How Bhagat Singh gave us the term Political Prisoner
But the Indian government too did not accord Singh the status of political prisoner
Chaman Lal
Port-of-Spain, Trinidad
On 8 April 1929, Bhagat Singh and BK Dutt were arrested after throwing bombs in New Delhi’s Central Assembly, the Parliament of today. Both were convicted after a superfast trial on 12 June 1929 and ‘transported for life’ under Section 307 of the IPC and under the Explosives Act.
These two months and four days included a magisterial trial and then the committing to a sessions judge. The Delhi sessions judge started the trial in the first week of June 1929. On 6 June, Singh made a historic statement before the court, which is now part of the treasured list of world political documents.
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Asaf Ali represented Dutt. Singh fought his own case with the help of a legal adviser. Soon, Judge Leonard Middleton convicted them. Their appeal in the Punjab High Court at Lahore was dismissed by a two-judge bench on 13 January 1930 though the court acknowledged Singh to be ‘a sincere revolutionary’.
Up to 14 June 1929, Singh and Dutt were treated well in a Delhi jail and were given the facilities of reading and a good diet. However, after their conviction, they were transferred to Mianwali and Lahore jails of Punjab as ordinary criminal convicts and their facilities were withdrawn.
This gave Singh an opportunity to plan a prolonged non-violent but radical political struggle from inside the jail to protect the dignity of ‘Political Prisoners’.
The issue did not draw the serious attention of the Congress party even though thousands of its workers were courting arrest off and on as political workers and faced harsh conditions in jails. The Congress overlooked this because its big leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, etc., were always treated with special privileges inside jail.
Singh and Dutt decided to start an indefinite hunger strike from the first day of their arrival in the jails of Punjab, when they were not shown the courtesy of being ‘political prisoners’. Singh even protested against Dutt and he being separated, because the Lahore conspiracy case, dealing with the murder of JP Saunders, was to begin shortly, in which he was the principal accused.
He wrote to the IG Prisons, Punjab, about this transfer on 17 June 1929. On the same day, he also informed the IG he was on hunger strike for certain demands, the most important being that he should be treated as a ‘Political Prisoner’.
On 18 June 1929, the Superintendent of the Mianwali jail sought clarifications from Singh on his letter to the IG. Singh replied the next day. Later when Singh was also sent to Lahore jail, Dutt and he sent a joint letter to the Home Member of the Indian government. The three letters have historic significance in the context of their struggle for the rights of political prisoners in jail.
The letters are reproduced at the end of this article.
After a few days, Singh was transferred to Lahore jail, but their hunger strike remained unknown to their own comrades since they were lodged in different jails. On 10 July 1929, when the 16 arrested out of the 25 accused appeared before the magistrate, they were shocked to see Singh being brought to court on a stretcher. His condition was bad.
From 10 July, the other accused in the case joined the hunger strike. This is one of the most significant hunger strikes of a political nature the world has ever seen.
The British colonial regime tried its best to break the strike, by oppressive and deceitful means. The Congress party got involved after 10 July because media reports on the protestors and their hunger strike began coming. Singh and company were becoming popular among the Indian people every day.
A jail inquiry committee and a jail reform committee were formed. At one point, British officials accepted they would implement some recommendations and the Congress party assured the revolutionaries that their demand would be met.
On this assurance, all the revolutionaries except Jatin Das suspended their hunger strike on 2 September 1929. Das’s condition was now irreversible and he did not want to let the British regime escape the responsibility of his death inside jail.
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Singh resumed his hunger strike after two days as the British refused to release Das unconditionally, even though they knew he could die. Das died on 13 September 1929, after 63 days of hunger strike. Jinnah made a speech in the Central Assembly in support of the striking revolutionaries. He spoke on 12 and 14 September 1929, a day before and a day after the martyrdom of Das, because his speech could not be completed in a day.
Singh continued his hunger strike till 4 October, making a record for those days of 112 days fast in jail. The British officials yielded a bit, but for agreed demands Singh had to observe another 15-day hunger strike in February 1930. In July-August 1930, Singh stopped eating again, this time against jail rules. He informed the Special Tribunal in Lahore, whose proceedings he boycotted throughout the trial, and also the Punjab High court, where he filed a petition against the denial of interviews by jail authorities.
Singh’s third hunger strike in July-August 1930 was not known until recently when a few of his letters were displayed by the Supreme Court in an exhibition in September 2007.
Though Singh and his comrades fought valiantly inside jail to secure rights for ‘Political Prisoners’ as special category, they were not given this status.
Even the Indian government did not accord this status, though transfer of power took place in 1947.
The three letters written by Singh and Dutt, and one by the Superintendent of the Mianwali jail to Singh, make interesting reading. They are also relevant today in the context of hundreds of people from different walks of life getting imprisoned for political reasons, like agitating against forced land acquisition by the state or Narmada Bachao Andolan-like agitations.
Here are the letters. The grammar has been retained as was written.
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Bhagat Singh and BK Dutt’s letter to the Home Member, Government of India, 24 June 1929
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Chaman Lal is Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Humanities and Education, University of West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago
prof.chaman@gmail.com
Hindustan Times, March 29, 2011