Mohammad Ali’s statement

MAULANA Mohammad Ali has issued a statement with reference to Mr Sastri’s unanswered question to Mahatma Gandhi about his message to the Congress in Delhi on the motion for the removal of the ban on Council entry. The statement clearly sets forth the circumstances under which Ali came to speak of the ‘wireless’ message from the Mahatma, and after going through it, we are confirmed in the opinion we expressed at the time that while in substance and in essence the message was exactly of the kind that the Mahatma might have been expected to send — had not the fact of his being in prison prevented him from doing so — the form showed that it was fictitious, as most people understood it at the time to be. Of course, Ali himself now tells us that it was not really fictitious, but had its basis in a certain conversation which had taken place between the Mahatma and his son and which the latter had reported to him. But this conversation did not add and could not possibly have added either to the Maulana’s own knowledge or anyone else’s. In his own words, “it was quite like Bapu”. It only meant that the Mahatma did not want to dictate the course that Ali and others should follow, but was of the opinion that they should do what they considered to be the best for the country. Something more than this, however, was conveyed by the actual words put into the Mahatma’s mouth in the wireless message. The words of that message were: “I am for the entire programme, but if looking at the state of the country you think that one or two items of the boycott programme should be discarded or modified, in the name of love of the country, I command you to give up those parts of the programme and alter them accordingly.”

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#Congress #Mahatma Gandhi