TRIAL
OF MAHATMA GANDHI-1922
The account of this trial is in substance taken from an admirable summary of it given by Sir Thomas Strangman in his book "Indian Courts and Characters".
In March 1922, Gandhi was tried before Mr. Broomfield, I.C.S., District & Sessions Judge of Ahmedabad, for sedition in respect of two articles, which he had written in his paper "Young India". Before that, there was acute unrest and hostility to government, mainly due to the doctrines preached by Gandhi, and his campaign of non-cooperation and civil disobedience. This had resulted in some acts of violence and bloodshed. The most recent were attacks on peaceful citizens involving much bloodshed and destruction of property by an infuriated mob in Bombay on the occasion of the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1921. Another was the inhuman burning alive of a number of policemen by a maddened mob at Chauri Chaura near Agra. Of course, Gandhi deplored and denounced these acts of violence; and even suspended the campaign for some time, himself going on fast by way of penance.
The situation was further embittered by the discontent of Mussalmans over the treatment of Turkey by the Allies after the termination of the War. The Indian Mussalmans looked upon the Sultan of Turkey as their Khaliph, and deeply resented any indignity shown to him by the European powers, including England. The Muslim masses in India were incited and inflamed by the Ali Brothers who had started the Khilafat agitation. Gandhi joined hands with the Ali Brothers in their opposition to British rule in India. According to Strangman, "The Ali Brothers were at one with Gandhi in one particular only; and that was that they desired a cessation of British rule." The Hindu-Muslim unity at this juncture was artificial and ephemeral based on no common grievance. Hindus had little to do with Muslim sentiment over the humiliation of Turkey; and the Muslim masses never wholeheartedly shared the Hindu nationalism; and ultimately by insisting on Partition betrayed the national cause so far as the unity of the country was concerned. Neither the Hindu nor the Muslim could forget past history; for history, although it may be perverted partially, cannot be altogether obliterated. "They did not share his fantastic dreams either as to the means by which that end should be attained, or the results which should ensue. The iniquity of the Turkish Treaty was one of their main planks-a matter in which the Hindu was not even remotely interested". "Naturally enough," observes Strangman in 'Indian Courts And Characters', "after a time the divergence of views as to the method of attack became apparent. To teach the militant Mohammedan to adopt the principles of non-violent non-cooperation, is to teach the lion to display the playful tricks of the lamb. The Brothers gave utterances to incitements to violence for which, at Gandhi's instance, they published an apology, as a result of which the Government refrained from prosecuting them; but it was only for a short duration. The Brothers had subsequently to be prosecuted and convicted."
On 29th September 1922, Gandhi published under his own name an article in his paper "Young India". Among the most serious features of the seditious incitements of the Ali Brothers was their attempt to tamper with the loyalty of the Indian troops. Gandhi wrote in his article that "he was not prepared for the revelation of such hopeless ignorance on the part of the Governor of Bombay. It is evident that he has not followed the course of Indian history during the past twelve months. He evidently does not know that the National Congress began to tamper with the loyalty of the sepoy in September last year; that the Central Khilafat Committee began it earlier, and that he himself began it earlier still." "I have no hesitation in saying," Gandhi proceeded, "that it is sinful for anyone, either soldiers or civilian, to serve this Government which has proved treacherous to the Mussalmans of India, and which has been guilty of the inhumanities of the Panjab. I have said this from many a platform in the presence of sepoys". "I shall not hesitate (when the time is ripe), at the peril of being shot, to ask the Indian sepoy individually to leave his service and become a weaver. For, has not the sepoy been used to hold India under subjection, has he not been used to murder innocent people at Jalianwala Bagh, has he not been used to drive away innocent men, women, and children during that dreadful night at Chandpur, has he not been used to subjugate the proud Arab of Mesopotamia, has he not been utilised to crush the Egyptian? How can any Indian having a spark of humanity in him, and any Mussalman having any pride in his religion, feel otherwise than as the Ali Brothers have done? The sepoy has been used more often as a hired assassin than as a soldier defending the liberty or the honour of the weak and the helpless."
Gandhi wrote and published another article in his paper in which he answered Lord Reading, the Viceroy, who had, in a public speech, said that he felt perplexed and puzzled by the activities of a section of the Indian community. Lord Reading had stated: "I ask myself what purpose is served by flagrant breaches of the law for the purpose of challenging the Government and in order to compel arrest?" Gandhi's answer was: "We seek arrest because the so-called freedom is slavery. We are challenging the might of this Government because we consider its activity to be wholly evil. We want to overthrow the Government. We want to compel its submission to the people's will. We desire to show that the Government exists to serve the people, not the people the Government. "In a third article, he wrote: "No empire intoxicated with the red wine of power and plunder of weaker races has yet lived long in this world, and this 'British Empire " which is based upon organised exploitation of physically weaker races of the earth, and upon a continuous exhibition of brute force, cannot live, if there is a just God ruling the universe." .
It must be admitted that in comparison with this stark and strident sedition, the veiled sedition preached by Tilak for which he was prosecuted in 1908, pales into insignificance. This was an open and avowed challenge to Government and an attempt to inflame the masses of the Indian people including the sepoys, to throw off their allegiance, and destroy the government. It was impossible for any government to ignore this sort of sedition, proceeding from a man of such power and influence as Gandhi had by that time acquired over the masses of India. Gandhi was prosecuted and committed for trial before the Sessions Judge of Ahmedabad where the paper was published. Strangman as Advocate-General of Bombay proceeded to Ahmedabad to prosecute. Gandhi defended himself. Obviously there was no defence. There was little to do for Strangman and the court; for, Gandhi admitted all the charges and more than the charges. He and his co-accused Shankarlal Banker, the printer of "Young India ", both pleaded guilty. The Advocate-General suggested that, in view of the seriousness of the charges and the desirability that they should be fully investigated, the court should proceed with the trial. The judge, however, decided to accept the plea of guilty; adding, that he would hear counsel on the question of sentences. Strangman stressed the fact that the articles were not isolated instances, but formed part of a regular campaign to spread disaffection, openly and systematically, to render Government impossible and so to overthrow it. Further, that the author was a man of high intellectual power and a recognized leader; that "Young India" was a paper enjoying a wide circulation. Lastly, that a campaign of this nature must, if unchecked, necessarily lead to happenings such as had taken place in Bombay and Chauri Chaura rioting, murder and destruction of property, involving numerous persons in misery and misfortune. "Of what value is it ? he pleaded, "to insist upon non-violence, if at the same time, you preached disaffection to the Government, holding it up as sinful and treacherous, and openly and deliberately sought and instigated others to overthrow it. "Gandhi had prepared a lengthy written statement; but before reading it, he dealt orally with what the Advocate-General had said: "I would like to state that I entirely endorse the learned Advocate-General's remarks in connection with my humble self. I think that he was entirely fair to me in all the statements that he has made, because it is very true . . .that to preach disaffection towards the existing system of Government has become almost a passion with me. The Advocate-General is also entirely right when he said that my preaching of this disaffection did not commence with my connection with "Young India" but much earlier. . . . It commenced much earlier than the period stated by the Advocate-General. I wish to endorse all the blame that the Advocate-General has thrown on my shoulders in connection with the Bombay occurrences, Madras occurrences, and the Chauri Chaura occurrences. Thinking over these things deeply. . . I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible for me to dissociate myself from the diabolical crimes of Chauri Chaura or the mad outrages of Bombay. The Advocate-General is quite right when he says that as a man of responsibility, a man having received a fair share of education and experience of this world, I should know the consequences of my acts. I knew them. I knew that I was playing with fire. I ran the risk; and if I am set free, I would still do the same. I wanted to avoid violence. Non-violence is the first article of my faith. It is the last article of my faith. But I had to make my choice. I had either to submit to a system which I considered has done an irreparable harm to my country, or incur the risk of the mad fury of my people bursting forth when they understood the truth from my lips. I know that my people have sometimes gone mad. I am deeply sorry for it; and I am, therefore, here to submit not to a light penalty but to the highest penalty. The only course open to you, Mr. Judge, is, as I am just going to say in my statement, either to resign your post or inflict on me the severest penalty."
The judge then proceeded to pronounce sentence. He said: "Mr. Gandhi, you have made my task easy in one way by pleading guilty to the charge. Nevertheless, what remains, namely the determination of a just sentence, is perhaps as difficult a proposition as a Judge in this country could have to face. The law is no respecter of persons. Nevertheless, it would be impossible to ignore the fact that you are in a different category from any person I have ever tried or am likely ever to try. It would be impossible to ignore the fact that in the eyes of millions of your countrymen you are a great patriot and a great leader; even all those who differ from you in politics look up to you as a man of high ideals and of noble and even saintly life. I have to deal with you in one character only. It is not my duty, and I do not presume to judge or criticise you in any other character. It is my duty to judge you as a man subject to the law, who has by his own admission broken the law, and committed what to an ordinary man must appear to be a grave offence against such law. I do not forget that you have consistently preached against violence, or that you have on many occasions, as I am willing to believe, done much to prevent violence.
"But having regard to the nature of your political teaching and the nature of many of those to whom it was addressed, how you can have continued to believe that violence and anarchy would not be the inevitable consequence, it passes my capacity to understand. There are probably few people in India who do not sincerely regret that you should have made it impossible for any Government to leave you at liberty. But it is so, I am trying to balance what is due to you against what appears to me to be necessary in the interest of the public; and I propose, in passing sentence, to follow the precedent of the case, in many respects similar to this case, that was decided some twelve years ago, the case of Mr. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, under the same section. The sentence that was passed upon him as it finally stood, was a sentence of simple imprisonment for six years. You will not consider it unreasonable, I think, that you should be classed with Mr. Tilak; and that is the sentence two years' simple imprisonment on each count of the charge, six years in all, which I feel it my duty to pass upon you. "The Judge added, "if the course of events in India should make it possible for Government to reduce the period and release you, nobody would be better pleased than I".
The Judge then rose. Gandhi bade goodbye to his friends. Many of them wept but he remained calm and smiling.
Strangman adds: "So ended the trial. I confess that I myself was not wholly unaffected by the atmosphere."
This trial is remarkable not only for the personality of the principal accused, but for the calm dignity and utter absence of any acrimony, conflict or denunciation on the part of either the accused, the judge or the prosecuting counsel. In spite of the intense excitement prevailing in the public, there were no untoward incidents marring the proceedings, no note of jubilation or indignation but only of subdued sadness on all sides. There was not much of a trial; but so far as it went, it was absolutely fair. The address of the Advocate-General, although he had to deal with a case of flagrant sedition, was marked by exemplary fairness and restraint. It is almost the only political trial in the history of Indian unrest which reflects credit on all parties concerned. It stands out in clear and wholesome contrast to the previous trial referred to by the judge. This kind of calmness, fairness, restraint and moderation, is all the more remarkable when we consider the nature of the sedition which provoked the prosecution, the personality of the accused, and the prevailing political atmosphere.
From
the standpoint of the Government, the situation was peculiarly difficult and
dangerous. Not only the Hindus under the inspiration of the Mahatma, but
the Mussalman masses incited by the Ali Brothers, were in a turmoil of excitement
and agitation. Counsel for the Government would have been justified, in
such an atmosphere and such a case, to indulge in strong denunciation of the
sedition charged and admitted. The trial is memorable not so much for its
political importance, as for the appositeness, and the felicity and fairness of
the speeches of the three principal actors in the drama.
Great credit is due to the two Englishmen who, in the face of what, from their standpoint, was a wanton, vehement, virulent and venomous denunciation of their Imperial history, and a gross perversion (as they believed) of the benevolent role of British rule in India, maintained a fair and calm attitude throughout. The address of the judge to Gandhi while passing sentence stands out in notable contrast to the ill advised and utterly uncalled for remarks of his predecessor in the Tilak trial in 1909. All the three speeches on the occasion of this trial of Gandhi, viz., of the Advocate-General, the judge, and of Gandhi himself, are models of moderation, mutual respect, and felicity of expression.
FAMOUS SPEECH OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Sir J. T. Strangman, Advocate-General, with Rao Bahadur Girdharlal
Uttamram, Public Prosecutor of Ahmedabad, appeared for the Crown. Mr. A. C.
Wild, Remembrancer of Legal Affairs, was also present. Mahatma Gandhi and Shri
Shankarlal Banker were undefended.
Among the members of the public who were present on the occasion were : Kasturba Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu, Pandit M. M. Malaviya, Shri N. C. Kelkar, Smt. J. B. Petit, and Smt. Anasuyaben Sarabhai.
The Judge, who took his seat at 12 noon, said that there was slight mistake in the charges were then read out by the Registrar. These charges were of “bringing or attempting to excite disaffection towards His Majesty’s Government established by law in British India, and thereby committing offences punishable under Section 124 A of the Indian Penal Code,” the offences being in three articles published in Young India of September 29 and December 15 of 1921, and February 23 of 1922. The offending articles were then read out : first of them was, “Tampering with Loyalty”; and second, “The Puzzle and its Solution”, and the last was “Shaking the Manes”.
The Judge said that the law required that the charges should not be read out but explained. In this case it would not be necessary for him to say much by way of explanation. The charge in each case was that of bringing or attempting to excite into hatred or contempt or exciting or attempting to excite disaffection towards His Majesty’s Government, established by law in British India. Both the accused were charged with the three offences under Section 124 A, contained in the articles read out, written by Mahatma Gandhi and printed by Shri Banker.
The charges having been read out, the Judge called upon the accused to plead to the charges. He asked Gandhiji whether he pleaded guilty or claimed to be tried.
Gandhiji said : “I plead guilty to all the charges. I observe that the King’s name has been omitted from the charge, and it has been properly omitted.”]
The Judge asked Shri banker the same question and he too readily pleaded guilty.
The Judge wished to give his verdict immediately after Gandhiji had pleaded guilty, but Sir Strangman insisted that the procedure should be carried out in full. The Advocate-General requested the Judge to take into account “the occurrences in Bombay, Malabar and Chauri Chaura, leading to rioting and murder”. He admitted, indeed, that “in these articles you find that non-violence is insisted upon as an item of the campaign and of the creed,” but the added “of what value is it to insist on non-violence, if incessantly you preach disaffection towards the Government and hold it up as a treacherous Government, and if you openly and deliberately seek to instigate others to overthrow it?” These were the circumstances which he asked the Judge to take into account in passing sentence on the accused.
As regards Shri Banker, the second accused, the offence was lesser. He did the publication but did not write. Sir Strangman’s instructions were that Shri Banker was a man of means and he requested the court to impose a substantial fine in addition to such term of imprisonment as might be inflicted upon.
Court : Mr. Gandhi, do you wish to make any statement on the question of sentence?
Gandhiji : I would like to make a statement.
Court : Could you give me in writing to put it on record?
Gandhiji : I shall give it as soon as I finish it.
[Gandhiji then made the following oral statement followed by a written statement that he read.]
Before I read this statement I would like to state that I entirely endorse the learned Advocate-General’s remarks in connection with my humble self. I think that he has made, because it is very true and I have no desire whatsoever to conceal from this court the fact that to preach disaffection towards the existing system of Government has become almost a passion with me, and the Advocate-General is entirely in the right when he says that my preaching of disaffection did not commence with my connection with Young India but that it commenced much earlier, and in the statement that I am about to read, it will be my painful duty to admit before this court that it commenced much earlier than the period stated by the Advocate-General. It is a painful duty with me but I have to discharge that duty knowing the responsibility that rests upon my shoulders, and I wish to endorse all the blame that the learned Advocate-General has thrown on my shoulders in connection with the Bombay occurrences, Madras occurrences and the Chauri Chuara occurrences. Thinking over these things deeply and sleeping over them night after night, it is impossible for me to dissociate myself from the diabolical crimes of Chauri Chaura or the mad outrages of Bombay. He is quite right when he says, that as a man of responsibility, a man having received a fair share of education, having had a fair share of experience of this world, I should have known the consequences of every one of my acts. I know them. I knew that I was playing with fire. I ran the risk and if I was set free I would still do the same. I have felt it this morning that I would have failed in my duty, if I did not say what I said here just now.
I wanted to avoid violence. Non-violence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed. But I had to make my choice. I had either to submit to a system which I considered had done an irreparable harm to my country, or incur the risk of the mad fury of my people bursting forth when they understood the truth from my lips. I know that my people have sometimes gone mad. I am deeply sorry for it and I am, therefore, here to submit not to a light penalty but to the highest penalty. I do not ask for mercy. I do not plead any extenating act. I am here, therefore, to invite and cheerfully submit to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime, and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The only course open to you, the Judge, is, as I am going to say in my statement, either to resign your post, or inflict on me the severest penalty if you believe that the system and law you are assisting to administer are good for the people. I do not except that kind of conversion. But by the time I have finished with my statement you will have a glimpse of what is raging within my breast to run this maddest risk which a sane man can run.
[He then read out the written statement : ] I owe it perhaps to the Indian public and to the public in England, to placate which this prosecution is mainly taken up, that I should explain why from a staunch loyalist and co-operator, I have become an uncompromising disaffectionist and non-co-operator. To the court too I should say why I plead guilty to the charge of promoting disaffection towards the Government established by law in India.
My public life began in 1893 in South Africa in troubled weather. My first contact with British authority in that country was not of a happy character. I discovered that as a man and an Indian, I had no rights. More correctly I discovered that I had no rights as a man because I was an Indian.
But I was not baffled. I thought that this treatment of Indians was an excrescence upon a system that was intrinsically and mainly good. I gave the Government my voluntary and hearty co-operation, criticizing it freely where I felt it was faulty but never wishing its destruction.
Consequently when the existence of the Empire was threatened in 1899 by the Boer challenge, I offered my services to it, raised a volunteer ambulance corps and served at several actions that took place for the relief of Ladysmith. Similarly in 1906, at the time of the Zulu ‘revolt’, I raised a stretcher bearer party and served till the end of the ‘rebellion’. On both the occasions I received medals and was even mentioned in dispatches. For my work in South Africa I was given by Lord Hardinge a Kaisar-i-Hind gold medal. When the war broke out in 1914 between England and Germany, I raised a volunteer ambulance cars in London, consisting of the then resident Indians in London, chiefly students. Its work was acknowledge by the authorities to be valuable. Lastly, in India when a special appeal was made at the war Conference in Delhi in 1918 by Lord Chelmsford for recruits, I struggled at the cost of my health to raise a corps in Kheda, and the response was being made when the hostilities ceased and orders were received that no more recruits were wanted. In all these efforts at service, I was actuated by the belief that it was possible by such services to gain a status of full equality in the Empire for my countrymen.
The first shock came in the shape of the Rowlatt Act-a law designed to rob the people of all real freedom. I felt called upon to lead an intensive agitation against it. Then followed the Punjab horrors beginning with the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh and culminating in crawling orders, public flogging and other indescribable humiliations. I discovered too that the plighted word of the Prime Minister to the Mussalmans of India regarding the integrity of Turkey and the holy places of Islam was not likely to be fulfilled. But in spite of the forebodings and the grave warnings of friends, at the Amritsar Congress in 1919, I fought for co-operation and working of the Montagu-Chemlmsford reforms, hoping that the Prime Minister would redeem his promise to the Indian Mussalmans, that the Punjab wound would be healed, and that the reforms, inadequate and unsatisfactory though they were, marked a new era of hope in the life of India.
But all that hope was shattered. The Khilafat promise was not to be redeemed. The Punjab crime was whitewashed and most culprits went not only unpunished but remained in service, and some continued to draw pensions from the Indian revenue and in some cases were even rewarded. I saw too that not only did the reforms not mark a change of heart, but they were only a method of further raining India of her wealth and of prolonging her servitude.
I came reluctantly to the conclusion that the British connection had made India more helpless than she ever was before, politically and economically. A disarmed India has no power of resistance against any aggressor if she wanted to engage, in an armed conflict with him. So much is this the case that some of our best men consider that India must take generations, before she can achieve Dominion Status. She has become so poor that she has little power of resisting famines. Before the British advent India spun and wove in her millions of cottages, just the supplement she needed for adding to her meagre agricultural resources. This cottage industry, so vital for India’s existence, has been ruined by incredibly heartless and inhuman processes as described by English witness. Little do town dwellers how the semi-starved masses of India are slowly sinking to lifelessness. Little do they know that their miserable comfort represents the brokerage they get for their work they do for the foreign exploiter, that the profits and the brokerage are sucked from the masses. Little do realize that the Government established by law in British India is carried on for this exploitation of the masses. No sophistry, no jugglery in figures, can explain away the evidence that the skeletons in many villages present to the naked eye. I have no doubt whatsoever that both England and the town dweller of India will have to answer, if there is a God above, for this crime against humanity, which is perhaps unequalled in history. The law itself in this country has been used to serve the foreign exploiter. My unbiased examination of the Punjab Marital Law cases has led me to believe that at least ninety-five per cent of convictions were wholly bad. My experience of political cases in India leads me to the conclusion, in nine out of every ten, the condemned men were totally innocent. Their crime consisted in the love of their country. In ninety-nine cases out of hundred, justice has been denied to Indians as against Europeans in the courts of India. This is not an exaggerated picture. It is the experience of almost every Indian who has had anything to do with such cases. In my opinion, the administration of the law is thus prostituted, consciously or unconsciously, for the benefit of the exploiter.
The greater misfortune is that the Englishmen and their Indian associates in the administration of the country do not know that they are engaged in the crime I have attempted to describe. I am satisfied that many Englishmen and Indian officials honestly systems devised in the world, and that India is making steady, though, slow progress. They do not know, a subtle but effective system of terrorism and an organized display of force on the one hand, and the deprivation of all powers of retaliation or self-defense on the other, as emasculated the people and induced in them the habit of simulation. This awful habit has added to the ignorance and the self-deception of the administrators. Section 124 A, under which I am happily charged, is perhaps the prince among the political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen. Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law. If one has no affection for a person or system, one should be free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection, so long as he does not contemplate, promote, or incite to violence. But the section under which mere promotion of disaffection is a crime. I have studied some of the cases tried under it; I know that some of the most loved of India’s patriots have been convicted under it. I consider it a privilege, therefore, to be charged under that section. I have endeavored to give in their briefest outline the reasons for my disaffection. I have no personal ill-will against any single administrator, much less can I have any disaffection towards the King’s person. But I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected towards a Government which in its totality has done more harm to India than any previous system. India is less manly under the British rule than she ever was before. Holding such a belief, I consider it to be a sin to have affection for the system. And it has been a precious privilege for me to be able to write what I have in the various articles tendered in evidence against me.
In fact, I believe that I have rendered a service to India and England by showing in non-co-operation the way out of the unnatural state in which both are living. In my opinion, non-co-operation with evil is as much a duty as is co-operation with good. But in the past, non-co-operation has been deliberately expressed in violence to the evil-doer. I am endeavoring to show to my countrymen that violent non-co-operation only multiples evil, and that as evil can only be sustained by violence, withdrawal of support of evil requires complete abstention from violence. Non-violence implies voluntary submission to the penalty for non-co-operation with evil. I am here, therefore, to invite and submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is deliberate crime, and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The only course open to you, the Judge and the assessors, is either to resign your posts and thus dissociate yourselves from evil, if you feel that the law you are called upon to administer is an evil, and that in reality I am innocent, or to inflict on me the severest penalty, if you believe that the system and the law you are assisting to administer are good for the people of this country, and that my activity is, therefore, injurious to the common weal.
Among the members of the public who were present on the occasion were : Kasturba Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu, Pandit M. M. Malaviya, Shri N. C. Kelkar, Smt. J. B. Petit, and Smt. Anasuyaben Sarabhai.
The Judge, who took his seat at 12 noon, said that there was slight mistake in the charges were then read out by the Registrar. These charges were of “bringing or attempting to excite disaffection towards His Majesty’s Government established by law in British India, and thereby committing offences punishable under Section 124 A of the Indian Penal Code,” the offences being in three articles published in Young India of September 29 and December 15 of 1921, and February 23 of 1922. The offending articles were then read out : first of them was, “Tampering with Loyalty”; and second, “The Puzzle and its Solution”, and the last was “Shaking the Manes”.
The Judge said that the law required that the charges should not be read out but explained. In this case it would not be necessary for him to say much by way of explanation. The charge in each case was that of bringing or attempting to excite into hatred or contempt or exciting or attempting to excite disaffection towards His Majesty’s Government, established by law in British India. Both the accused were charged with the three offences under Section 124 A, contained in the articles read out, written by Mahatma Gandhi and printed by Shri Banker.
The charges having been read out, the Judge called upon the accused to plead to the charges. He asked Gandhiji whether he pleaded guilty or claimed to be tried.
Gandhiji said : “I plead guilty to all the charges. I observe that the King’s name has been omitted from the charge, and it has been properly omitted.”]
The Judge asked Shri banker the same question and he too readily pleaded guilty.
The Judge wished to give his verdict immediately after Gandhiji had pleaded guilty, but Sir Strangman insisted that the procedure should be carried out in full. The Advocate-General requested the Judge to take into account “the occurrences in Bombay, Malabar and Chauri Chaura, leading to rioting and murder”. He admitted, indeed, that “in these articles you find that non-violence is insisted upon as an item of the campaign and of the creed,” but the added “of what value is it to insist on non-violence, if incessantly you preach disaffection towards the Government and hold it up as a treacherous Government, and if you openly and deliberately seek to instigate others to overthrow it?” These were the circumstances which he asked the Judge to take into account in passing sentence on the accused.
As regards Shri Banker, the second accused, the offence was lesser. He did the publication but did not write. Sir Strangman’s instructions were that Shri Banker was a man of means and he requested the court to impose a substantial fine in addition to such term of imprisonment as might be inflicted upon.
Court : Mr. Gandhi, do you wish to make any statement on the question of sentence?
Gandhiji : I would like to make a statement.
Court : Could you give me in writing to put it on record?
Gandhiji : I shall give it as soon as I finish it.
[Gandhiji then made the following oral statement followed by a written statement that he read.]
Before I read this statement I would like to state that I entirely endorse the learned Advocate-General’s remarks in connection with my humble self. I think that he has made, because it is very true and I have no desire whatsoever to conceal from this court the fact that to preach disaffection towards the existing system of Government has become almost a passion with me, and the Advocate-General is entirely in the right when he says that my preaching of disaffection did not commence with my connection with Young India but that it commenced much earlier, and in the statement that I am about to read, it will be my painful duty to admit before this court that it commenced much earlier than the period stated by the Advocate-General. It is a painful duty with me but I have to discharge that duty knowing the responsibility that rests upon my shoulders, and I wish to endorse all the blame that the learned Advocate-General has thrown on my shoulders in connection with the Bombay occurrences, Madras occurrences and the Chauri Chuara occurrences. Thinking over these things deeply and sleeping over them night after night, it is impossible for me to dissociate myself from the diabolical crimes of Chauri Chaura or the mad outrages of Bombay. He is quite right when he says, that as a man of responsibility, a man having received a fair share of education, having had a fair share of experience of this world, I should have known the consequences of every one of my acts. I know them. I knew that I was playing with fire. I ran the risk and if I was set free I would still do the same. I have felt it this morning that I would have failed in my duty, if I did not say what I said here just now.
I wanted to avoid violence. Non-violence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed. But I had to make my choice. I had either to submit to a system which I considered had done an irreparable harm to my country, or incur the risk of the mad fury of my people bursting forth when they understood the truth from my lips. I know that my people have sometimes gone mad. I am deeply sorry for it and I am, therefore, here to submit not to a light penalty but to the highest penalty. I do not ask for mercy. I do not plead any extenating act. I am here, therefore, to invite and cheerfully submit to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime, and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The only course open to you, the Judge, is, as I am going to say in my statement, either to resign your post, or inflict on me the severest penalty if you believe that the system and law you are assisting to administer are good for the people. I do not except that kind of conversion. But by the time I have finished with my statement you will have a glimpse of what is raging within my breast to run this maddest risk which a sane man can run.
[He then read out the written statement : ] I owe it perhaps to the Indian public and to the public in England, to placate which this prosecution is mainly taken up, that I should explain why from a staunch loyalist and co-operator, I have become an uncompromising disaffectionist and non-co-operator. To the court too I should say why I plead guilty to the charge of promoting disaffection towards the Government established by law in India.
My public life began in 1893 in South Africa in troubled weather. My first contact with British authority in that country was not of a happy character. I discovered that as a man and an Indian, I had no rights. More correctly I discovered that I had no rights as a man because I was an Indian.
But I was not baffled. I thought that this treatment of Indians was an excrescence upon a system that was intrinsically and mainly good. I gave the Government my voluntary and hearty co-operation, criticizing it freely where I felt it was faulty but never wishing its destruction.
Consequently when the existence of the Empire was threatened in 1899 by the Boer challenge, I offered my services to it, raised a volunteer ambulance corps and served at several actions that took place for the relief of Ladysmith. Similarly in 1906, at the time of the Zulu ‘revolt’, I raised a stretcher bearer party and served till the end of the ‘rebellion’. On both the occasions I received medals and was even mentioned in dispatches. For my work in South Africa I was given by Lord Hardinge a Kaisar-i-Hind gold medal. When the war broke out in 1914 between England and Germany, I raised a volunteer ambulance cars in London, consisting of the then resident Indians in London, chiefly students. Its work was acknowledge by the authorities to be valuable. Lastly, in India when a special appeal was made at the war Conference in Delhi in 1918 by Lord Chelmsford for recruits, I struggled at the cost of my health to raise a corps in Kheda, and the response was being made when the hostilities ceased and orders were received that no more recruits were wanted. In all these efforts at service, I was actuated by the belief that it was possible by such services to gain a status of full equality in the Empire for my countrymen.
The first shock came in the shape of the Rowlatt Act-a law designed to rob the people of all real freedom. I felt called upon to lead an intensive agitation against it. Then followed the Punjab horrors beginning with the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh and culminating in crawling orders, public flogging and other indescribable humiliations. I discovered too that the plighted word of the Prime Minister to the Mussalmans of India regarding the integrity of Turkey and the holy places of Islam was not likely to be fulfilled. But in spite of the forebodings and the grave warnings of friends, at the Amritsar Congress in 1919, I fought for co-operation and working of the Montagu-Chemlmsford reforms, hoping that the Prime Minister would redeem his promise to the Indian Mussalmans, that the Punjab wound would be healed, and that the reforms, inadequate and unsatisfactory though they were, marked a new era of hope in the life of India.
But all that hope was shattered. The Khilafat promise was not to be redeemed. The Punjab crime was whitewashed and most culprits went not only unpunished but remained in service, and some continued to draw pensions from the Indian revenue and in some cases were even rewarded. I saw too that not only did the reforms not mark a change of heart, but they were only a method of further raining India of her wealth and of prolonging her servitude.
I came reluctantly to the conclusion that the British connection had made India more helpless than she ever was before, politically and economically. A disarmed India has no power of resistance against any aggressor if she wanted to engage, in an armed conflict with him. So much is this the case that some of our best men consider that India must take generations, before she can achieve Dominion Status. She has become so poor that she has little power of resisting famines. Before the British advent India spun and wove in her millions of cottages, just the supplement she needed for adding to her meagre agricultural resources. This cottage industry, so vital for India’s existence, has been ruined by incredibly heartless and inhuman processes as described by English witness. Little do town dwellers how the semi-starved masses of India are slowly sinking to lifelessness. Little do they know that their miserable comfort represents the brokerage they get for their work they do for the foreign exploiter, that the profits and the brokerage are sucked from the masses. Little do realize that the Government established by law in British India is carried on for this exploitation of the masses. No sophistry, no jugglery in figures, can explain away the evidence that the skeletons in many villages present to the naked eye. I have no doubt whatsoever that both England and the town dweller of India will have to answer, if there is a God above, for this crime against humanity, which is perhaps unequalled in history. The law itself in this country has been used to serve the foreign exploiter. My unbiased examination of the Punjab Marital Law cases has led me to believe that at least ninety-five per cent of convictions were wholly bad. My experience of political cases in India leads me to the conclusion, in nine out of every ten, the condemned men were totally innocent. Their crime consisted in the love of their country. In ninety-nine cases out of hundred, justice has been denied to Indians as against Europeans in the courts of India. This is not an exaggerated picture. It is the experience of almost every Indian who has had anything to do with such cases. In my opinion, the administration of the law is thus prostituted, consciously or unconsciously, for the benefit of the exploiter.
The greater misfortune is that the Englishmen and their Indian associates in the administration of the country do not know that they are engaged in the crime I have attempted to describe. I am satisfied that many Englishmen and Indian officials honestly systems devised in the world, and that India is making steady, though, slow progress. They do not know, a subtle but effective system of terrorism and an organized display of force on the one hand, and the deprivation of all powers of retaliation or self-defense on the other, as emasculated the people and induced in them the habit of simulation. This awful habit has added to the ignorance and the self-deception of the administrators. Section 124 A, under which I am happily charged, is perhaps the prince among the political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen. Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law. If one has no affection for a person or system, one should be free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection, so long as he does not contemplate, promote, or incite to violence. But the section under which mere promotion of disaffection is a crime. I have studied some of the cases tried under it; I know that some of the most loved of India’s patriots have been convicted under it. I consider it a privilege, therefore, to be charged under that section. I have endeavored to give in their briefest outline the reasons for my disaffection. I have no personal ill-will against any single administrator, much less can I have any disaffection towards the King’s person. But I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected towards a Government which in its totality has done more harm to India than any previous system. India is less manly under the British rule than she ever was before. Holding such a belief, I consider it to be a sin to have affection for the system. And it has been a precious privilege for me to be able to write what I have in the various articles tendered in evidence against me.
In fact, I believe that I have rendered a service to India and England by showing in non-co-operation the way out of the unnatural state in which both are living. In my opinion, non-co-operation with evil is as much a duty as is co-operation with good. But in the past, non-co-operation has been deliberately expressed in violence to the evil-doer. I am endeavoring to show to my countrymen that violent non-co-operation only multiples evil, and that as evil can only be sustained by violence, withdrawal of support of evil requires complete abstention from violence. Non-violence implies voluntary submission to the penalty for non-co-operation with evil. I am here, therefore, to invite and submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is deliberate crime, and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The only course open to you, the Judge and the assessors, is either to resign your posts and thus dissociate yourselves from evil, if you feel that the law you are called upon to administer is an evil, and that in reality I am innocent, or to inflict on me the severest penalty, if you believe that the system and the law you are assisting to administer are good for the people of this country, and that my activity is, therefore, injurious to the common weal.
