Now, I will give you another series of facts which will convince you why guarantees were given. You had seen what was happening in the Punjab. In the five districts where havoc was being wrought, five British officers were in power and nothing could be done. I tried to get the District Magistrate of Gurgaon transferred. I could not succeed, and the British officer there arrested leading Congressmen when they were not at fault and put them in jail as hostages; he had the cheek to write on the application presented to him by the President of the Bar Association there to the effect that those were innocent and they should not be arrested and that they should be released immediately, that those people were being kept as hostages. This is the way he was doing this business. I was shocked and I went toGurgaon. I saw him coming on the way and I asked him, “Have you arrested people as hostages?” He said, “No, who told you?” Fortunately, I had the document with me on which he had made that endorsement, and I showed him the endorsement. He asked, “How did you get this?” I said,” That is not the question. Is this your endorsement or not?” After that, I tried hard, I wrote to the then Governor of the Punjab, I pleaded with the Viceroy, but I found it difficult to remove him, and you know the havoc that was played in Gurgaon an these other districts. It was not in the Punjab alone; in other places also many such things were done. It was a time of touch and go and we could have lost India. Then we insisted that we had come to a stage when power must be transferred immediately, whatever happens, and then we decided to resign. It was at that time that Lord Mountbatten came.
