It is to join a struggle for such democracy that I invite you today. In the democracy which I have envisaged, a democracy established by nonviolence, there will be equal freedom for all. But it is my conviction that inasmuch as these struggles were fought with the weapon of violence they failed to realize the democratic ideal. I read Carlyle's French Resolution while I was in prison, and Pandit Jawaharlal has told me something about the Russian revolution. I believe that in the history of the world, there has not been a more genuinely democratic struggle for freedom than ours. I have faith, therefore, that if, in spite of our shortcomings, the big thing does happen, it will be because God wanted to help us by crowning with success our silent, unremitting Sadhana1 for the last twenty-two years. I know how imperfect our Ahimsa is and how far away we are still from the ideal, but in Ahimsa there is no final failure or defeat. It has thought always in terms of the whole nation and has acted accordingly. That party did not play its due part in the freedom's struggle why should it have all the power?" Ever since its inception the Congress has kept itself meticulously free of the communal taint. It will not be for you then to object saying, "This community is microscopic. May be that the reins will be placed in the hands of the Parsis, for instance-as I would love to see happen-or they may be handed to some others whose names are not heard in the Congress today. The power, when it comes, will belong to the people of India, and it will be for them to decide to whom it placed in the entrusted. The Congress is unconcerned as to who will rule, when freedom is attained. A non-violent soldier of freedom will covet nothing for himself, he fights only for the freedom of his country. But under the Congress scheme of things, essentially nonviolent as it is, there can be no room for dictatorship. In a violent struggle, a successful general has been often known to effect a military coup and to set up a dictatorship. Ours is not a drive for power, but purely a nonviolent fight for India's independence. I may not hesitate and merely look on, when Russia and China are threatened. If in the present crisis, when the earth is being scorched by the flames of Hims2 and crying for deliverance, I failed to make use of the God given talent, God will not forgive me and I shall be judged unwrongly of the great gift. God has vouchsafed to me a priceless gift in the weapon of Ahimsa. If, therefore, there is any among you who has lost faith in Ahimsa or is wearied of it, let him not vote for this resolution. The draft resolution of the Working Committee is based on Ahimsa, the contemplated struggle similarly has its roots in Ahimsa. I want you to know and feel that there is nothing but purest Ahimsa in all that I am saying and doing today. Occasions like the present do not occur in everybody's and but rarely in anybody's life. There is no real contradiction between the present resolution and my previous writings and utterances. If at all, my emphasis on it has grown stronger. I attach the same importance to nonviolence that I did then. I have not changed in any fundamental respect. Let me, however, hasten to assure that I am the same Gandhi as I was in 1920. There are people who ask me whether I am the same man that I was in 1920, or whether there has been any change in me. I ask you to consider it from my point of view, because if you approve of it, you will be enjoined to carry out all I say. Before you discuss the resolution, let me place before you one or two things, I want you to understand two things very clearly and to consider them from the same point of view from which I am placing them before you.
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