It has been said that with love on our lips we have been preaching the
Gospel of hatred. Never was such a vile slander uttered. It may be we have
failed to love, it may be we lost ourselves some of us in hatred, but that
only shows our weakness and imperfectness. Judge us by our ideals, not by
what we have achieved. Wherever we have fallen short of our ideal, put it
down to our weakness. On behalf of the Indian National Congress I deny the
charge of hypocrisy. To those who are anxious to point out our defects, I
say with all humility. "My friends, if you are weak, come and join us and
make us stronger. If the Leaders are worthless, come and join us to lead,
and the leaders will stand aside. If you do not believe in the ideal what
is the use of always criticising us in the light of that ideal?" We need
no critic to tell us how far we have fallen short of that ideal. Evidence
of weakness has met me from every direction which I have looked. But in
spite of our defects of human weakness, of human imperfection I feel bold
enough to say that our victory is assured and that the Bureaucracy knows
that our victory is assured.