Presidential Address
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
Fellow-delegates and friends,
Everyone who has preceded me in this Chair has rendered his thanks infitting terms for the gift which is truly said to be the highest thatIndia has it in her power to bestow. It is the sign of her fullest love,trust, and approval, and the one whom she seats in that chair is, forhis year of service, her chosen leader. But if my predecessors foundfitting words for their gratitude, in what words can I voice mine, whosedebt to you is so overwhelmingly greater than theirs? For the first timein Congress history, you have chosen as your President one who, whenyour choice was made, was under the heavy ban of Government displeasure,and who lay interned as a person dangerous to public safety. While I washumiliated, you crowned me with honour; while I was slandered, youbelieved in my integrity and good faith; while I was crushed under theheel of bureaucratic power, you acclaimed me as your leader; while I wassilenced and unable to defend myself, you defended me, and won for merelease. I was proud to serve in lowliest fashion, but you lifted me upand placed me before the world as your chosen representative. I have nowords with which to thank you, no eloquence with which to repay my debt.My deeds must speak for me, for words are too poor. I turn your giftinto service to the Motherland; I consecrate my life anew to her inworship by action. All that I have and am, I lay on the Altar of theMother, and together we shall cry, more by service than by words: VANDEMATARAM.
There is, perhaps, one value in your election of me in this crisis ofIndia’s destiny, seeing that I have not the privilege to be Indian-born,but come from that little island in the northern seas which has been, inthe West, the builder-up of free institutions. The Aryan emigrants, whospread over the lands of Europe, carried with them the seeds of libertysown in their blood in their Asian cradle-land. Western historians tracethe self-rule of the Saxon villages to their earlier prototypes in theEast, and see the growth of English liberty as up-springing from theAryan root of the free and self-contained village communities.
Its growth was crippled by Norman feudalism there, as itsmillennia-nourished security here was smothered by the East IndiaCompany. But in England it burst its shackles and nurtured aliberty-loving people and a free Commons’ House. Here, it similarlybourgeoned out into the Congress activities, and more recently intothose of the Muslim League, now together blossoming into Home Rule forIndia. The England of Milton, Cromwell, Sydney, Burke, Paine, Shelley,Wilberforce, Gladstone; the England that sheltered Mazzini, Kossuth,Kropotkin, Stepniak, and that welcomed Garibaldi; the England that isthe enemy of tyranny, the foe of autocracy, the lover of freedom, thatis the England I would fain here represent to you to-day. To-day, whenIndia stands erect, no suppliant people, but a Nation, self-conscious,self-respecting, determined to be free; when she stretches out her handto Britain and offers friendship not subservience; co-operation notobedience; to-day let me: western-born but in spirit eastern, cradled inEngland b