Lord Reading’s blunder

Lahore, Wednesday, October 29, 1924

PUBLIC opinion all over India is strong and unequivocal in its condemnation of the action which Lord Reading and Lord Lytton have between them taken to deal with the alleged revolutionary movement in Bengal. The grounds of such condemnation are mainly three. The action taken cannot and will not be anything even remotely approaching an effective remedy for the state of things which it is ostensibly intended to meet. Secondly, so far as it will prove a remedy, the remedy will obviously and undoubtedly be worse than the disease, because in its very nature it is bound to confound the innocent with the guilty. Thirdly and lastly, it is bound to intensify the forces of discontent and dissatisfaction not only in Bengal but in the whole of India and will make that mutual understanding between England and India, on which the peaceful solution of the Indian problem absolutely depends, immeasurably more difficult than it is at present. From the point of view of Indian nationalism itself, there will, indeed, be one immediate gain. It will lead to an instantaneous closing of the ranks. Moderates and Independents, Swarajists and No-changers will forget all their existing differences in offering a stout, determined and united opposition to the bureaucracy. If the bureaucracy had not been entirely devoid of imagination and political foresight, it might easily have foreseen this. If it is not entirely devoid of political intelligence, it can have no difficulty in discerning the signs of the coming storm in what has happened already.