Savarkar

by Vikram Sampath

  During the resumption of hearings on 2 June 1910, the counsel for the prosecution, Sir Rufus Isaacs, quoted copiously from Vinayak’s speeches in India. Vinayak’s allusions to ‘Shivaji Maharaj, that great patriot who delivered the land of Bharat from the yoke of foreigners’ 49 was referred to. At this, Lord Alverstone wryly noted that mere discussion of independence could not be construed as sedition. Isaacs argued that Vinayak’s speeches were not merely discussions but a call to arms as he had once told his audiences in India before his departure to England: ‘Every one should, while sitting, talking, sleeping, nay, even when winking, remember “Swadeshi Bhakti ” that is, devotion to one’s country . . . You are all slaves like myself . . . When we have determined to overthrow the Government we want weapons.’ 50

  Isaacs invoked Chaturbhuj Amin’s testimony, the activities at India House, the import of Browning pistols and the ‘Bomb Manual’, and their delivery to India. All of this showed that while in England, Vinayak had been found guilty of certain acts, which, in law, constituted an offence in India as well as in England. These were sufficient to legitimately extradite Vinayak as per Section 2 of the FOA. 51

  Waiting eagerly for Isaacs to quote this section of the Act, Powell immediately stood up with his objections. The Section 2 of the Act was valid only when the person in question was a fugitive in the eyes of the law. But Vinayak had not run away from India; he was in England as a legitimate student on scholarship. ‘Am I a fugitive if I leave my Chambers in Temple to go to my home, or to leave this Court to go to the Court of Appeal?’ asked Powell to peals of laughter among everyone in the courtroom. 52

  Isaacs did not fare well by quoting Section 2 of the Act as the judge was not convinced by the argument. He then turned to Section 33 of the same FOA. 53 This seemed to cover the offences that Vinayak had allegedly committed. The reason why a lawyer as shrewd and skilful as Isaacs did not invoke Section 33 in the first instance was that this was meant to be applied in conjunction with Section 10 of the FOA, while Section 2 remained independent. 54 Section 10 allowed the accused some freedom to avail any benefit of doubt that could arise due to frivolous charges made due to the lack of complete knowledge or distance from the country of offence and the general absence of facilities of communications. In such cases, the accused could be tried in the country where he was caught, and was also eligible for bail or complete discharge if the court decided so in its wisdom.

  It was now Vinayak’s turn to convince the court that the Indian government had not issued the warrant in good faith, because it had taken them four years to realize the so-called seditious character of his speeches delivered back in India in 1906. Had he been tried then, he would have been entitled to a legal trial, including a jury, the right to which had now been suspended.

  When the court resumed on 4 June 1910, Lord Chief Justice Alverstone ruled in favour of the prosecution’s case to extradite Vinayak under Section 33 of the FOA. He referred to the rulings of de Rutzen and the warrant of Montgomerie, the Nashik special magistrate, and that they had arrived in favour of invoking the FOA. He expressed satisfaction that the evidence was sufficient enough ‘to raise a strong or probable presumption that the applicant [Vinayak] had committed the offence mentioned’. 55 Powell continued to argue that extradition to India meant Vinayak would face a panel of judges and not a jury. This would be ‘unjust’ and ‘oppressive’ to him. The court agreed. Seizing on this, Powell said that in such a scenario the case falls. This was because an invocation of the Act automatically also brought to his client the opportunity to avail of Section 10 of the same Act, which mentioned that in the event of an unjust or oppressive nature of trial, the scales tilt in the accused’s favour. Lord Alverstone dismissed the objections of the defence.

  Justice Coleridge initially struck a dissenting note and did not agree with the ruling. He cynically scoffed that ‘Savarkar’s witnesses would appear neither in India nor England’. 56 This possibly implied that the witnesses were being threatened to testify against Vinayak, even as a government witness (he possibly meant Rama Rao) had been pardoned for turning traitor. But eventually Coleridge believed it best not to let his personal opinion weigh in on the matter in deference to the majority view of the other two justices.

  Vinayak’s lawyers appealed against the decision yet again before the Court of Appeal. It comprised three judges—Lord Justice Vaughan Williams, Lord Justice Fletcher Moulton and Lord Justice Buckley. The proceedings began on 17 June 1910. Isaacs objected to the very right of appeal afforded to Vinayak, given that it was a criminal case. 57 The following day, Justice Vaughan Williams ruled in favour of the prosecution, though he agreed to hear Vinayak’s original motion. Accordingly, on 21 June 1910, Powell argued that Vinayak was first of all not a fugitive, and that extraditing him to India constituted both an unjust and an oppressive action as per the FOA itself, since he would then have to depose before a panel of judges and not a jury. Powell concluded his motion that ‘in the interests of justice the applicant should be tried in this country, where he would be able to call evidence in his defence which might not otherwise be available’. 58

  Despite the case built by Vinayak’s lawyers, on the ambiguous and farcical use of the same Act that was being invoked to extradite him to India, Justice Vaughan Williams refused to take note. He decried: ‘In my opinion the connexion [sic] of the charges with seditious acts in India and the fact that nearly all the witnesses to be called are in India is prima facie a sufficient ground for sending the prisoner to India to be tried.’ 59 At the same time he also seemed to agree with Powell’s argument that the case did merit a trial in London given that Vinayak had lived there long enough. But he did not want to displease the King’s Bench Division.

  Vinayak’s supporters like Guy Aldred vehemently opposed the judgment, claiming that his return to India was both a legal as well as a moral outrage. Aldred argued in his article in the Herald of Revolt that as per Section 10 of the FOA, Vinayak should have been allowed to undergo trial in London itself. He argued that the witness who would ‘be required to prove that he did not give the Browning pistols to the person who had stated this against him had less to fear from appearing in London than from appearing in India, where no fair trial could be secured’. 60 Making a passionate plea for Vinayak, Aldred wrote:

  Even if Savarkar’s witnesses would have appeared neither in England nor India, his return to India was unjust and oppressive, because in England he would have been entitled to give evidence on his own behalf, whereas in India under the Act of 1908, he was not. The Divisional and Appeal Judges held that it would ‘be a very, very grave responsibility’ to take upon themselves to assume that the negation of this right was unjust or oppressive. In other words, in order to secure Savarkar’s return to India, the English judges practically denied that the law substantive involved the law adjective, or that there was a definite relation between law and the forms of procedure, and between these again and mode of evidence or testimony. We assert that the experience of mankind, the history of jurisprudence, and the claims of these judges on other occasions, give the lie to this monstrous cant . . . further objections raised by Savarkar, namely, that he would be tried by three judges instead of a jury as in England, and be able to appeal to no Court of Appeal. The ruling that held these differences of trial were not unjust and oppressive reduces our legal pretensions and traditions to a farce, and abolishes all the laws of evidence and well-established principles of jurisprudence. 61

  Back in India, a Special Tribunal was being formed to undertake the ‘Savarkar Trial’, which meant, as mentioned earlier, that there would be no jury and there could be no appeal against its findings. This was according to the provisions of the Indian Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1908. Under this new statute some of the rights of the citizen are deliberately suspended.

  Even as the trial was coming to an end in England, David Garnett met Vinayak one morning, around the end of June 1910, at Brixton prison. He waited until the warder walking up and down the
corridor was out of earshot and asked Vinayak why he was not trying to think of a means of escape. He offered to help with a plan he had in mind. Vinayak replied that he had been thinking about it too, but had decided that there might be more opportunities and chances of success on his way back to India. But if Garnett had any plan he would be glad to work on it. Garnett asked him about his daily prison routine in detail. He was taken every week to Bow Street for formalities of a remand, always in a taxi and not in a Black Maria. He was accompanied by one or two detectives. His weekly trip to Bow Street had become a routine and that too within two or three minutes of the same time each week.

  Garnett planned that Vinayak had to be rescued at the prison gates or within a few yards of it. A watcher was to note when the taxi that was to take him to Bow Street drove up. A car would then drive up to the prison with supposed visitors, who would overpower the detective(s) and Vinayak would jump into the car and drive away. There would not be much time for help to arrive from inside the prison, owing to the routine of the two gates. Of course, the rescuers would not seek to avoid arrest or to escape. Garnett arranged an Irish revolutionary named Harold to drive the car and another, Mrs Dryhurst to arrange members of the Sinn Fein movement 62 of Irish revolutionaries who were in London to rescue Vinayak. The rescuers were to be armed with bags of pepper. A woman’s disguise consisting of mooring hats and veils, usually worn by women motorists those days, was also kept in the car along with a cloak for the rescuers. Guy Aldred went to Paris and brought the rescuers who were glad to be imprisoned if it meant releasing Vinayak. When Garnett went to Vinayak with this elaborate plan, he told him:

  It does not matter whether one wins or is defeated, whether one succeeds or fails. Care nothing about the result so long as you fight. The only thing that matters is the spirit. You have done wonderfully and there was no reason why you should have done anything at all. Do not worry about me, I shall escape somehow. I have a plan worked out already, in case your plans failed. 63

  On the planned day, a taxi passed by with a detective and the rescuers managed to waylay it. But sadly for everyone, Vinayak was not inside it. He had already been taken to court for the final judgment where he was handed over in handcuffs to two detectives sent from India. Garnett, Aldred and several Irish and French revolutionaries’ daring attempt to free their Indian comrade thus failed because someone had obviously leaked the plan to the police. It was now a matter of time before Vinayak was extradited to India.

  In June 1906, Vinayak had arrived in England with a mission in mind. Four years later, in the very month of June, he was leaving that country. Despite the gloom that his followers and friends faced at the imminent sentence he was to receive back home, Vinayak himself was calm and composed. He seemed resigned and prepared for the inevitable, evident in the letter he wrote to Aiyar, addressing him as ‘Rishi’, or a sage, from Brixton prison on 21 June 1910, even poking fun at the latter’s beard:

  By this time, dear Rishi, I have got quite used to the food and mode of living here. It was good that I did not ask for special food from the beginning. Now to make me a full-fledged life transportee, only a change of clothes is wanting . . . I am in excellent health and have added two pounds to my weight (not by growing a four-pound weight beard!) . . . be writing to me the sort of ennobling letters which you have written so many times. One of them I got while just starting for the court to hear the foregone decision of them. It makes me forget all the distance between us and makes me feel as if my Rishi is with me, side by side, in a meeting or in the room nursing me or chatting with me on the exalted topic of the raising of the people, the rebirth of a race and Rao Saheb. 64

  On 29 June 1910, the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, Winston Churchill, issued orders under the FOA that Vinayak must be taken in custody to British India: ‘Now I, the Right Honourable Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill in virtue of the powers vested in me by the aforesaid Fugitive Offenders Act do hereby order that the said Vinayek Damodar Sawarkar be returned to the Empire of India.’ 65

  Thereafter, Sir Edward Henry, chief commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, wrote to the French government informing the Sûreté, or civil police force, that the Peninsular and Oriental (P&O) liner S.S. Morea would be leaving London for India with ‘an important political prisoner’ on 1 July; that it would touch Marseilles in France on 7 or 8 July. The British knew that Paris was full of Indian revolutionaries like Shyamji, Madame Cama, Sardar Singh Rana, Virendranath Chattopadhyay and others, who might undoubtedly come to their associate’s rescue. Sir Edward Grey, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, therefore, also sought French assistance in preventing any kind of trouble that could be caused by these revolutionaries in Marseilles. The French interior minister had warned his subordinates against any possible escape and in accordance with these instructions, a commissionaire of the French police was placed at the Morea commander’s disposal. On 9 July, Monsieur Hennion, the director of the Sûreté Générale in Paris, replied that the Préfet des Bouches du Rhone had been instructed that the prisoner’s escape must be prevented at all costs.

  The British police were in charge of Vinayak during the vessel’s sojourn in French waters. French prime minister Aristide Briand complied. Guy Aldred wrote:

  We do not need to ask what were the inducements offered to Briand. The man who betrayed the French workers for office would be quite willing to sell French sovereignty for the equivalent of office. The Minister who can send his old colleagues to prison for fidelity to their principles could be counted on as willing to send Savarkar to the dungeon for patriotism. It is more interesting to learn why the British Government employed him. 66

  Even as he prepared to depart for India, Vinayak wrote a poignant ode to all his friends and associates in England and beyond, those who had stood by him and worked with him over the last four years. ‘The Farewell’ poem went like this:

  Whose heart to heart by silken ties is knit

  Of friendship sweet, that sweeter grows by far,

  Partaking of Godly Sacrament of Mother’s creed divine:

  Oh Friends! Farewell! As tender and fresh

  As the morning dew that wakes the fragrance

  Friends! Adieu! Adieu!

  We part to play our God-appointed parts

  Now pent and nailed to burning rocks, now tossed

  On surging waves of fame; now seen, now lost

  Or humble or exalted—wherever posted by the Lord

  Of hosts, yet posted best, as if alone it was

  The mission of our life thus there to act.

  As in some oriental play sublime,

  All characters, the dead as well as living

  In epilogue they meet

  Thus actors we innumerable all once more shall meet

  On History’s copious stage before the great

  Applauding audience of Humanity

  That would with grateful cheer fill hill and dale

  Till then, Oh Loving Friends, Farewell! Farewell!

  Wherever may my humble ashes lie,

  In the Andaman’s sad brook whose weeping course

  Add to its dreariness a tongue or sorted by Ganga’s

  Sacred crystal stream in which the stars

  Their midnight measures dance—

  They will be stirred with fire and glow

  When Victory’s trumpet blasts proclaiming

  ‘Shree Ram’ has crowned his chosen people’s brow

  With laurels golden green! The evil spirit is cast

  Away and chased back to the deep from whence

  It first arose! And Lo! She lordly stands,

  Our Mother India, a beacon light Humanity to guide,

  Oh martyred saints and soldiers, do awake!

  The battle is won for which you fought and fell!

  Till then, oh Friends! Farewell! Farewell!

  Watch sleeplessly the progress of our Mother

  And learn to count it, not by so much work

  Done or tried, but by how much they
suffered,

  What sacrifice our people could sustain!

  For work is chance but sacrifice a law;

  Foundation firm to rear a mighty dome

  Of Kingdoms new and great!

  But only great of their roots be in martyr’s ashes laid.

  Thus work for Mother’s glory till God’s breath

  Be rendered back, the Godly mission done—

  A martyr’s wreath or victor’s crown be won! 67

  Meanwhile, the British also issued an arrest warrant for Aiyar on the grounds that he had a role to play in the aborted attempt to rescue Vinayak. A high alert was sounded on all exit routes from London to Paris, and even Brazil, to look out for the ‘South Indian Brahmin revolutionary’. But Aiyar was too smart for them. He first went underground and thoroughly frustrated the police attempts. He then looked for the least watched route which turned out to be the one to Holland. Disguising himself as a Punjabi Sikh gentleman, with his strong build and flowing beard, he thwarted the suspicions of a detective on board who was looking for a puny, timid south Indian Brahmin. In an effort to hoodwink Aiyar and confirm if the Sikh gentleman was indeed him, the detective cleverly handed Aiyar, who was reclining on a deckchair, a fake telegram addressed to ‘Mr V.V.S. Aiyar’. Without batting an eyelid, Aiyar returned the telegram saying it was for a certain Mr Aiyar, not him. However, the suitcase lying beside Aiyar bore the initial ‘VVS’ on it. Catching the detective looking at the suitcase, Aiyar smiled and said, ‘Yes, I am Vir Vikram Singh from the Punjab.’ The embarrassed detective apologized and retreated. 68 Aiyar then reached Amsterdam, took a train to Paris, and met Shyamji and Madame Cama.