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

THE GANDHI-IRWIN PACT AND AFTER 231
and I naturally shared their feelings. But after coming out,
I realised that the Pact was a settled fact and there was no
possibility of preventing its ratification at the Karachi Con-
gress. The only question that we had to decide was whether
we should put up an insignificant opposition at Karachi, or
whether we should refrain from dividing the House while
disapproving of the Pact. Before coming to a decision, I
considered it advisable to meet the Mahatma personally. I
therefore undertook a journey to Bombay which also enabled
me to gauge public feeling in the provinces through which I
passed. At Bombay I had long conversations with the
Mahatma. After criticising the Pact, the point that I urged
was that we would be prepared to support him as long as he
stood for independence—but the moment he gave up that
stand, we would consider it our duty to fight him. At the
end, the Mahatma gave me the following assurances:¹

1. He would ask the Karachi Congress for a mandate to
   bind the hands of the Congress Deputation to the
   Round Table Conference.
2. That mandate would contain nothing that was not
   consistent with the status of independence for which
   the Lahore Congress had declared.
3. He would use all his influence and strain every nerve
   to secure amnesty for those who had been left out
   in the Pact.
   From Bombay the Mahatma left for Delhi and I travelled
   in the same train with him. This gave me a further oppor-
   tunity not only of supplementing our talks at Bombay but
   also of observing how the public were reacting to the Pact.
   From the ovation he received everywhere, it was quite apparent
   that his popularity had reached the high-water mark. It had
   surpassed even the record of 1921. At Delhi, no sooner did
   we arrive than we received a bombshell in the shape of news
   to the effect that the Government had decided to execute
   Sardar Bhagat Singh and two of his comrades in the Lahore
   ¹ I also learnt from the Mahatma that he had voluntarily withdrawn
   the demand for an inquiry into the police atrocities,