India for Indians: Enlarged EditionDas, Chitta Ranjan
History
India for Indians: Enlarged Edition
Das, Chitta Ranjan
India -- Politics and government -- 1919-1947
"The next imposture, the next abuse of political terms is connected
with these words Legislative Councils. There are Legislative Councils
in the Colonies which are really and truly Legislative Assemblies
corresponding to our Parliament."
Nobody has any doubt about that!
"Now, a Legislative Council in India is a very different thing."
Exactly so! That is our grievance, we complain that our Legislative
Councils are shams. They are without power, without responsibility. But
let us see how he makes that out to be an imposture;
"But the trick played is to confuse the two and to make out to the
British people that a Legislative Council in India is just such a
representative body as one of these Colonial Parliaments."
MR. JONES' LOGIC
Have you ever heard anything like that? Yet this is said by Mr. Jones.
He says that we Indians have said in England that our Legislative
Councils are exactly like those in the Colonies. Is not it too
ridiculous for words? We say that our Legislative Councils are shams
because they are not representative. We ask for such a grant of Home
Rule that our Legislative Councils may be like those in Australia.
But Mr. Jones says that we have deceived the English people by saying
that our Legislative Councils are truly representative bodies. Does
he think that he was doing some conjuring trick? Well, that is the
sort of imposture with which he fed his audience. I will give you one
other sample and finish with Mr. Jones. You have read those speeches
and noticed that when the name of the Secretary of State was mentioned
by one of the speakers the audience hissed aloud. If any speech could
bring the Government into discredit and contempt, it was the speech
of Mr. Jones. The people who become violently immoderate in speech and
sentiment when their selfish interests are attacked are the people who
lecture us to be moderate in our expressions. I ask you to say if I am
not right in calling these agitators as extremists. I said elsewhere
there are no moderates or extremists among us, but the real extremists
are those people who by their actions and by their words have betrayed
the Government of this country and also the people of this country.
OUR ATTITUDE LOYAL THROUGHOUT.
Our whole attitude on the question of self-government is to hold to
the banner of the moirs. Our attitude has been loyal throughout and
as I read out to you the statements of the Secretary of State and the
Viceroy you have found that our demands are based on the words and the
spirit of those statements. We are for the empire, they are for selfish
interests of their own. We are for a great ideal, they are for their
money. That is the difference between the Anglo-Indian agitators and
ourselves. Well, gentlemen, do not be troubled by these agitators. Let
them go on in their way. They ought to realise that the days of the
Ilbert Bill agitation are dead and gone and buried for ever. They have
no right to dictate anything to the Government.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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