Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/743

 This resolution, if the Government sincerely wants an open door, leaves the door wide open for the Govern- ment. If Moderate friends wish to rally round the standard of the Khilafat, round the standard of the liberties of the Punjab and therefore of India, if this Government is sincerely anxious to do justice and no- thing but justice, if Lord Reading has really come to India to do justice and nothing less and we want nothing more if he is really anixous to do all those things, then I inform him from this platform, with God as my witness, with all the earnestness that I can command that he has got an open door in this resolution if he means well, but the door is closed in his face if he means ill. There is every chance for him to hold a Round Table Conference, but it must be a real Conference. If he wants a Conference at a table where only equals are to sit and where there is not to be a single beggar, then there is an open door and that door will always remain open no, matter how many people go to their graves, no matter what wild career this repression is to go through, So far as I am concerned, and if I can take the nation with me, I inform him, again that the door will always remain wide open.

There is nothing in this resolution which any one who has modesty and humility need be ashamed of. This resolution is iiot an arrogant challenge to any body, but this is a challenge to an authority that is enthroned on arrogance. It is a challenge to the authority which disregards the considered opinion of millions of thinking human beings. It is an humble challenge and an irrevocable challenge to authority which, in order to save itself, wants to crush freedom of opinion, freedom of forming associations, the two lungs

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