the whole plan of non-co-operation, there is nothing unconstitutional.  But I do venture to suggest that it will be highly unconstitutional in the midst of this unconstitutional Government,—­in the midst of a nation which has built up its magnificent constitution,—­for the people of India to become weak and to crawl on their belly—­it will be highly unconstitutional for the people of India to pocket every insult that is offered to them; it is highly unconstitutional for the 70 millions of Mohamedans of India to submit to a violent wrong done to their religion; it is highly unconstitutional for the whole of India to sit still and co-operate with an unjust Government which has trodden under its feet the honour of the Punjab.  I say to my countrymen so long as you have a sense of honour and so long as you wish to remain the descendants and defenders of the noble traditions that have been handed to you for generations after generations, it is unconstitutional for you not to non-co-operate and unconstitutional for you to co-operate with a Government which has become so unjust as our Government has become.  I am not anti-English; I am not anti-British; I am not anti any Government; but I am anti-untruth—­anti-humbug and anti-injustice.  So long as the Government spells injustice, it may regard me as its enemy, implacable enemy.  I had hoped at the Congress at Amritsar—­I am speaking God’s truth before you—­when I pleaded on bended knees before some of you for co-operation with the Government.  I had full hope that the British ministers who are wise, as a rule, would placate the Mussalman sentiment that they would do full justice in the matter of the Punjab atrocities; and therefore, I said:—­let us return good-will to the hand of fellowship that has been extended to us, which I then believed was extended to us through the Royal Proclamation.  It was on that account that I pleaded for co-operation.  But to-day that faith having gone and obliterated by the acts of the British ministers, I am here to plead not for futile obstruction in the Legislative council but for real substantial non-co-operation which would paralyse the mightiest Government on earth.  That is what I stand for to-day.  Until we have wrung justice, and until we have wrung our self-respect from unwilling hands and from unwilling pens there can be no co-operation.  Our Shastras say and I say so with the greatest deference to all the greatest religious preceptors of India but without fear of contradiction, that our Shastras teach us that there shall be no co-operation between injustice and justice, between an unjust man and a justice-loving man, between truth and untruth.  Co-operation is a duty only so long as Government protects your honour, and non-co-operation is an equal duty when the Government instead of protecting robs you of your honour.  That is the doctrine of non-co-operation.

NON-CO-OPERATION AND THE SPECIAL CONGRESS