Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/709

 success, rose also. They burnt tramcars and a motor, smashed liquor shops and burnt two.

DETAILS OF OUTBREAK.

I heard of the outbreak at about one o'clock. I motored with some friends to the area of disturbances and heard the most painful and the most humliating story of molestation of Parsi sisters. Some few were assaulted and even had their sbris torn from them. No one among a crowd of over fifteen hundred who had surrounded my car, denied the charge as a Parsi with hot rage and quivering lips was with the greatest deliberation narrating the story. An elderly Parsi gentle-

This news of the rough handling of Parsi sisters pierced me like a dart. I felt that my sisters or daughters had been hurt by a violent mob. Yes, some Parsis had joined the welcome. They had a right to hold their own view, free of molestation. There can be no coercion in Swaraj. The Moplah fanatic who forcibly converts a Hindu believes that he is acquiring religious merit A Non-Co-operator or his associate who uses coercion has no apology whatsoever for his criminality. As I reached the two tanks I found, too, a liquor shop smashed and two policemen badly wounded and lying unconscious on cots without anybody caring for them. I alighted. Immediately the crowd surrounded me and yelled " Mahatma Gandhiki-jai ". That sound usually grates on my ears, but it has grated never so much as it did yesterday, when the crowd, unmindful of the two sick brethren, choked me with the shout at the top of their voices. I rebuked them and they were silent. Water was brought for the two wounded men, I requested two of my companions and

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