The following is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of the book Eclipse of the Hindu Nation: Gandhi and his Freedom Struggle by Radha Rajan, New Age Publishers (P) Ltd., 2009

Thus at the very beginning of Hind Swaraj, Gandhi communicated to the British his intention to douse the fire of hostility and armed resistance that the passionate nationalism of Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar had kindled in the hearts of ordinary Indians. In a new and significant departure from the line taken by nationalists in the INC and outside it, Gandhi declared that the enslaved people of India had the same responsibility as the ruling British race and that Indians must conduct themselves as justly towards the English as Gandhi expected the English to treat Indians. Gandhi coaxed Indians to be satisfied that William Wedderburn, a British civil servant and President of the INC was well-meaning and hence Indians should not despise and shun every Englishman.

This is the crux of the matter: Gandhi placed the oppressor and the oppressed at par on the matter of doing ‘justice’; proclaimed that good intentions sufficed to lend credibility to the British government in the eyes of Indians; and most significantly, sent a veiled warning to Indians that unless they stopped viewing the entire English race as an enemy and doused their hostility towards the British government, the latter was not obliged to treat Indians better and could legitimately delay Home Rule. Gandhi issued the explicit warning that if Indians used force (he termed it violence) to attain their objectives, then the British would be justified in their use of force to repress all resistance:

To use brute force, to use gun-powder is contrary to passive resistance, for it means that we want our opponent to do by force that which we desire, but he does not. And if such a use of force is justifiable, surely he is entitled to do likewise by us. [1]

Gandhi’s astonishing declamation regarding the sense of justice inherent in British rule flew in the face of the most recent conduct of the Raj. Tilak was arrested in 1908 on charges of seditious writing - a charge laid against the three most important leaders of the age who advocated ending colonial rule by all and every means. All three were charged for sedition and incarcerated to create the vacuum required for Gandhi’s return to India. Tilak was first tried in the ‘Police Court’ in Mumbai where he was defended by a Parsee lawyer by name Davar. From the ‘Police Court’ the case against Tilak was then moved to the Mumbai High Court where it was posted before Justice Davar - the father of Barrister Davar who defended Tilak in the ‘Police Court’.

This was trial by jury and the jury comprised nine members: seven Englishmen and two Parsees. Not surprisingly Tilak was found guilty of sedition by seven-to-two and exiled to Mandalay [2] for six years. The British government placed seven Englishmen in a jury deciding a case for sedition against the King of England; such was the inherent justice of the British government so admired by Gandhi and yet this is the theme song of Hind Swaraj. But the most striking aspect of the trials of Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar was that not a single luminary of the INC whose ranks included distinguished barristers and lawyers trained in London, such as Gokhale and Naoroji to name just two, came forward to defend or speak in support of these intrepid warriors. These legal luminaries were Congress stalwarts and were either empire loyalists or ‘moderates’. This raises suspicions that the brutal repression and removal from public life of Tilak, Aurobindo and Savarkar with conniving silence from the Congress including Gandhi, himself an ardent faithful of the empire and a London-educated lawyer finally broke the backbone of the Hindu nationalist movement.

Tilak was transported from India in the critical years between 1908 and 1914, Aurobindo driven from public life between 1908 and 1909 and Savarkar entombed in the Andamans for the next 11 years after being sentenced with transportation for life. Tilak’s health suffered irretrievable damage and he died soon thereafter in 1920; Aurobindo bid adieu to politics in 1910 and Savarkar was compelled to give an undertaking to the British government to desist from politics and stay confined to Ratnagiri. Modern Indian politicians who opposed the unveiling of Savarkar’s portrait in Parliament should examine the true history of those whom they acknowledge as their leaders, who made common cause with the Raj against their own people who fought, not for Home Rule or Self-Rule within the Empire, but to throw the British out of India.

When Savarkar was arrested in 1948 on mere suspicion for conspiring to assassinate Gandhi, Nehru intended to incarcerate him under any pretext, even without proof of his guilt.

The lawyer who defended Savarkar at this trial was L.B. (Annasaheb) Bhopatkar, from Pune. When, after his successful defense of his client, Bhopatkar returned to Pune, some of his close friends invited him to dinner where Bhopatkar told them the story which was not given publicity at the time. It was not until June 16, 1983, that it appeared in a Pune Marathi newspaper called ‘Kal, edited by S.R. Date, and is reproduced in an English translation in the Savarkar Memorial volume published on February 16, 1989. I quote relevant excerpts from it.

While in Delhi for the trial, Bhopatkar had made the Hindu Mahasabha office his headquarters. It seems that Bhopatkar was trying to work out his defense strategy and found that, ‘while specific charges had been framed against Savarkar’s co-accused, there were no specific charges against Savarkar himself’. He was ‘pondering’ about how to proceed when he was told that there was a telephone call for him, so he went to the telephone and said: ‘This is Annasaheb Bhopatkar speaking’. The caller replied, ‘This is Dr Ambedkar speaking, kindly meet me this evening at 6-30 at the sixth milestone on the (Mathura?) Road’. Before Bhopatkar could say anything more, the caller had put down the receiver.

That evening Bhopatkar drove up to the appointed place at the appointed time. Babasaheb Ambedkar was already there. He had driven up in his own car and had brought no one else with him. He motioned to Bhopatkar to get into his car and drove on for another mile or so before stopping. Then he turned to Bhopatkar and said:

‘There is no charge against your client. Quite worthless evidence has been concocted. Several members of the Cabinet were strongly of the opinion that Savarkar should not be implicated on mere doubt. But, because of the insistence of a top-ranking leader, he was implicated in this case. Even Sardar Patel could not go against him. You fight the case fearlessly. You will win’.

After that Ambedkar ‘turned his car, brought me to my own car, and left’.

After recounting this incident, Bhopatkar warned his listeners that ‘this should not be divulged because it would be a betrayal of Babasaheb Ambedkar’.

It does not need much imagination to identify the person referred to as ‘a top-ranking leader’. But it is not for me to pass judgment on the veracity or otherwise of this story; either way it raises embarrassing questions as to the motives and methods of national leaders held in the highest esteem. What I wish to stress is the fact that Bhimrao Ambedkar and Vinayakrao Savarkar did not see eye-to-eye on many of the major political and social issues of those times, but that did not detract from the respect which each had for the other. Here Ambedkar was going out of the way to make sure that his being in the nation’s Cabinet did not mean that he necessarily endorsed the questionable practices of some of its members to settle scores with their political opponents.[3]

[3] Flashbacks of a different age, by Manohar Malgonkar, The Tribune, May 16, 1999