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

THE STORM BREAKS 81 pretext of being transferred to some other prison or of being interviewed by their relatives and there they would be set free. When this trick was discovered, no prisoner would leave his cell when called by a prison-official. Prisoners were thereupon taken forcibly to the prison-gate and set at liberty. Outside prison, tactics were changed. Arrests were stopped and orders were given that sticks and batons should be used freely by the police in dealing with crowds and demonstrators. In some cases demonstrators were removed in police-vans to out-of-the-way places thirty miles from the city and there asked to walk back home. A liberal use was also made of the hose in order to give the demonstrators free cold baths in winter. But it was clear to everybody that these makeshift arrange- ments and tactics would not do. The situation was going out of hand from the official point of view. The novelty of the tactics employed by the Congress had non-plussed the Government. They could of course have made a reckless and ruthless use of force on a large scale to put down the movement as they did subsequently, but they were embarrassed by the presence of the Prince of Wales in India. The Prince of Wales was due to arrive in Calcutta—the storm centre of the 1921 movement—on December 24th, and about a week before that, the Viceroy, Lord Reading, arrived there. The members of the Calcutta Bar had previously agreed to invite him to a banquet, as he was ex-Lord Chief Justice of England. But in view of the arrest of Deshbandhu Das, they cancelled the engagement. The Government of India thus found themselves in an exceedingly difficult position as they met with opposition everywhere. In the first place, though the civil disobedience movement was strongest in Bengal, it was fairly strong throughout Upper India and no province was free from it. In addition to this the Akali Movement in the Punjab, the no-tax campaign in the Midnapore District in Bengal, and the Moplah Rebellion in Malabar in South India inten- sified the crisis. Outside India, the Sinn Fein Movement in Ireland had been largely successful, a treaty with Great Britain having been signed on December 6th, 1921. Some months earlier, Afghanistan had entered into a treaty with F