Pandit Motilal Nehru’s testimony

Lahore, Friday, November 14, 1924

THE luminous statement which Pandit Motilal Nehru made to an Associated Press representative at Allahabad regarding the joint statement issued from Calcutta, to which he was himself a signatory, calls for a more careful and detailed consideration than we can possibly bestow upon it today. The statement was, however, prefaced with a reaffirmation of the Pandit’s previously expressed view about the immediate target of the Bengal Government’s repressive policy being the Swarajya party, about which a word may be said at once. The reaffirmation is of value not only because it is based on a study of the Bengal situation by one of the most accomplished lawyers in the country, but because it is supported by two incontestable facts. One is that “the big round-up in Calcutta on 25th October and the searches made in other towns did not lead to the capture of a single anarchist against whom there was any definite evidence or to the discovery of any incriminating material such as pistols, revolvers, bombs or their ingredients.” Mr Baldwin has been persuaded to believe and was made to say in his Guildhall speech that the present policy is not directed against anyone against whom there is no evidence of participation in crimes of violence. The search list shows conclusively that in the case of the majority of the arrested persons, no evidence of participation in violent crimes was obtained by searching their houses. The second fact to which the Pandit refers is that “out of the 72 persons arrested in the first swoop, over 60 are well-known Swarajists and the great majority of them are active workers and organisers of the party.”