Road To Freedom

---

• For God and Country
• The Empire Builders
• Tribal Uprisings
• Sepoys on the Move
• British Authority Collapses
• The Empire Strikes Back
• Roll of Honour
• The Trial of the Last Emperor
• English Education
• The Blue Mutiny
• Perishing in Peace
• ‘Rani Ka Hookum’
• Barbarous Britannia
• Return to Swadeshi
• The Delhi Durbar
• Hunger Deaths
• The One-Man Army
• Mamool Raj
• The British Raj in Black and White
• Europeans Take To The Street!
• Pressing On !
• The Battle For A Free Press
• The Battle Lines are Drawn
• Women : Crossing the Threshold
• An Old Man's Dream
• Father of Indian Unrest
• The Monk Who Shook The Nation
• The Battle is Taken to the Legislature!
• Partition of Bengal
• The Great Divide
• The New Spirit of India
• Swadeshi Enterprise
• From Swadeshi to Swaraj
• Gandhi in South Africa
• Heroes and Martyrs
• Revolutionaries Outside India
• Carrot and Stick
• Gandhi in Champaran
• The Gentle Satyagrahi
• Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh
• Jallianwala — The Aftermath
• A People Reject Their Rulers
• The Himalayan Blunder
• Gandhiji Withdraws from Political Activities
• Bardoli
• Saga of Indian Revolutionaries
• A Pinch of Salt!
• Gandhi and Ambedkar
• Leave India to God… or to Anarchy
• Quit India
• The Last War of Independence
• Apostle of Peace
• India Wins Freedom
• The Light Has Gone Out
• Under One Flag

Carrot and Stick

Carrot and Stick

The initial success of the Swadeshi movement in Bengal gave an impression that the government was losing control. However, by dangling the carrot of reforms in front of the Congress leadership and wielding the stick against those who were vehement in their opposition, the government soon had the situation under control. Leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Aurobindo Ghosh, Lala Lajpat Rai and Chidambaram Pillai were keen to continue with the Swadeshi agitation. Others like Pherozeshah Mehta and Gopal Krishna Gokhale wanted the agitation to be scaled down in order to give the government a chance to carry out the reforms it had promised. The confrontation between these moderates and the impatient extremists eventually led to a split in the Congress with the extremists going their separate way. This happened at the Surat session of the Congress in 1907. The split in the Congress came as a shot in the arm for the government. To win over the moderates the government came out with the Indian Councils Act, popularly known as the Morley-Minto reforms. Under this act, an Indian was appointed to the Governor-General's Executive Council and more Indians were admitted as members of the Executive Councils in the provinces. The strength of the Legislative Council was raised but the official and nominated members continued to outnumber the elected members. Muslims were given separate representation. The moderates seemed satisfied with these sops but the extremists were furious. Along with the so-called reforms the government began a campaign of repression. Between November 1907 and August 1910 the government passed several bills that curtailed the rights of citizens. Under the Prevention of Seditious Meetings Act of 1907, the government, could prevent a speaker from addressing a meeting. It could even deny permission to hold a meeting of 20 persons or more for any purpose.

---

Unnerved by the rise of the cult of the bomb the government came out with the Explosive Substance Act of 1908. The Newspaper Act of 1908 gave district magistrates power to close down newspapers and confiscate their printing presses. In a period of ten years, the Newspaper Act was used to penalise 350 presses and 300 newspapers and to ban over 500 publications.
The repression included the hounding and imprisonment of top leaders who showed hostility to the government. Chidambaram Pillai was first sentenced to transportation for life. Later the term was reduced to 6 years' rigorous imprisonment. Mill workers in the small town of Tuticorin struck work in protest for 6 days.
Aswini Kumar Datta, a hero of the Swadeshi movement and eight others were deported. Even some British officials raised their voices against these harsh measures. Morley, the Secretary of State in his letter dated 27 May 1909 to Viceroy Minto, vehemently protested against the policy of deportation. He wrote : "…and some of us, the best of our own men are getting uneasy. The point taken is the failure to tell the deportee what he is arrested for; to detain him without letting him know exactly why; to give him no chance of clearing himself."
The most sensational case was the prosecution of Bal Gangadhar Tilak for seditious writings in 'Kesari', a newspaper he edited.
Tilak conducted his own defence in the Bombay High Court and spoke for 21 hours and 10 minutes pointing out the dangers of repression. His plea to the government to adopt the right policy of reform and reconciliation fell on deaf ears. He was sentenced to a 6-year term of rigorous imprisonment in Mandalay, Burma.
When news spread that Tilak was to be transported, nine mills in Bombay struck work. On 24 July, 70 mills stopped work. Police opened fire to disperse the striking workers, killing three and injuring several others.
The disturbances continued on 26th and 27th by which time 6 more mills had come to a stop. Black flags were hung across the streets and Tilak's pictures could be seen everywhere. Barricades were put up on some roads.
Finally the military was called in and many mill workers and others were killed or injured in the firing that followed.
Lenin, fighting his own battle in distant Russia wrote on 23 July 1908 : "In India the street is beginning to stand up for its writers and political leaders. The nefarious sentence pronounced by the British jackals on the Indian democrat, Tilak … evoked street demonstrations and strikes in Bombay."
The government had launched the campaign of prosecution for sedition to cow down the populace but all that it succeeded in doing was to make the people even more defiant.