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

264 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE were, however, nominated by the Government as members of the second Round Table Conference. While trade union circles merely kept up vocal opposition to the Delhi Pact, the revolutionaries in Bengal exasperated by the repressive policy of the Government, created a serious crisis in the province. The Armoury Raid in Chittagong in April 1930, was an aggressive act, but it was on the whole an isolated one. The subsequent acts of terrorism in other parts of Bengal, were acts of retaliation or reprisal rather than acts of aggression. In Dacca, the principal city of East Bengal, in August 1930, Mr. Lowman, the head of the Intelligence Branch of the Police was assassinated and the District Superintendent of Police was seriously wounded. But prior to that, there had been Hindu-Moslem riots in Dacca and Mymensingh Districts, in connection with which the conduct of the police had been open to serious question. Moreover, the Dacca police had been harsh and brutal in dealing with Satyagrahi volunteers engaged in peaceful picketing of foreign- cloth and liquor shops and in other non-violent activity. Towards the end of 1930, the Inspector-General of Prisons, Bengal, Lieut-Col. Simpson, was assassinated in his office in the Government Secretariat buildings in Calcutta. But prior to that, there had been indescribable ill-treatment of political prisoners in many prisons in Bengal and all appeals made to the Government for redress had been of no avail. The murder of Mr. Peddie, Magistrate of Midnapore, in 1931, and subsequently of two of his successors, was the result of the untold atrocities committed by the forces of the Crown in Midnapore District in the attempt to suppress the non-violent no-tax campaign. The public of Calcutta had appointed an impartial committee consisting mostly of Moderate men to inquire into and report on some of the atrocities committed in that district. The report was duly published and the facts brought to the notice of the Govern- ment. But no redress followed. It was then that in a fit of exasperation, people took to terrorism by way of reprisal. These acts of terrorism served to stiffen the attitude of the Government and a stronger dose of repression was adminis- tered. A golden opportunity of putting an end to the regrett-