A historian is reading a letter that Mahatma Gandhi wrote to Jawaharl…

NCERT (2026-27): “6.1 Public voice and private scripts …
Your letter is touching. You feel the most injured party. The fact is that your colleagues have lacked your courage and frankness. The result has been disastrous. I have always pleaded with them to speak to you freely and fearlessly. But having lacked the courage, whenever they have spoken they have done it clumsily and you have felt irritated. I tell you they have dreaded you, because of your irritability and impatience with them. They have chafed under your rebukes and magisterial manner and above all your arrogation of what has appeared to them your infallibility and superior knowledge. They feel you have treated them with scant courtesy and never defended them from socialist ridicule and even misrepresentation. I have looked at the whole affair as a tragi-comedy. I would therefore like you to look at the whole thing in a lighter vein. I suggested your name for the crown of thorns (Presidentship of the Congress). Keep it on, though the head be bruised. …”