Freedom's Battle: Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present SituationGandhi, Mahatma
Religion
Freedom's Battle: Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation
Gandhi, Mahatma
British -- India; India -- Politics and government -- 1919-1947; Nonviolence
Mr. Montagu has discovered a new definition of disloyalty. He considers
my suggestion to boycott the visit of the Prince of Wales to be disloyal
and some newspapers taking the cue from him have called persons who have
made the suggestion 'unmannerly'. They have even attributed to these
'unmannerly' persons the suggestion of boycotting the Prince. I draw a
sharp and fundamental distinction between boycotting the Prince and
boycotting any welcome arranged for him. Personally I would extend the
heartiest welcome to His Royal Highness if he came or could come without
official patronage and the protecting wings of the Government of the
day. Being the heir to a constitutional monarch, the Prince's movements
are regulated and dictated by the ministers, no matter how much the
dictation may be concealed beneath diplomatically polite language. In
suggesting the boycott therefore the promoters have suggested boycott of
an insolent bureaucracy and dishonest ministers of his Majesty.
You cannot have it both ways. It is true that under a constitutional
monarchy, the royalty is above politics. But you cannot send the Prince
on a political visit for the purpose of making political capital out of
him, and then complain that those who will not play your game and in
order to checkmate you, proclaim boycott of the Royal visit do not know
constitutional usage. For the Prince's visit is not for pleasure. His
Royal Highness is to come in Mr. Lloyd George's words, as the
"ambassador of the British nation," in other words, his own ambassador
in order to issue a certificate of merit to him and possibly to give the
ministers a new lease of life. The wish is designed to consolidate and
strengthen a power that spells mischief for India. Even us it is, Mr.
Montagu has foreseen, that the welcome will probably be excelled by any
hitherto extended to Royalty, meaning that the people are not really and
deeply affected and stirred by the official atrocities in the Punjab and
the manifestly dishonest breach of official declarations on the
Khilafat. With the knowledge that India was bleeding at heart, the
Government of India should have told His Majesty's ministers that the
moment was inopportune for sending the Prince. I venture to submit that
it is adding insult to injury to bring the Prince and through his visit
to steal honours and further prestige for a Government that deserves to
be dismissed with disgrace. I claim that I prove my loyalty by saying
that India is in no mood, is too deeply in mourning, to take part in and
to welcome His Royal Highness, and that the ministers and the Indian
Government show their disloyalty by making the Prince a catspaw of their
deep political game. If they persist, it is the clear duty of India to
have nothing to do with the visit.
CRUSADE AGAINST NON-CO-OPERATION
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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