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

264 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE
were, however, nominated by the Government as members
of the second Round Table Conference.
While trade union circles merely kept up vocal opposition
to the Delhi Pact, the revolutionaries in Bengal exasperated
by the repressive policy of the Government, created a serious
crisis in the province. The Armoury Raid in Chittagong in
April 1930, was an aggressive act, but it was on the whole
an isolated one. The subsequent acts of terrorism in other
parts of Bengal, were acts of retaliation or reprisal rather than
acts of aggression. In Dacca, the principal city of East Bengal,
in August 1930, Mr. Lowman, the head of the Intelligence
Branch of the Police was assassinated and the District
Superintendent of Police was seriously wounded. But prior
to that, there had been Hindu-Moslem riots in Dacca and
Mymensingh Districts, in connection with which the conduct
of the police had been open to serious question. Moreover,
the Dacca police had been harsh and brutal in dealing with
Satyagrahi volunteers engaged in peaceful picketing of foreign-
cloth and liquor shops and in other non-violent activity.
Towards the end of 1930, the Inspector-General of Prisons,
Bengal, Lieut-Col. Simpson, was assassinated in his office
in the Government Secretariat buildings in Calcutta. But
prior to that, there had been indescribable ill-treatment of
political prisoners in many prisons in Bengal and all appeals
made to the Government for redress had been of no avail.
The murder of Mr. Peddie, Magistrate of Midnapore, in
1931, and subsequently of two of his successors, was the
result of the untold atrocities committed by the forces of the
Crown in Midnapore District in the attempt to suppress the
non-violent no-tax campaign. The public of Calcutta had
appointed an impartial committee consisting mostly of
Moderate men to inquire into and report on some of the
atrocities committed in that district. The report was duly
published and the facts brought to the notice of the Govern-
ment. But no redress followed. It was then that in a fit of
exasperation, people took to terrorism by way of reprisal.
These acts of terrorism served to stiffen the attitude of the
Government and a stronger dose of repression was adminis-
tered. A golden opportunity of putting an end to the regrett-