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

THE FIGHT RESUMED 267 the youths and thereby help to stop the terrorist campaign in the province. But the trouble was not only in Bengal. During the absence of the Mahatma from India, a crisis had arisen in the Frontier Province, and also in the United Provinces. The official complaint was that the Red Shirt Volunteers¹ of the Frontier leader, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, were engaged in sub- versive activities, though as a matter of fact they were per- fectly non-violent. No notice was sent to the Congress head-quarters about this' complaint. Suddenly an Ordinance was issued declaring the Red Shirt Volunteers an illegal body. Simultaneously Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the Frontier Gandhi and his brother, along with some other leaders, were put under arrest and taken to distant prisons. Several hundred Red Shirts were immediately cast into prison, and within a few months their number rose to several thousand. Thereafter, troops were sent into the remotest villages in order to terrorise the people and break up the Red Shirt organisation. In the United Provinces there had been an acute economic 'crisis for some time past. In November 1930, Mr. H. N. Brailsford, the well-known Socialist writer, who was an altogether independent observer, told the writer in Calcutta that the conditions in the United Provinces were verging on an agrarian revolution. About this time the no-rent campaign was started by the Congress in the province. After the Delhi truce, when the no-tax campaign was suspended, the peasants being in the same condition as in 1930, could not pay their rent. In May, the Mahatma tried to mediate in the matter and advised the peasants to pay 50 per cent. of their dues —but that also they could not. Thereupon the Government remitted a portion of the land revenue and maintained that that was enough. The peasants thought otherwise and on their behalf, the Provincial Congress Committee tried to carry on negotiations with the Government. In November matters reached a crisis. The Government demanded that the peasants ¹ These volunteers were so called from the colour of their uniform. They were Congress Volunteers and had nothing to do with the Communist Party.