Merrie Christmas – 1931.
The second Round Table Conference was a sad blow to Gandhi's hopes of persuading Britain to make substantial concessions to the demand of the Congress for self-rule in India. What he received in reality was, as this cartoon shows, a trifling Christmas present in the shape of a tie. Without control over defence and external affairs, he told a group of British political leaders, "it is not independence that we would get, it would not be even a mild form of self-government. It will be a mere husk not worth touching. . . . I would far rather remain in compulsory subjection and declare myself a rebel than that I should take charge of a government that I know is bound to declare itself bankrupt in five or ten years. No self- respecting Indian, I venture to tell you, can possibly accept that state of things."
Credit: Navajivan / GandhiServe
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