unknowingly. And so long as we co-operate with the
Government, so long as we support that Government, we become to that
extent sharers in the wrong. I admit that in ordinary circumstances a
wise subject will tolerate the wrongs of a Government, but a wise
subject never tolerates a wrong that a Government imposes on the
declared will of a people. And I venture to submit to this great meeting
that the Government of India and the Imperial Government have done a
double wrong to India, and if we are a nation of self-respecting people
conscious of its dignity, conscious of its right, it is not just and
proper that we should stand the double humiliation that the Government
has heaped upon us. By shaping and by becoming a predominant partner in
the peace terms imposed on the helpless Sultan of Turkey, the Imperial
Government have intentionally flouted the cherished sentiment of the
Mussalman subjects of the Empire. The present Prime Minister gave a
deliberate pledge after consultation with his colleagues when it was
necessary for him to conciliate the Mussalmans of India. I claim to have
studied this Khilafat question in a special manner. I claim to
understand the Mussalman feeling on the Khilafat question and I am here
to declare for the tenth time that on the Khilafat matter the Government
has wounded the Mussalman sentiment as they had never done before. And I
say without fear of contradiction that if the Mussalmans of India had
not exercised great self-restraint and if there was not the gospel of
non-co-operation preached to them and if they had not accepted it, there
would have been bloodshed in India by this time. I am free to confess
that spilling of blood would not have availed their cause. But a man
who is in a state of rage whose heart has become lacerated does not
count the cost of his action. So much for the Khilafat wrong.

I propose to take you for a minute to the Punjab, the northern end of
India. And what have both Governments done for the Punjab? I am free to
confess again that the crowds in Amritsar went mad for a moment. They
were goaded to madness by a wicked administration. But no madness on the
part of a people can justify the shedding of innocent blood, and what
have they paid for it? I venture to submit that no civilised Government
could ever have made the people pay the penalty and retribution that
they have paid. Innocent men were tried through mock-tribunals and
imprisoned for life. Amnesty granted to