I would like to put a straight question to these friends of mine, and it is this. In 1920 or even in 1885 there are some who are older than myself here – what were you thinking should be the language of this land? What should be our language after the attainment of Swaraj? I would say that those who felt that English should be our official language, they were caught napping by Swaraj. But when I entered the Congress at the age of 18, I had a clear vision that Swaraj will come. I had a clear vision that we will govern ourselves in a particular way. I had a clear notion about my language. I had a clear notion about my country. And I had a clear notion about my civilisation and I had a clear notion about my culture. If I had no clear notion like that, why should I have served this country from morning till night, since my birth into this country-that is, when I came of age ? I had the notion that my country will have my own language, and my own culture. But today, I hear people asking another fifteen years for English in this country. Have we not had enough of it ? We have bad it for the past two hundred years, we have had this slavery of a foreign language. This English language has produced no great men; Even in our slavery we produced great men. Some people may say that on account of the English language we got our freedom, I say, “No”. Only those people joined the freedom’s fight who forgot the English language, and who had extreme hatred for the English language and who knew that the English language was a poison and that it will kill our country. I would with all humility say to Shri Gopalaswami Ayyangar, “I do not understand your language. And you do not understand my language. You did not know the language of the country for the last 40 years, and so you will not understand my language today”.
