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

240 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE and mercilessly belaboured. The writer and a number of other processionists, including Mr. Chattopadhyaya, the Education Officer, and Mr. Ghoshal, the Deputy Licence Officer of the Calcutta Municipality, were seriously injured in the assault, though the procession remained peaceful and non-violent till the end. The next day the writer was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for rioting,¹ by the Chief Presidency Magistrate of Calcutta. That the Mayor of the first city in India could be treated by the police in this fashion was something which even the Indian public could not stand. The police, on the other hand, felt that they could do just as they liked because they would never be called upon to appear before the bar of public opinion. The restricted scope of the amnesty promised under the Pact, caused considerable disappointment among certain sections of the people and alienated the Mahatma still more from the revolutionaries and from trade-union circles, including the friends and followers of the Meerut prisoners. If the Mahatma could have secured amnesty for all these classes of prisoners, he would have stood out not only as the representative of the Nationalists but also of the trade- unionists and the revolutionaries, and he could have exerted his influence on them for good. The Government, too, if they had taken courage in both hands and opened wide the gates of the prison-house, would have made a magnanimous gesture which would have gone straight into the hearts of the people. And they would have lost nothing thereby—because if anyone happened to abuse his liberty, he could again be put back in prison through the help of the Regulation and the Ordinances. Since the Mahatma confined himself to the cause of the Satyagrahis, the revolutionaries in prison addressed a letter to Lord Irwin stating that a settlement with Mahatma ¹ On this occasion the writer had to spend 24 hours in the Lalbazar Central Police Station without food and drink and without change. There was only a small quantity of Tincture of Iodine available at the station for application to his injuries. This was soon exhausted and when he asked for more, he did not get any. The next day he had to appear in Court with his clothes covered with blood and his arm in a sling. He made a statement before the Magistrate regarding his treatment in the Police Station which was duly recorded. After his removal to prison he was X-rayed and it was then found that two of the fingers in his right hand had been fractured.