Title: Savarkar (1883–1966), Sedition and Surveillance: the rule of law in a colonial situation
Abstract: Abstract In March 1910, after two years of sustained surveillance by the colonial government, a young Indian revolutionary nationalist, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966), was arrested in London and extradited to India for trial. Among the charges he faced was the curious one of sedition. Using Savarkar as the starting point – and concluding with Gandhi's own encounter with sedition – this essay argues that sedition law had a critical, and extended, life in the colonial context, allowing the use of what were seen as dangerous words to be evidence of conspiracy long after the metropole had abandoned the practice. The colonial state's response to revolutionary nationalism gave rise to two principal colonial weapons against anti-colonial nationalism (whether manifested in Savarkar's call for armed rebellion or Gandhian nonviolent noncooperation). The first weapon was surveillance, a developing technology of state control that placed an increasingly large number of young ‘revolutionaries’ under systematic monitoring. They were placed under surveillance to monitor not just what they were doing, but also what they were thinking, writing, and speaking. The second and perhaps more important weapon of the colonial state in India was sedition law. While sedition had a long history in Britain, the modern history of sedition was in fact inextricably linked to colonial rule. The history of colonial surveillance and the development of sedition law strongly suggests that the real danger posed by all nationalists, revolutionary and otherwise, lay in a violence that was far more rhetorical and symbolic than physical, for what was really at stake was the fundamental legitimacy of colonial rule. Notes 1I would like to thank Janet Blackman, Partha Chatterjee, Valentine Daniel, Mamadou Diouf, Nicholas Dirks, Saurabh Dube, Michael Hassett, Rashid Khalidi, Elizabeth Kolsky, Adam Kosto, Claudio Lomnitz, Mark Mazower, Mae Ngai, Keith Nield, Gyanendra Pandey, Susan Pedersen, Sheldon Pollock, Anupama Rao, Satadru Sen, Dorothea von Mucke and the reviewers of Social History for their critical comments and suggestions. 2On the Indian National Congress, see N. R. Ray, Ravinder Kumar and M. N. Das, Concise History of the Indian National Congress 1885–1947, ed. B. N. Pande (New Delhi, 1985). See also Richard Sisson and Stanley A. Wolpert (eds), Congress and Indian Nationalism: Pre Independence Phase (Berkeley, 1988); Edwin Hirschmann ‘White Mutiny’: The Ilbert Bill Crisis in India and Genesis of the Indian National Congress (New Delhi, 1980); and D. A. Low (ed.), Congress and the Raj: Facets of the Indian Struggle, 2nd edn (Oxford and New Delhi, 2004). 3See Sumit Sarkar, Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1903–1908 (New Delhi, 1973), passim. 4See T. R. Sareen, Indian Revolutionary Movement Abroad (New Delhi, 1979). See also Dhananjay Keer, Veer Savarkar (Bombay, 1950), in particular chap. 2, 28–55; and Chitragupta, Life of Barrister Savarkar (Madras, 1926), 35. 5Keer, op. cit. 6See Arvind Godbole, Ase Ahet SavarkarI (Pune, 2005), 19. 7British Library, London, Oriental and India Office Collections (hereafter OIOC), IOR/Home Political/A, no. 37, Confidential, December 1909. A letter from India Office, Whitehall, on 10 September 1909, stated that the Director of Criminal Intelligence was in contact with Scotland Yard about the activities and movements of the students in India House. See also Godbole, op. cit., 20. 8See Chitragupta, op. cit., 40–3. This is the earliest known biography of Savarkar, written by someone who knew him well during his London days. Chitragupta describes the numerous times when young revolutionaries blew off their own hands, or lost eyes, or were duped by bogus European revolutionaries. 9I am grateful to Partha Chatterjee for this insight. 10Guy Aldred, an anarchist and communist, wrote a proscribed pamphlet, ‘The white terror in India’, which was a left-driven criticism of English colonial sedition laws. See OIOC/EPP/1/3 (Proscribed Publications in European Languages), August 1910. 11See Amles Tripathi, The Extremist Challenge: India between 1890 and 1910 (Calcutta, 1967); and Leonard Gordon, Bengal: The Nationalist Movement 1876–1940 (New York, 1974). See also David Johnson, The Religious Roots of Indian Nationalism: Aurobindo's Early Political Thought (Calcutta, 1974). 12The poet and novelist Bankimchandra Chattopadhyaya (1838–94) and the philosopher Swami Dayananda (1863–1902) in Bengal, V. S. Chiplunkar (1850–82) and B. G. Tilak (1856–1920) in western India, and Dayananda Saraswati (1824–83) in Punjab were key figures. On Bankimchandra Chattopadhyaya, see Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? (Minneapolis, 1995), chap. 1; on B. G. Tilak, see Ram Gopal, Lokmanya Tilak (New Delhi, 1956); Stanley Wolpert, Tilak and Gokhale: Revolution and Reform in the Making of Modern India (New Delhi, 1961); and Theodore Shay, Legacy of the Lokamanya: The Political Philosophy of Bal Gangadhar (Bombay, 1956). On Dayananda Saraswati, see J. T. F. Jordens, Dayananda Saraswati: His Life and Ideas (Delhi, 1978) and Shri Ram Sharma (ed.), History of the Arya Samaj: An Account of Its Origin, Doctrines, and Activities, with a Biographical Sketch of the Founder by Lajpat Rai (Bombay, 1967). For Aurobindo's view of the triumvirate of Bankim, Tilak and Saraswati, see Bankimchandra Chattopadhyaya, B. G. Tilak and Dayananda Saraswati, 2nd edn (Calcutta, 1947). 13See Sudipta Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation of Nationalist Discourse in India (New Delhi, 1995). 14The INC extremists were led by Lala Lajpat Rai (1865–1928) from Punjab, Bipin Chandra Pal (1858–1932) from Bengal and B. G. Tilak (1856–1920) in Maharashtra. 15I have used Dhananjay Keer's Veer Savarkar (Bombay, 1957) as well as Savarkar's memoirs in Marathi to compile this brief sketch of his life, in particular vol. 1 of Samagra Savarkar Vangmaya (Bombay, 2000), hereafter SSV. 16Wolpert, op. cit. 17SSV, vol. 1, 122–5. 18See S. R. Date, Bharatiya Swatantryache Ranazhunzhaar: Abhinava Bharat Smarak Chitraprabodhini (Pune, 1970). 19SSV, vol. 1, 28–9. 20 ibid., 140–5. 21See Prachi Deshpande, Creative Past: Historical Memory and Identity in Western India, 1700–1960 (New York, 2007). See also Mahadev Apte ‘Lokahitavadi and V. K. Chiplunkar, spokesmen of change in nineteenth-century Maharashtra’, Modern Asia Studies, vii, 2 (1973), 193–208; and Richard Tucker, ‘Hindu traditionalism and nationalist ideologies in nineteenth-century Maharashtra’, Modern Asian Studies, x, 3 (1976), 321–48. 22Keer, op. cit., 24. 23Reprinted in SSV, vol. 3 (History), part II. 24Author's introduction, The Indian War of Independence (London, 1909), i. I am citing here page numbers only from the original English translation of the book. The entire text in Marathi can be found in SSV, vol. 3 (History), part II. 25 ibid., chap. 1, 3. 26 ibid., 5, 7. 27 ibid., chap. 5, 46, 47, 50, 73, 76. 28I am grateful to Dorothea von Mucke for this insight. 29OIOC, Foreign Confidential, R/1/1/1076, 1910. In his statement, Koregaonkar names himself and a W. V. Phadke as the two translators of Savarkar's book. This is confirmed by Keer, op. cit., 31. 30SSV, vol. 1, 144–6. 31See V. M. Bhat, Abhinava Bharat athava Krantikarakanchi Krantikarak Gupta Sanstha (Mumbai, 1950) for a candid account about the revolutionaries and their activities, and how easily Anant Kanhere, being only seventeen, gave up all members of the group. 32SSV, vol. 1, 210. 33Sukhsagar Dutt was the nom de plume of Sajani Ranjan Banerjea, who was engaged by the Director of Criminal Intelligence as an informant from October 1909 until June 1913. His passage, fees for admission to the bar and the price of law books were all provided, as was a monthly allowance of £20 for the 45 months of his employment. He claims he turned informant to pay off his family debt. His expenses and education was paid for by Scotland Yard (OIOC/IOR/L/PS/8/67, 1912). He reported to a Superintendent Quinn on the ‘seditionist movement’ and was deemed very useful because he was assessed as having ‘the great merit of reporting, truthfully, and not making sensational statements in order to magnify his usefulness’. Dutt wanted to take a science course, which was approved because ‘it gave him better opportunities of mixing with the Indians and getting information, and the science course is one that appeals to Indians with extremist tendencies’ (my emphasis), 31, 32. See also R. A. Padmanabhan, V. V. S. Aiyar (New Delhi, 1980) for a biographical account of the surveillance on India House. 34Home Political/Branch A/December 1909, no. 37, Confidential (National Archives, New Delhi). 35Savarkar Police History Sheet (Calcutta, 1935), 8. 36For the surveillance game that Savarkar played with the colonial police, see Y. D. Phadke, Shodh Savarkarancha (Bombay, 1984). See also David Garnet, The Golden Echo (London, 1953), 157, in which the author notes that there was always a Scotland Yard policeman hanging about on the street outside India House. 37Home Political/Deposit/December 1908 (National Archives, New Delhi). 38Godbole, op. cit., 24. 39Home Political/Deposit/December 1908 (National Archives, New Delhi). 40 ibid., 8 June 1908. 41 ibid., June 1908. 42Home Department/Political/60-A, 1908–9, S3 (National Archives, New Delhi). 44Home Department/Political/60-A, 23 August 1908 (National Archives, New Delhi). 43 ibid. See also Keer, op. cit., 65. 45Home Department/Political/60-A, S21 (National Archives, New Delhi). 46 ibid. 47Garnet, op. cit., 153. 48Home Department/Special/60-A, 1909–22 (National Archives, New Delhi), 5, 11, 19. See correspondence between the DIG Police (Mr Guider) and the Director of Criminal Intelligence on the question of the legal justification for Savarkar's arrest. 49Home Political/Deposit/July 1909, no. 19 (National Archives, New Delhi). 50Home Political/Deposit/October 1909, no. 29 (National Archives, New Delhi). 51Home Political/A, August 1909, nos 23–7 (National Archives, New Delhi). 52 ibid. 53See Godbole, op. cit., 23. 54Home Department/Political/60-B, 1910 (National Archives, New Delhi), 55, 58. 55Home Political/Deposit/May 1910, no. 1 (National Archives, New Delhi). 56Savarkar Police History Sheet (Calcutta, 1935), 12. 57Home Department/1909/Telegrams 135, Telegram to Secretary of State, 15 May 1909, regarding VDS; Telegram 136 from Secretary of State, stating that the Benchers have postponed the call to the bar of VDS and Harnam Singh (National Archives, New Delhi). 58Home Political/Deposit, May 1910, no. 1 (National Archives, New Delhi). 59Home Political/A/ February 1910, Telegram nos 31–2 (National Archives, New Delhi). 60Home Department/Political/1910, Notes of the Criminal Intelligence Office, Telegram from the Director, CI, dated Nasik, 13 January 1910 (National Archives, New Delhi). 61Home Political/Deposit, May 1910, no. 1 (National Archives, New Delhi). 62Garnet, op. cit., 153. 63Keer, op. cit., 72. 64Godbole, op. cit., 40. 65Michael Lobban, The Common Law and English Jurisprudence, 1760–1850, in particular the chapter on Blackstone and codification (Oxford, 1991). 66Elizabeth Kolsky, Colonial Justice: White Violence and the Rule of Law in British India (Cambridge, 2009). 68See H. P Gupta and P. K. Sarkar, Law relating to Press and Sedition in India (Bombay, 2002), 157. On the development of seditious libel in England, see Philip Hamburger ‘The development of the law of seditious libel and the control of the press’, Stanford Law Review, xxxvii, 661 (February 1985), 662–765. Hamburger argues that over the course of the seventeenth century, the Crown was compelled to abandon other forms of control over the press such as treason, heresy, libel, Scandalum Magnatum and Tudor felony statues, and only then did the law of seditious libel come to prominence. 67I am grateful to Philip Hamburger for this clarification. 69Michael Lobban, ‘From seditious libel to unlawful assembly: Peterloo and the changing face of political crime, c. 1770–1820’, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, x, 3 (Autumn 1990), 307–52, argues that sedition all but vanishes from English common law because of the dispute between judge and jury about the determination of ‘seditious libel’ which brought together the legal question of fact, on the one hand, with subjective interpretation on the other. ‘Sedition’ was a matter for the jury to determine since it addressed the question of the state of mind of the seditionist and the purported effect the alleged sedition had on a group of people; ‘libel’, on the other hand, was a matter of law which could be ruled on by the judge. As a law, it became increasingly unusable, Lobban argues, not least because defence counsel argued hard to protect the rights of the free-born jury to determine such matters. In the process, seditious libel on account of the technical difficulties related to case presentations gave way to an easier and more usable legal instrument that, in effect, avoided the thorny questions of fact and interpretation of seditious content. 70 ibid. 71Alexander Sullivan was prosecuted and convicted for seditious libel in 1868 for articles he had published in November and December 1867 about the execution of three Fenians. In his judgment, Justice Fitzgerald noted that sedition was a crime against society, closely allied to and frequently preceding treason by a short interval. He also wrote that the tendency of sedition was to invite people to insurrection. See R v. Sullivan (1868) 11 Cox CC 44, 45, 54. Fenians were more likely, however, to be prosecuted under the 1848 Treason Felony Act, under which it was a felony, punishable with life imprisonment, to levy war against the king. Under the old 1351 Statute, it was treason to imagine the death of the king, i.e. to plot or plan such an act, but the charge of levying war required an actual act of hostility. The new Statute allowed people to be prosecuted without actually engaging in any acts of hostility. I am immensely grateful to Michael Lobban for pointing me to these cases, and for clarifying the difference between sedition used in Irish trials, and sedition as it was later used in India. 72M. E. Hassett, ‘The British Government's Reaction to Mainland Irish Terrorism, c. 1867–1979’ (Ph.D., Open University, 2007), chap. 2, 4–5. 73For details on the creation of the Criminal Investigation Department and its connection with the Special Irish Branch of the Metropolitan Police, and the ‘Fenian Office’ of Scotland Yard, see Hassett, ibid., chap. 2. 74 The (London) Times, ‘The trial of Mr Tilak’, 15 September 1897. 75A. G. Noorani, Indian Political Trials: 1775–1947 (New Delhi, 1976), 124. 76 The (London) Times, ‘The trial of Mr Tilak’, 22 July 1908. 77I am grateful to Satadru Sen and Elizabeth Kolsky for this insight. 78Home Department/Political/Notes, 60-B, 1910 (National Archives, New Delhi), 269. 79 ibid., 271. 81 ibid. 80 The (London) Times, ‘The Savarkar case. Text of the judgment’, 14 January 1911. 82Garnet, op. cit., 157, 159. 83Home Department/Special/71, 1908 (National Archives, New Delhi). 84Mulk Raj Anand (ed.), The Historic Trial of Mahatma Gandhi (New Delhi, 1987), 15. 85 ibid., 18. 86 ibid., 19. 87 ibid. Introductory remarks by Mahatma Gandhi before reading his statement, 39. 88 ibid., 45. 89 ibid., 46. 90 ibid.
Publication Year: 2010
Publication Date: 2010-02-01
Language: en
Type: article
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