Azad travelled to Allahabad to meet Motilal Nehru. He was warmly greeted at Anand Bhavan. They held a long discussion on militancy and their respective opinions.
Motilal said, “British are big power. How would your a small group of youngman win against them in an armed battle?”
“If your good wishes and blessings are with us then no one can defeat us,” Azad replied.
“Even that won’t help on practical ground.”
“No, the fire that is burning in our hearts only a spark of it can burn down the British rule. We won’t accept defeat against whitemen. We will continue the battle until the colonial British are not driven away.”
Motilal continued to listen and Azad continued, “Very soon British will realise our power. We may be few but some part of us lives in every youngman of India. We are trying to invoke that in every Indian. Once we do that British won’t stand any chance against us.”
“Killing individual officers would achieve nothing. If one dies another would take his place. What do you get by such killings?”
“We can’t tolerate butchers in the guise of officers. We will target more of them. The butchers in police or army uniforms will die. We oppose tyranny and will continue to do so.”
The revolutionaries were high on sentiments, however low they may be on the realistic levels. And most of the militant youth like Azad and Bhagat Singh were too far gone to retrace their steps. Youth had made up their minds and argument were not going to change their line of thinking. Motilal understood it.
He patted on the back of Azad and the youngman left. Motilal Nehru had great respect for the idealism of those youngman. It is believed that he often used to help the militants with financial assistance.
The British repression
As the leftist youth carried on the battle against the colonial rulers more repression followed. The government decided to give the police more powers to enable it to act more ruthlessly against the trouble making leftist youth. It also wanted to move against the labour class because most of the workers were led by leftist trade unionists. The rich industrialists were exploiting labourers and making money to share with the colonial rulers. The British supported them and was always ready to help them out. The workers were in bad shape because of the poor wages they were getting. For better wages they were preparing to go on strike. And the government was all set to help the industrialist through a law banning strikes.
For these two purposes the government proposed to pass two laws, through the central Assembly namely ‘Public Safety Bill’ and ‘Trade Disputes Bill’.
It was a known fact that the Congress and the other Indian members would oppose the bills tooth and nail and the bills would be voted down. But the Viceroy would pass the bills to make them Acts using his special powers.
Shopping Cart
