I am further of opinion that the Congress should take up the work of
Labour and Peasant organisation. With regard to labour there is a
resolution of the Nagpur Congress, but I am sorry to say that it has not
been acted upon. There is an apprehension in the minds of some
non-co-operators that the cause of non-co-operation will suffer if we
exploit Labour for Congress purposes. I confess again I do not understand
the argument. The word "exploitation" has got an ugly association, and the
argument assumes that Labour and Peasants are not with us in this struggle
of Swaraj. I deny the assumption. My experience has convinced me that
labour and the Peasantry of India to-day are, if anything, more eager to
attain Swaraj than the so called middle and educated classes. If we are
"exploiting" boys of tender years and students of colleges, if we are
exploiting the women of India, if we are exploiting the whole of the
middle classes irrespective of their creed and caste and occupation, may I
ask what justification is there for leaving out Labourers and the
Peasants? I suppose the answer is that they are welcome to be the members
of the Congress Committees but that there should not be a separate
organisation of them. But Labour has got a separate interest and they are
often oppressed by foreign capitalists and the Peasantry of India is often
oppressed by a class of men who are the standard bearers of the
Bureaucracy. Is the service of this special interest in any way
antagonistic to the service of nationalism? To find bread for the poor, to
secure justice to a class of people who are engaged in a particular trade
or avocation--how is that work different from the work of attaining
Swaraj? Anything which strengthens the national cause, anything which
supports the masses of India is surely as much a matter of Swaraj as any
other items of work which the Congress has in hand. My advice is that the
Congress should lose no time in appointing a Committee, a calm workable
Committee to organise labour, and the peasantry of India. We have delayed
the matter already too long. If the Congress fails to do its duty, you may
expect to find organisations set up in the country by labour and peasants
detached from you, dissociated from the cause of Swaraj which will
inevitably bring within the arena of a peaceful evolution class struggles
and the war of special interests. If the object of the Congress be to
avoid that disgraceful issue let us take labour and the peasantry in
hand, and let us organise them both from the point of view of their own
special interests and also from the point of view of the higher ideal
which demands the satisfaction of their special interests and the devotion
of such interests to the cause of Swaraj. Here again we have to make use
of very selfishness of the labourers and peasants, as we know that the
fulfilment of that very selfishness requires its just and proper
contribution to the life of the nation.