I am asking this House neither to accept this Declaration nor to reject it but only to postpone its consideration until the country has given its verdict upon this momentous issue. The Prime Minister himself said just now that when he was negotiating this Declaration alone in London, he felt the burden of a heavy responsibility on his shoulders, but the feeling that he had consulted his colleagues here before he went helped him to shoulder the burden. I think this Declaration is a violation of the election pledges contained in the election manifesto of the Congress Party on which the overwhelming majority in this House was elected and this House is therefore not competent to ratify this declaration. My amendment only embodies what my Leader the Prime Minister has himself taught us all his life. I shall quote from his address to the All India Convention held in Delhi on March 19, 1973 where all the legislators elected on Congress ticket had assembled and he reminded us of our election manifesto. This is what he said then:
“I would have them remember the Election Manifesto and the Congress resolutions on the basis of which they sought the suffrage of the people. Let no one forget that we have entered the legislatures not to co-operate in any way with British imperialism but to fight and end this Act which enslaves and binds us. Let no one forget that we fight for independence.”
“What is this Independence? A clear, definite, ringing word, which all the world understands, with no possibility of ambiguity. And yet, to our misfortune, even that word has become an object of interpretation and misinterpretation. Let us be clear about it. Independence means national freedom in the fullest sense of the word; it means, as our pledge has stated, a severance of the British connection. It means anti-imperialism and no compromise with empire. Words are hurled at us, – dominion status, Status of Westminster, British Commonwealth of Nations, and we quibble about their meaning. I see no real commonwealth anywhere, only an empire exploiting the Indian people and numerous other peoples in different parts of the world. I want my country to have nothing to do with this enormous engine of exploitation in Asia and Africa. If this engine goes, we have nothing but good-will for England, and in any event we wish to be friends with the mass of the British people.”
“Dominion status is a term which arose under peculiar circumstances and it changed its significance as time passed. In the British group of nations, it signified a certain European dominating group exploiting numerous subject peoples. That distinction continues whatever change the Status of Westminster might have brought about in the relations inter se of the members of that European dominating group. That group represents British imperialism and it stands in the world today for the very order and forces of reaction against which we struggle. How then can we associate ourselves willingly with this order and these forces? Or is it conceived that we might, in the course of time and if we behave ourselves, be promoted from the subject group to the dominating group, and yet the imperialist structure and basis of the whole will remain more or less as it is? This is a vain conception having no relation to reality, and even if it were within the realms of possibility, we should have none of it, for we would then become partners in imperialism and in the exploitation of others. And among these others would probably be large numbers of our own people.”
“It is said, and I believe Gandhiji holds this view, that if we achieved national freedom, this would mean the end of British imperialism itself. Under such conditions there is no reason why we should not continue our connection with Britain. There is force in the argument for our quarrel is not with Britain or the British people, but with British imperialism. But when we think in these terms, a larger and a different world comes into our ken, and dominion status and the Statue of Westminster pass away from the present to the historical past. That larger world does not think of a British group of nations, but of a world group based on political and social freedom.“