Mr. President, ever since the Indian Christian community became conscious of the fact that it was fundamentally an Indian community, its great leaders in the past have always fully identified themselves with the Indian Nationalism. I need only remind those, who do me the honour of listening to me, of the name of the late Kaka Baptist of Bombay, of the late K C. Bannerjee of Bengal, of the late Bishop Chidambaram of the United Provinces and the late Dr. S. K. Dutta of Punjab. These names are only a few out of the many I could quote to prove that we have all along identified ourselves fully with Indian Nationalism. From one point of view we have been misunderstood. It has been held that because we profess Christianity,–essentially an Asiatic religion,–and because we have certain contacts with foreign missions, therefore the Indian Christian community has what is known as Christian mentality. It is not so and I stand here to say that it is an incorrect idea. It is a misconception and I want it to be clearly understood that today I on behalf of my community, am pledging our allegiance once more to the Flag.
