द इण्डियन स्ट्रगल / भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम (नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस - ऐतिहासिक विश्लेषण)

STORMY 1930 213 Thereupòn the crowd is reported to have set fire to the cars. Soldiers were at once rushed to the spot and ordered to open fire. But the crowd did not run away; hundreds of them stood their ground and faced the bullets. When the facts became known, the public demanded an inquiry which the Government refused. Then the Working Committee of the Congress appointed a Committee with Mr. Vithalbhai J. Patel (who by then had resigned the Presidentship of the Assembly) as Chairman to inquire into and report on the facts. This Committee was not allowed to proceed to the Frontier Province. It had therefore to assemble in Punjab at a place nearest to the Frontier Province and collect evidence there. As soon as the report of the Committee was published, it'was banned by the Government. Nevertheless, through the efforts of Congress organisations, wide publicity was given to it. The only redeeming feature of the Peshawar episode was the refusal of a company of Garhwali¹ soldiers to open fire on the unarmed crowd. After their refusal they were at once disarmed, placed before a court-martial and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. In most of the provinces where atrocities were perpetrated, local committees were appointed by the public to inquire into and report on those incidents. To publish those reports would require a big volume and would be outside the scope of this book. It would not, however, be out of place to quote some lines from the second letter² addressed by the Mahatma to the Viceroy early in May on the eve of his arrest, which was published in Young India on May 8th, 1930. ‘I had hoped that the Government would fight the civil resisters in a civilised manner. I could have had nothing to say if in dealing with the civil resisters the Government had satisfied itself with applying the ordinary process of law. Instead, whilst the known leaders have been dealt with more or less according to the legal formality, the rank ¹ The Garhwalis are recruited from the mountainous portion of the United Provinces bordering on the Himalayas. Together with the Gurkhas of Nepal, the Sikhs of the Punjab and the Pathans of the Frontier Pro- vinces—they form the pick of the Indian Army. ² It is not quite sure if this letter actually reached the hands of the Viceroy.