“Oh blest are the bravest friends Who shall live the day of glory to see! But next dearest blessing that heaven can give Is the pride of thus dying for thee.
- Thomas Moore
At last Mr. Savarkar landed back on those native shores for which “he longed and he pined”—but in a very different way. As soon as steamer reached Bombay he was escorted down through rows of drawn swords and cuffed. He was immediately huddled into a motor, then in a train with doors and shutters closed. He was made to get down from the train and, once more in a close motor, driven to a big stone building. There he knew that he was in Nashik in the Police lock-up. He was taken with his hands tied with a rope which was held back by the sergeants and in that condition exposed to the gaze of all passed-by. None but the most trusted and tried sergeants were ordered to watch him.
Still in spite of all this precaution a couple of days did not pass when a small letter was dropped into his cell by some unknown person which informed him that the news of his escape had travelled faster than he did and that the French Government had already forwarded a demand to have him back.
Then the audacious adventure at Marseilles was not after all as great a failure as it first seemed to be! Of course there was little hope, Mr. Savarkar thought, of his being handed back to France; but at any rate the second important object he had at heart was fulfilled. The time being his romantic adventure and a diplomatic complication formed the foremost topic in the world press. That naturally made all inquire into India’s struggle for freedom, the high-handedness with which the bureaucracy, and in the ultimate sense the British people, ruled her what her grievances were and what her claims.
British attempts to tighten their hold on Savarkar and their refusal to deliver him to France only made the contrast greater between their professions and practice, that a nation that ever boasted to have offered asylum to Mazzini and Garibaldi and posed as the staunchest champion of the oppressed and the struggle for political liberty all over the world should have suddenly turned a somersault and changed its code of political morals as soon as one those who were oppressed by themselves claimed that political liberty and demanded the protection of inter- national law against their own interest, exposed the British Government to the ridicule of all Europe and America. From the remotest China to Egypt, all the world over, Mr. Savarkar’s life and doings and photos were in demand and the papers openly comparing him with Mazzini and Kossuth and Prince Kropotkin, supported the French demand to have him back. La Humanity and other French papers and leaders moved heaven and earth in French not to allow the question to be hushed up. But France and Germany were not on good terms. Rumours of a great war to come were thick in high circles and so France, afraid of Germany could not afford to displease her probable and powerful ally, England, on account of such an issue as that. This was the reason why France, a nation that otherwise is so sensitive on questions of national honour, agreed to refer the issue to arbitration and the matter was sent up to the Hague—to the highest International Court in the world. To The Hague the Indian Revolutionists too hastened. A written statement, ending with an eloquent appeal to French honour, was written and smuggled out of his prison in India, by Mr. Savarkar reached their hands. They distributed copies of it to all nations and utilized the occasion to spread their propaganda, to relate the endless story of the wrongs and display the fetters that held their Motherland in bondage and to hold England to the ridicule of the world opinion.
All this news reached Savarkar who, even in the prison and even when under the strictest possible watch and ward, never failed to attract following and friends even amongst the officers themselves, Indians as well as Europeans, and managed to keep abreast with the world news. He felt delighted. Never mind, he thought, if I be not returned to France, I courted he sufferings and death and I will face them. But I have the satisfaction of having shaken them so mightily and taxed all their ingenuity so severely as to render the story of my arrest worthy of the President of Abhinava Bharat, quite in keeping with the patriotic and romantic transaction of the Italian or the Russian Revolutionists.
The officers-in-charges of the escort that took Mr. Savarkar to Indian was reduced in rank, and the French policeman too that had handed over Mr. Savarkar to the British police was reported to have been sent to jail for his dereliction of duty. In India too a special Tribute Act had to be passed under which cases of revolutionary nature could be tried without a jury and without an appeal. Thus dispensing with fundamental principles and conditions of justice the case of Mr. Savarkar, along with that of the Nashik conspiracy was sent before this newly and almost specially devised Tribunal. The trial was a memorable one. The figure of Mr. Savarkar attracted the attention of the entire educated world to it.
When Mr. Savarkar was brought under an armed escort in a closed car to the High Court, he was asked to enter the dock of the prisoners. While he was doing so he was lustily cheered. But by whom? He looked at the galleries, they were vacant under orders; he looked at the corridors - not a man was allowed to enter the court except the chief parties to the case: he looked below and found some thirty to forty youths and gentlemen crowded in the dock enthusiastically welcoming him back! They were his co-accused. They had borne unmentionable distressed and some of them only because of their friendship or relation with him—only to have something pumped out of them against him. Any sign betraying their acquaintance with him was likely to be construed as a further proof of their complicity in his revolutionary movements. But in spite of this all, his very sight enthused and inspired them with a new life and they all rose and cheered him and accorded a hearty welcome as soon as he entered the dock. Savarkar had been a popular hero throughout his life—had been taken in processions through thousands of followers and admirers—had been garlanded by towns and cities; but never had any welcome touched him so deeply as that accorded by the little group of parties who, even while they stood under the shadows of a scaffold for their relationship with him, instinctively rose to honour him back into their midst. He had at last the satisfaction of standing by the side of comrades in the thick of the fight and bearing the greater part of the distressful and terrible burden of the untold miseries that were in store for them. When later on the court offered a chair and asked Mr. Savarkar to take his seat the tribunal by the side of the Advocates, Mr. Savarkar political declined the concession, adding that he felt more at ease amidst his fellow-accused, in the dock of prisoners than outside it.
Amongst them was his beloved youngest brother Narayan - now the well - known Maratha leader, Dr. Narayan Rao Savarkar. Vinayak had left him as a boy of 15. Now after four years he had already grown into a youth of some 19 years of age. Naturally, Mr. Savarkar could not at once pick him out. His friends deliberately mixed him up in the group. It was only after an effort that Vinayak Rao could “identify” him to the great amusement of his co-accused.
The trial opened. Mr. Savarkar declined to take any part whatever in the trial, adding that, although he was not guilty of any crime whatever, he deemed himself to be under the protection of French Law and, in as much as he had been thence forcibly carried to India in controvention of International Law, he declined to be a willing party to that high-handed affair. He could not recognize British jurisdiction in India.
Throughout the trial where issue concerning life and death were involved, he sat perfectly unconcerned only about the fate of his comrades, busy in reading taking down notes to guide the cross-examination of witnesses against his co- accused, or inspiring those who seemed to lose heart, or persuading and influencing others to withdraw their confessions which they said were extracted from them under pressure of torture. Informer after informer, and detective, came and related, in most dreadful colours, accounts of Mr. Savarkar’s activities which exposed him to fearful consequences—but he did not flinch a bit, refused to cross-examine and maintained the fierce attitude he once assumed “of not recognizing British Jurisdiction in India.”
How Mr. Savarkar was accused of smuggling now and then parcels of revolvers, even fifty at a time, under most ingenious designs, how daring had been the men who took them to India under the very nose of the ever-watchful customers officers and detectives, how bomb factories were established in Maharashtra as well as Bengal, how even girls at times carried and concealed explosive, how secret societies conducted by girls co-operated with those of youth, how sensational were the details of the plot and the execution of Mr. Jackson’s assassination—these and other thrilling disclosures we have to pass over for want of space. Suffice it to say that, even while the dreadful trial was going, revolutionary discussions were freely carried on in spite of, and defiance of, the strictest Police attempts to stop the accused from conversing with one another and those of them who had been the members of the Abhinava Bharat and knew not of revolutionary principles, were taught them and initiated into the brotherhood by Mr. Savarkar in the very dock—so reckless was his activity.
Today the judgment is to be delivered. The accused, some forty men are expecting the extreme penalty of the law. They are all tittering and humorously discussing who were likely to pass the “final examination” that day. Those who were likely to get transportation for life were marked out as securing the “first class,” and the others the “second class,” and so on. While those who were likely to be acquitted were humorously classed as failures. At last the Judges solemnly heralded in the dreadful judgment was read out, and first of all, Mr. Savarkar was called out and sentenced to transportation for life: he partially rose and, in solemn acknowledgment of it saluted his Motherland with a Vande Mataram!
The second and third and fourth - terrible sentences are being passed, terms of transportation and rigorous imprisonment. One of the charges against the accused being that they were in the habit of raising the cries of “Hail thee, Goddess of Independence!” on all public occasions, the Judges in dignified wrath pronounced the fearful sentences meant to cow down the culprits and rose. Even while they were turning their backs and the court standing to honour them a loud acclamation rose from the dock. The sentenced culprits had risen in a body and raised that very war - cry “Hail thee, Goddess of Independence.”
The Judges got startled at the loud shout, the Police rushed - their chief furious with mortification roared, “Pakdo, Maro! Ab Kaidi Hai!” Down with them! Thrash them, flog them, they are now prisoners! While forty mingled voice raised the cry “Hail thee, Goddess of Independence.”
The Police immediately fell on them, and handcuffing Mr. Savarkar, removed him from the dock. He took off his hat and, waving on farewell to them whom he in all human probabilities was never to see again, walked on.
Later on, as if this one sentence of transportation for life was not enough, second trial based on identical facts—was instituted against him for abetment of murder in connection with the Jackson affair. Everyone thought that this was only meant to hang him, but still he did not budge an inch. He stuck to his first statement and refused to recognize the authority of British Courts in India. But whether it was the fierce light of world opinion that was focused on Mr. Savarkar owing to the Marseilles case and the proceedings of The Hague tribunal or otherwise, the judges, convicting Mr. Savarkar of the second charges, sentenced him once more to a second transportation for life and did not pass a capital punishment.
He rose and declared: I am prepared to face ungrudgingly the extreme penalty of your laws, in the belief that it is through sufferings and sacrifice alone that our beloved, triumph!”
These were his last words: these also shall be the last words of this short sketch of his life.
He was immediately handcuffed and an armed guard removed him from the Court from the sight of the world—with the following Marathi song, which we render in English, on his lips: “FIRST INSTALMENT”
Pleased be thou, mother! To acknowledge this little service of thy children.
Boundless is our indebtedness to Thee! Thou chose us to bless and suckle us at thy breast!
Behold! We enter the flames of this consecrated Fire to-day. The first instalment of that debt of Love we pay.
And totally taking a new birth there and then will we immolated ourselves over again till the hungry God of sacrifice be full and crown Thee with glory.
With Shree Krishna for Thy redoubtable charioteer, and Shree Ram to lead and thirty crores of soldiers to fight under thy banner.
Thy army stops not though we fall! But pressing on shall utterly rout the forces of Evil and Thy right hand, oh Mother, shall Plant the golden Banner of righteousness and Independence on the triumphant Tops of the Himalayas.