3. My husband’s release is due from other point of view also. According to the Indian Penal Code, Section 55, no prisoner can be retained in prison for more than fourteen years. This term, as per Government Resolution No. 5308 (Judicial Dept.) dated 12-10-1905 includes also the remission earned by the Convict. My husband has, from the date of his sentence (24 December 1910), been all along, kept in prison, even in the Andamans. He has thus served more than 11 years and 6 months of his sentence actually in rigorous imprisonment. Adding to this the remission which he should and would have earned in the Indian Jail—and every prisoner confined in prison earns nearly 2 months remission per year, as a prisoner, and more than that as a convict officer—I believe he has completed his fourteen years, and therefore I pray that, even on this ground, his release is now due. I need not point out that, according to the Jail Committee’s recommendations, his release is really overdue. I pray therefore that he should be released on either of the grounds shown above.
4. Until his release I pray that he should be given all the concessions which he enjoyed in the Andamans as a first class prisoner, Viz.
A letter or an interview with a parcel once a month.
Books not prescribed by Government.
Newspapers sanctioned by the Government.
5. In conclusion, I beg to point out that my husband has been trebly [sic] wronged.
While in the Andamans, he has been denied the benefits of comparative freedom given to a transported prisoner. There he was, for all the eleven years nearly, kept in rigorous imprisonment, and was not let out as an ordinary transported prisoner.
Secondly, my husband has not been yet treated as a prisoner undergoing rigorous imprisonment, although he has been undergoing it, in lieu of transportation. As such, he should have got nearly 2½ years remission, and entitled for release, under Sec. 55 of the Indian Penal Code.
Thirdly, as I have pointed out, he has not been given the benefit of the Jail Committee’s recommendations, and although he was more entitled for release than Mr. Joshi he has not been released. Thus all the benefits of a transportee, or of a prisoner undergoing rigorous imprisonment, and all the chances of release have been unjustly refused him till now! I therefore pray that, as mere justice demands, he should be released immediately.
I beg to remain, Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
[Signature in Devanagari]
Appendix IV
Is Hindusthan Disarmed? 1
The Hypnotism that binds our hearts
Nothing brings home to us more painfully the hypnotism that is paralyzing the centres of our action than our blind and unreasoning belief that Hindusthan is disarmed and that therefore we cannot successfully inaugurate a revolution to overthrow the rule of Britain. There are many men, and among them, even Desh. Gokhale, 2 who say, ‘we are not in love with British rule; we understand that absolute independence is the only logical goal for Hindusthan; we would even fight for it in an open war. But where are the arms with which to fight? How can we fight their maxim guns and quick-firers and repeating rifles? How can we fight against their navy?’ And, believing that they have raised unanswerable objections and given irresistible arguments against revolution, they advise the nation that it is therefore impossible, unwise, and suicidal to think of war and attempt to overthrow the British yoke. And a section of our countrymen have adopted this false reasoning, and filled with the despair that comes of belief in one’s own impotence, act as a heavy drag on the advancing force of the Revolution.
It is one of the worst symptoms of the demoralization that has set in upon us as the result of long years of slavery and western ‘education’ that our people should thus deify this machine. They forget that it is man that makes the machine and not the machine that makes the man. They have lost their belief in the infinite capacity of the Human Mind and are filled with materialistic fears that machines have got the power in themselves of opposing the advancing tide of a national revolution. They forget that if the enemy has got machine guns, we also, if we set about it, can make them, or purchase them in the world’s market, or capture them from the enemy himself. They also do not take into account the stores of arms that are already in the country waiting only to be used by us for the achievement of our independence. Alas, what a pathetic sight it is to see the descendants of Shri Ram and Shri Krishna, Arjun and Bhim, the Ghazis and the Akalis, Nana Saheb and Khan Bahadur, tremble before a puny race of shop-keepers, because forsooth, these are armed with modern guns and cannon, and we are not! Where is our heroism, where is our love for fighting gone? Have we lost our resource and faith in ourselves and the greatness of our destiny? Have we become so blind that we do not see the large quantity of arms that is still in the country available to us and the immense possibilities of increasing the same? One could have scarcely believed it, but it is nevertheless true, that many of our countrymen think that we are not in a position to face the British enemy in battle. It is therefore necessary that we should clear this ignorance and the weakness and pusillanimity that is possessing their hearts on account of this ignorance by placing the right estimate of our situation before the country.
Are we really disarmed?
It is of course true that the detestable ‘Arms Act’ passed by the cowardly Briton in 1879 is on our Statute Book, and that our men are not allowed to possess a gun even for protection against robbers or wild beasts. It is also true that we are not allowed to carry a gun or sword or revolver without a license, which is systematically refused to genuine Hindusthanees. But let us not forget that the ‘Arms Act’ does not extend to the States of our Princes. There every man can get himself armed to the teeth if he pleases. In those States there is no ban placed upon that elementary right of every man to carry arms. And thanks to the Revolution of 1857 the whole of Hindusthan is not painted red, and the States do not cover a small area. More than one-third of our country consists of these States wherein live over 60 millions of people with perfect liberty to purchase and carry whatever arms they please. And these principalities are not crowded together in one place but are scattered all over the continent, so that every part of the territory directly tyrannized by Britain is within a few hours’ distance from some important Hindusthanee State.
Of course attempts have been and are being made by the enemy to intimidate or cajole the Princes into introducing laws restraining the use of arms within their respective territories. The Princes have hitherto resisted this pressure, which it is nothing short of suicidal if they yield to. And there is no near prospect of our Princes, descended of warlike ancestors and governing warlike peoples, obeying the behest of the Firinghi in this particular. The Maharaja of Jaipur was once asked by the Viceroy if he would consider the introduction of the ‘Arms Act’ in his territory. The Maharaja is reported to have handed over his sword, to the Viceroy and pathetically said, slave that he was, that he was personally willing to yield his sword to the Viceroy, but that it was not in his power to force the Sirdars and subjects to do the same. The Nizam also was cunningly approached and it was proposed to him that he would be given ‘permission’ to increase his regular army if he would suppress his irregular troops and introduce some restrictions as to the use of arms in his kingdom. But the Nizam was clever enough to perceive the treachery of the Firinghi and refused to consider the proposal. And at the present moment the enemy is very fearful of pressing the Princes too much in respect of any matter about which they feel rather strongly.
Then again there are the old swords and matchlocks, spears and lances that are kept by the villagers in every part of the country. There are also the guns and other arms of the Police in every taluq, which it is so very easy for the people to take on any day when they want to begin the fight. It will thus be clearly seen that it is a mere idle superstition to say that there are no arms in the country, which the people could use in their fight for their independence.
The People in Western Countries are not much better armed
We ought to admit and
once for all do admit that the arms that we have spoken of above cannot compare with the arms that are in the hands of the enemy. But at the same time let us not forget the all-important fact that no people on the face of the earth is sufficiently armed to enter into an equal fight with the government under which it is living. The ‘Declaration of Independence’ of the United States of America provides that the right to keep and carry arms is an inalienable right attaching to citizenship, and today every American citizen is entitled to carry a revolver or gun at his pleasure. In France and Belgium and Switzerland and England too, there is practically no restriction at all to the right of every man to carry arms. But can anybody say on this account that the people of those countries are able, so far as present possession of arms is concerned, today to engage in a bloody encounter with their respective governments? The cannon and maxim guns and howitzers are in the hands of the government, and the possession of a few revolvers and hunting-guns does not place them in a better position than the people of Hindusthan for the conduct of such a struggle. And yet, if there were in those countries a tenth part of the injustice and oppression that is committed in Hindusthan today, the people there would not pause so much as to consider whether they are armed or disarmed but rise at once like an avalanche and overwhelm the government with all its Maxims and Mausers!
Odds always against the People
In fact, when all the great revolutions of the world broke out, were the people ever adequately armed to cope with the power of the tyrant? It is in the very nature of the relation between tyrant and oppressed that all the army and navy and means of offence and defence are in the hands of the tyrant, and that he uses them in repressing the least symptoms of liberty, showing itself among the people. The tyrant discourages the smallest exhibitions of a spirit of independence, self-reliance, strength and courage in the people he oppresses—he cannot brook a subject walking erect in his dominions. He keeps his mercenaries aloof from the civil populations and forbids all intercourse between the two. And he carefully prohibits the use of arms by any of his subjects. And yet revolutions have broken out and revolutions have succeeded in the world ere now.
The example of the French Revolution
Look at the Great French Revolution. When the great world volcano broke out, the people were entirely disarmed. There was not even a common feeling of nationality among them. Everybody felt himself to be a Provencal or a Parisian, a Breton or a Norman, and none believed himself to be a Frenchman. The artillery was in the hands of the king and the aristocracy and that tyrant blood that bleeds the people under the shelter of the throne. The army was composed of Germans and Swiss and Austrians who were ready to shoot down the masses at a moment’s notice. And the people had nothing but pikes and crowbars, sticks and brickbats with which to fight the tyranny. But what was the result? On the 14th of July, 1789—that sacred day on which Liberty was first born on the continent of modern Europe, on which tyrants first began to tremble for their thrones and the People felt the first young thrill of victory and strength—the people marched against the Bastille, the well-defended fortress of tyranny and captured it in a few hours! Of course they could not and did not take the Bastille merely with the aid of their pikes and crowbars. The government had a large store of artillery and other arms in the Hotel des Invalides. Before the mercenaries of the king, 30,000 of whom under Besenval were encamped on the Champs de Mars not 6 furlongs off, could go and take it, a section of the people rushed at it, captured 12 pieces of cannon and 32,000 muskets, and with this brought the hated edifice down. Here was the resource of the Revolution! The taking of the Bastille is only one of the incidents of the Great Revolution. Wherever the people succeeded in the course of that great struggle, and they succeeded to a very large extent, it was always by a display of revolutionary activity, before which the rotten edifice of Tyranny yielded like a house of cards, and not by the possession of arms.
The revolutions in Hindusthan
What happened in France in the 18th Century had already happened in Hindusthan in the 17th. There also the country was in the hands of the Moghuls who held it by force of arms and by the divisions among the Hindu kingdoms of the day. All the best-trained chivalry of the land supported the foreign domination, which appeared invincible in its apparent strength. And even the whole of Hindusthan did not rise against the tyrant. Only two of the most despised peoples of the time took it into their head that Hindusthan should have Swaraj and that the invader should not be the lord of the land. Arms they had very little to speak of. Cannon and artillery, heavy and light arms were all in favour of the Moghul. But the revolutionary impetus that was in them found its own weapons and neither its artillery not its powerful allies could save the Moghul empire from the fate it deserved.
The glorious six days of Milan
Italy shall supply to us our last illustration. It was 1848 and the city of Milan felt that it was its duty to show to the rest of Italy how to fight Austria. The ‘leaders’ advised the people that it was impossible for the city to offer any resistance to Radetzky with his 60,000 well-armed troops. But the instinct of the people was truer than the calculations of the ‘leaders’. They overruled their leaders and determined to fight against those apparently heavy odds. In a single night the people had erected barricades at all the entrances to the city. Tables, chairs, desks, heir-looms were thrown by the people to build the barricades against the advancing columns of the enemy. And what had they to reply to the artillery of Radetzky? Nothing but old guns and knives and sticks and broken swords! Armed with these, the people defended for six days, displaying the most wonderful heroism, and on the seventh day Radetzky had to retire with the wreck of his fine army! Neither his artillery nor his numbers were of the least avail!
The Invincibility of modern artillery is a mere Superstition
It will be objected that a great deal of improvement has been effected in the weapons of destruction within the last few years. But in the first place, the degree of improvement has been greatly, immensely exaggerated. It is in the interest of the capitalist class—that octopus that has now coiled itself round the world and is sucking its blood in a thousand shapes and a thousand forms, and which can continue its nefarious work only if the people who are its victims can be kept in a state of constant and permanent fear of its omnipotence—it is the interest of this capitalist class to make the people believe that their maxim guns are invincible, that their howitzers are all-powerful, and that if the people dare to rise against the existing order of things they will be annihilated into dust and ashes. But the truth is far otherwise. The mortality in all the latest wars of the world shows clearly how enormously exaggerated this pretended power of the modern gun is. Look at the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava. Remember how they rode one mile and a half right into the mouth of the cannon that was firing at them. The fire was hot and was pouring thick like hail, but still when they reached the cannon, half of the Brigade survived to silence them and turn them against the enemy! Study the Boer War and the Russo-Japanese war—the mortality is not more than in the wars of the last century. The history of the last Bastar rising should teach us the same lesson. And if the maxim guns were all-powerful, why has Britain retreated from the territory of Somali Mulla, covered with disgrace like a whipped cur? It will therefore be plain to anybody who gives a little thought to the subject that the strength of modern day artillery is extremely overrated. In the second place, the weapons in the hands of the people have also improved pari passu . The capitalist, true to his instincts, cannot afford to throw away his out of date guns. And by a natural process of commercial gravitation the weapons that were last taken away from use in the army come into the hands of the people. And the weapons thus available for the people at the first onrush at the present moment is not less inferior to the weapons that are in the hands of the tyrants than the weapons available for the people during past revolutions to those possessed by the tyrants of those times. So we need not spend so much as a thought to the supposed dif
ficulty created by the modern improvements in artillery.
Navy powerless against us
As regards the ability of the enemy’s navy to injure us, we have only to remember the words of Haidar Ali Khan’s proclamation, which we reproduced in full in our last issue: ‘As to their ships, though they may do us some damage on the sea-coast, yet that damage cannot exceed the distance of cannon-shot.’ And the remarks of that great son of Hindusthan are no less true today than they were in 1781.
The Terror of the Enemy and its Meaning
The very terror of the enemy should open the eyes of such of us as are blind to the fact that the possession of modern artillery and the ‘greatest’ navy in the world is not everything. The policy of repression, which the Firinghi has adopted against us is indicative of the fact that he feels that his artillery and army and navy would be powerless against us the day that even 1000 Hindusthanees make up their minds to brave them. And what cannot be done in such a country like Hindusthan? We can cut off their telegraph wires, smash the wireless apparatus, break down their rails, and their railway carriages and thus render the enemy powerless to transmit their troops with speed. By means of the bomb and the dynamite we can dismantle their cantonments and magazines and capture their guns and cannon and arm ourselves as well as them. And after all, how easy it is to forge these weapons! The blacksmiths of our country, with their natural intelligence and energy, can without the slightest difficulty cast and forge the most complicated machine-guns. And with our immense sea-board we can smuggle arms by the thousands—not all the fleet of England can prevent this if we determine to do it.
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