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Interview with US Journalist


In an interview with an US-American journalist Gandhi said in summer 1931:

Journalist: "Mr. Gandhi, you may tell us, please, when you expect to leave for London for the second Round Table Conference."

Gandhi: "I have no notion and I don't expect to go there if the Hindu Muslim question is not satisfactorily solved."

Journalist: "If England agreed to your demands, Mr. Gandhi, do you intend to keep complete prohibition in the new Indian states?"

Gandhi: "Oh yes."

Journalist: "Absolute prohibition?"

Gandhi: "Absolute."

Journalist: "And do you intend also, if India wins its independence, to abolish child marriages?"

Gandhi: "I should very much like to, even before."

Journalist: "If England was not fulfilling your demands are you prepared to return to jail again?"

Gandhi: "I am always prepared to return to jail."

Journalist: "Would you be prepared to die in the cause of India's independence?"

Gandhi: "This is a bad question."

Journalist: "If you go to the second Round Table Conference will you go attired in your native Indian dress or will you prefer European dress?"

Gandhi: "I shall certainly not be found in European dress and if the weather permitted I should present myself exactly as I am today."

Journalist: "And if the King of England invited you to dinner at Buckingham Palace, you wouldn't go in your customary Indian dress?"

Gandhi:"In any other dress I should be most discourteous to him because I should be artificial."