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

THE GANDHI-IRWIN PACT AND AFTER 237
(b) Prisoners convicted of revolutionary offences.
(c) Prisoners under trial for alleged revolutionary
offences.
(d) The under-trial prisoners in the Meerut Con-
spiracy Case.
(e) Prisoners incarcerated in connection with labour
strikes and other labour disputes.
(f) The Garhwali soldiers who had been court-
martialled and given heavy sentences for refusing
to fire on unarmed citizens.
(g) Prisoners sentenced in connection with the civil-
disobedience movement, the charges against
whom referred to violence of some sort.
8. The demand originally made by Mahatma Gandhi
for an inquiry into police atrocities during the period
of the civil-disobedience movement was excluded
from the Pact.
The above criticism met with general approval at the
Youth Congress and a resolution was adopted condemning
the Delhi Pact.
The Delhi Pact, as we shall see later on, proved to be not
a blessing but a curse. The time was not opportune for an
understanding of the sort attempted. The struggle should
have been continued for some time longer. The Pact, as
drafted, contained nothing of value. Ever since the nego-
tiations started in 1929, the Congress leaders had always
insisted on an assurance from the Government, regarding
the grant of Dominion Status. Because that assurance was
not forthcoming, the fight had to be launched in 1930. For
the same reason, the peace-negotiations prior to the First
Round Table Conference in 1930, had proved abortive. How
the fight could be suspended without such an assurance, passes
one's comprehension. The only reason one can suggest is that
there was no one in the Working Committee to point out the
correct thing to the Mahatma and with the lamented death
of Pandit Motilal Nehru, the last intellectual stalwart of the
Congress had disappeared. Though he lacked the emotional
appeal necessary in a front-rank leader, the Pandit was never-
theless a leader among men. He towered head and shoulders