"Volunteers" Recruited from Criminal Classes
I know it will be said that efforts have been made to purify the ranks. It was found, for example, in Chapra, that doms, registered as criminal tribes, were enlisted in the ranks of the national "volunteers." From the other districts, too, came reports of ex-convicts and persons of the "C" class register not only being enrolled but being welcomed. The efforts to remove these members and to purify the movement does not seem likely to be successful if we may judge from a leader's experience in the Bhagalpur Division, at Banka, in the district of Bhagalpur. There I am informed, when he visited some villages with a view to expelling the undesirables, he was himself expelled and told to mind his own business. I submit, sir, for the earnest consideration of this Council that you can not separate principles from methods or the ideals from the agents who are employed. Lastly, we have had an appeal that this Council should share the responsibility for maintenance of law and order. We have been solemnly advised by some of the speakers that Government should abdicate from the duty imposed by Statute of maintaining law and order in favour of these "volunteers" who were, so we are asked to believe, inaugurated solely to prevent a recurrence of the scenes that occurred in Bombay—to stop women being stripped of their clothes in the streets, to stop murder and loot. Can Government for a moment, in view of the activities I have related, contemplate handing over the duty, the primary and essential duty of the police, to the Kanmi Sevak Dal? The question has only to be asked to show its absurdity.