Five

5

Let us refresh our minds before we go further. We have seen how hopelessly the Congress mind was confused. They had no idea of the goal they wanted to reach except that every one was allowed to paint his or her own picture of it and invest it with all the glories and colours of which he or she was capable. Worse still, they had no idea of how this goal was to be reached. Some of them were fighting for moral principles like non-violence; others were fighting for internationalism, or what is temptingly but vaingloriously called ‘humanity’, which in the mouth of an unimaginative and mentally dull section of the Congress leadership meant “British Humanity”; while, still others wanted to vindicate their natural, inalienable birthright of freedom before the bar of the world—which generally meant America.

While they stood either for a moral cant or a political fashion, none of them stood for Indian freedom of 40 crores of humanity—perhaps, they were not a part of ‘democratic humanity’ for which the leadership were fighting— exclusively, with undivided loyalty. Indian cause was an orphan; at best, an accidental side-issue.