Folly of repression

Lahore, Thursday, October 30, 1924

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IN going through the Governor General’s ordinance and the communique issued by the Bengal Government, one question that will naturally force itself even upon the minds of those who may honestly desire to support the government in its endeavour to cope with revolutionary crime is, where will the present policy lead to? That the government itself has no definite idea on the subject is clear from a significant passage in the Bengal communique. Referring to the last outbreak of revolutionary crime, it says: “Bengal was only rescued in the end from the tyranny of this band of murderers by the use of Regulation III of 1818, and the powers which the government obtained under the Defence of India Act. The conspiracy was effectively crushed by these means and if the powers had been retained by the government, it could never have been revived.” Apart from the admission contained in it that the Act, which was a war measure and was intended only to help the government win the war, was actually used for purely political purposes, does not this statement mean in plain English that the Bengal Government thoroughly disapproves of the policy under which that Act was allowed, on the termination of the war, to die a natural death, and that in its opinion it is only by a revival of the powers conferred on it by the Act that revolutionary crime can be effectively dealt with? It would be interesting to enquire if the government realises the implication of such a statement.