In the Punjab
Sir Michael O’Dwyer held me responsible for all that had happened in the Punjab, and some irate young Punjabis held me responsible for the martial law. They asserted that, if only I had not suspended civil disobedience, there would have been no Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Some of them even went to the length of threatening me with assassination if I went to the Punjab.
But I felt that my position was so correct and above question that no intelligent person could misunderstand it.
I was impatient to go to the Punjab. I had never been there before, and that made me all the more anxious to see things for myself. Dr. Satyapal, Dr. Kitchlew and Pandit Rambhaj Dutt Chowdhari, who had invited me to the Punjab, were at this time in jail. But I felt sure that the Government could not dare to keep them and the other prisoners in prison for long. A large number of Punjabis used to come and see me whenever I was in Bombay. I ministered to them a word of cheer on these occasions, and that would comfort them. My self-confidence of that time was infectious.
But my going to the Punjab had to be postponed again and again. The Viceroy would say, “not yet,” every time I asked for permission to go there, and so the thing dragged on.
In the meantime the Hunter Committee was announced to hold an inquiry in connection with the Punjab Government’s doings under the martial law. Mr. C. F. Andrews had now reached the Punjab. His letters gave a heartrending description of the state of things there, and I formed