Revolutionaries on Trial: Sedition, Betrayal, and Martyrdom
Author: Aparna Vaidik
Genre: Colonial History Non-Fiction
Published by: Aleph Book Company
Pages: 442
MRP: Rs. 999/-
Review Copy sent by Aleph Book Company for the purpose of this review
Before diving into the review, let’s address the elephant in the room. What has Harsh done to the dust jacket? To be fair, it wasn’t my fault. Not TOTALLY my fault, I mean. I was reading the book in my balcony at 4 in the afternoon. It wasn’t particularly windy, so I removed the dust jacket, as I usually do. Who would have guessed that it would suddenly get cloudy and windy? Long story short, I found the jacket in the garden next door. Hence, the dust on the dust jacket.
Now, let’s get to the book.
We are all aware of Bhagat Singh. Some of us might even know Sukhdev and Rajguru. This book tells us the story of where it all began (the motivations behind the revolutionaries) and where it all ended (the ultimate trial and, spoiler alert: the death penalty).
The author discusses the Public Safety Bill and the Trade Dispute Bill, and how they were passed in Parliament. The British alleged these bills were introduced to curb communist funding into India, which was also used for nationalist purposes. These bills gave draconian powers to the British. They could detain suspects without a fair trial, a blatant violation of fundamental rights. The bills were primarily aimed at silencing political opponents and suppressing protests against British rule. They were a response to the growing influence of communist ideas in India, which the British viewed as a threat to their regime.
These bills were met with fierce opposition from Indian nationalists, led by figures like Motilal Nehru, who famously called them the "Slavery of India Bill No. 1." Despite stiff resistance, the British government passed the bills, using its majority in the legislature. The bills became symbols of British oppression and fueled the growing anti-colonial sentiment in India. This contributed to the radicalization of a section of Indian youth, leading to the emergence of militant revolutionary groups like the HSRA, of which the revolutionaries in the book were a part.
The book shows how the Lahore trial was, contrary to historical arguments, a trial where the revolutionaries turned the proceedings into a farce to expose the law’s flaws. The trial was the revolutionaries' call for perpetual vigilance, reminding us that the law can always be abused and should always be watched with care.
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Aparna Vaidik, a history professor at Ashoka University, accessed the Lahore Conspiracy Case records at the Punjab Government State Archives in Lahore, having visited the city twice for her research. She also spent considerable time in London studying the India Office Records at the British Library, using these sources extensively to support her arguments. Her work highlights several key sedition trials, including the Assembly Bomb Case, the Lahore Conspiracy Case, and the Delhi Bomb Case trial.
Vaidik disputes the idea that these trials merely represent Britain’s failure to uphold the rule of law. Instead, she argues that they reveal a hidden history of colonial violence, unacknowledged except in events like the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. This exposed the British colonial violence that lay beneath the ideology of the “rule of law.” She contends that the “gap between the reason of state (power) and the rule of law (moral ideology)” is insufficient to understand these trials fully.
According to Vaidik, sedition is better understood by examining the “illicit relationship between law and violence.” She argues that the colonial state’s courts relied on a form of violence deeply embedded in the legal system. In her quest for truth, Vaidik navigates a complex landscape of witnesses, betrayers, judicial records, colonial archives, and contemporary news sources like *The Tribune* and *Hindustan Times*. Her scholarship posits that conspiracy and sedition trials were pantomimes designed to camouflage their true intent—the survival and perpetual rule of the colonial state. However, the revolutionaries were no political novices. They harnessed every opportunity to amplify their voices, resonating across the nation. Bhagat Singh and his comrades soon became the heartbeat of the country.
I may not fully agree with Vaidik’s interpretation of certain events, as I mentioned in a brief chat with her. However, I cannot deny that I had a great time reading her book. It kept me hooked from start to finish.
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