Savarkar
Page 35
Jean Longuet, who was also an attorney in the Court of Appeal in Paris, represented Vinayak at Madame Bhikaji Cama’s instance. Vinayak had given him signed power of attorney to represent him at The Hague. This had been signed on 3 and 4 November 1910 in Bombay in the presence of a notary and his lawyer as one of the witnesses. Longuet wrote a detailed letter to the members of the tribunal stating Vinayak’s case passionately. He argued that if the British government knew all along that Vinayak was a criminal and also knew through their surveillance network that in January 1910 he had moved to Paris, why did it not make an extradition request to the Republic of France? They did not, Longuet concluded, because they knew ‘full well it would have no chance of it being granted by the French Government’. 71
To investigate the matter, Jean Longuet and his team had visited the site at Marseilles on 13, 14 and 15 January 1911. They met Brigadier Pesquié and interviewed him, as also Charles Baron, a civil engineer, and Mr Reaux, general secretary of the Sailors’ Union of Marseilles. They informed Jean that it was only on the evening of the ship docking at Marseilles that the British consul in Marseilles had requested Commissioner Leblé to monitor the ship. This was also in consonance with a thorough investigation of the events at Marseilles that journalist Gabriel M. Bellin had conducted, blowing the lid off the British theory about Leblé coming on board once the Morea reached Marseilles. In his article titled ‘L’Odyssee d’un Revolutionaire Hindou ’ (The Odyssey of a Revolutionary Hindu), dated 17 July 1910, in the French newspaper Petit Provincial , he writes:
An arrest made recently in our port—hushed up to avoid any surrounding publicity, that thereby it may pass unmarked—will be the negation of French character and any defense of individual liberty if not brought to light . . . First the Daily Mail and then the Humanite has reported this unprecedented event that will resound in the Gallery of the House where it will be carried by citizens Cadenat and Jaurès; our investigation confirms the unfortunate facts of this event . . . In this case, the maritime police saw a man getting away and assumed he was a sailor or a native taxi driver, especially after hearing the yells of ‘Stop thief!’ dogging the heels of the fugitive. Not for a moment after they had caught Savarkar, accompanied by the British police, did they think they had committed an illegality. On the contrary, confident that they had followed instructions promptly and were within their right in the performance of their duty, they handed over the student. However, (Vinayak) Damodar Savarkar, being pursued for political offenses, was on French soil and should have first been taken to a French magistrate, better informed about the thorny issues of international law than mere police. It was not thought of, it seems, and there arose from the Hindu Colony in Paris an uproar regarding this incident; immediately they went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, after having submitted the matter to Mr Pichon, asked citizens Jaurès and Cadenat to intercede. 72
From eyewitness accounts and the interview with Pesquié, Jean Longuet reconstructed the events after Vinayak’s escape from the porthole. Pesquié was along the quays as instructed by his superiors to guard the Morea when he saw a man wearing a simple bath suit run up to him asking: ‘You French Policeman?’ When he answered in the affirmative, the fugitive did not run away. By then, three individuals came there raising a huge alarm and several people screaming: ‘Thief, Thief, Catch him, catch him!’ The three men—the two Indian head constables and Slavin, the cabin steward of the ship—seized the fugitive. Given the commotion and the screams of ‘thief’, Pesquié assumed that the man was a petty thief who had possibly committed some crime on the ship and was running away. He, therefore, took the man by the left hand; the two head constables grabbed him, one by the right hand and another by his neck and dragged him back to the Morea . Pesquié affirmed that he had no clue about the man’s identity nor had he ever seen the political prisoner on the ship. Jean Longuet further argued in his letter—quoting the 13 November 1910 issue of the Journal of Law —whether Pesquié was a person of authority or someone who could understand, at such a volatile moment, the implications of the right of asylum. He merely acted on impulse and in good faith, of catching a petty thief who was running away. Making a passionate case for Vinayak’s return to France, Jean Longuet concluded the letter exposing Britain’s doublespeak of claiming to have been a safe refuge for revolutionaries of other countries in the past, but doing quite the opposite with a revolutionary who challenged their power:
As for violent means, if their employment were sufficient to qualify as murderers or those who advocate anarchist means, England would never have boasted of being in the last century, the ‘mother of exiles’, the haven of Mazzini, Kossuth, Karl Marx, Garibaldi, refugees from the Commune or the Russian Revolution, as well as French monarchists and dethroned sovereigns after the revolutions of 1830, 1848, and 1870. 73
After listening to all sides, on 24 February 1911, the tribunal delivered its award. It noted the letter correspondences between the Metropolitan Police and the French Sûreté about an important political prisoner being carried in the Morea that was to dock at Marseilles as well as the subsequent letters by the French police to provide assistance. It noted the testimony of the gendarme, Brigadier Pesquié, who said that ‘he saw the fugitive, who was almost naked, get out of a porthole of the steamer, throw himself into the sea and swim to the quay . . . at the same moment some persons from the ship, who were shouting and gesticulating rushed over the bridge leading to the shore, in order to pursue him . . . number of people on the quay commenced to shout’. 74
Despite the evidence furnished by Jean Longuet, the role of the gendarme as the singular authority of arrest and not the native constables was upheld. In view of these testimonies and documents, the tribunal found no case of fraud or force to obtain possession of a man seeking refuge in foreign territory, and that all the actors had played their part ‘in good faith and had no thought of doing anything unlawful’. 75 Interestingly, the tribunal admitted that ‘an irregularity was committed by the arrest of Savarkar and by his being handed over to the British Police’, but hastened to add there was no rule of international law that the country which had obtained custody of such a fugitive needed to hand him over. In view of this, the tribunal decided that ‘the Government of His Britannic Majesty is not required to restore the said Vinayak Damodar Savarkar to the Government of the French Republic’.
There was widespread condemnation of the judgment even from the London press. The Daily News criticized the award for narrowing the limits of the right of asylum. The Morning Post decried it as something that had ‘reduced the right to asylum and the international law to farce’. 76 Germany was miffed at its not being included in the tribunal. Many countries also took positions in accordance with the prevailing climate in Europe that was standing at the threshold of a major global conflagration, the First World War. The Berlin Post , a mouthpiece of the Free Conservative Society and a major influencer in German politics, expressed its displeasure in an aggressive editorial dated 25 February 1911:
We have never thought much of The Hague Court of Arbitration—that is, of its impartiality and objective love of justice. The representatives of the various nationalities vote, in point of fact, in accordance with the interests, the political views, and the grounds of expediency, of their several countries—always excepting our idealist Germans. It is not necessary to suppose that these men act in the fact of their better judgment and conscience. To some extent foreign countries have a different, and certainly, a much more practical sense of values, in striking balance, as between the interests of their own country and the conception of pure justice as it prevails in general with us. National prejudices and prepossessions determine their judgment from the outset. Nevertheless, we should hardly have thought it possible that a court of arbitration in the Savarkar Case would accord an exhibition of such touching naiveté, such an exhibition of ‘pure folly’. It has passed over the real issue of the Savarkar Case in complete silence—namely, the fact that a political offender,
who in a foreign harbor has escaped from the ship, which was transporting him and been recaptured by a French policeman with the support of an Englishman in pursuit and that not in the water, though there already he was, on foreign territory, but after he had reached dry land, was forthwith without even an appearance of formal proceedings, handed back to the English ship. That is a gross breach of the international law, and a proof how far the subservience to England (Die Englische Gefolgshaft ) has brought proud France. The verdict of the court is as if no such breach of extra-territoriality had ever occurred. 77
La Society Nouvelle of Belgium, in its March 1912 editorial, denounced the award stating that ‘England’s infamous Empire rests on blood, ferocious repression and officially acknowledged systematic tyranny’. 78
The Hague award was a huge disappointment for the Indian revolutionaries in Paris who had pinned their hopes on a possible extradition. Several articles and editorials appeared in Madame Cama’s Bande Mataram. She wrote that ‘the demoralized people [in Paris] have collapsed’. 79 Penning his thoughts of remorse on this occasion, Shyamji stated:
This decision of the International Tribunal at the Hague has shattered all faith in the maintenance of the rights of political refugees as ordinarily understood, and it is sad to observe that the nations hitherto most conspicuous for their love of liberty are slow to recognize these rights when they are beset by political consideration. L’Humanite was after all justified in finding that the submission of L’Affaire Savarkar to arbitration in the first instance was a tactical error on the part of France, and a friend who was a member of the British Parliament, assures us that the way in which France submitted her case, ensured its failure, all the strongest grounds having been omitted. There only now remains for us to offer an expression of our heartfelt sympathy and commiseration with our dear young friend and associate, Mr Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in the hard fate, which has befallen him, and which has snatched him from us at the very moment when . . . we were all so confident of speedily seeing him once more in our midst. We also desire to tender our sincere condolence to the members of his family, who have had the agony of seeing three brothers one after another doomed to incarceration, two of them having been sentenced to transportation for life. 80
In England, Guy Aldred, who had led a relentless campaign and formed a ‘Savarkar Release Committee’ since the time Vinayak was arrested in March 1910, criticized the award. He also created a ‘Savarkar Release Tour’, which would include the whole of England, Scotland and Wales to drum up support for his release. 81 In a pamphlet titled ‘The White Terror in India’, Aldred thundered:
The British working class can strike in sympathy with the wrongs in India. They can secure the release of Savarkar and other illegally detained victims of British Despotism—by rebellion . . . you have the love of freedom, that groans at the illegal detention of Savarkar . . . Demand the release of Savarkar and he shall go free.
In the same paper, he claimed that the only crimes of Savarkar were ‘youthful trust in the honour of the British Government, great literary ability and great determination to educate his fellow-countrymen up to a clear recognition of how they can emancipate themselves from the menace of the white terrorism in India’. 82
Der Wanderer , a German fortnightly published in Zurich, supported Aldred editorially and carried his point of view. Aldred singularly blamed French prime minister Briand for ‘voluntarily betraying the sovereignty of France’. 83 Significantly, three days after the Hague award, Briand had to resign as prime minister. While many, including Aldred, claimed that the reason for him doing so was the ignominy of the ‘Savarkar case’, there were bigger triggers such as increasing political tensions in the European continent and Germany’s rising militarism. In a scathing commentary, Aldred said:
The Hague Award was given in February 1911. It annulled the right of political asylum and exposed Briand’s intrigue. Three days later he resigned rather than face questions in the Chamber of Deputies. But the precedent, which, his action has created, established the right of Russian agents acting in collusion with the English police and Government to kidnap any Russian refugee and transport him to Siberia without the knowledge or consent of the British people or even the British Parliament. No rule of International Law could be invoked for his restoration. 84
Vinayak’s case was a huge jolt to the Indian revolutionary movement that was gathering steam across Europe. It established Britain as a dangerous place for any revolutionary activity. So, the Indians in Paris began sending literature that was considered seditious to the French enclave of Pondicherry. From there, they would be smuggled into British India. This process had begun since August 1909, but gathered momentum after Vinayak’s case ended in the manner that it did at both The Hague and in India. This new route was pioneered by Aiyar who moved to Pondicherry after Vinayak’s extradition. Upon reaching there, he began to receive Vinayak’s books, pamphlets and weapons from Madame Cama. These were then distributed across British India.
However, the entire Savarkar affair broke the cohesiveness of the revolutionary organizations with the weakest links in the organizations succumbing to become informants and approvers. Ascertaining the true identity, intent and orientation of their group mates and new recruits took up a lot of time, effort and resources—all of which could have been more gainfully spent on political work. The seeds of distrust had been sown and undercurrents of suspicion against one another loomed. The case also agitated public discourse and exposed the inner contradictions between cherished notions of national sovereignty and the willingness of government officials to cooperate across national borders when the need arose.
Bombay, March 1911
With this the curtains came down on a series of trials against Vinayak spanning across continents, and which lasted for more than a year. After the trials, the police kept shifting him to various prisons in Bombay—Dongri, Byculla and Thane. 85
It was at Dongri prison that news of The Hague award was given to Vinayak. A policeman told him with a smirk on his face: ‘You are now sentenced to fifty years transportation.’ The word ‘fifty’ kept ringing in Vinayak’s ear. This was to be counted as the first day in that long journey of half a century. Till the decision of The Hague was made known, Vinayak was not treated as a prisoner in either food or clothing. After this, he had to change into his prisoner clothes that the British superintendent had brought for him. A chill of horror reverberated through Vinayak while changing into those clothes—after all, this was how he was now going to dress for the rest of his life.
To compound his misery, a sepoy brought in an iron badge that had to be worn around the neck. On it was carved the number ‘1960’. It was the year of his release from prison. Wearing this on his neck would be the constant reminder about what life lay ahead and for how long. The superintendent who noticed Vinayak’s change of expression laughed and said: ‘Don’t fear, His Majesty’s benign government will release you in 1960 for sure.’ Vinayak retorted: ‘Death is kinder, it may release me earlier!’ Both of them laughed.
From the second day, there was a regular regimen. His mornings began with a walk in the open square downstairs. Dongri was in the heart of Bombay and during his walk Vinayak could see tenements in the vicinity. Often people crowded on their terraces to look at him. He acknowledged their looks of reverence with gratitude. During the walk, he often recited the entire Yoga Sutra s of the great sage Patanjali in his mind. The 196 verses of the Yoga Sutra s have the unique ancient wisdom of controlling one’s mind, of sadhana and meditative practices, and of attaining a state free from consciousness of discursive thoughts. This was just what Vinayak needed at this stage in his life. In his cell, Vinayak was given the task of ‘picking oakum’. Coiled ropes were cut into pieces and these had to be broken, spun into thread. A deluge of thoughts would crowd his mind as he went about this monotonous task. He often mocked himself about the barrister he was to become and what he had come to. Meditating strongly on the verses of the Yoga Sutra s,
Vinayak would order his mind to behave itself. Looking at the mundane task at hand, he would often philosophize that it was perhaps destiny’s way of teaching him the meaning of life. After all, wasn’t life all about strands woven around five elements, which, on being unknotted would lead to inevitable death and reduce us all to ashes?
Even in those darkest moments, Vinayak decided to find solace in writing. He had always wanted to compose an epic. Perhaps, this was his opportunity to do so. He decided to write one on the life of the valorous Guru Gobind Singh, his eternal inspiration and a prince among martyrs. Lost in thought, Vinayak was oblivious to the fact that picking oakum cut and blistered his hands. After the evening meal, when the door was shut on him, he practised meditation as laid down in the Sutra s, before retiring for the day at 9 p.m. Two pigeons that had made a home in his cell were a source of entertainment and diversion. Speaking about this monotony that awaited him day after day, Vinayak writes:
This solitary life, with its fixed routine from minute to minute, wherein I tried my hardest to control the mind by the power of thought and dispassion, sometimes became so intolerable, that I felt, on occasions, that my grief and anxiety were sitting on my chest like a nightmare with their grip in my throat that had almost strangled me. In such moments I could hardly breathe for relief; I felt then that I could even bear this, if I were, sure that my cause would prosper through my sufferings. But then . . .? Instantly I recovered from this dark despair, and I was myself over again. The poise came back to my mind, as if nothing had happened during the interval. 86