You cannot have it both ways. It is true that under a constitutional monarchy, the royalty is above politics. But you cannot send the Prince on a political visit for the purpose of making political capital out of him, and then complain that those who will not play your game and in order to checkmate you, proclaim boycott of the Royal visit do not know constitutional usage. For the Prince’s visit is not for pleasure. His Royal Highness is to come in Mr. Lloyd George’s words, as the “ambassador of the British nation,” in other words, his own ambassador in order to issue a certificate of merit to him and possibly to give the ministers a new lease of life. The wish is designed to consolidate and strengthen a power that spells mischief for India. Even us it is, Mr. Montagu has foreseen, that the welcome will probably be excelled by any hitherto extended to Royalty, meaning that the people are not really and deeply affected and stirred by the official atrocities in the Punjab and the manifestly dishonest breach of official declarations on the Khilafat. With the knowledge that India was bleeding at heart, the Government of India should have told His Majesty’s ministers that the moment was inopportune for sending the Prince. I venture to submit that it is adding insult to injury to bring the Prince and through his visit to steal honours and further prestige for a Government that deserves to be dismissed with disgrace. I claim that I prove my loyalty by saying that India is in no mood, is too deeply in mourning, to take part in and to welcome His Royal Highness, and that the ministers and the Indian Government show their disloyalty by making the Prince a catspaw of their deep political game. If they persist, it is the clear duty of India to have nothing to do with the visit.
CRUSADE AGAINST NON-CO-OPERATION
I have most carefully read the manifesto addressed by Sir Narayan Chandavarkar and others dissuading the people from joining the non co-operation movement. I had expected to find some solid argument against non-co-operation, but to my great regret I have found in it nothing but distortion (no doubt unconscious) of the great religions and history. The manifesto says that ’non-co-operation is deprecated by the religious tenets and traditions of our motherland, nay, of all the religions that have saved and elevated the human race.’ I venture to submit that