The portrait that is to be unveiled presently, was painted by the great portrait painter, Sir Oswald Birley, in England during the Second Round Table Conference, and my father purchased it. I may inform the House that Sir Oswald had painted that portrait for himself and he agreed to part with it, because my, father wanted it and it was for India. When it arrived in India, however, it was put away carefully in its original packing. We were not allowed to see it and neither the family nor friends in England could obtain from him information as to what he intended to do with it. But sometime after the Act of 1935 was passed, he told me very privately that he intended to present it to the nation when, the new Government under that Act was inaugurated. Time passed, and there was no hope of that Act, coming into operation. My father, passed away in February 1938; almost within ten minutes of the time when he had planned to fly from Bhavnagar, on the 16th February, to Haripura to meet Mahatmaji. That programme and that meeting were subsequently cancelled by other circumstances. But before his death he had told me two or three times to bear in mind this portrait and his wishes regarding the same.
