Page:Labour in Madras.djvu/150

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
124
LABOUR IN MADRAS


you that it is always good Karma to be born in a country like this where the spiritual heritage of the race brings its own blessing, the greatest that is to be had in the world. What are you going to do for that same Motherland, though you may be humble, poor, illiterate and uneducated as you are sometimes called? Let me tell you that the future of our country does not depend on us, a few educated people who can write and talk but upon thousands and millions of poor people who have a culture of their own and who can teach us many things that our masters from western countries cannot teach us. Como ing in your midst I have learnt a lesson which I had never learnt before moving in the midst of people who are rich and educated. You have within yourselves locked up in your hearts and in your minds, qualities and virtues which when once brought out will be of inestimable service to our country. I would like you, each single individual amongst you to develop within your conscience that power which is the basis of what will make you noblemen, citizens of a big country, a country of whose past we are so rightly proud. For that purpose, develop the quality amongst yourselves so that you present yourselves as one great brotherhood of all men and women and children who think alike, who feel alike, who aspire alike, whose inspiration comes from within yourselves and whose service is offered at the feet of the Motherland. SELF-RELIANCE Remember that you have to develop that intense quality of self-reliance, of independence and above all of selfrespect, so that no one, be he European or Indian, be he rich or a high casteman, can say to you a word of insult,