Contradiction of Official Statements

IN two instances, statements made by high officials have recently been contradicted by popular representatives. One is the case in which Sir L. Porter, speaking in the U.P. Legislative Council on the resolution recommending a reversal of the repressive policy, stated that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had in one of his speeches quoted the sedition section of the Indian Penal Code and the section which deals with promoting hatred between classes of His Majesty’s subjects, and said that the object of his life was to carry out this promoting of sedition and disaffection. In a letter to the Associated Press, Pandit Nehru says that he never made a speech in which he quoted the sedition section or any other section of the Penal Code. What he did state, he writes, was that he considered it his business, as it was the business of every Indian, to promote disaffection against the present system of government in India. The Pandit categorically denies having said anything which might lead anyone to think that he desired to promote hatred between different classes of His Majesty’s subjects and says that he has endeavoured, to the best of his ability, whenever occasion has offered itself, to do the very reverse of this. The second is the statement made by Sir William Vincent regarding what is now known as the grave-digging incident at Ranchi. It appears that the same statement was recently made in the Behar Legislative Council, and that there is evoked a counter statement from the representative of the Division in the Council. The facts of the case, said the Hon. Member, were that two non-co-operation volunteers had on suspicion been sent up on a double charge of grave-digging and being members of an unlawful assembly, and that no evidence being forthcoming on the first charge, they were discharged in respect of it, but convicted under the Samity Act.

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