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

STORMY 1930 213
Thereupòn the crowd is reported to have set fire to the cars.
Soldiers were at once rushed to the spot and ordered to
open fire. But the crowd did not run away; hundreds of
them stood their ground and faced the bullets. When the
facts became known, the public demanded an inquiry which
the Government refused. Then the Working Committee
of the Congress appointed a Committee with Mr. Vithalbhai
J. Patel (who by then had resigned the Presidentship of the
Assembly) as Chairman to inquire into and report on the
facts. This Committee was not allowed to proceed to the
Frontier Province. It had therefore to assemble in Punjab at a
place nearest to the Frontier Province and collect evidence there.
As soon as the report of the Committee was published, it'was
banned by the Government. Nevertheless, through the efforts
of Congress organisations, wide publicity was given to it.
The only redeeming feature of the Peshawar episode was
the refusal of a company of Garhwali¹ soldiers to open fire on
the unarmed crowd. After their refusal they were at once
disarmed, placed before a court-martial and sentenced to
long terms of imprisonment.
In most of the provinces where atrocities were perpetrated,
local committees were appointed by the public to inquire
into and report on those incidents. To publish those reports
would require a big volume and would be outside the scope
of this book. It would not, however, be out of place to quote
some lines from the second letter² addressed by the Mahatma
to the Viceroy early in May on the eve of his arrest, which
was published in Young India on May 8th, 1930.
‘I had hoped that the Government would fight the civil
resisters in a civilised manner. I could have had nothing
to say if in dealing with the civil resisters the Government
had satisfied itself with applying the ordinary process of
law. Instead, whilst the known leaders have been dealt
with more or less according to the legal formality, the rank
¹ The Garhwalis are recruited from the mountainous portion of the
United Provinces bordering on the Himalayas. Together with the Gurkhas
of Nepal, the Sikhs of the Punjab and the Pathans of the Frontier Pro-
vinces—they form the pick of the Indian Army.
² It is not quite sure if this letter actually reached the hands of the
Viceroy.