English-speaking people that next year they would not call upon a single speaker to speak in English. I hope that by next year they will have learned sufficient Hindustani to be able to follow the proceedings and really be able to speak in Hindustani also. Day after day and year after year we ourselves have accustomed the people to consider Hindustani as the common language for inter-provincial intercourse. Now it is too late to retrace our steps and habituate vast audiences to English.
I have expressed my views in this matter in my statement to the Press immediately after the settlement. The princes are naturally touchy, and we should do nothing to touch them on the raw, if we can help it. We may only make it clear to them that a Federation of the people and princes will have meaning only when the princes will stoop to conquer, will stoop to the level of their people, just as we ask the Englishmen to descend from the heights of Simla to the plains. But we do not want to give them any notice of this. We will trust them to conform to the spirit of the times, and I am sure that if we succeed in getting everything else the princes will offer no difficulty.
