The question of Counter-Propaganda
The only piece of practical advice we received from Mr. Madan was that propaganda should be met by counter propaganda. But there are difficulties.
First how many of the hon. members would be willing to take up the task of propaganda? Secondly, how many of them would be listened to if they did? How many of these would be able to obtain a hearing? I confess it seems to me, when Hon. members have protested that Government do not publish all the facts, that the time may come when every district and Sub-Divisional Magistrate ought to be his own publicity officer. In the last week we should have had stories in the papers of ladies being insulted in Monghyr, pushed into the road, and spat upon. We should have read of the wife of a settlement Officer, with her sister-in-law, being insulted by school-boys one of the ladies having her head cut with a stone; and from many districts we should have heard that pitiful tale of little children whose lips can hardly lisp the popular war cry being taught to shout it, not as a tale of admiration for an ascetic idealist, nor as reverence for a person of mystic magnetism, but as a mark of racial hatred, a hymn of hate. We could have published instances from Muzaffarpur and Champaran of the insults to Europeans, of mob roaming about shouting and committing mischief. Hon. members would have heard of Magistrates unable to hold trials because of the noise in the Court compounds. All these and more should have been done in the way of counter propaganda, exposing the methods of what is in fact a revolutionary movement, but would much good have been done thereby? Is it not more important to take steps to prevent such things happening? I ask the hon. members to remember that every vote given in favour of this resolution is a direct encouragement to the non-co-operation party they profess to abhor.
APPENDIX XVIII
DEMAND FOR AN INDIAN "REPUBLIC"
Mr. Hazrat Mohani's Address
Ahmedabad, Dec. 30—The following is the full text of the authorised translation of the address, which Moulana Hazrat Mohani delivered this afternoon and which was, from the beginning to the end a plea for the declaration from the 1st January, 1922, of an Indian Republic called the United States of India to be attained by all possible and proper means, including guerilla warfare in case Martial Law was proclaimed.
Gentlemen—While thanking you for electing me to preside over this session of the All-India Muslim League I wish to say in all sincerity that the importance of this session of the League, in which the faith of Hindustan is to be decided required the choice of a person abler than myself, such as Moulana Muhammed Ali, Dr. Kitchlew or Moulana Abdul Kulam Azad to preside over its deliberation but, unfortunately, the Government has forcibly taken away the first two gentlemen from us, I express my inability to accept the responsibility. Consequently, as the proverb goes, "if thou dos't not accept it willingly, it will be forced on thee" this great duty was placed on my weak shoulders. I wish to discharge it to the best of my ability. Success is in the hand of God.