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

CHAPTER I THE CLOUDS GATHER (1920) THE annual session of the Indian National Congress met at Amritsar in the Punjab in December 1919, under the shadow of the atrocities perpetrated there earlier in the year. In spite of the opposition of Mr. C. R. Das, Mr. B. C. Pál and Mr. B. Chakravarti, the Bengal leaders, a resolution was passed in favour of working the New Constitution (called the Government of India Act, 1919) and thanking the Secretary of State for India, Mr. Montagu, who had played so im- portant a part in launching it. Mr. Gandhi, who had been largely responsible for the decision arrived at by the Amritsar Congress, welcomed the Royal proclamation announcing the assent to the Government of India Act, 1919, and in his weekly paper, Young India, he wrote on December 31st, 1919: 'The reforms Act coupled with the Proclamation is an earnest of the intention of the British people to do justice to India and it ought to remove suspicion on that score. . . . Our duty therefore is not to subject the Reforms to carping criticism but to settle down quietly to work so as to make them a success.' But during the next nine months events moved with dramatic suddenness. What actually happened can best be described in the words of Mr. Gandhi himself. When he was tried by a British Judge, Mr. Broomfield, in March 1922, for writing seditious articles in his paper, Mr. Gandhi made a remarkable statement in the course of which he explained why after having co-operated with the British Government all his life, he was ultimately forced to turn against it. Therein he said: 'The first shock came in the shape of the Rowlatt Act, a law designed to rob the people of all real freedom. I felt called upon to lead an intensive agitation against it. Then followed the Punjab horrors beginning with the massacre at Jallianwalla Bagh (in Amritsar) and culminating in crawling 49 D