PEOPLE CEMENTED............INDEPENDENT 49
you were not allowed to serve in the military. Is that career now open to you? Gentlemen, to none of these questions you can give an affirmative answer. Those who have held so much power over the country for such a long time must have done some good. But there is certainly no fundamental attention in your position. So far as you are concerned the British Government has accepted the arrangements as it found them and has preserved them faithfully in the manner of the Chinese tailor who, when given an old coat as a pattern, produced with pride an exact replica, rents, patches and all. Your wrongs have remained as open sores and they have not been righted and I say that the British Government actuated with the best of motives and principles will always remain powerless to effect any change so far as your particular grievances are concerned. No body can remove your grievances as well as you can and you cannot remove them unless you get political power in your own hands. No share of this political power can come to you so long as the British Government remains as it is. It is only in a Swaraj constitution that you stand any chance of getting the political power into your own hands without which you cannot bring salvation to your people. I know that to the majority of our people Swaraj is a weird apparition. It is very natural that it should be so. It recalls to their mind the tyrannies and oppressions and injustices practised upon them by their fellow countrymen and they fear that under Swaraj these violations may recur. But, Gentlemen, if you will for one moment forget the past and visualize the Swaraj of the future with its wholesome devices to protect masses from Classes you will find that far from being a weird apparition it is going to be a system of government in which you yourselves stand the chance, other things being equal, of being amongst those who will be installed as the political sovereigns of this country. Do not be obsessed by the past. Do not be swayed by fear or favour from any quarters in making your decision. Consult your best interests and I am sure you will accept Swaraj as your goal.
- If you accept this view then you cannot approve of the recommendations of the Simon Commission with regard to the future government of India. I cannot enter into a detailed