to preside over the protest meeting in Bombay held on the 16th June. He spoke as follows:—
Lord Willingdon has presented them with the expression Home Rule Leaguers distinguished from Home Rulers. I cannot conceive the existence of an Indian who is not a Home Ruler; but there are millions like myself who are not Home Rule Leaguers. Although I am not a member of any Home Rule League I wish to pay on this auspicious day my humble tribute to numerous Home Rule Leaguers whose association I have ever sought in my work and which has been extended to me ungrudgingly. I have found many of them to be capable of any sacrifice for the sake of the Motherland.
RECRUITING FOR THE WAR
Mr. Gandhi did a great deal to stimulate recruiting for the war. Though he did not hesitate to criticise the bureaucracy for individual acts of wrong, he went about in the Districts of Kaira calling for recruits. Time and again he wrote to the press urging the need for volunteers and he constantly spoke to the educated and the illiterate alike on the necessity for joining the Defence Force. On one occasion he said in Kaira where he had conducted Satyagraha on an extensive scale:—
You have successfully demonstrated how you can resist Government with civility, and how you can retain your own respect without hurting theirs. I now place before you an opportunity of proving that you bear no hostility to Government in spite of your strenuous fight with them.
You are all Home Rulers, some of you are members of Home Rule Leagues. One meaning of Home rule is that we should become partners of the Empire. To-day we are a subject people. We do not enjoy all the rights of Englishmen. We are not to-day partners of the Empire as are Canada, South Africa and Australia. We are a Dependency. We want the rights of Englishmen, and we aspire to be as much partners of the Empire as the Dominions Overseas. We wish for the time when we may aspire to the Viceregal office. To bring such a state of things we should have the ability to defend ourselves, that is the ability to bear arms and to use them. As long as we have to look to Englishmen for our defence, as long as we are not free from the fear of the military, so long we cannot be regarded as equal partners with Englishmen. It, therefore, behoves us to learn the use of arms and to acquire the ability to defend ourselves. If we want to learn the use of arms With the greatest possible despatch, it is our duty to enlist ourselves in the Army.
