Jail Committee’s probe

WE have already said that if the inquiry entrusted to the Jail Committee is to be successful, it is essential that those public workers who have recently been in jails in connection with the non-cooperation, Khilafat or gurdwara movements should place their knowledge freely at the disposal of the committee. For this purpose, it is necessary, as Lala Lajpat Rai has pointed out in an interview with the Associated Press, that an agency be established for collecting the evidence, which is scattered throughout the province, and placing it before the committee. In the best of conditions, individuals, however zealous, cannot be an effective substitute for such an agency. Far less can they be such a substitute in India at present when largely on account of decades of political subjection and passivity, the average man lacks that active and aggressive public spirit which is a common enough feature in countries that are politically free. In a country like India, it is necessary that the individual should be able to feel that he has at his back a fairly strong and influential organisation before he will come forward to bear testimony against a powerful department of the administration, which can make its displeasure felt in direct and indirect ways. Unfortunately, the conditions under which the government has directed the inquiry to be held have left little time to those among our leaders who have always taken an active interest in the matter to exert themselves to bring such an agency into existence, and we entirely agree with Rai that if the government wants the inquiry to be successful, it must extend the time within which it is to be finished.