Cruel irony of fate

IT was the late John Redmond (a former UK MP) who once bitterly complained of the cruel irony of fate by which the cup of liberty had again and again been snatched away from the hands of his people at the very moment when they were about to raise it to their lips. There is not a patriotic and discerning Indian to whom the same thought has not occurred again and again during the last four years in regards to his own country. How often during this period has it not seemed as if the day of India’s deliverance was about to dawn. And yet in every case, some thing or the other has happened to frustrate the hope. When the British Government, impelled by both the necessity of having India’s wholehearted support in the European war and the pressure of a united public opinion in this country, was forced to concede to India the rudiments of self-government, most people, including many even among Englishmen, came to believe that 10 years was the limit for the actual establishment of Swaraj in India. A few months later, when Punjab and Khilafat wrongs, coupled with the deliberate whittling down of the Reforms by rules, regulations and standing orders, led to the starting of the non-cooperation movement and the Mahatma promised, on the fulfilment of certain conditions, to win Swaraj within a year, many even among those who did not expect the promise to be literally fulfilled believed that the Mahatma’s efforts would shorten the stage of transition. There were at least two occasions when even those who did not wish well either to that movement or the country felt that it was about to lead to momentous results.