Events in India were dominating Saklatvala's politics and the international scene by 1928. The demands for freedom, industrial unrest, violence as an instrument of repression and oppression, were all increasing. Gandhi and the Congress were uniting the people in their bid for total freedom and the Communist Party was also gaining ground. In April, 1928, railwaymen who were on strike were fired on by the police, killing two and wounding three. Saklatvala asked the Under-Secretary for India several times in the House for details of the shooting but received somewhat vague replies. On the 30th July he asked Earl Winterton how many industrial disputes had occurred in India since January that year, how many were still in progress and on how many occasions had armed forces been used against the striking workers; also he asked for detailed figures of the dead and wounded among the workers and among the police. In his reply Early Winterton reported no less than 85 trade disputes between January and June, 1928,and 7 cases of serious rioting. There had been a total of 6 persons killed and 91 injured and 55 police had been injured; in addition people had been killed in rail derailments. Mr Saklatvala made a point of asking whether or not any of the strikers had been armed, or "is it the policy of the Government to attack and shoot unarmed people?"
In April, 1928, a British bookseller sent to India copies of 2 books, "Socialism and the Living Wage" and "The Politics of Oil" and all copies of both these publications were confiscated. The reason given by Earl Winterton for the prohibition of the books was that the first one was published by the Communist Party of Great Britain and the importation of all such literature into India was banned. The second book had been published at the request of the Labour Research Department and no reasons for its confiscation were given to the House. Saklatvala asked "On what principle should any book published by the Communist Party be prevented from getting into India? Are the Government of India afraid of the truth being told to the people of India?" No reply to this artless query was forthcoming.
In Bardoli in the state of Gujerat, there was a re-assessment of the land tax and the peasants were suddenly required to pay a 22% increase in the tax on their land. The great majority of them could scarcely afford the existing taxes and such an increase spelled complete ruin for most of them. Gandhi took up their cause and succeeded, through his civil disobedience campaign, in having the new taxation reviewed and the increase was reduced to 5% and all the protests came to an end. Saklatvala was indignant, claiming that even the 5% increase would leave thousands of peasants in debt fo the rest of their lives. Once again he challenged Gandhi's pacific methods and wanted a more active and vigorous fight to be waged against the Government. He wrote in the Sunday Worker of 12th August, 1928, "...The settlement of the Bardoli dispute is yet another proof of the failure of Gandhi's futile passive resistance policy against a determined and ruthless imperialist power which does not hesitate to use force against the defenceless peasants......The Bardoli peasants who now have to buy back land which they never sold, and consequently cannot pay for, are not likely to be so pleased as their middle-class leaders. ......Gandhi must be aware that this settlement is going to tie up the peasants through mortgages for generations to come and I say to him frankly, and to the whole Indian people, that such tactics as they have employed are calculated to blind the eyes of the peasants and workers, and hand them over helpless to their enemies. Real organisation of the Bardoli workers could have forced the Government's hand had it been linked up with the workers in the towns. In the city of Bombay there have been 150,000 workers on strike for 17 weeks, many of them from Bardoli. Had the struggle of the Bombay textile workers been linked up with that of the Bardoli peasants, had a nation-wide agitation to support them and the other strikers elsewhere in India been started, the Government must have surrendered. ...It is only by the organisation of a workers' and peasants' party, freed from middle-class influence, that Imperialism will be fought in India and the masses liberated."
In Berlin, at a conference of the League Against Imperialism it was claimed that 5,000,000 died of starvation every year in India. Saklatvala continued to bring attention to the upheavals in India through the Press, through the League Against Imperialism, through the Workers' Welfare League of India and through the Communist Party and, of course, in the House of Commons.
Despite all the frustrations and anxieties besetting him on the distress and dangers in India, his sense of the ridiculous did not desert him. In May, some Members expressed disquiet over unseemly behaviour after dark in Hyde Park and suggested that certain by-laws were being flouted, thereby making it embarrassing to take respectable ladies in the park during the hours of darkness for fear of what they might unwittingly behold. A Member remarked that it was in no way the duty of the police to be responsible for the morals of the general public. Another Member insisted that the lighting in the Park was inadequate and should be increased. Saklatvala brought a little light into the gloom of the Debate - (no substitute of course for lights in the Park!) by saying that "what was required of the police was to make sure that any romantic behaviour on the part of some people should not be seen by respectable persons; and, in view of that fact, would not that duty be better performed by EXTINGUISHING all the lights in the Park?"
In that same month there was a Debate on estimates for the Foreign Office expenditure. At the end of a long speech, Mr Locker-Lampson said, "...The Debate this evening has been an example for us to follow in future Debates, and as near as possible to treat foreign questions from a non-controversial point of view. ......" To which Saklatvala responded, "I agree that up to now the Committee has been, more or less, like a prayer meeting, with hon. Members pronouncing mutual benedictions upon one another. I hope the Committee will allow me to carry on the usual function of discussion in my own way, without feeling offended. ..." (His allusion to the' mutual benedictions' was a jocular reference to the increasing similarities between Conservative and Labour Party policies). He said he was frankly puzzled to understand the difference between Government policy and Opposition policy on Egypt. His speech that followed was long and covered much ground in the field of Forein Policy. When he finally sat down, Sir Martin Conway rose and commented, "after the torrent of words to which we have just listened, it is difficult to turn our attention to practical matters." He certainly always managed to create a diversion in the tedium of some of the more prosaic Debates in the Chamber.
In June 1928 the Speaker of the House, the Rt. Hon. Mr J.H.Whitley, retired. The Prime Minister paid tribute to him as did several other Members from all parties. Saklatvala, being the sole representative of the Cmmunist Party in the House, made the following contribution to the tributes being paid to the retiring Speaker:-
"I hope the House will pardon me for uttering one or two sentences. I realise that in my own person I am one of the least important and most obscure Members of this House. There are circumstances which have rendered my position in this House peculiarly exceptional at times, and I have realised that, more often than the House has been a difficulty for me, I may have been a difficulty for you. I sincerely join in the expressions of opinion which we have heard, for not only have I enjoyed perfect and impartial protection at your hands but, on all those occasions when you have had to turn me down, your informative advice to me was even of greater value than the opportunity of speaking. Just one more word. The Leader of the House paid a tribute to your hospitality and the impression created by it upon the Dominion representatives. I say without exaggeration and with complete sincerity that my friends and countrymen from India who have come here and come in contact with you through the Parliamentary Association and your leadership of it, have invariably gone away with the impression however unfair it may appear to others, that in you they have met the finest gentleman of Britain; and there is not the slightest doubt that the feeling expressed today that there has been complete satisfaction with your Speakership is absolutely true without any exaggeration or exception."
His admiration and appreciation of Mr Whitley was sincere, even heartfelt, but this did not deter him from supporting an Amendment moved by Labour Member, Mr Clynes, reducing the suggested pension for the retiring Speaker from the proposed £4,000 a year, to £1,000 a year. The Amendment was supported by many Labour M.P.s who spoke of the financial hardship endured by so many of the working class in the country. Saklatvala compared the sum of £4,000 to the meagre ten shillings (50p) a week given to old age pensioners. He said the time had come when payments made to Parliamentarians who held office should be models of moderation and he contended that the time was past when Ministers and others had to vie with royalty in their private lives, but should rather live as average citizens of the country. I think there are many people today who would agree with that view.
In August 1928, Saklatvala launched an attack on the Home Secretary, claiming that he was using the machinery of the Home Office and the police force to wage a class war. The police were used to prevent Communist meetings or,if they did not prevent them, were always present. The police were always used on the side of employers in any trade dispute; they were used to harrass street traders. Private individuals whose politics were in conflict with the Conservative Party had their letters opened and their telephone calls intercepted. Saklatvala claimed that the machinery of State was being used, not to prevent criminal or dangerous acts, but to protect and further the interests of the political party of the Home Secretary and of industrialists and employers and against the interests of the working class. He cited various instances of such abuse of Home Secretary's powers. He claimed there was a lack of confidence in the police in the 70% of the population that constituted the working class. I think this view of police activity is shared by many people now who have witnessed in television newscasts police freely using their truncheons on peaceful pickets and peaceful demonstrators who have been opposing the interests either of the ruling Party of the day or of the employers. In all our history we have never seen the police used to protect the interests of the employed against the employers in any strike or confrontation - it has always, without exception, been the other way round. And yet the police force should be protecting ALL united Kingdom citizens; after all, we ALL pay for them, both employed and employers, and all are entitled to their protection. Sadly, their main object, that of reducing crime and apprehending criminals is not nearly so successful as their efforts to repress demonstrators and pickets, and crime figures soar day by day. I wonder if Robert Peel had such possibilities in mind when he first put his 'Bobbies' on the beat - I think some recent scenes at the pit-heads and some of the legal cases brought against individuals in the force for fabricating evidence and other such deviations from the honourable path of justice, would have saddened him. This is just one more instance of a great good being misused and misinterpreted, of a beneficent force being distorted and perverted by a few who use good for evil and for their own selfish desire for petty power. How wonderful it would be to see police assisting pickets and coming to their aid and support when, as members themselves of the working class, they realise that frequently the workers have right and justice on their side. Father certainly did not live to see that day and I fear that I shall not live to see it either.