Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/350

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260 EARLIER INDIAN SPEECHES

to our Sastras and had no place in India. I said then where there was honourable death it would go down to history as men who died for their conviction. But when a bomb-thrower died, secretly plotting all sorts of things, what could he gain ? I then went on to state and dealt with the fallacy that, had not bomb-throwers thrown bombs, we should never have gained what we did with reference to the Partition Movement. It was at about this stage that Mrs. Besant appealed to the chair to stop me. Personally, I shall desire a publica- tion of the whole of my speech whose trend was a sufficient warrant for showing that I could not possibly incite the students to deeds of violence. Indeed it was conceived in order to carry on a rigorous self-exami- nation.

I began by saying that it was a humiliation for the audience and myself that I should have to speak in English. I said that English having been the medium of instruction, it had done a tremendous injury to the country, and I conceive I showed successfully that, had we received training during the past 50 years in higher thought in our own vernaculars, we should be to-day within reach of our goal. I then referred to the Self- government Resolution passed at the Congress and showed that whilst the All-India Congress Com mi tee and the All-India Moslem League would be drawing up their paper about the future constitution, their duty was to fit themselves by their own action for self- government. And in order to show how short we fall of our duty 1 drew attention to the dirty condition of the labyrinth of lanes surrounding the great temple ot Kasi-Viswanath and the recently erected palatial buil-

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