Gandhi and AnarchySankaran Nair, C. (Chettur), Sir
History
Gandhi and Anarchy
Sankaran Nair, C. (Chettur), Sir
Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948 -- Political and social views; India -- Politics and government -- 1919-1947
examination of the Punjab Martial Law cases has led me to believe that
at least ninety-five per cent of convictions were wholly bad. My
experience of political cases in India leads me to the conclusion that
in nine out of every ten the condemned men were totally innocent. Their
crime consisted in love of their country. In ninety-nine cases out of
hundred justice has been denied to Indians as against Europeans in the
Court of India. This is not an exaggerated picture. It is the experience
of almost every Indian who has had anything to do with such cases. In my
opinion the administration of the law is thus prostituted consciously or
unconsciously for the benefit of the exploiter.
The greatest misfortune is that Englishmen and their Indian associates
in the administration of the country do not know that they are engaged
in the crime I have attempted to describe. I am satisfied that many
English and Indian officials honestly believe that they are
administering one of the best systems devised in the world and that
India is making steady though slow progress. They do not know that a
subtle but effective system of terrorism and an organised display of
force on the one hand and the deprivation of all powers of retaliation
or self-defence on the other have emasculated the people and induced in
them the habit of simulation. This awful habit has added to the
ignorance and the self-deception of the administrators. Section 124-A
under which I am happily charged is perhaps the prince among the
political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the
liberty of the citizen. Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by
law. If one has no affection for a person or thing one should be free to
give the fullest expression to his disaffection so long as he does not
contemplate, promote or incite to violence. But the section under which
Mr. Banker and I are charged is one under which mere promotion of
disaffection is a crime. I have studied some of the cases tried under
it, and I know that some of the most loved of India's patriots have been
convicted under it. I consider it a privilege therefore, to be charged
under it. I have endeavoured to give in their briefest outline the
reasons for my disaffection. I have no personal ill-will against any
single administrator, much less can I have any disaffection towards the
King's person. But I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected towards a
Government which in its totality has done more harm to India than any
previous system. India is less manly under the British rule than she
ever was before. Holding such a belief, I consider it to be a sin to
have affection for the system. And it has been a precious privilege for
me to be able to write what I have in the various articles tendered in
evidence against me.
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