Blackwell Family Blackwell, Alice Stone GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE Ray, Basanta Koomar THE ORIENTAL PRESS News Interviews Special Features POST OFFICE BOX 77, STATION "D" NEW YORK CITY, U.S.A. BASANTA KOOMAR ROY DIRECTOR July 4, 1930 Dear Mrs. Blackwell: I have known of you for years and years; and it's certainly a pleasure to know your exact address. I saw your letter to The World Tomorrow on behalf of Dr. Sunderland's "India in Bondage". That's how I came to know that you lived in Dorchester. Many thanks for the dollar you so kindly sent. Please send me a few names that may be interested in India at the present time. If you have a copy of your Armenian poems, please send me a copy. With best wishes, Yours very kindly, Basanta Koomar Roy Released for Publication THE ORIENTAL PRESS BASANTA KOOMAR ROY, DIRECTOR 4th of JULY, 1930 ADDRESS: POST OFFICE BOX 77, STATION D, NEW YORK CITY, U. S. A. Ramsay Macdonald Challenges Mahatma Gandhi Pacifist Macdonald's Peshawar Massacre By Abdul Quadir Kasuri President, The Punjab Provincial Congress Committee The All-India Congress Committee deputation that went to make inquiry into the working of the Northwestern Frontier regulations, was stopped at Attock, early in the morning of April 22, and not allowed to proceed any farther . . . . . And between three and six in the early hours of the morning on the 23rd of April, six congress leaders were arrested at Peshawar. At sunrise, as soon as the news got abroad that the leaders had ben [been] arrested, there was a spontaneous hartal (cessation of work) all over the city . . . The crowd had throughout been behaving in an exemplary manner and was returning toward the city, when two armored cars full of soldiers came from behind, without blowing their horns or giving any notice whatever of their approach, and drove into the crowd regardless of consequences. Many people were brutally run over, several were wounded and at least three people died on the spot. In spite of this provocation the crowd still behaved with great restraint, collecting the wounded and the three dead persons. We possess photographs of some of them. At this time an English officer on a motorcycle came dashing past. What happened to him is not quite clear. There are two conflicting versions. The semi-official version says that he fired into the crowd and a man whom he wounded by a shot struck him on the head and he died. The other that has been given to me is that he collided with the armored car which was standing by and was killed as a result of the collision. Until further inquiry is made it is difficult to say what are the true facts. At the same time one of the armored cars caught fire. Here again it is alleged on the one hand that it was set fire by the mob, while another version is that it caught fire accidently. By this time, however, a troop of English soldiers had reached the spot and without any warning began firing into the crowd, in which there were women and children as well as men. Now the crowd gave a good example of the lesson of non-violence that had been instilled into them. When those in front fell down wounded by the shots, those behind came forward with their breasts bared and exposed themselves to the fire, so that some persons got as many as twenty-one bullet wounds in their bodies and all the people stood their ground without getting into a panic. A young Sikh boy came and stood in front of a soldier and asked him to fire at him, which the soldier unhesitatingly did, killing him. Similarly an old woman seeing her relatives and friends being wounded came forward, was shot, and fell down wounded. An old man with a four-year-old child on his shoulders, unable to brook this brutal slaughter, advanced asking the soldier to fire at him. He was taken at his word, and soon he also fell wounded. Scores of such instances will come out on further inquiry. The crowd kept standing at the spot facing the soldiers and was fired at from time to time, until there were heaps of wounded and dying lying about. The Anglo-Indian paper of Lahore, which represents the official view, itself wrote to the effect that the people came forward one after another to face the firing and when they fell wounded they were dragged back and others came forward to be shot at. This state of things continued from eleven till five o'clock in the evening. When the number of corpses became too many the ambulance cars of the government took them away. It is said that they were taken to some unknown place, and though they were mostly Mohammedans the bodies were burned. After this struggle the leaders of the public and volunteers collected all the remaining bodies. These alone came to sixty-five in number. . . . Two facts are noteworthy in this connection. One is that of all the dead collected by the congressmen there was not one single instance where there was the mark of a bullet in the back. Further, all the wounds were bullet wounds and there was no trace of grape shot. Neither the police nor the military nor anybody else alleges that there was any stick or weapon, blunt or sharp, with the persons in the crowd. . . . . . It is a regrettable fact that the government showed its customary heartlessness by providing no facilities, even for first aid to the wounded; all that it did was to cart away as many dead bodies as possible and burn them, as alleged, in some far-away spot with a view to minimizing the extent of the havoc. Lahore, India. A Child of India Speaks to You By Miss Jyotirmayi Ganguli, M. A. Thousands of villagers assembled near the volunteer's tent at Narghat, a village near the ancient port of Tamluk, Bengal. They were eager to see and hear the woman that had come to preach about the great Ahimsa (non-violent) war waged by the Gandhiji against the government that heeded not the cry of the people who constantly suffered from privation, ill-health and illiteracy . . . Suddenly with the charge of the police with lathis (big bamboo sticks) a disturbance grew. The women jumped down from the bank before the force and tried to prevent the lathis being used on their men folk, and the men grew into a solid phalanx of human wall which could neither be moved nor broken. For nearly a quarter of an hour, the police tried, but in vain . . . Meanwhile the chief representative in the district of the powers that be, the British District Magistrate, had, with his hunter, beaten a boy of ten in such a way on the head that he had fallen senseless on the ground and was bleeding profusely from a deep cut on the forehead and from the nose. He bent down to tie his silk handkerchief on the bleeding wound. Perhaps the face of the one wearing the crown of thorns, was reflected in the halo of the evening sun of Good Friday, shedding tears of blood at this sight—and the Christian remembered the day! But the volunteers and the women rendering first aid to the boy refused the silk handkerchief of the mighty one. He came to me with his hat raised, and asked me to grant him permission to take the boy to the hospital. "Sorry, but I am afraid I cannot give such permission, as the people here will not allow me to do so." "But if you say yes, they will not go against that. Please, do give the order. These people here will listen to you implicitly, and to nobody else." "But, sir, I cannot give that order." "My car is a powerful one, and I can take him to the hospital within fifteen minutes." "We have doctors here to attend to him. If it is necessary I myself shall take him to the hospital." "But it is better to take him in a car and not in a bus." "I have a taxicab with me." "I leave my car at your disposal, it is a better car and a swifter one." "Thank you, but I am sorry I cannot avail myself of your offer." The half-clad and half-fed villager who used to bow down to the dust before a British Magistrate, had spoken, as it were, through me his grim determination to refuse from the hands of the autocrat, scraps of mercy which looked like disdain heaped upon injury and wrong. About ten others were hurt—some slightly and some with grave injuries on their bodies, and we removed them all to the camp, and brought the boy to our own private hospital of the Ramkrishna Mission at Tamluk. On our way there the boy regained consciousness and when told that he would soon get better, replied: "Yes, and then I will come again where our soldiers make salt, and if the Englishman comes to beat me once more, I will say, 'Englishman, I have come, and so if you will, please beat me again.'" Calcutta, India. 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