I am fully aware of Bengal’s agony. My heart goes out to the people of Bengal, but I am confident that, as always, they will face the difficulties with determination. Ever since India’s freedom was at stake, Bengal has shown courage in every crisis. The leaders and the youth of Bengal endured great cruelties in the fight against alien rule. All India is indebted to Bengal for that. Later, when the alien grip was relaxed but the transition was still half-way through, the power was shared by the Muslim League and the British. That was a period of travail for you and you stood up to it courageously. Bengal or India can never forget what was called the “direct action” by those people. How can the plight of Calcutta in those days be forgotten? Nor can the subsequent events in Noakhali be forgotten by you or India. Those pages of history—good or bad, such as they are—cannot be deleted.
Gandhiji was there in those days. He walked from village to village and shared in the people’s woes. He gave them sustenance and consolation. For a few days he stayed in Calcutta too. Then, either under provocation or in sympathy with you, our Bihari brethren showed their anger and the fire spread in India, particularly in the north. It came to be felt that unless the alien rule was removed somehow or the other, whatever their intentions, peace in the country was impossible, nor was it easy to remove the strife between the two communities. In the circumstances, we decided to accept partition of the country on the condition that Punjab and Bengal should also be divided.
It was God’s will that when others wanted to partition Bengal, the people resisted the decision at great sacrifice, but partition of the same Bengal had to be accepted when there was no alternative. No dissenting voice was raised at that time because everyone understood that there was no other way out. We were clear in our minds that we could never accept Calcutta being taken away from us. The Muslim League leaders did not accept this. They were averse to having a ‘moth-eaten’ Pakistan. They wanted the whole of Bengal and the whole of Punjab. Ultimately they came round but the bloodshed which then occurred has left a wound which will take some time to heal. Bengal’s hurt is deep. Patience and endurance are needed, as on many previous occasions, but better days will come. We must do nothing to spoil things. We must act with discretion, not in anger.
In the part of Bengal that has separated from us, there are Hindus as well as Muslims. We want all of them to be happy. We want all wounds to heal quickly. For this, patience and forbearance are needed on both sides. Those who are our flesh and blood, those who fought by our side in the freedom struggle, cannot suddenly become foreign to us because they are on the other side of a line. There are people in South Africa, people of Indian origin but with African citizenship, whom we still try to help. If they have a claim on us, surely those in that part of Bengal too have a claim. The bonds of kinship and economic and social links cannot be broken. But to remove their difficulties, we have first to set our own house in order.
Some people mislead the refugees who have come here and incite them by saying that the Government does nothing for them. But this does them no good. It does not mitigate their suffering. We can help them only if we set our house in order. We must stop the daily incidents of bomb and cracker blasts, burning of trains and cars, assaults on policemen, etc. Such occurrences distract attention from relief work. People elsewhere get the impression that lawlessness prevails in Calcutta and living there is difficult. Only on coming here do they find that such is not the case. A handful of malcontents want to hold Calcutta and the Bengal Government in the grip of fear. I cannot understand their motives and intentions. I can understand a communist ideology but how can such vandalism help? But what pains me more is the attitude of the lakhs of other residents of Calcutta. Why don’t we understand our duty? It is wrong to think that combating lawlessness is the duty only of the police and the Government.
Today’s Government is not a foreign Government. A foreign Government would have used the old methods which we cannot use. Of course, when you feel you do not want this Government, you can remove it. We do not want to delay elections at all. A lot of money will have to be spent on the crores of people who have been enfranchised for the first time, but that does not matter. Much time and energy will have to be spent. Even that is of small consequence. What is needed even more is the right atmosphere. To those who think they have a substitute for the ballot box in the shape of revolution, I would respectfully submit that bombs and attacks on police are not revolution but a form of madness. It is the work of lunatics. I could understand if it were a few young men venting their frustrations in this way. But deliberate abetment of chaos helps no one.
In the last war, a breakdown of the foreign Government’s administration led to 30 lakh starvation deaths in Bengal. No one could protect them. But today when seventy per cent of the policemen are Bengalis themselves, what is the sense in attacking them? They impose restrictions for our own good, not on orders from any foreigners. Any threat to civil liberties comes not from them but from those who foster the terrorist cult. You have to stop them if you want to keep your liberty. You cannot pass the buck to the police. No democracy can be run with the policeman’s baton. It has become a habit with us to blame the police. We have to change this attitude. It was another police whom we criticised night and day. Today they are our volunteers. We do not pay them as much as we ought to because we are unable to do so. But if you do not have sympathy for them in the work they are doing today, you will regret it.
I am aware of unemployment among the youth in Bengal. Thousands of young men in colleges are having difficulties with their studies because they have to work in shifts, something which used to happen only in factories. They have to work in three shifts and I can understand their difficulties and those of the professors. The forty or fifty thousand who graduate every year also face unemployment. Something has to be done about it. Calcutta is among India’s biggest industrial centres. We need the kind of wealth produced in the city as much as we need the kind of wealth produced by farmers in the rural areas. Lack of one cannot be compensated by the other. But the Bengalis have the least share in this industrial sector. What is the reason for this? Those who own the factories and the companies have a duty towards the youth of Bengal. Similarly the unemployed youth of Bengal must understand that we cannot discriminate on the basis of provincialism. We have to discourage such narrow parochial influences.
Bengal has been left with a shrunken size after partition and there is a demand that some area from Bihar be added to it. I tried to do something about it but this is not easy because people have to be persuaded, the rulers and the people have to be persuaded, without precipitating any disorder. You must have seen how I brought round the 550-600 States without allowing any disorder to happen. Whoever indulged in disorder broke his head. You must help me in solving the Bengal problem similarly. Do not create trouble for me, do not put obstacles in my way. I want to do it; but for one thing I am beset by bodily troubles; for another, if I do not solve the other big problems in our country, they will affect you too and you will be in deeper trouble. That has to be avoided while your work is done. I want your cooperation so that we do not need so much police. I have never needed a policeman in my life, for who would want to kill me? But Gandhiji also said the same thing. So the police insists on following me around. We have to change this atmosphere by curbing the hot-heads amongst us.
Similarly, our working people have to understand that they will be given their due; the owners and employers must give up their greed; the tradespeople must desist from black-marketeering and profiteering. Those who talk of China should remember that even Russia had to make immense sacrifices in its early years after the revolution. America, the world’s wealthiest country, took seven years to frame its Constitution after independence. Ours is a vast country, yet we have framed our Constitution in three years in spite of all our troubles. America’s wealth came from years of hard work. Much effort over many years went to make the present affluence. Our independence is only two years old and we want to have things shared out in portions. That would only make everyone poor and no one rich. I admit some of our people are rich but their riches are nothing compared to the riches of rich Americans. We want to use their wealth properly. Otherwise they will lose their wealth and we will gain nothing at all.
Inciting workers to strike, to go slow, to sit in, will damage us greatly. These things may be necessary sometimes, but not now. Our Indian traditions are such that we can sit down and arrive at agreements. The rich also have to be told their duty. They made a lot of black money under foreign rule during the war. They thought it was all right to avoid income-tax so that the alien rulers would get as little as possible. But now it helps neither them nor us. Some people want us to nationalise all industry. How are we to run nationalised industries if we cannot run our ordinary administration? It is easy to take over any industry we want to, but we do not have the resources to run them, enough experienced men, men of expertise and integrity.
Today when we impose controls on business activities about which there are complaints, no one speaks well of those who administer the controls. We are burdened with complaints of bribery and Government gets a bad name. Gandhiji advised us to remove controls. So we made an experiment which landed us in so much trouble that there were demands for reimposition of controls. Now that we have imposed controls again, some people say Government does not know its own mind. They are right, but, much of the government work in this vast country depended, for its disposal, on the prestige of the Englishmen who manned a little over a half of our administrative services and who have now departed. Today you see no English face among our policemen. British governors have left only their statues behind. What else is revolution if not this?
What we do in the next five years is going to shape India’s future. All of you, the employees and the employers, the young and the old, men and women, have to work together to build up the country, eschewing strife, embracing the ways of peace and persuasion. If we spread poison and create provincial jealousies, the only result will be a flight of Calcutta’s industries to places where there is greater peace. I would appeal to Bengal’s youth, in this formative period when their characters are being moulded, to control their minds, get ready to work in industry and learn to work the Government. You must not adopt the attitude that it is none of your business or concern. When a tram or a bus carrying fifty passengers is stopped by two young men and the passengers are asked to get down, they have no business to obey like a flock of sheep. It does not behove citizens of a free India. They have a duty and a right to tweak the two young men’s ears and scold them. Only thus can things work out well.
I read in the papers that policemen are beaten up at some place or the other every day. Some time ago when the police opened fire somewhere, people clamoured for trials and inquiries. Why don’t they make as much noise when policemen are beaten up? Has the Government to function or has it not? It can function well only if every free Indian realizes that it is his duty to nurture and protect this freedom. The handful of people who are creating trouble should be curbed. Volunteer squads should be set up in localities where these things happen. There is talk of the underground. The son, the brother or the relation who works in the “underground” should be warned to desist from the wrong path or be prepared to be turned over to the police. Without such active co-operation, things cannot be set right and the increasing expenditure finally falls on you. All the expenditure on police, jails, etc., comes from your pockets. It is diverted from the poor, needy refugees whom they are misleading. We may also have to provide for our brothers who are being persecuted in East Pakistan and for whom life has been made impossible.
If this thing goes on and they are hounded out, it will create a very difficult situation. So we should set our house in order. I beseech you to avoid internecine quarrels. Do not air your differences in such a way as to create a false impression among outsiders.
We have to advance productive work and increase the nation’s wealth. We have to persuade the farmers to grow as much as they can, keep what they need for their own use and give the remainder to the Government at the appointed rates. There are those who incite the farmers to demand inflated rates. But where will the money come from? Not from those provocateurs but from you and me. We may have imposed controls and failed to check all graft and corruption, but we have not let anyone die of starvation, unlike what happened under the British in Bengal when thirty lakh people died. Crores of maunds of foodgrains have to be imported at great cost for this purpose.
Let us all sweat it out. Every Indian could share in the difficulties we face. If we share adversity for a year or two, we will have a happier prospect thereafter. Bengal must be restored to its rightful place in the forefront of Indian life.
To the Congress workers, my last appeal is to unite. All our lives we have been devoting ourselves to suffering for the people. What does it matter if we get a ministry or not? You have fought famine and floods. Those who are not in the ministry find fault with it. This is no way to run the country. If someone does wrong, of course, he should be taken to task where it can be proved. Otherwise, we only spoil our own reputation. If the police show any shortcoming, the Government should be approached, but we must forget the old habit of criticising them in general terms. Today they work devotedly in difficult circumstances. We must give them our support and sympathy. To the newspapermen, the members of the professions and the intelligentsia, my appeal is that they should say and do what is right, raise their voices for the proper causes and raise volunteer squads to protect the honour of Calcutta and of Bengal.
This is part of ThePrint’s Great Speeches series. It features speeches and debates that shaped modern India.