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

THE BENGAL SITUATION 339 The result was not altogether hopeless. That the negotiations then proved to be abortive was due entirely to the fact that the Government did not comply with the request of the state prisoners in Buxa Detention Camp that the negotiations should be conducted directly with them and not through any police-officer. There are two conditions essential to the success of an attempt of this sort. Firstly, the Government should really be able to demonstrate by their own liberal policy that it is possible for the Indians to win their political rights without any resort to violence. If their policy, however, be to resist for all time the Indian demand for freedom, then no under- standing will ever be possible. Secondly, the Government must see to it that those who are to give up revolutionary methods, are given other opportunities for serving their country along peaceful and constructive lines. Merely to find some employment for them will not be enough. It is foolish to suggest, as many have done in order to please the Govern- ment, that middle-class unemployment is the cause of the revolutionary movement. If that had been the case, well-to-do people would never have been drawn into the movement. But while it is true that middle-class unemployment is not the cause of the revolutionary movement, it is of course true that if opportunities for public service had been open to young men in Bengal, then the attempts of the revolutionaries to obtain recruits would have failed. The present temper and policy of the Government whereby every young man is regarded as a potential revolutionary and treated as such, and the present conditions in the province, whereunder it is quite hopeless to win Swaraj by working along constructive lines, are among the most fruitful causes of the revolutionary movement. Revolutionary methods are in their ultimate analysis, an expression of utter despair. If this despair is once removed, an understanding with the revolutionaries is certainly possible. That will not mean that they will cease to be patriots or that they will give up serving their country. It will only mean that they will direct their activities along other channels. Whether an understanding could be reached in the near 2Y