Issues of free speech continued to be important after the grant of provincial autonomy (in keeping with the Government of India Act of 1935) and the formation of elected Congress ministries in seven out of eleven provinces of British India in 1937. In the words of historian Sunil Chander, Congress ministries had to perform a ‘delicate manoeuvre’: ‘to combat the [political] militants, they required the support of the authorities and to challenge the Raj, they required the support of the militants’. While performing this balancing act they also had to be ‘seen as being uncompromisingly nationalist’.

In late December 1937, the (now Congress-run) UP government issued a statement warning political activists not to use ‘irresponsible language’. A newspaper that supported this decision commented that it could ‘understand the embarrassment of a Government which in the interests of law and order feels compelled to enforce a law which it has been all along the pride of its members to violate and disobey’. Noting the growing indiscipline among party members, and the increasing ‘spirit of license’ manifesting itself in violent speech and action, the article continued:

Reading this newspaper's comment against the grain, it is clear that tendencies that were tolerated or encouraged by the Congress-as-opposition returned to haunt the Congress-as-government.