In recognition of his representative position as a delegate from India to the Indian Round Table Conference.
"Scotland has many associations with India. Scotland has sent to India illustrious officers and other sons who have had a large share in the development of India, of which the present Indian conference is one of the outcomes.
Something of another personal link which I may perhaps claim is that my ancestors hail from the highlands of Tirah, with a clan system akin to that of your own highlands, and highlanders have, as you know, many traits in common the world over. But to many of my countrymen one of the strongest links with Scotland ever gratefully remembered, is the hospitality and kindly treatment accorded, and the learning imparted, to Indian students at Edinburgh's illustrious university and medical school.
Scotland has given to the British Empire and indeed to humanity at large, soldiers, statesmen, sages and poets too who, while they have excelled in practical gifts, do not forget the romance which clings alike to the rugged mountains and to the green valleys of the land from which they spring, and romance is the magic link which binds the far-flung nations of the world, different though they may be in kinship and civilisation, to a common purpose and common understanding."