Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/704

 HONOUR THE PRINCE

��[It was announced that H. R. H. the Prince of wales was ta arrive in India in November 17 and great preparations were made by Government to give the Royal visitor a fitting reception. Writ- ing in Young India of October 27, Mr. Gandhi urged his country- men to boycott the Prince's visit. With no illwill against the Prince as man, The people were asked to dissociate themselves from all functious and festivities arranged in his honour by the Government, Mr. Gandhi wrote : ]

The reader must not be surprised at the title of this writing. Supposing that the Prince was a bJood brother in a high place, supposing that he was to be exploited by neighbours for their own base ends, supposing further that he was in the hands of my neighbours, that my voice could not effectively reacb him and that he was being brought to my village by the said neighbours, would I not honour him bsst by dissociating myself from all the ceremonial that might be arranged in his 'honour* in the process of exploitation and by letting him know by every means at my disposal that he was being exploited? Would I not ba a traitor to him if I did not warn him against entering the trar> prepared for him by my neighbours?

I have no manner of doubt that the Prince's visit is being exploited for advertising the 'benign' British rule in India. It is a crime against us if His Royal Highness is being brought for personal pleasure and sport when India is seething with discontent, when the masses are saturated with disaffection towards the system under which they are governed, when famine is raging in Khulna and the Ceded Districts and when an armed

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