condign punishment to be awarded to the Indians for their insolence. Either section acknowledged the novelty of the Indians’ fresh move by its conduct. This letter created greater stir than even the commencement of the Satyagraha movement, which too was a novelty when it was started. The reason is obvious. When Satyagraha was started, no one knew what the Indians were capable of, and therefore neither such a letter nor the language in which it was couched would have been fitting for that initial stage. But now the community had had its baptism of fire. Every one had seen that the Indians had the capacity of suffering the hardships incidental to an attempt to get their wrongs righted, and therefore the language of the ‘ultimatum’ appeared in the light of a natural growth and not at all inappropriate in the circumstances.
