The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-06-18
By V. CHATTOPADHYAYA.

in the latest official communlque Oh May Ii1h
circulated in the House of Commons by the
Secretary of State for India) to produce the
impression that there have been signs of inn
provement during the week, even the news
that has been allowed to get through to the
British Press and through the correspondents
in India of reactionary French and Italian
journals is sufficient to show that the move
ment is spreading among larger and larger
sections of the population There is an all
round increase in the activities OF the DIS
trict and the Village Congress Committees, OF
the Workers Unions, of the Workers and
Peasants Parties, of the nationalist terrorist
organizations, of school and college students
and of ex-soldiers of the Indian Army.
The Congress Committees in various parts
of India have taken up a militant attitude
since the arrest of the principal Congress
leaders The government has therefore begun
inflicting much severer punishment upon
members of the Congress Committee. For
instance. among the recent Court Martial
sentences passed on % persons in Sholapur
are the following sentences: the Secretary OF
the local Congress Committee to seven years
rigorous Imprisonment and fine OF 20
Pounds Sterling; the president OF the Con-
gress Committee to five years rigorous I'M
prisonment and fine of $50 Pounds Sterling;
seven members to two years rigorous 1mprls-
onment and fines of rs Pounds Sterling each;
nine members to one years rigorous lmprls-
ment and fines of 81 Pounds 10 shillings each;
and four to corporal punishment.
The Salt Campaign has been extended from
mere breaches of the Salt Law to the storm
ing" of salt depots at Dharasana and else
where. Of the 1000 Congress volunteers who
attempted to capture the salt depot in Dhar-
asana some 500 were arrested, after the police
had attacked them with their batons and
wounded about $780, Among the arrested is
Mrs. Sarojini Naidu who was in charge Of the
Civil Disobedence movement after the arrest
of Gandhi and Abbas Tyabji. She has been
succeeded in the leadership by the old Patel.
The two most important events since the be-
ginning of the present revolutionary outburst
have conferred in Sholapur and Peshawar The
Importance of Sholapur is that it is very
important industrial center where the $4,000
workers of the cotton and silk spirning mills
have been playing prominent Part IN the
revolutionary movement. These workers are
intimately connected with the peasantry OF
the surrounding areas and, further, the troops
of the Mahratta regiments are drawn largely
from among these peasants: The revolution
airy movement of the workers has produced
an effect both among the peasants and among
the soldiers, and it is not at all astonishing
that the city was in the hands of committee
of workers, SAINTS and intellectuals for a
couple of days. Sholapur is now being gov
'erned by very severe martial law.
In Peshawar, Bannu and Kohat, the move
ment of instruction is spreading, in spite OF
martial law, the Seditious Meetings Act and
the numerous arrests of prominent agita-
tors" undertaken by the police with military
support. The Congress Committees have been
declared to be unlawful associations. And the
revolutionary Youth organization OF the Pun
lab, the Naujawan Bharat Sabha, that has
taken a very prominent part in the organiza-
ton of the movement has been declared IL
legal in the Peshawar area. An organization
known as the "Red Shirts" bearing the ham,
mer and sickle their badge has made its
appearance in the north of Peshawar and its
members drawn mostly from among the poor
villagers, and organized in military form with
ances as their weapon, are carrying on an
active agitation among the masses to over
throw the imperialist government and estab-
lish a Workers and Peasants Government.
This Red Shirt organization is more wide
spread in the Punjab than is admitted by the
imperialist press. Similar organizations exist
in Amritsar, Gujranvala, Hoshearpur and other
cities, where the Workers and Peasants Party
has been engaged for some time in organic
ing the peasantry.
The Northwest Frontier.
The tribal chiefs on the other side of the
North West Frontier, such as the Hail of
Turangzai, were invited by the revolutionaries
to join the anti-imperialist war. A section of
the Mohmands, of the Afridis, of the Wasris,
and of the Mahsuds, have organized small
armies for the support of the movement in
Peshawar. The forces of the Hail of Turang-
zai were bombed from the air by the Royal
Air Force, during which action his son, Bad
Shah Gul, was wounded. The tribes in Tochi
are up in arms against the British and a
lashkar EARNED force) attacked the British
post of Data Khel on May 18th. and on May
18th several villages of the Nadia Khel which
were concerned in the attack were bombed
from the air.
The tribes, however, have not taken con-
certed action because a number of their chiefs
are in the pay of the British Government and
are doing their best to prevent general
movement of the North Western tribes, in sup
port of the movement in India But the events
in Peshaw ar-the mass demonstrations, the
fraternizing of Hndus and Mohammedans,
eliminating in the refusal of the Carnival
troops to open fire on the demonstrators, the
sympathetic movement of the tribes, the revo-
lutionary ferment among the peasantry and
the massacre perpetrated by the British regi-
ments and 40 bombing planes of the Royal Air
ultaneousy another object is achieved--the ar
rest of these leaders raises their political pres
tige in the eyes of the masses of the people,
raises their authority, and thereby their value
as future parties in the agreement which both