As retribution for the sentence of Transportation meted out to Ganesh Damodar (Babarao) Savarkar, Veer Savarkar’s elder brother and Dhingra’s martyrdom, the revolutionaries in Nashik, Anant Kanhere, Karve and Deshpande conspired and assassinated A.M.T. Jackson, the Collector of Nashik on 21 December 1909. Savarkar, in London at that time, developed double-pneumonia and was shifted to Dr. Muthu’s hospital in Wales to recuperate. In hospital Savarkar received a telegram from Shyamji Krishnavarma informing him of Jackson’s assassination. Following Dhingra’s assassination of Sir Curzon Wyllie, Savarkar was arrested at Victoria Station, London on 13 March 1910 when arriving from Paris on an Indian warrant, charging him with sedition and inciting to murder in India.

The extradition of Savarkar was handled at the highest level. On 29 June 1910, then Home Secretary Winston Churchill issued the following order, ‘Now I, the Right Honourable Winston Leonard Churchill, do hereby order that the said Vinayak Damodar Savarkar be returned to the Empire of India’.

Accordingly, on 01 July 1910, Savarkar was made to board the S.S. Morea to bring him to India. The Governor of Bombay Sir George Clarke who played a major role in Savarkar’s conviction had this to say, ‘V.D. Savarkar, a Konkanastha Brahmin, was one of the the most dangerous men that India has produced. He was the leading spirit at the India House when the murders at the Imperial Institute were planned, and one of his satellites accompanied the wretched assassin Dhingra to keep him to his fatal resolve. Savarkar sent twenty Browning pistols, purchased in Paris, to Bombay and one of them was used for the murder of Mr. Jackson at Nasik’.

It was on 08 July 1910 while S.S. Morea was docked at Marseilles that Savarkar made his epic leap into the ocean and braving bullets, he swam to the French soil. His subsequent arrest and handover to British Police on French soil caused an international furore. The case went to the International Court of Justice at The Hague.

Savarkar was lodged initially in Nashik and then in Yerawada Jail, Pune. The British Government rejected efforts to stay his trial till the international ramifications of his arrest by British detectives on French soil had settled. Finally, ‘the Government of the French Republic and the Government of His Majesty, having agreed by means of an exchange of notes dated October 4 and 5, 1910, to submit to arbitration, on the one hand the questions of fact and right raised by the arrest and the taking back, on board the Steamship Morea on July 8th, 1910, at Marseilles, of the Indian Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who escaped from boat on which he was a prisoner, and on the other hand, the claim of the Government of the republic for the surrender of Savarkar’ agreed to an arbitration tribunal.

In the meanwhile, Savarkar’s trial began at the Bombay High Court on 15 September 1910 before a three-judge bench. There were 37 co-accused in three cases running concurrently, an unprecedented number for the trial of any revolutionary! The following eight charges were slapped on all the accused in the three cases:

1. Waging war against the King Emperor for a period of three years till December 1909 in Nashik and other places in India, and in London in the case of Savarkar

2. Attempt to wage such a war

3. Indulged in conspiracy to that end

4. Conspired to commit crimes under Section 121 of the Indian Penal Code

5. Conspired to deprive the King Emperor of the sovereignty of India

6. Conspired to overawe the Government of India or the Government of Bombay by criminal force

7. Collected arms and explosives with the aim of waging war

8. Concealed by illegal means the objective of waging war

The marathon trial lasted for 69 days. The sentence was read on 24 December 1910. It said, ‘We find the accused guilty of abetment of waging war by instigation, by circulation of printed matter inciting to war, the providing of arms and the distribution of instructions for the manufacture of explosives. He is therefore, guilty of an offence punishable under section 121 A of the Indian Penal Code. We also find him guilty of conspiring with others of the accused to overawe, by criminal force or show of criminal force, the Government of India and the Local Government’. Savarkar was sentenced to Transportation for Life and forfeiture of all property.

On the very day (29 November 1910) the task of collecting evidence in the Nashik Conspiracy Case was completed, the Bombay Government sent a telegram to the Government of India asking that a second trial of Savarkar on charges of abetting the Jackson murder be started after the outcome of the tribunal at The Hague. The Government of India replied that it could not wait for the tribunal to give its verdict. On behalf of the Government of India, Lord Hardinge opined, ‘Savarkar is an extremely dangerous man and would be regarded as a hero and his influence and power for mischief would be greatly increased if set free’. Actually, Savarkar was in London when Jackson was assassinated. The evidence of having sent pistols and pamphlets had already been used in the first trial. However, the Government was hell-bent on securing death penalty for Savarkar. Hence it charged that the pistol used to kill Jackson was one of the many sent by Savarkar. The charge-sheet said that while in London in 1909, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar abetted the murder of A.M.T. Jackson on 21 December 1910 and was involved in the same and had thus committed crimes under Sections 109 and 302 of the Indian Penal Code. For this, Savarkar was sentenced on 30 January, 1911, to Transportation for Life for a second time. On hearing this sentence, Savarkar made the following remarkable statement, ‘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 Motherland can march on to an assured, if not a speedy triumph’.

NOTE: One Transporation for Life meant 25 years; thus two sentences of Transportation for Life meant 50 years. However, after a few years in the Cellular Jail, as per the Jail manual, prisoners were allowed to stay outside the Cellular jail and raise a family. Even this was denied to the Savarkar brothers. In fact their release from the Cellular Jail did not mean release from jail. They were imprisoned on arrival on Indian mainland. Even when Savarkar was interned in Ratnagiri district and prohibited from carrying out political activities (1924), the stipulated period was five years. However, the Government periodically extended this term so that Savarkar was finally unconditionally released only in 1937.

Separation of the two brothers
The steamship Maharaja carrying the two Savarkar brothers Babarao and Tatyarao (Savarkar’s nickname) from the Andamans landed in Calcutta on 06 May 1921. From here, the two brothers were separated. Tatyarao was sent to Alipore Jail and then in utmost secrecy taken to Bombay. From there, he was lodged first in Ratnagiri Jail where he was made to undergo rigorous imprisonment (It was in Ratnagiri Jail that Savarkar wrote his immortal and seminal book Essentials of Hindutva; he also organized the shuddhi of a Christian officer and his wife while in Ratnagiri Jail) and then in Yerwada Jail, Pune. Babarao was initially lodged in Alipore Jail for a day or two. From there, the two brothers were separated. Babarao was sent to solitary confinement in the Belgaum Jail (May 1921 to January 1922). From there, he was lodged in Sabarmati jail. It was only when the Government was convinced that Babarao would surely die (they did not want a martyr on their hands) that he was released in September 1922 (Babarao Savarkar was thus in jail from June 1909 to September 1922).

Savarkar spent 11 years in prison in the Andamans, another three years in Indian jails followed by over thirteen years interned in Ratnagiri.