We have been told, Sir, that this sentiment is the result of our recent past in which our mentality has been formed and coloured by a constant attitude of hostility, of distrust and suspicion of Britain and the British. I plead guilty to that, but offer no apology for holding such apprehensions. This is a mentality which is still in most of us; and when we are asked to forget and forgive the past I cannot but feel that the forgetting is to be all on their side, and the forgiving is to be all on our side. We must forgive all the record of a century of exploitation, of suppression and oppression, of denial of our rights and liberties, of the sacrifice of our interests and sabotage of our ambitions because we have been made into an independent Republic. We must forgive all that, wipe it clean from our memory, and join hands with those who only the other day were our exploiters, who only the other day involved us in wars which were none of our seeking, and which cost us thousands of lives and crores upon crores of money, and who even today in my opinion, are not free from the suspicion that they are having their own mental reservations in inviting, in almost tempting us to accept this agreement.
