SECTION I : Selected Letters

Gandhi Letter 65 : To Richard B Gregg1

Sabarmati,
April 29, 1931

MY DEAR GOVIND,

I have your letter and I read your letter to Mira. I quite understand and appreciate all the anxiety shown by you in your letter to me. I do not know that I shall be going to London at all and I shall certainly not go if the way is not clear for me to deliver my message. That it is not likely to be accepted just now I have realized all along. But had the Congress not accepted the offer to discuss terms, the Congress would have put itself in the wrong. As it is we are safe either way. It will be great, good and grand if peace can be made permanent through negotiation. I shall therefore leave no stone unturned to reach that state but it will be equally good and grand if the negotiation proved fruitless. Then India will be put upon her mettle and will have to show her capacity for further suffering. There is no question of my being invited to parties, feted and lionized. I can eat nothing and thank God my loin cloth will protect me from being exhibited as a specimen ' in barmen's show. If therefore I go to London I go for solid business and to drinking the deep affection of chosen friends there. I refuse to speculate. I would go where the light leads me in the fullest faith that all will be well if I follow it.
Do not believe the rumours about my intended visit to America. Much as I should like to visit that great country I know that my time is not yet and I do not want to come as a nine days' wonder.

Your sincerely,
M. K. GANDHI

R. B. GREGG, ESQ.,
543, BOYLSTON ST., BOSTON, MASS.

From a photostat : S.N. 17023

1. Richard B. Gregg-American friend and co-worker of Gandhiji. Stayed in India in 1925-27. Again visited in 1930 and afterwards.