Young India: An interpretation and a history of the nationalist movement from within — John Shaqi
Young India: An interpretation and a history of the nationalist movement from withinLajpat Rai, Lala
History
Young India: An interpretation and a history of the nationalist movement from within
Lajpat Rai, Lala
India -- Politics and government -- 1765-1947
Out of the 61 charged,
only 4 were acquitted, 6 were sentenced to various terms of
imprisonment, 27 to transportation for life,[9] and 24 to death.[10]
Commenting on this trial, the Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab observed
in the course of a speech made in the Punjab Legislative Council held on
September 25, 1915, that “these crimes did all over the Central Punjab
from November, 1914, to July, 1915, create a state not only of alarm and
insecurity, but of terror and even panic, and if they had not been
promptly checked by the firm hand of authority and the active
co-operation of the people, would have produced in the province as was
intended by the conspirators a state of affairs similar to that of
Hindustan in the mutiny[11]--paralysis of authority, widespread
terrorism and murder not only of the officers of the Government but of
loyal and well disposed subjects.” What is significant is, that the
leader, Rash Behari Bose, a Bengalee, who had organised several such
conspiracies, escaped. Commenting upon the same trial, the _Times of
India_, an influential Anglo-Indian paper published in Bombay, remarked:
“If this conspiracy had been disclosed in ordinary times there might
have been a tendency to regard the members as representative of a
considerable class of India ... but, as it is, the revolutionary party
stands out a mere fraction of the population, a dangerous and determined
section of the population perhaps, yet so small that it can not command
any chance of success while the sentiment of the country remains what it
has been so splendidly proved to be.”
Commenting upon the severity of the sentences inflicted, the Indian
press took occasion to point out the grievous wrongs under which the
country suffered at the hands of the British. After the conclusion of
this case, over 100 persons more were indicted at Lahore[12] and a large
number at Benares, in connection with the same conspiracy. Besides, a
number of men belonging to the military were tried and convicted in
different stations in Northern India.
In Bengal political crime was rampant in a virulent form throughout
1915. The Bengalee revolutionaries have kept the Government pretty busy
all along the line, murdering police officials, looting treasuries, and
committing dacoities, sometimes under the very nose of the police in the
heart of the metropolis, resulting occasionally in so-called pitched
battles between the police and the revolutionaries. Numberless trials
have been going on in special tribunals constituted under the Defense of
India Act, as well as in the ordinary courts. Large numbers of persons
have been punished and equally large numbers are still undergoing trial.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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