FREEDOM MOVEMENTEternal IndiaencyclopediaThe trial took place in Ahmedabad in thecourt of Mr. R.S. Broomfield, I.C.S., Ses-sions Judge. Gandhi pleaded guilty on eachcount of the charge. The Advocate Generalobserved that the court must consider theinevitable result of this campaign as shownby recent events. The pretences of non-violence are futile. The court should con-sider whether the offences do not require asentence of severity. Mahatma Gandhi when asked whether hehad anything to say observed : Before re-cording my statement I would like to say thatI endorse all that the Advocate General hassaid about me. Proclaiming disaffection, Iadmit, has become a passion with me and itcommenced long before the time mentioned byhim. I admit the blame for the crimes ofviolence committed in Bombay, Madras andelsewhere. It is true that I ought to know theconsequences of my acts. I admit that I amplaying with fire, but should do so again ifreleased. I feel it necessary that I should dothis as my duty to my people. I do not ask forany mercy. The court must do its duty.My public life began in 1893 in SouthAfrica in troubled weather. My first contactwith British authority was not of a happycharacter. I discovered that as a man and anIndian 1 had no rights; more correctly I dis-covered that I had no rights as a man becauseI was an Indian In fact I believe that I haverendered a service to India and England byshowing in non-co operation the way out ofthe unnatural state in which both are living. Inmy humble opinion, non-co operation withevil is as much a duty as is co operation withgood. But in the past non-co operation hasbeen deliberately expressed in violence to theevil-doer.I am endeavouring to show to my coun-trymen that violent non-co operation onlymultiplies evil and that an evil can only besustained by violence. Withdrawal of supportof evil requires complete abstention fromviolence. Non-violence implies voluntarysubmission to the penalty for non-co opera-tion with evil. I am therefore to invite andsubmit cheerfully to the highest penalty thatcan be inflicted upon me for what in law is adeliberate crime and what appears to me to bethe highest duty of a citizen. Justice Broomfield said : Mr. Gandhi,you have made my task easy in one way bypleading guilty to the charge. Nevertheless,what remains, viz. the determination of a justsentence is perhaps, as difficult a propositionas a judge in this country could have to face.The law is no respecter of persons.Nevertheless it would be impossible to ignorethe fact that you are in a different categoryfrom any person I have ever tried or am likelyto have to tty. It would be impossible to ignorethe fact that in the eyes of millions of yourcountrymen, you are a great patriot and agreat leader. Even those who differ from youin politics look upon you as a man of highideals and of noble and even saintly life. Ihave to deal with you in one character only. Itis not my duty and I do not presume to judgeor criticise you in any other character. It is myduty to judge you as a man subject to the lawwho has, by his own admission, broken the lawand'committed what to an ordinary man mustappear to be grave offences against the state.I do not forget that you have constantlypreached against violence and that you haveon many occasions, as I am willing to believe,done much to prevent violence, but havingregard to the nature of your political teachingand the nature of many of those to whom it isaddressed, how you could have continued tobelieve that violence and anarchy would notbe the inevitable consequences, it passes mycapacity to understand. The judge recalledthe similar case of Bal Gangadhar Tilak whohad been sentenced to six years simpleimprisonment and said that he would treat thisas a precedent and sentenced Gandhi to twoyears simple imprisonment on each count ofthe charge i.e. six years in all. He added: AndI should like to say in doing so that if the courseof events in India should make it possible forthe government to reduce the period andrelease you, no one would be better pleasedthan I. Gandhi was released on February 5,1924before the expiry of his term.Meerut Conspiracy CaseThe Meerut conspiracy case was one ofthe most celebrated cases during the Britishregime. The trial which began in 1929 lastedfour and a half years and involved almost theentire Communist and trade union leadershipin the country which was charged with havingformed a revolutionary body with the pro-fessed aim of overthrowing the Government.Thirty-two Communists, many of themEnglishmen who were members of the Com-munist Party of Great Britain like Philip Sprattand Benjamin Bradley and well-known In-dian Communists like P.C. Joshi and S.A.Dange, figured in the trial which lasted 4 1/2years.The trial was conducted at the districtcourt in the small town of Meerut. The choiceof Meerut was justified by the administrationon the ground that with the present dangerousatmosphere prevailing among the labourpopulation both in Bombay and Calcutta itwould be clearly undesirable to conduct thetrial at either of these places. But the realreason probably was that the accused couldnot in a town like Meerut get the facilitiesobtainable in the Presidency towns for con-ducting a proper defence. Also, if the trial hadbeen held in the Presidency towns trial by jurycould not have been avoided by law. Anapplication moved by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapruin the Allahabad High Court for transferringthe case to Allahabad was turned down by theChief Justice on the ground that a jury wouldnot be able to understand the very large num-ber of documents and therefore the singlejudge at Meerut was best qualified to try thecase.The verdict was delivered on January17, 1933. Three Bengali trade unionistswho belonged to no Leftist party were ac-quitted. Severe sentences ranging fromthree years to life sentences were metedout to 27 persons. These sentences wereconsiderably reduced on appeal by theAllahabad High Court which took into con-sideration the fact that they had alreadybeen in jail for more than four years.Bhagat Singh

Bhagat Singh was involved in two trials.He was tried for shooting Saunders, the Assis-tant Superintendent of Police, Lahore. Theshooting was carried out to avenge the deathof Lala Lajpat Rai who had died on November17, 1928 from lathi-charges received whileleading a procession in Lahore against theSimon Commission. The lathi-charge wascarried out under the orders of Scott, theDeputy Superintendent of Police. Saunderswas shot dead by Bhagat Singh, on December17,1928, who mistook him for Scott. BhagatSingh and his associates escaped.

Eternal IndiaencyclopediaFREEDOM MOVEMENTOn April 8,1929 Bhagat Singh and B.K.Dutt threw two bombs from the visitors' galleryon to the floor of the Central Assembly. Theydid not attempt to escape though they couldhave done so in the ensuing confusion. Theycourted arrest after raising revolutionaryslogans and throwing leaflets in the CentralHall.The trial of Bhagat Singh and B.K. Duttfor throwing the bombs in the Central Assem-bly began on May 8, 1929. They were de-fended by Asaf Ali, a young lawyer fromDelhi who on behalf of the accused read outthe following statement after the prosecutionevidence had been completed : The bombwas necessary to awaken England from herdreams. We dropped the bomb on the floor ofthe Assembly chamber to register our proteston behalf of those who had no other means leftto give expression to their heart-rending ag-ony. Our sole purpose was to make the deafhear and give the heedless a timely warning.Others have as keenly felt as we have done andfrom such seeming stillness of the sea of In-dian humanity, a veritable storm is about tobreak out; we have only hoisted the dangersignal to warn those who are speeding alongwithout heeding to the grave dangers ahead.We have only marked the end of an era ofUtopian non-violence of whose futility therising generation has been convinced beyondthe shadow of a doubt. Justifying the use of force and disagreeingwith the policy of non-violence, the statementcontinued: Force used in the furtherance ofa legitimate cause has its moral justification.The elimination of force at all costs is Utopianand the new movement which has risen in thecountry and of whose dawn we have given awarning is inspired by the ideals which GuruGovind Singh and Shivaji, Kamal Pasha andRem Khan, Washington and Garibaldi, Lafay-ette and Lenin preached. Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutt was sen-tenced to transportation for life. The SaundersMurder case or the Lahore conspiracy case asit came to be known, began on May 5 1930before a special tribunal with Justice J. Cold-stream as its President and Mr. Justice AghaHaider and Mr. Justice G.C. Hilton as itsmembers. Judgement was pronounced onOctober 7 1930. Bhagat Singh and his com-rades Sukhdev and Raj Guru were sentencedto death. They were executed on March 23,1931.Kanpur Conspiracy CaseLike the Meerut conspiracy the Kanpurconspiracy case of 1924 involved Communistand trade union leaders. N.B. Das Gupta,M.S. Usmani, Muzaffar Ahmed and S.A.Dange were tried and sentenced to 4 years R.I.The main accused, M.N. Mahendra Nath Roy,could not be proceeded against as he was outof India. M.N! Roy returned to India secretlyin December 1930. He evaded arrest for sevenmonths. He was arrested at Bombay on July21,1931.He was sent to Kanpur to stand trial.Kanpur had been selected as the venue of thetrial to avoid trial by jury and public demon-strations. The charge against Roy was that hewas a member of the Third Communist Inter-national which had established a branch inBritish India under the control of M.N.Roywith the object of depriving the King Em-peror of his Sovereignty of British India. During the trial which was not held inopen court but in the jail where he was held,M.N. Roy wanted to make a statement in hisdefence but was not allowed. It was latersmuggled out and published under the titleMy Defence. He contended that the evi-dence on record did not prove the charge ofconspiracy as the documents produced indi-cated differences of opinion among the al-leged conspirators and no plan to commit anycrime.He said:The only law for the oppressedand exploited people of India is the lawof revolt, the majestic law ofrevolutionary struggle forfreedom. Theimperialist rulers of India violate it everyday; this is the only law that the peopleof India can observe under the presentcondition.My arrest and trial represent aninstance of such violation of our law. Toaccuse me of any offence is to add insultto injury. I stand here not to answer anysuch absurd charge and insolentaccusation. I stand here to indict theBritish Government of India at the Barof the civilised world for war andaggression against one-fifth of thehuman race, for robbing our land, forobstructing our progress in everysense. The trial concluded on January 6 1932.Roy was sentenced to 12 years transportationwhich was reduced to 6 years R.I. on appeal.Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah

The trial of Sheikh Abdullah, the Lion ofKashmir, in July 1946 at Srinagar is as im-portant as that of the freedom fighters inBritish India. Abdullah fought against theautocratic rule of a Maharajah. Like MahatmaGandhi, Abdullah too gave a Quit Kashmircall.The people of Kashmir soon rose againstthe misrule of the Maharajah Hari Singh.Sheikh Abdullah was arrested and put on trialfor sedition by the Government of Kashmir inthe court of Lala Barkat Rai, Sessions Judge,Srinagar in July 1946.While concluding his submission beforethe Sessions Court, Abdullah said:It is a small matter whether I amimprisoned and tried and convicted.But it is no small matter that thepeople of Jammu and Kashmi r sufferpoverty, humiliation and degrada-tion. It has been no small matter whatthey have endured during the violentrepression and horror of the past twomonths and more, and what they areenduring now. These very eventshave demonstrated the justice of ourdemand and of our cry of QuitKashmir.For a system of government thatsubsists only by pursuing such meth-ods stands condemned. If my impris-onment and that of my colleaguesserves the cause to which we havededicated ourselves then it will bewell with us and we shall take pride inthus serving our people and the landof our forefathers.... Abdullah was sentenced to three yearssimple imprisonment on September 10, 1946.He was set free on September 29,1947 by theMaharaja after India became independent.