India for Indians: Enlarged EditionDas, Chitta Ranjan
History
India for Indians: Enlarged Edition
Das, Chitta Ranjan
India -- Politics and government -- 1919-1947
It is Sir Hugh Bray,
it is the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, it is the speakers who
spoke at the meeting of the European Association. These people broke
the calm. I ask them to consider the position and beware. The days of
the Ilbert Bill agitation have gone by. These are the days of rising
Democracy in this country. We will no longer tolerate that sort of
vapourings, that kind of abuse. If, in spite of that, they persist
in their wicked agitation, we shall soon know how to deal with them.
We are fighting in the best interests of the Empire, we are fighting
for the ideal expressed by the King's ministers, we are fighting for
carrying out that very policy which has been declared in England by His
Majesty's ministers, and by His Excellency the Viceroy in this country.
If you dare stand against that, we will know how to deal with you. Be
assured, we Indians do not deny your legitimate share whatever may be
the extent of that share in the Government of this country. We know
what you mean when you say that Self-government is no good, because
Self-government would be against the interests of the teeming millions
of India. We know the hollowness of that hyrocricy. But we can tell
these gentlemen, so far as I am concerned, at any rate, I am perfectly
clear,--that we shall accept no Self-government, no Home Rule unless it
recognises and includes within it the teeming millions of India. When
I ask for Home Rule, for Self-Government, I am not asking for another
bureaucracy, another oligarchy in the place of the bureaucracy that
there is at present. In my opinion, bureaucracy is bureaucracy, be that
bureaucracy of Englishman or of Anglo-Indians or of Indians. We want no
bureaucracy, we want Home Rule, we want Self-government by the people
and for the people. We want Self-government in which every individual
of this country, be he the poorest ryot or the richest zemindar--will
have his legitimate share. Every individual must have some voice. We
want Home Rule, broad based on the will of the people of India. Now,
gentlemen, this is our objective. Do they still say or can they, in
reason, say, that we are not asking Home Rule on behalf and in the
interest of the teeming millions of India? If they say we have got no
right to ask for it in their interest, my answer is we have a thousand
times greater right to ask for them than you who never know them or
care for them. India has always been tolerant towards those people,
whatever their religious creed or faith may be, who have made India
their Home--every one of them is my brother and I embrace him with
open arms. The history of India has made it abundantly clear. We have
the Parsis in India. They adopted India as their home and to-day we
embrace them as our brothers. We have had hosts of Mahomedan invaders
who came to this country as conquerors but they made this country their
home and to-day we embrace them with open arms. If these Anglo-Indians
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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