On the debate on India, he asked His Majesty’s Government to remember its obligations “to the Muslims, numbering 90 millions, who comprised the majority of the fighting elements of India” –truth is not rated high in Indian debates and international intercourse– “and of untouchables of anything from 40 to 60 millions.” He refers to the representatives of the Great Congress Party as the mouthpiece “of actively organised and engineered minorities who, having seized upon power by force, or fraud or chicanery, go forward and use that power in the name of vast masses with whom they have long since lost all effective connection.” A party of men who have braved the perils of life, who have suffered for their patriotism whose love of country and capacity for sacrifice are second to none in the whole world who are led by one who is today leading a lonely trek in a far off corner of India, bearing on his aging shoulders the burden of a nation’s shame and sorrow, to talk of that party in the way in which Mr. Churchill has done is — I do not know how to describe it (Cries of shame). Mr. Churchill’s outbursts are bereft of dignity or discretion. Provocative and irrelevant remarks, sneers of derision in regard to our communal divisions, have punctuated his speech on that occasion and on other occasions. I shall only say here that such speeches and such statements cannot prevent the end but can only postpone it and thus prolong the agony. The British connection will end, it must end. Whether it ends in friendship and goodwill or in convulsions and agony, depends upon the way in which the British people treat this great problem.
