Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 7th August 1909 — No. 7
Facts and Opinions
The Political Motive
That there is a political motive behind the Bill, any child can see and to conceal it only the most flimsy precautions have been taken.
The prohibition of public meetings can have no reference to any but Swadeshi meetings, the reference to objectionable cries is obviously aimed at the national cry of Bande Mataram and the power of harassing under the pretext of regulating public processions and meetings can have no objective but the revived meetings and processions which have shown that the national movement was not dead but only suspended.
Other provisions of the Bill may be dictated by the sole object of strengthening the hands, already overstrong, of the Calcutta Police in keeping 
order, but the nature and wording of these provisions coupled with the amazingly comprehensive definition of “public place” leave us no option but to see the obvious political motive behind.
It is possible for the Police Commissioner under these provisions to paralyse every legitimate form of public activity in the city of Calcutta.
It is no use sheltering under the provisions of the Bombay Act.
The Bombay Act has been used to paralyse public activity of a kind inconvenient to the Government in that city.
What, moreover, was the necessity of suddenly resorting to the stringency of the Bombay Act at this particular juncture?
It is not alleged that any of the meetings or processions recently organised were disorderly or led to disturbance or public inconvenience.
The only fresh emergency was the political.