after the murders of Rand and Ayerst he sanctioned the election of Mr. Tilak to the Legislative Council. But "the unreasoning panic into which the Anglo-Indian community was driven by such malicious attacks and its unfortunate success in inflaming the English people, forced the hands of the Secretary of State and Lord Sandhurst had to take measures which, it is beheved, he would never have sanctioned, if he had remained a free agent.*[1]"
So excited were the feelings of the Anglo-Indian community that even "on the brink of a gaping grave giving a peep into the eternity" "the pride of the Europeans left no room in their hearts for better emotions" and persons like Dr. Cawasji Jehangir, once Sheriff of Bombay, were on the occassion of Mr. Rand's burial insulted and refused admission by the police at the cemetery. A Parsi lady who had attended the cemetery for the purpose of putting a wreath on the coffin of Mr. Rand was also not admitted. The threatening speech of Mr. Lamb, the then Collector of Poona, foretelling that people would "find themselves undergoing an experience to which they had not been accustomed" was another straw indicative of the direction of the wind. A punitive police was imposed on the Poona Municipality. Prof. Gokhale, immediately on his return from England and while yet ashore, had to concede "the best part of his attention" to the head of the Bombay Police—the result being a humiliating apology tendered by him to Lord Sandhurst, the Plague Committee and the British Soldiers. Mr. Tilak as the
- ↑ * Sir Sankaran Nair's Presidential speech at the Congress 1897).
