S K MITTAL IRFAN HABIB towards Independence and Socialist Republic: Naujawan Bharat Sabha PART Two NO event after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre stirred the Indian people so deeply as the imposition of the all-White Simon Commission on India. It united all the live forces, parties, organizations of nationalists and revolutionaries, cutting across the ideological lines. The Naujawan Bharat Sabha did not lag behind others. It held a meeting on August 18, 1928, and urged a vigorous propaganda for the boycott of the Commission.1 But, the basis for the boycott was different in the Sabha5 s case. The Congress opposed the Commission only because no Congressman was included in it despite repeated requests. The Sabha, on the other hand, believed that "the English Government had no right to decide our fate. Who are they to send a Commission?"2 Only four days before the arrival of the Commission, the Sabha held another meeting in Lahore, on October 26, 1928, and decided to hold a demonstration when the Commission reached Lahore on October 30.3 As a matter of fact, it was the Sabha which organized the demonstration against the Commission in Lahore,4 and seeing its success Congress leaders came forward to lead the procession. One day earlier, on October 29, 1928, the Superintendent of Police, Lahore, Scott, had issued orders directing the public to abstain from organizing and joining the procession, which had not been permitted by him.6