C HAPTER 24
UNDER THE PROVIDENCE OF MR. GANDHI
(I) His work through the Congress
I. A Strange Welcome. II. The Great Repudiation. III. A Charge Sheet. IV. The Basis of the Charge Sheet. V. The Tragedy of Gandhi. VI. His Legacy to India and the Untouchables.
On the 28th December 1931, Mr. Gandhi returned to India from London where he had gone as a delegate to attend the second Session of the Indian Round Table Conference. At the Round Table Conference, Mr. Gandhi had been an utter, ignominous failure both as a personality and as a politician. I know that my opinion will not be accepted by the Hindus. But the unfortunate part is that my opinion in this respect coincides with the opinion of Mr. Gandhi’s best friend. I will cite the opinions of two. This is what Mr. Ewer, who was closely associated with Mr. Gandhi during the Round Table Conference, wrote about the role Mr. Gandhi played at the Round Table Conference in London.
“Gandhi in the St. James’ Palace has not fulfilled the unwise expectation of those who saw him bestriding the Conference like a colossus
……………He was out of his elements.”
“His first speech, with its sentimental appeal, its over-stressing of humility, its reiteration of single-minded concern for the dumb suffering millions, was a failure. No one questioned its sincerity. But somehow it rang false. It was the right thing, perhaps, but it was in the wrong place. Nor were his later interventions on the whole more successful. A rather querulous complaint that the British Government had not produced a plan for the new Indian Constitution shocked some of Gandhi’s colleagues, who had hardly expected to see the representative of the National Congress appealing to British Ministers for guidance and initiative. The protest against the pegging of the rupee to the pound was