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

240 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE
and mercilessly belaboured. The writer and a number of
other processionists, including Mr. Chattopadhyaya, the
Education Officer, and Mr. Ghoshal, the Deputy Licence
Officer of the Calcutta Municipality, were seriously injured in
the assault, though the procession remained peaceful and
non-violent till the end. The next day the writer was sentenced
to six months' imprisonment for rioting,¹ by the Chief
Presidency Magistrate of Calcutta. That the Mayor of the
first city in India could be treated by the police in this fashion
was something which even the Indian public could not stand.
The police, on the other hand, felt that they could do just as
they liked because they would never be called upon to appear
before the bar of public opinion.
The restricted scope of the amnesty promised under the
Pact, caused considerable disappointment among certain
sections of the people and alienated the Mahatma still more
from the revolutionaries and from trade-union circles,
including the friends and followers of the Meerut prisoners.
If the Mahatma could have secured amnesty for all these
classes of prisoners, he would have stood out not only as the
representative of the Nationalists but also of the trade-
unionists and the revolutionaries, and he could have exerted
his influence on them for good. The Government, too, if
they had taken courage in both hands and opened wide the
gates of the prison-house, would have made a magnanimous
gesture which would have gone straight into the hearts of the
people. And they would have lost nothing thereby—because
if anyone happened to abuse his liberty, he could again be put
back in prison through the help of the Regulation and the
Ordinances. Since the Mahatma confined himself to the cause
of the Satyagrahis, the revolutionaries in prison addressed a
letter to Lord Irwin stating that a settlement with Mahatma
¹ On this occasion the writer had to spend 24 hours in the Lalbazar
Central Police Station without food and drink and without change. There
was only a small quantity of Tincture of Iodine available at the station
for application to his injuries. This was soon exhausted and when he asked
for more, he did not get any. The next day he had to appear in Court
with his clothes covered with blood and his arm in a sling. He made
a statement before the Magistrate regarding his treatment in the Police
Station which was duly recorded. After his removal to prison he was
X-rayed and it was then found that two of the fingers in his right hand
had been fractured.