I WAS..................INDIA 323
Government. He has been sitting on the lap of the British Government all this while and if he had achieved any notoriety and greatness either in India or outside, it was largely due to the fact that the British Government had been pleased to make him a “show boy.” I do not wish to say that what Mr. Shastri has said, is really croakings of an old crow sitting on a diseased bowel.
What is that most of the Congressmen have been generally saying? The Scheduled Castes have been inimical to the general interests of the country, it was stated. I would like to say that I have sat side by side with the greatest men in this country viz . Mr. Gandhi, the Rt. Hon’ble Shastri, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, and I can enumerate a host of public men in India who undoubtedly occupy the first place and rank in India’s politics. I have watched him doing what a Nationalist can be expected to do, and I am confident, not only confident but proud that whenever any public question came up at the Round Table Conference, I was far ahead of the gentlemen who are supposed to be the patriots of India (cheers).
Gandhi’s Doings at R. T. C.
Most people assembled here do not know the doings of Mr. Gandhi at the R.T.C. You all think that the parts we played there were glorious ones. Is that the true story? What did Mr. Gandhi do? You all know that in 1931 when Gandhi attended the R.T.C. a mandate was imposed upon him that he should ask for Independence and that India should not accept anything less than Independence, something which was undoubtedly beyond the many super politicians in India were prepared to ask. What did he do? It is regrettable to state and I think in view of the fact that I am so invariably accused of having played the part of a “black leg” at the R.T.C. I must state the story, you will be surprised to hear what I may tell you. This old amiable gentleman who went to the R.T.C. with a mandate to demand nothing short of Independence, what did he do ? He said to Sir Samuel Hoare, the then Secretary of State, that he was quite prepared at this stage to be content with Provincial Autonomy, a most extraordinary thing. Those of us who do not belong to the Congress, on the other side, had taken up a stand that whether in 1931. India was