I beg, etc
V.D. Sarvakar [sic]
Full-text of petition from V.D. Savarkar to the Government of India, dated October 5, 1917:To
His Honour, the Secretary to the Government of India
Home Department.
May it please your Honour!
Some three years ago, in 1914 I had sent a petition on the following points to the Government of India; and Lord Hardinge was pleased to let me know that it was ‘impossible’—not that the Government was unwilling, to give effect to my proposals under the then circumstances.
The war, and all that it means, had definitely and materially changed the political relations of almost all peoples and states. A new spirit has manifested itself in man and whole nations are being roused and animated by new visions and new hopes, which have found responsible and glowing expressions in the utterances of presidents of Republics and Ministers of Empires. Neither India nor the British Empire as a whole could have remained unaffected by this great democratic upheaval in the world. In them too old order of Race-domineerings and race-subjections is giving place to that of co-operation and Commonwealth. The nucleus of an Empire-cabinet; the presence in it of the ministers of the colonies and two representatives, though nominated, of India; the permission to be enrolled as volunteers to the Indian youths; the throwing open of Commissions in the army; the great speech of the Premier in which he declared that the supreme test of the British Statesmanship would depend on the extent to which it succeeds in making the millions of Indians feel—not a sense of dependence—but that of ‘real partnership’; and to crown all the most important, definite and determined declaration by the present Secretary of State, not only as to the goal but even as to its immediate, though partial, realization in Indian administration; all these facts undeniably show that henceforth the Indian government, is not only to be conducted consistently with the interest of the Indian people but that it recognizes the first principle of all progress that the party who decides what the interests are is, in the main, the people themselves. Thus the circumstances, which Lord Hardinge referred to, are or are being changed for the better.
Therefore I venture to point out that if the policy of Co-operation and Commonwealth, so successful wherever it had been pursued, is to be followed in the Indian administration, then what Durbars and fireworks can so fitly inaugurate it, as the immediate release of the Indian political prisoners? No royal manifestos and elephant processions so touch and move, not only the imagination, but also the heart of the Indian people, as the release of their kith and kin would do. Confidence can only be evoked by showing confidence. In Canada revolts and rebellions were the order of the day: a bold statesman like Lord Durham rose and showed confidence—and now the grandsons of the Leaders of those rebellions are fighting in Flanders on the British side. The Boers fought and lost the day; but the English realizing the gravity of the situation and remembering the history of America and Cape Colony, behaved as a wise conqueror should do, and gave them autonomy and the result is that though a Dewett did rebel, yet there only a Dewett to be put down and not a Botha too! Or can India be suspected of being less confiding and less generous in her response to any magnanimous and sincere dealing of the British people? History shows that the fault of India, if fault it was, had been, not that she was less but that she was too generous and too confiding. The Grant of Home Rule, if wholeheartedly conferred would make our people, and for our own interest, for more closely bound to this Empire, so long as the interest of all of us are served by and through it, than the colonies had ever been.
Secondly, I for one, and I can say the same thing of the majority of those whom I know, cannot have the slightest animosity towards an Empire simply because it is so. No; believing in as I do that the Ideal of all political science and political art is, or should be, the Human State; embracing all nations, based on perfect equality of opportunities to progress and on liberty that respects itself in others—I can have nothing but sympathy with an Empire that binding a vast portion of mankind together takes us nearer to such an Ideal as that. If India is allowed to become an autonomous partner in this commonwealth and if in the immediate future, at least a majority is secured in the Viceregal Council for Indians, then there would be some much to do to purge and cleanse our society that all our energies could be required to consolidate what we have already secured. It was no fanatical, much less an ‘anarchical’ opposition to any Empire as such but a sense—sincere and killing sense of despair to effect any substantial advance in the land when all paths to progress were barred by the ‘Trespassers would be prosecuted’—that drove us to face the dangerous by-ways of political life. When there was no Constitution, it seemed a mockery to talk of constitutional movements. But now if a constitution exists, and Home Rule is decidedly such, then so much political, social, economical and educational work is to be done and could be constitutionally done that the Government, may securely rest satisfied that none of the present political prisoners would choose to face untold suffering by resorting to underground methods for sheer amusement! So not only the release of political prisoners would evoke confidence in India by proving to them the sincerity of the British Government in inaugurating this change in the administration and the status of India in the Empire, but in addition to this immediate good it is not likely to do any harm in future too.
Thirdly, just as the only release of prisoners would not remove the roots of discontent in Indian unless it was accompanied with far reaching reforms in the state, so also no installments of those Reforms would, taken by themselves, be able to satisfy and win the heart of the people unless it was accompanied by the release of their prisoners. How can there be peace and mutual confidence and love in the land in which thousands of families are literally torn to pieces and every second home has either a brother or a son or a husband or a lover or a friend snatched away from its bosom and kept pining in the prisons? It is against human nature, for blood is thicker than water.
Fourthly, all over the world the prisons have been thrown open to those who had been pent up for the sake of political principles. Not to mention Russia, France, Ireland and Transvaal. Even Austria could not refuse amnesty to her political prisoners even while the war is still hanging heavy over her. Nor could it be said that the prisoners thus released were convicted of ‘general participation only’ for in the case of suffragists, almost all of them had been convicted of ‘individual acts’, to quote Mr. Bonar Law, including arson, and yet were released immediately after the war broke out. It could not be that a step, which had been thought beneficial in all the nations in the world should prove disastrous only in India.
Fifthly, as long as some of those whose names are rightly or wrongly, but undoubtedly revered by thousands of souls are still kept in the Jail and are looked upon as foes to the present order of things, so long the tradition of opposing authority would continue to produce its own devotees and even blind followers. But if these people go back and if even a few of them, conscientiously convinced that the good of their country was no longer in danger in co-operation with the British people, preached so and set an example to that effect, then the men who look up to them as models would also be convinced that a new day had risen and so a new start is to be made by a new path in fresh air and sunshine, leaving the gloomy adventures to the night that is past.
Sixthly, the majority of Indian prisoners are convicted in conspiracy cases, in which one has to suffer for the deeds of others in addition to one’s own, and secondly some of them have already put in 10 years or 9 or 8 and few have put in less than two years of hard, trying and dismal servitude. Many of them deserve to be, and under Indian jail systems would have already been released, on the ground of time and health alone.
For all these reasons I have ventured to put forth this petition setting forth in a frank way my own belief and expectations and I trust and hope that this would be brought to the notice of the Secretary of State for India when he visits our shores.
In conclusion,
I beg to add, in all sincerity, that if the Government thinks that it is only to effect my own release that I pen this; or if my name constitutes the chief obstacle in the granting of such an amnesty then let the Government omit my name in their amnesty and release all the rest; that would give me as great a satisfaction as my own release would do. If the Government does ever take this view of the question then the amnesty should be so complete as to include those also who are exiles from India and who as long as they are proclaimed strangers in their own land are likely to be bitterly antagonistic to that Government in India but many of whom would, if allowed to come back, work for the Motherland on the open and constitutional lines, when this new and real constitution is introduced there.
Hoping that your Honour would not grudge the satisfaction of having put my case before the Secretary of State to me, was though unknown is yet in stress, a prisoner yet for the sake of a people.
I am,
Your most obedient
Sd/- V.D. Savarkar
Prisoner No. 32778.
Full-text of petition from V.D. Savarkar to the Government of India, dated March 20, 1920:In view of the recent statement of the Hon. Member for the Home Department to the Government of India, to the effect that ‘the Government was willing to consider the papers of any individual, and give them their best consideration if they were brought before them’; and that ‘as soon as it appeared to the Government that an individual could be released without danger to the State, the Government would extend the Royal clemency to that person,’ the undersigned most humbly begs that he should be given a last chance to submit his case, before it is too late. You, Sir, at any rate, would not grudge me this last favour of forwarding this petition to His Excellency the Viceroy of India, especially and if only to give me the satisfaction of being heard, whatever the Government decisions may be.
The Royal proclamation most magnanimously states that Royal clemency should be extended to all those who were found guilty of breaking the law ‘Through their eagerness for Political progress.’ The cases of me and my brother are pre-eminently of this type. Neither I nor any of my family members had anything to complain against the Government for any personal wrong due to us nor for any personal favour denied. I had a brilliant career open to me and nothing to gain and everything to loose individually by treading such dangerous paths. Suffice it to say, that no less a personage than one of the Hon’ble Members for the Home Department had said, in 1913, to me personally, ‘. . . Such education so much reading . . . you could have held the highest posts under our Government.’ If in spite of this testimony any doubts as to my motive does lurk in any one, then to him I beg to point out, that there had been no prosecution against any member of my family till this year 1909; while almost all of my activity which constituted the basis for the case, have been in the years preceding that. The prosecution, the Judges and the Rowlatt Report have all admitted that since the year 1899 to the year 1909 had been written the life of Mazzini and other books, as well organised the various societies and even the parcel of arms had been sent before the arrest of any of my brothers or before I had any personal grievance to complain of (vide Rowlatt Report pages 6 &c.). But does anyone else take the same view of our cases? Well, the monster petition that the Indian public had sent to His Majesty and that had been signed by no less than 5,000 signatures, had made a special mention of me in it. I had been denied a jury in the trial: now the jury of a whole nation has opined that only the eagerness for political progress had been the motive of all my actions and that led me to the regrettable breaking of the laws.
Nor can this second case of abetting murder throw me beyond the reach of the Royal clemency. For The Proclamation does not make any distinction of the nature of the offence or of a section or of the Court of Justice, beyond the motive of the offence. It concerns entirely with the Motive and requires that it should be political and not personal,
Secondly, the Government too has already interpreted it in the same spirit and has released Barin and Hesu and others. These men had confessed that one of the objects of their conspiracy was ‘the murders of prominent Government officials’ and on their own confessions, had been guilty of sending the boys to murder magistrates, etc. This magistrate had among others prosecuted Barin’s brother Arabinda [Aurobindo] in the first ‘Bande Mataram’ newspaper case. And yet Barin was not looked upon, and rightly so, as a non-political murderer. In my respect the objection is immensely weaker. For it was justly admitted by the prosecution that I was in England, had no knowledge of the particular plot or idea of murdering Mr. Jackson and had sent the parcels of arms before the arrest of my brother and so could not have the slightest personal grudge against any particular individual officer. But Hem had actually prepared the very bomb that killed the Kennedy’s and with a full knowledge of its destination. (Rowlatt Report, page 33). Yet Hem had not been thrown out of the scope of the clemency on that ground. If Barin and others were not separately charged for specific abetting, it was only because they had already been sentenced to capital punishment in the Conspiracy case; and I was specifically charged because I was not, and again for the international facilities to have me extradited in case France got me back. Therefore I humbly submit that the Government be pleased to extend the clemency to me as they had done it to Barin and Hem whose complicity in abetting the murders of officers, etc., was confessed and much deeper. For surely a section does not matter more than the crime it contemplates. In the case of my brother this question does not arise as his case has nothing to do with any murders, etc.
Thus interpreting the proclamation as the Government had already done in the cases of Barin, Hem, etc. I and my brother are fully entitled to the Royal clemency ‘in the fullest measure’. But is it compatible with public safety? I submit it is entirely so. For I most emphatically declare that we are not amongst ‘the microlestes of anarchism’ referred to by the Home Secretary. So far from believing in the militant school of the type that I do not contribute even to the peaceful and philosophical anarchism of a Kuropatkin [sic] or a Tolstoy. And as to my revolutionary tendencies in the past: it is not only now for the object of sharing the clemency but years before this have I informed of and written to the Government in my petitions (1918, 1914) about my firm intention to abide by the constitution and stand by it as soon as a beginning was made to frame it by Mr. Montagu. Since that the Reforms and then the Proclamation have only confirmed me in my views and recently I have publicly avowed my faith in and readiness to stand by the side of orderly and constitutional development. The danger that is threatening our country from the north at the hands of the fanatic hordes of Asia who had been the curse of India in the past when they came as foes, and who are more likely to be so in the future now that they want to come as friends, makes me convinced that every intelligent lover of India would heartily and loyally co-operate with the British people in the interests of India herself. That is why I offered myself as a volunteer in 1914 to Government when the war broke out and a German-Turko-Afghan invasion of India became imminent. Whether you believe it or not, I am sincere in expressing my earnest intention of treading the constitutional path and trying my humble best to render the hands of the British dominion a bond of love and respect and of mutual help. Such an Empire as is foreshadowed in the Proclamation, wins my hearty adherence. For verily I hate no race or creed or people simply because they are not Indians!
But if the Government wants a further security from me then I and my brother are perfectly willing to give a pledge of not participating in politics for a definite and reasonable period that the Government would indicate. For even without such a pledge my failing health and the sweet blessings of home that have been denied to me by myself make me so desirous of leading a quiet and retired life for years to come that nothing would induce me to dabble in active politics now.
This or any pledge, e.g., of remaining in a particular province or reporting our movements to the police for a definite period after our release—any such reasonable condition
s meant genuinely to ensure the safety of the State would be gladly accepted by me and my brother. Ultimately, I submit, that the overwhelming majority of the very people who constitute the State which is to be kept safe from us have from Mr. Surendranath, the venerable and veteran moderate leader, to the man in the street, the press and the platform, the Hindus and the Muhammadans—from the Punjab to Madras—been clearly persistently asking for our immediate and complete release, declaring it was compatible with their safety. Nay more, declaring it was a factor in removing the very ‘sense of bitterness’ which the Proclamation aims to allay. Therefore the very object of the Proclamation would not be fulfilled and the sense of bitterness removed, I warn the public mind, until we two and those who yet remain have been made to share the magnanimous clemency.
Moreover, all the objects of a sentence have been satisfied in our case. For We have put in 10 to 11 years in jail, while Mr. Sanyal, who too was a lifer, was released in 4 years and the riot case lifers within a year;
We have done hard work, mills, oil mills and everything else that was given to us in India and here;
Our prison behaviour is in no way more objectionable than of those already released; they had, even in Port Blair, been suspected of a serious plot and locked up in jail again. We two, on the contrary, have to this day been under extra rigorous discipline and restrain and yet during the last six years or so there is not a single case even on ordinary disciplinary grounds against us.
In the end, I beg to express my gratefulness for the release of hundreds of political prisoners including those who have been released from the Andamans, and for thus partially granting my petitions of 1914 and 1918. It is not therefore too much to hope that His Excellency would release the remaining prisoners too, as they are placed on the same footing, including me and my brother. Especially so as the political situation in Maharashtra has singularly been free from any outrageous disturbances for so many years in the past. Here, however, I beg to submit that our release should not be made conditional on the behaviour of those released or of anybody else; for it would be preposterous to deny us the clemency and punish us for the fault of someone else.
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