these notes again, which I am now submitting to the Workers' Committee of the Congress for a preliminary consideration.
Be a Good Old Gandhi
What I want of you is that you be a good old Gandhi, put on an ordinary pair of khaddar trousers and coat and come out and work with us in the ordinary way. Come and organise with us (as you alone by yourself have failed) our workers, our peasants, and our youths, not with a meta physical sentimentality but with a set purpose, a clear-cut and well-defined object and by methods such as by experiment are making success for all human beings.
I am not a believer in slavishly obeying persons, prestige or organisations, but I always believe all past efforts and actions have their elements of good on which we can, if we will, build a stronger future. Instead of developing the vanity of making under-clothing or over-clothing a primary object of administration, and starting some traditions of a sage of Sabarmati, as an ordinary rough-and-tumble man making your food and clothing secondary and unimportant items that should not require any special thought of you, you would still be able to undo great mistakes of the past, to make up for the damage done to India and other Asiatic countries, and be one of the successful workers for India as other successful leaders have actually worked for their own country.
Yes, when I have cast my eyes on you, I am not going to take any point-blank refusal from you. I know there will be the usual popular cry against me that I ought not to have used such language or such words, etc., etc., but I do believe that in an attempt to use artificial polish in our language we become as unfair to the addressee as to ourselves, and it is much better policy to say things as we think, as we talk among friends. Therefore before I go, I should like you to get up one morning as from a dream and to say, "Yes," and many of us can soon be put together in a good team, and set about putting an end to so many deplorable conditions of life in India, about which none of us has any doubt.
I remain,
Yours fraternally,
SHAPURJI SAKLATVALA.
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