The Trial of Bhagat Singh

Title: The Trial of Bhagat Singh – Politics of Justice

Author: Noorani A G

Publisher: Oxford University Press 2006 (First published: 1996)

ISBN: 9780195678178

Pages: 339

India’s struggle for freedom had charted along two prominent currents. The nonviolent stream was headed by Gandhi and Nehru, who was ultimately successful in reaching their goal. The violent stream had no consistent leader. It was led by various people at various times, including Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Veer Damodar Savarkar, Chandra Sekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh and a lot of other heroes. Even when the resources of the empire on which the sun never sets was at its lowest ebb in the Second World War and even when helped by the military might of the Japanese, Bose and his army could not engage the British military in a protracted struggle. It is then no wonder that individual acts of defiance like that of Azad or Bhagat Singh were brutally crushed by the government. Noorani explains the incidents that led to the trial of Bhagat Singh and how justice made way for the expediency of politics. The author extols the story of sacrifice and patriotism of the revolutionaries implicated in the Lahore Conspiracy Case. The author, Abdul Gafoor Abdul Majeed Noorani, is a prominent lawyer in the Supreme Court of India and the Bombay High Court. He has authored more than a dozen books on the partition of India, its freedom struggle and the post-partition politics. This book is at first sight a tribute to Bhagat Singh and his violent revolutionary program, but on closer examination, readers stumbles upon a devious plan. What the author really pointing to is the comparable predicament of the Punjab and Kashmir terrorists and the Indian government’s persistent and harsh measures to curb terrorism. Readers should keep this in mind throughout the book.

While Gandhi and Congress followed the path of ahimsa (nonviolence) in their struggle against the British, young revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh were not so circumspect in selecting their mode of protest. Carried over by the fabled resistance and fighting power of the proletariat as exemplified in the Russian Revolution of 1917, violence was one of the accepted practices of the Revolutionaries. In fact, they were not bothered with any compunction in opting for the ways in which their aim could fructify. Money was always in short supply, which was alleviated by nothing less than robbery! But their guiding principle was that, as far as possible, government treasure should be looted rather than that of individuals (p.16). In other words, they were not reluctant even to rob people if the need arose. This was evidenced in the dacoity at Maulina in Bihar, when an Indian landlord was shot dead and his jewelry stolen. It was the time of Simon Commission’s visit to India to finalize the constitutional reforms of the country. All native organizations opposed the Commission as it didn’t include any Indian member in its panel. Violent protests raged across the country. In Lahore, the agitation was spearheaded by Lala Lajpat Rai, a veteran Congress leader who commanded respect across party lines. Mr. J A Scott, who was the Superintendent of Lahore Police, was a white chauvinist and he used baton charging to disperse the crowd. Scott selectively got hold of Lajpat Rai and beat him up, inflicting serious injuries. Rai succumbed to his injuries a few days later. This unleashed a wave of fury in Punjab. Bhagat Singh and his associates vowed revenge for the death of Rai by assassinating Scott. The attacking party, however, lost sight of the real target and killed J P Saunders, the Assistant Superintendent of Police instead. He was only a probationer and aged just 21 years. Bhagat Singh planned and committed the attack. In the chase which ensured the shooting, they had to kill another Indian policeman, who was pursuing them. They could hoodwink the police for a few months after that and fled to Delhi. There, they planned and executed an attack on the Central Legislative Assembly, which was the Parliament in those days. They threw two crude bombs on the floor of the assembly and fired aimless shots from their revolver. This gun later proved to be the undoing of Bhagat Singh as the Police identified it as the same gun which killed Saunders by analyzing the specific marks on the bullets. The idea was to create maximum impact with minimum injury to members. Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt, who committed the assault, were nabbed by the police. While they were in custody in Delhi, Lahore Police chanced upon locating the house where their accomplices such as Sukh Dev and Raj Guru were busy with bomb making. Unable to withstand torture, five of the accused turned approvers and made a bare chest of the whole story and the alleged plot to rob a bank. Bhagat Singh was implicated in the case and he and eighteen others were put to trial before a special judge.

Being a lawyer himself, Noorani goes in great detail in giving coverage to the trial almost on a daily basis. It is asserted that the government made a travesty of justice in conducting a mock trial and finding the top accused guilty. The trial began with a special judge, but was transferred to a tribunal established by an ordinance of the Viceroy. Unable to muster a majority in the Central Legislative Assembly, the government brought forth an ordinance to constitute a tribunal of three High Court judges. The tribunal and the ordinance which put it into being had a life span of only six months. The prosecution rushed the proceedings through it to complete it within the prescribed time. Moreover, the decisions of the tribunal couldn’t be challenged on appeal in higher courts. The author brings in great eloquence to hammer home the point that the trial was politically motivated and deliberately designed to secure an easy conviction. However, if you get out of the mould of narrow patriotism and look afresh at Noorani’s arguments, it will immediately become evident that it is riddled with holes. A tribunal had to be set up because the single judge could not wade through obstacles created by the defendants. Great legal talent was employed for Bhagat Singh and his accomplices, whose hair-splitting discourse interrupted the court proceedings, sometimes on silly grounds. From the outset, Bhagat Singh and others demanded the status of political prisoners, even though they were charged with double murder. When the jail administration turned down the request, they began an indefinite fast. Starving people cannot attend the court and their counsel then brought forth a legal point that the court can’t proceed without making a note of the defendants’ plea. The text is overflowing with several such examples of the accused persons’ attempt to disrupt the smooth functioning of the court. They continued the tactic in the case of the tribunal too, but the government had foreseen their gambit and had included a proviso in the ordinance setting up the tribunal that if the defendants refuse to appear before the judicial body, it could proceed on its duty even in their absence. Subsequently, of the eighteen accused persons, Bhagat Singh, Sukh Dev and Raj Guru were sentenced to death, seven were transported for life, two were given jail terms, three were acquitted, five absconded and one met his death in hunger strike. Bhagat Singh’s execution was carried out on March 23, 1931 at Lahore Central Jail. He was only 23.

Throughout the text, Noorani trumpets the rhetoric that the nationalist leadership under Gandhi and Nehru stabbed the revolutionaries in the back. This argument is laughable. The revolutionaries were carried away by the example of violence in Russia through which the Communists gained power. They had scant regard for the national leaders, often looking at their nonviolent agitation with the utmost contempt. Besides, it seems from Noorani’s assertion that commutation of the death penalty was within Gandhi’s power had he wished so. In March 1931, Gandhi and Viceroy Irwin reached a pact for the participation of Congress in the Second Round Table Conference scheduled for later that year. The author blames Gandhi for not making commutation of the death sentence as a precondition of the pact.

When all is said and done, we wonder what the real motives of the author in writing such a book decades later, in 1996. The intention is not hard to find. Noorani equates the terrorists in Punjab and Kashmir with Bhagat Singh and his fellow revolutionaries and sets in motion a refrain that the government of independent India is carrying out a far worse miscarriage of justice than the British did. Indian government introduced an act called TADA to confront Sikh and Islamic terrorism in the 1980s. Noorani’s sympathies lie with the terrorists when he compares TADA as much more draconian than the infamous Rowlatt Act. In the first part, the author cleverly works out a sympathy wave on the fate of Bhagat Singh and towards the end of the book, treacherously shifts the sympathy towards terrorists in Punjab and Kashmir. Noorani takes great pains to show that Mohammed Ali Jinnah had made a scintillating speech in the Legislative Assembly in support of the revolutionaries, where in fact, his defense is rather ordinary. Apart from that one speech, Jinnah does not appear anywhere in the text, even though the author invokes him every now and then. Correlate this undue praise for Jinnah with the scorn heaped on Gandhi and Nehru, and you realize the true motive of the author in bringing out this book. Let us make it clear here itself. Terrorism, whoever may be its perpetrators, must be crushed ruthlessly. Bhagat Singh’s act of throwing a bomb in the Assembly was an act of terrorism. If we don’t condemn it, what right do we have in hanging Afzal Guru, who helped make a similar attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001?

Being authored by a lawyer, the book is full of legal jargon. A good part of the appendices are taken up by verbatim reproductions of statements, judgments and ordinances, which is pointless, since the content has been fully enunciated in the text. An index is provided for the content. A few photos of the major figures may have added interest to the book.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star