e you but to weaken you?' I hold
and I venture to submit, that there is nothing unconstitutional in it.
What is more, I have done every one of these things in my life and
nobody has questioned the constitutional character of it. I was in Kaira
working in the midst of 7 lakhs of agriculturists. They had all
suspended the payment of taxes and the whole of India was at one with
me. Nobody considered that it was unconstitutional. I submit that in the
whole plan of non-co-operation, there is nothing unconstitutional. But
I do venture to suggest that it will be highly unconstitutional in the
midst of this unconstitutional Government,--in the midst of a nation
which has built up its magnificent constitution,--for the people of
India to become weak and to crawl on their belly--it will be highly
unconstitutional for the people of India to pocket every insult that is
offered to them; it is highly unconstitutional for the 70 millions of
Mohamedans of India to submit to a violent wrong done to their religion;
it is highly unconstitutional for the whole of India to sit still and
co-operate with an unjust Government which has trodden under its feet
the honour of the Punjab. I say to my countrymen so long as you have a
sense of honour and so long as you wish to remain the descendants and
defenders of the noble traditions that have been handed to you for
generations after generations, it is unconstitutional for you not to
non-co-operate and unconstitutional for you to co-operate with a
Government which has become so unjust as our Government has become. I am
not anti-English; I am not anti-British; I am not anti any Government;
but I am anti-untruth--anti-humbug and anti-injustice. So long as the
Government spells injustice, it may regard me as its enemy, implacable
enemy. I had hoped at the Congress at Amritsar--I am speaking God's
truth before you--when I pleaded on bended knees before some of you for
co-operation with the Government. I had full hope that the British
ministers who are wise, as a rule, would placate the Mussalman sentiment
that they would do full justice in the matter of the Punjab atrocities;
and therefore, I said:--let us return good-will to the hand of
fellowship that has been extended to us, which I then believed was
extended to us through the Royal Proclamation. It was on that account
that I pleaded for co-operation. But to-day that faith having gone and
obliterated by the acts of the British ministers, I am here to