Oh! the shame of it, a blind beggar woman deprived of her blanket, but no violence of course was used, only soul-force. Babu Ganesh Dutt appealed to justice and sympathy. Do these beggars deserve no sympathy? Is there to be no justice done on their oppressors? I shall be told that the leaders of the movement disavow such action; that they deplore them as much as we do. Sir, we cannot separate the methods from the ideals of the revolutionary movement. I am prepared to believe that some of the leaders deplore violence and would try to restrain it, but I maintain, and I challenge, any hon. member here to disprove it that, conducted on the lines as it is, admitting such members as it does to its ranks, the non-co-operation movement must inevitably result in violence.
The Giridih Riots
Let us take the case to which reference had been made before in this Council, the serious riots which occurred at Giridih, and which ended in an attack upon the sub-jail and the thana and the burning of the records. From what did that originate? It is a simple story. A sold B a cow and said that she would yield 1½ seers of milk. B took the cow away and found that he did not get the guaranteed amount of milk. Lawyers here know that the law of warranty is a somewhat difficult and intricate matter. However the local self constituted Panches decided that, A should take back the cow and refund the money. He declined to do so; and then as sanction to enforce the orders of this local court applied that cruel engine of oppression, social boycott. In all civilised communities the black-mailer is regarded with disgust and condemned. It has been for the non-co-operation party to use social blackmail as the basis of sanction to its ideals. The inevitable result of such a sanction is violence.
What are the "volunteers" doing? They are fishing in troubled waters. They tried—let us once again come back to Patna—to get the domestic servants to strike: they succeeded in persuading some of the motor-car drivers to desert their masters when their services were most required. What are the "volunteer's" doing? They are persuading raiyats to withhold rent. I know the case of a wealthy zamindar who had to borrow money from the bank to pay his Government revenue. I maintain, sir, that though honest men amongst the non-co-operators speak of non-violence the movement must inevitably lead to violence.
Take an instance from private life—let us again quote from Patna. A gentleman returning from Calcutta, a man well acquainted with the law of the land, found that his servant had, at the bidding of one gentleman who is an active recruiting officer of "volunteers," decided to break the contract made with his master. I have the best authority for saying this breach of contract resulted in righteous indignation which took the form of personal violence. What are these "volunteers" doing? They are provoking violence; they are picketing; they are intimidating; they are interfering between the master and servant, between landlord and tenant, between the railway and its employees.
"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.
The question of Counter-Propaganda
The only piece of practical advice we received from Mr. Madan was that propaganda should be met by counter propaganda. But there are difficulties.
First how many of the hon. members would be willing to take up the task of propaganda? Secondly, how many of them would be listened to if they did? How many of these would be able to obtain a hearing? I confess it seems to me, when Hon. members have protested that Government do not publish all the facts, that the time may come when every district and Sub-Divisional Magistrate ought to be his own publicity officer. In the last week we should have had stories in the papers of ladies being insulted in Monghyr, pushed into the road, and spat upon. We should have read of the wife of a settlement Officer, with her sister-in-law, being insulted by school-boys one of the ladies having her head cut with a stone; and from many districts we should have heard that pitiful tale of little children whose lips can hardly lisp the popular war cry being taught to shout it, not as a tale of admiration for an ascetic idealist, nor as reverence for a person of mystic magnetism, but as a mark of racial hatred, a hymn of hate. We could have published instances from Muzaffarpur and Champaran of the insults to Europeans, of mob roaming about shouting and committing mischief. Hon. members would have heard of Magistrates unable to hold trials because of the noise in the Court compounds. All these and more should have been done in the way of counter propaganda, exposing the methods of what is in fact a revolutionary movement, but would much good have been done thereby? Is it not more important to take steps to prevent such things happening? I ask the hon. members to remember that every vote given in favour of this resolution is a direct encouragement to the non-co-operation party they profess to abhor.