the people from breaking forth into violence. The
hold that Satyagrah has gained on the people--it may be even against
their will--is curbing the forces of disorder and violence. But I must
not detain the reader on a defence of Satyagrah against unjust attacks.
If it has gained a foothold in India, it will survive much fiercer
attacks than the one made by the majority of the Hunter Committee and
somewhat supported by the minority. Had the majority report been
defective only in this direction and correct in every other there would
have been nothing but praise for it. After all Satyagrah is a new
experiment in political field. And a hasty attributing to it of any
popular disorder would have been pardonable.

The universally pronounced adverse judgment upon the report and the
despatches rests upon far more painful revelations. Look at the
manifestly laboured defence of every official act of inhumanity except
where condemnation could not be avoided through the impudent admissions
made by the actors themselves; look at the special pleading introduced
to defend General Dyer even against himself; look at the vain
glorification of Sir Michael O'Dwyer although it was his spirit that
actuated every act of criminality on the part of the subordinates; look
at the deliberate refusal to examine his wild career before the events
of April. His acts were an open book of which the committee ought to
have taken judicial notices. Instead of accepting everything that the
officials had to say, the Committee's obvious duty was to tax itself to
find out the real cause of the disorders. It ought to have gone out of
its way to search out the inwardness of the events. Instead of patiently
going behind the hard crust of official documents, the Committee allowed
itself to be guided with criminal laziness by mere official evidence.
The report and the despatches, in my humble opinion, constitute an
attempt to condone official lawlessness. The cautious and half-hearted
condemnation pronounced upon General Dyer's massacre and the notorious
crawling order only deepens the disappointment of the reader as he goes
through page after page of thinly disguised official whitewash. I need,
however, scarcely attempt any elaborate examination of the report or the
despatches which have been so justly censured by the whole national
press whether of the moderate or the extremist hue. The point to
consider is how to break down this secret--be the secrecy over so
unc