South Africa Speech
When I arrived in South Africa the Africans said:
We will arrange a reception for you in a hall. We will greet you and then you will speak.
I said:
Oh no, I am not going to say a single word, it is only on that condition that I should come. They were taken aback, because they had booked the hall and made all the arrangements. Eventually, they said that anyway I should sit on the dalS and that they would try and explain my silence somehow. All that morning — the reception was at 4 p.m. — I was taken to visit an area where African railway workers lived. The conditions were so terrible that I got worked up. At the reception, when it was announced that Miss Nehru wouldn't speak, I banged the table and said: "I do wish to speak." The poor chairman was startled, and before he could say anything. I came to the microphone. I don't remember what I said, but I was full of emotion. I must have spoken about the living conditions of the Bantus and others. It came out in the African papers. The next day, wherever I went, I was mobbed. Women came and kissed me and men shook my hand. Obviously I had said the right things as far as they were concerned.
We will arrange a reception for you in a hall. We will greet you and then you will speak.
I said:
Oh no, I am not going to say a single word, it is only on that condition that I should come. They were taken aback, because they had booked the hall and made all the arrangements. Eventually, they said that anyway I should sit on the dalS and that they would try and explain my silence somehow. All that morning — the reception was at 4 p.m. — I was taken to visit an area where African railway workers lived. The conditions were so terrible that I got worked up. At the reception, when it was announced that Miss Nehru wouldn't speak, I banged the table and said: "I do wish to speak." The poor chairman was startled, and before he could say anything. I came to the microphone. I don't remember what I said, but I was full of emotion. I must have spoken about the living conditions of the Bantus and others. It came out in the African papers. The next day, wherever I went, I was mobbed. Women came and kissed me and men shook my hand. Obviously I had said the right things as far as they were concerned.
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