z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-04.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 235
ON DISTURBANCES ENQUIRY COMMITTEE’S REPORT
ought, of course, to be the last expedient of the civil authority.”
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And so far as the law of this country is concerned, this is the law. To put it very briefly, to put it in the language of that great writer on constitutional law Professor Dicey, the law is this that if a police officer or if a military officer does not obey the command of his officer when he is told to fire, he may be hanged by a court martial and if he obeys it and kills an innocent man, he will be hanged by a judge and a jury. His case must stand by the necessity of the circumstances. His case must stand on whether he has used excess of force. What I want to argue is this. Here is a committee which has justified the conduct of the police. The only thing that I am asking my honourable friend is this : If he believes in this document which has been written by three able and honourable men, if he has confidence in it, why does he not sanction prosecution against those people if that is true ? If there is a jury which can accept that there was a necessity and if there is a jury which can accept that there was no excess, well and good. Let us have a verdict of a judge and jury, and I put it this way that if he does not do this, if he does not prosecute the members of the Council of Action, if he does not prosecute the police officers, then this report has no greater value than a fiction or a novel written by the Three Tailors of Tooley Street. (Laughter).
And, Sir, there is the third question I want to ask, namely, and this is for information. Sir, I am informed and very reliably informed and I put this information to the Honourable the Home Minister that the Manager of the Spring Mill in the vicinity of which the firing took place at 6-30 or so on that day sent a sum of Rs. 200 to be distributed as reward among the police officers who took part in this firing. I do not know whether the Honourable the Home Minister is aware of this fact, but I know this is a fact and if he calls for information from his department, I am sure he will know that this is a fact. Now, Sir, if this is a fact that Rs. 200 were sent by the Manager of the Spring Mill to the Government with a specific direction that the amount was to be distributed as rewards among the police officers who took part in the riot or in the firing on that particular day, that took place in the vicinity of the mill, Sir, I like to ask whether it is not jusifiable to say that the firing was resorted to not because there was violence but because the Mill Manager told the police officers to do their job thoroughly. This is a very scandalous state of affairs, and I want the Honourable the Home Minister to take this fact very seriously, because if this is a fact, this police force is a police force maintained by the State not to do justice between classes but it is a police force to side with hirelings and side with assassins to be used by the capitalist class for the purpose of putting down the agitation of workers.
Sir, this affair fills me with horror, and it reminds me of what was