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 464 EARLIER INDIAN SPEECHES

fire on the innocent people. The people were entirely unarmed, and'at the worst what would they have done ? In any other place but India, the Police would have been deemed sufficient to meet an emergency of the Delhi type, armed with nothing more than batons He Europeans bent upon lynching an innocent victim threatened the destruction of property worth 20, 000, including the lives of nearly twenty men, women and children, and a dozen Police, though they would have been justified in calling Military aid, contended with the crowd themselves and succeeded in peacefully dispersing it. The Delhi crowd had no such intention of hurting any body. It threatened to do nothing except, as alleged, it refused to disperse The authorities could have peacefully regulated the crowd; nstead they followed the customary practice of calling the Military on the slightest pretext. He did not want to labour on the point. It was enough the crowd hurt nobody and were neither overawed nor infuriated. It was a remarkable incident that the people were sufficiently firm and self- possessed to hold a mass meeting of 40,000 after the shooting incidents, and it coverd the Delhi people with glory. He has always emphasised that the people who took part in the struggle against the Rowlatt Act will be self-possessed and peaceful, but he has never said that .the people will not have to suffer. Mr. Gandhi further said that to the satyagra- his such suffering must be welcome. The sterner they were the better. They have undertaken to suffer unto Mahommadans and 5 Hindus have so far died, and that about 20 people were missing and 13 persons were in

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