It is not without a pang that I return the Kaisar-i-Hind gold medal
granted to me by your predecessor for my humanitarian work in South
Africa, the Zulu war medal granted in South Africa for my services as
officer in charge of the Indian volunteer ambulance corps in 1906 and
the Boer war medal fur my services as assistant superintendent of the
Indian volunteer stretcher bearer corps during the Boer war of
1899-1900. I venture to return these medals in pursuance of the scheme
of non-co-operation inaugurated to-day in connection with the Khilafat
movement. Valuable as those honours have been to me, I cannot wear them
with an easy conscience so long as my Mussalman countrymen have to
labour under a wrong done to their religious sentiment. Events that have
happened during the past month have confirmed me in the opinion that the
Imperial Government have acted in the Khilafat matter in an
unscrupulous, immoral and unjust manner and have been moving from wrong
to wrong in order to defend their immorality. I can retain neither
respect nor affection for such a Government.
The attitude of the Imperial and Your Excellency's Governments on the
Punjab question has given me additional cause for grave dissatisfaction.
I had the honour, as Your Excellency is aware, as one of the congress
commissioners to investigate the causes of the disorders in the Punjab
during the April of 1919. And it is my deliberate conviction that Sir
Michael O'Dwyer was totally unfit to hold the office of Lieutenant
Governor of Punjab and that his policy was primarily responsible for
infuriating the mob at Amritsar. No doubt the mob excesses were
unpardonable; incendiarism, murder of five innocent Englishmen and the
cowardly assault on Miss Sherwood were most deplorable and uncalled for.
But the punitive measures taken by General Dyer, Col. Frank Johnson,
Col. O'Brien, Mr. Bosworth Smith, Rai Shri Ram Sud, Mr. Malik Khan and
other officers were out of all proportional to the crime of the people
and amounted to wanton cruelty and inhumanity and almost unparalleled in
modern times. Your excellency's light-hearted treatment of the official
crime, your, exoneration of Sir Michael O'Dwyer, Mr. Montagu's dispatch
and above all the shameful ignorance of the Punjab events and callous
disregard of the feelings of Indians betrayed by the House of Lords,
have filled me with the gravest misgivings regarding the future of the
Empire, have estranged me completely from the present Government and
have disabled me from tendering, as I have hitherto whole-heartedly
tendered, my loyal co-operation.
In my humble opinion the ordinary method of agitating by way of
petitions, deputations and the like is no remedy for moving to
repentence a Government so hopelessly indifferent to the welfare of its
charges as the Government of India has proved to me. In European
countries, condonation of such grievous wrongs as the Khilafat and the
Punjab would have resulted in a bloody revolution by the people. They
would have resisted at all costs national emasculation such as the said
wrongs imply. But half of India is to weak to offer violent resistance
and the other half is unwilling to do so.
I have therefore ventured to suggest the remedy of non-co-operation which
enables those who wish, to dissociate themselves from the Government and
which, if it is unattended by violence and undertaken in an ordered
manner, must compel it to retrace its steps and undo the wrongs
committed. But whilst I shall pursue the policy of non-co-operation in
so far as I can carry the people with me, I shall not lose hope that you
will yet see your way to do justice. I therefore respectfully ask Your
Excellency to summon a conference of the recognised leaders of the
people and in consultation with them find a way that would placate the
Mussalmans and do reparation to the unhappy Punjab.
_August 4, 1920._