Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/740

 650 NON-CO-OPERATION

have burnt our boats and we must sail onward till tha f primary right of human beings is vindicated.

Let me make my own position clear. I am most anxious for a settlement. I want a Round Table Conference. I want our position to be clearly known by everybody who wants to understand it. I impose no conditions but when conditions are imposed upon me prior to the holding of a conference, I must be allowed to examine those conditions, and if I find that they are suicidal, I must be excused if I don't accept them. The amount of tension that is created can be regulated solely by the Government of India, for the offensive has been taken by that Government.

THE AHMEDABAD CONGRESS SPEECH.

��The Ahmedabad Congress of December, 1921, was abovz all a Gandhi Session. The President-elect > Mr. ('. /?. Das, was in prison and so were many other leaders besides. Hakim Ajtnal Khan was elected tf> take th e chair and the proceedings were all in Hindi and Guja- rati. Mr. Gandhi was invested with full dictatorial powers by the Congress and the central resolution of the session, which he moved, ran as follows :

" This Congress, whilst requiring the ordinary machinery to remain intact and to be utilised in the ordinary manner whenever feasible, hereby appoints, until further instructions, Mahatma Gandhi as the sole executive authority of the Congress and invests him with the full power to convene a special session of the Congress or of the All-India Congress Committee or the Working Committee and also with the power to appoint a successor in emergency.

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