OBSERVE AN ALL-INDIA BHAGALPUR DAY ON THE 14TH DECEMBER, 1941.

5-12-1941
“THE TIME has come when I should acquaint the Hindu public in particular and the Indian public in general with the development and the present situation regarding the issue of the ban placed by the Government of Bihar on the holding of the next Session of the Hindu Mahasabha at Bhagalpur on the 24th to 27th December, 1941”.

When at Madura the last Session of the Hindu Maha Sabha decided to hold the Session in Bihar and when after surveying different places in Bihar, the Reception Committee decided to hold the Session at Bhagalpur, even the Govern¬ment must admit that there could not have been any the least intention on the part of the Mahasabha to disturb the com¬munal peace of the particular section of Moslems residing at Bhagalpur during the Bakri-Id festival. The Bakri-Id is observed all over India by the Moslems and there could not be any reason why the Hindusabhaites should have a special spite against the Moslems residing at the comparatively in¬significant town of Bhagalpur of all places in India. But nevertheless after the venue was settled in the ordinary course of things and in view of other considerations and conveniences at Bhagalpur, the Government of Bihar came out all of a sudden with a communique banning the Session and ordering that it must not be held in a number of districts in Bihar including the town of Bhagalpur from the 1st of December next to the 10th of January, 1942.
 
The Government of Bihar argued that they would find it very difficult to maintain peace and order at Bhagalpur owing the paucity of police forces at their disposal in case communal disturbances broke out during the Bakri-Id, if the Session and the Bakri-Id coincided.

So far as the question of coincidence was concerned, the Working Committee of the Hindu Mahasabha having no in¬tention whatsoever to give any justifiable excuse even to the aggressive section among the Moslems, decided in an accommodating spirit not to hold the Session on the dates during which the Bakri-Id was customarily observed at Bhagalpur and resolved that the Session should be held on the 24th to 27th December next during the X’mas holidays as had been the usual custom with the Hindu Mahasabha to do so for years in the past. This arrangement would have enabled the Mahasabha to end the Session a couple of days before the Bakri-Id began and let the Moslems alone to celebrate it in any fashion they chose. But the Bihar Government still refused to raise the ban on the ground that the holding of the Session even before the Bakri-Id and even if it was held on dates not coinciding with Bakri-Id was quite likely to inflame the communal tension and passions at Bhagalpur and prevent the peaceful celebration of the Bakri-Id festival. But they did not seem to mind it much that there was more likelihood of communal passions being inflamed and of communal riots breaking out if the Bakri-Id was allowed to precede the Mahasabha Session and thus endanger again its being held just after the Bakri Id. As a matter of fact it cannot be denied that it is the Bakri-Id which more often than not is notoriously associated throughout India with communal disturbances and Moslem fanaticism running riot. The Sessions of the Hindu Mahasabha on the contrary are as undeniably noted for their peaceful and orderly celebrations. Even the latest press communique issued by the Government of Bihar which modifies the ban to the extent that it allows the Session to be held just after the Bakri-Id after the 3rd of January, 1942, instead of the 10th of January, 1942, does not make it clear whether the Government would not renew the ban on the Session even if it was held on the 4th of January, in case some communal disturbances were staged during the Bakri-Id just to spite the Mahasabba Session to come. Consequently, whether the Session was held before the Bakri-Id or after the Bakri-Id, the necessity of facing the ban was kept like the sword of Democles hanging on its head.

So far as the second reason which was set forth by the Government to justify its attitude as to the paucity of the police forces at the command of the Bihar Government, it is enough to point out that the Government has more than once emphasised that in case an attempt to hold the Session was made inspite of the ban, the Bihar Government would put it down with all the resources at their command. Now if the Government is thus on its own admission so powerful, and it is no doubt so powerful, as to command sufficient forces to suppress an All-India Session of the Hindu Mahasabha which is likely to be attended by tens of thousands of Hindus along with the most outstanding Hindu leaders from all parts of India, can it ever be said that those very forces would not have enabled the Government to hold in check that aggressive section of Moslems at Bhagalpur if there be any which was likely to get inflamed and to threaten criminal disturbances if the Hindus were allowed to exercise their legitimate right of free association by holding the Session of the Hindu Mahasabha at Bhagalpur?
 
When the All-India Session of the Moslem League was held at Madras this year, the Government prevented the Hindus under 144 Section from holding meetings, carrying lethal weapons or assemblying in more than five persons so that the Session of the League might pass off well inspite of the fact that rabid and anti-Hindu speeches and resolutions weredelivered and passed in it. Now at Bhagalpur when the All-India Session of the Hindu Mahasabha is to be held, the Government instead of calling upon the Moslems to keep themselves within the bounds of law and order have put a ban on the Hindu Mahasabha Session itself making it criminal on the part of the Hindus to exercise their fundamental rights of citizenship! Throughout India the same discriminating, partial and anti-Hindu policy is adhered to and Hindu processions, immersions of images and conferences are held up to placate the fanatical goondaism on the part of the aggressive Moslem sections.
The reason trotted out for this anti-Hindu policy is also uniform: that it is the duty of the Government to maintain peace and order. But the peace or order which is to be maintained as a duty on the part of the Government is that which enables the law-abiding to exercise their legitimate rights and not that peace or order which could only be maintained by compelling the law-abiding to forgo their rights to placate the aggressive and the criminal. The underlying idea which makes the Government resort to this policy throughout India cannot be any other than the notion that the Hindus as a people being gentle and law-abiding are more amenable to such restrictions on their liberty than the chauvinistic Moslem fanatics.

Therefore the time has come when we must correct this mistaken notion and prove to the Government that although the law-abiding and gentle Hindus ought to value peace and order much yet they must prize honour much more. Conse¬quently, I call upon all Hindus to record a practical protest against this anti-Hindu policy on the Government at every locality and province wherever such a case humiliating Hindu honour crops up, by all legitimate means within their reach.