THE STRUGGLE COMMENCES

IT is obvious that with the arrest of Lala Lajpat Rai and his three comrades the struggle between the non-co-operation movement and the Government has entered its most serious phase. Hitherto except for occasional deviations on one side or on the other, the parties were only facing each other, but the actual struggle was yet to begin. Individuals either directly or indirectly associated with the movement had been proceeded against, but as a rule, and except for a number of restrictive orders, the position taken up by the Government in all such cases was that the persons concerned had deviated from the principle of non-violence. For the first time in the present case, there is no question of such deviation. The four leaders have been arrested not because they have departed from the policy and programme of the non-co-operation movement but in the pursuance of that policy and that programme. In other words, for the first time the non-co-operation movement has assumed a phase which the Government is determined not to tolerate, which in the words of the Viceroy it will exert its full strength to suppress. The circumstances under which the movement has assumed this phase are well-known. What is obvious, however, is that the arrest of the leaders is no matter of surprise either to themselves or to the general body of their followers. From the very beginning of the movement, this is one of the only two alternatives they have placed before themselves. Both Mahatma Gandhi and other leaders have told us that what they meant by the attainment of Swaraj within the year was that either England would concede India’s just demands by the end of the year or all the prominent leaders and a large number of their followers would be in jail, this last being in their opinion a decisive step and, therefore, an acceptable substitute for the attainment of Swaraj.

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