Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/128

 each other company in jail. They were sentenced to simple imprisonment for four months. Looking back upon the history of India these thirty seven years, one feels that after all the first incarceration of Mr. Tilak for four months was a blessing in disguise to the whole country. In the case of ordinary men that do not question or inquire, short term and easy-conditioned imprisonment may be itself a real set-back. They may sit idle in their cells brooding over the calamity that has befallen them and imagining to themselves how worse their condition might have been if they had longer to serve and more rigorous lives to live. To one who is conscious of his sin and who is oppressed by the weight of his own evil-doing this brooding and this ennui may be more real still and his whole nature may thereafter be bent to attempting to desist from the course of his past. It may even be stated without fear of exaggeration that if real reformation is meant, short-termed, easy-conditioned punishment should be the rule. If fear of punishment is a corrective, the fear should be kept up, not obliterated by the imposition of actual experience. This whole theory of punishment, however, is inoperative in the case of real,