Gandhi

The 1922 trial of Mohandas Gandhi is as classic a nationalist trial as can be found. Gandhi was charged with “an attempt to excite disaffection towards Government…to excite political discontent and alienate the people from their allegiance” to His Majesty’s Government established by law in India.⁶³ His offense was writing three articles for Young India.

When Lord Reading said that he was “puzzled and perplexed” by those who commit “flagrant breaches of the law” in order to challenge the government and compel arrest, Gandhi wrote “A Puzzle and Its Solution” to enlighten the noble lord: “We seek arrest because the so-called freedom is slavery. We are challenging the might of this Government because we consider its activity to be wholly evil. We want to overthrow the Government. We want to compel its submission to the people’s will. We desire to show that the Government exists to serve the people, not the people the Government.”⁶⁵

Gandhi’s third offending article which was part of the indictment, titled “Shaking the Manes,” was an answer to Lord Birkenhead who reminded Indians that Britain had lost none of its “hard fibre.” Gandhi asked: “How can there be any compromise whilst the British Lion continues to shake his gory claws in our faces?” Gandhi told him that the British “�?hard fibre’ will have to be spent in India in a vain effort to crush the spirit that has risen and that will neither bend nor break.” While the Indians might lack “hard fibre,” nevertheless, “the rice-eating, puny millions of India seem to have resolved upon achieving their own destiny without any further tutelage and without arms.”⁶⁶

Gandhi pleaded guilty, but the prosecutor requested that, in order that the facts be fully known, the trial proceed.

Gandhi, who had a legal education among the finest available and was a barrister who had been admitted to an Inn of Court in London, undertook his own defense. He answered by not only admitting all that the prosecutor had said, but corrected him: “It commenced much earlier.” He then set about to “explain why, from a staunch loyalist and cooperator, I have become an uncompromising disaffectionist and non-co-operator.”

After describing his life in South Africa and India, giving a strong indictment of British rule in both places, Gandhi outlined his theory of non-cooperation: “non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good. But, in the past, non-cooperation has been deliberately expressed in violence to the evil-doer. I am endeavoring to show to my countrymen that violent non-cooperation only multiplies evil and that, as evil can only be sustained by violence, withdrawal of support of evil requires complete abstention from violence. Non-violence implies voluntary submission to the penalty for non-cooperation with evil.” He ended his statement by telling the judge that, as such, he could either “resign your post and thus dissociate yourself from evil” or “inflict on me the severest penalty.”⁶⁷

In his judgment Judge R.S. Broomfield told Gandhi that “the law is no respecter of persons. Nevertheless, it will be impossible to ignore the fact that you are in a different category from any person I have ever tried or am likely to have to try. It would be impossible to ignore the fact that, in the eyes of millions of your countrymen, you are a great patriot and a great leader.” He acknowledged that Gandhi had constantly preached against violence, but he could not understand how Gandhi continued to believe that violence would not be the inevitable consequence of his political teaching. Judge Broomfield said he would follow the case of Ganhadhar Tilak in passing sentence, giving him two years imprisonment on each count, six years total. Gandhi responded by saying he considered it to be “the proudest privilege and honour to be associated” with a patriot such as Tilak.⁶⁸ The transcript of Gandhi’s trial cannot be read without sensing that it was really the British who were on trial.