WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A FALSE CHARGE 179
upon a constitution, and that ultimately Indians will have to struggle with the British in order to wrest power from their hands. The reply of the Untouchables is that they see no reason why Indians should start, with such complete distrust of the British intentions. After all, the British Government has moved in the direction of fulfilling Indian aspirations and is moving. If it is slow in moving it is due to Indians being content with small things. Right from the conquest of India by the British upto 1886, Indians never cared who ruled them nor how they were ruled. They were content to live without troubling themselves about these questions. In 1886 the Congress was organized and for the first time Indians began to take interest in the government of India. But even the Congress upto 1910 was content in agitating for good Government only. It was in 1910 that the Congress first demanded Self-Government. When in
1919 the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms were on the anvil, Indians had an occasion to state the scope of their demand for Self-Government. What is known as the Memorandum of the Nineteen denned the aspirations of the Indians as they stood in 1917. Any one who knows it will remember that the best and the most radical Indians were content only with Dyarchy in the Provinces. Even this was regarded as a big jump by some Indian leaders such as Sir Dinshaw Watcha and Mr. Samarath [1] . In 1930 notwithstanding the Congress Resolution insisting on Independence, Mr. Gandhi at the R. T. C. was prepared [2] to be content with Provincial autonomy. The British granted more than that. If from 1939 there has been a halt, it is mainly because Indians are not agreed on the sort of constitution they want for their country.
The Untouchables think that the stage, when the British were sitting upon the freedom of India, as the snake in the fable is said to sit on a treasure, not allowing anyone to come near it, is gone long past. India’s Freedom is like property held by a Receiver. The British Government has placed itself
Mr. Montagu in his Indian Diary records that when they waited on him to discuss the question of political reforms they said “Give us the power to pass resolutions, to influence Government; we will use it in a spirit of sweet reasonableness, but we are not fit for responsible Government.”—p. 147.
This part of the story of what happened at the Round Table Conference has not been told. But everybody present at the Round Table Conference knows how Mr. Gandhi was won over to agree to Provincial autonomy. If the 1935 Government of India Act contains some elements of responsibility at the centre the credit goes to the representatives of the Non-Congress parties at the R. T. C.