Mother's Chronicles - Book Six

28

French Government's Headache

"Without too much trouble"? Let us see.

Bharati appreciated the "keen sense of justice on the part of certain French magistrates." We shall meet one of them by and by. Nolini went further: "In fact," he said, "the French Government had not been against us, indeed they helped us as far as they could. We were looked upon as their guests and as political refugees, it was a matter of honour for them to give us their protection. And where it is a question of honour, the French as a race are willing to risk anything," he said in the 1950s. "But at the same time, they had their friendship, the entente cordiale,

'Dilemma' ? Well... see for yourself. Here are some documents.

In point of fact, as soon as the freedom movement began in British India, the Franco-Indian government followed it with a watchful eye. After all, Chandernagore was but a stone's throw from Calcutta, which was then the hub of Nationalist movement triggered by the partition of Bengal. It used to be said that when Calcutta catches a cold, the rest of India sneezes! As the Alipore Bomb Case trial brought to light, several accused

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were precisely from Chandernagore. The Pondicherry administration did not fail in its duty to keep Paris abreast of the political turmoil in India, including sending excerpts from Indian newspaper reports (kindly translated into French, of course) on the Anglo-Indian political front.

But when from 1908, owing to severe repression by the British, there began an influx of political refugees—'swadeshistes' in French parlance-the administration became more alert. Even more so as the British neighbour did not care to hide its annoyance. What was most galling to the English were the newspapers both Tamil and English published from Pondicherry and widely circulated in British territory, with articles thoroughly discrediting them, and news items in which English officials cut a sorry figure, because their conduct was truly disgusting. The papers Dharmam and India led the field in describing the economic evils arising out of British administration. We are reminded of Bharati's India bringing out sarcastic cartoons. There was (23 February 1909) one pictorial representation of a ship loaded with wheat going to England and a fat official speaking to three famine-stricken Indian peasants depicted as mere skeletons:

"English official: Protection, security, peace—we give you people all this.

"People:Sir, you give peace, but you take away food."

So upset was the Madras officialdom that the then French Governor Levecque thought it prudent to write on the subject to Albert Lebrun (1871-1950), the Minister of Colonies. We

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give here an English translation of one of the letters.¹

Pondicherry, February 24, 1909

"I am pleased to send you the enclosed copy of the correspondence exchanged between His Excellency the Governor of the Madras Presidency and the local administration regarding the publication at Pondicherry, in the Tamil newspaper India,

"Consulted by my predecessor about the nature of the legal action that could be taken against this paper, the Public Prosecutor informed me that since none of the incriminated articles oversteps the limits of criticism permitted by French law, he found it impossible to bring any action against the manager of India....

"I thought it my duty, Sir, to keep you informed of these facts, which reveal the English Government's preoccupation with the newspapers that criticize its administration or try to draw people to a party opposed to the Government of India.

"I may add that in our Establishment, the newspaper India

¹ It was through the great effort of our friend Patrice Marot that we obtained these documents kept in the French Government's archives at Aix-en-Provence. Patrice could procure them through the good offices of the then minister for National Education, Mr. Francois Bayrou. Our profuse thanks to both of them.

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train, without the English Government thinking it appropriate to stop its entry into British territory."

Signed: Levecque

That was before the arrival of Sri Aurobindo. When he came to Pondicherry the diplomatic relations between the French and the English became somewhat strained. In the meantime A. Martineau¹ had replaced Levecque as the governor of French India. Moni remembered him vividly. "A simple unostentatious man was the Governor Monsieur Martineau. He often went about in a rickshaw. That was then the only rickshaw in Pondicherry. By chance one day I saw the Governor riding in the rickshaw. He was dressed in a white trouser, a white coat buttoned up to the neck, a coat moreover with a patch on the back. A local passer-by commented with a shrug, 'Quel Gouverneur!'

"I am pleased to send you the translation of an article published on 20 September in The Madras Times

and the anti-English movement In its conclusion, the

Madras newspaper explains that the territory of Pondicherry

¹ It was the same A. Martineau who edited the diaries of Francois Martin in two volumes.

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now functions as a refuge to no less dangerous agitators and even to the most dangerous of all; but it hopes that, as in the mother country, they will not be allowed to carry on with their 'heinous' occupations.

"If I draw your attention to this article, it is so that you may precisely know, if necessary, how the possession of our French settlements in India can expose us to extremely delicate diplomatic difficulties; as for the assertion that the territory of Pondicherry offers refuge to 'the most dangerous of India's Nationalist leaders,' it is at least exaggerated. The Indian paper refers probably to ARABINDA GHOSE, a Hindu from the North who does at present stay in Pondicherry under the very special surveillance of the English secret police. But till now, it does not appear to me that ARABINDA CHOSE breaks the reserve his situation as a virtual political prisoner imposes on him. The Tamil newspaper India, of which I pointed out one or two very tendentious articles last month, seems even more discreet, since it has not been published for the past one month. At the moment, nothing therefore justifies the fears of the Madras newspaper; but I do not hide from myself that this does not imply peace or surrender from the Hindu nationalists, but simply a lull, a pause in the general struggle against all English influence."

Signed: A. Martineau

Unable to bear all the indignities and humiliations, the Colonial government had in mid-1910, finally imposed a ban not only on India

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the British administration applied a tourniquet using its post office to stop—at least to delay—all or any remittance destined for Bharati. A 'civilized' strangulation.

Bharati himself describes briefly his tribulations during the past few years, in a letter to Ramsay MacDonald, then the leader of the British Labour Party. Bharati's letter¹ was published in The Hindu

"Dear Sir" wrote Bharati, "From the middle of the year 1905 to the month of August 1908, I was working as a special contributor to a weekly Tamil journal India by name-which was published in Madras. In the latter year, the Government of Madras thought it fit to prosecute that journal for sedition. "I was not the person responsible for the conduct of the journal and so, of course, they sent another man to gaol."In my lectures, poems and pamphlets I represented theadvanced section of the party of constitutional reform. I quitted Madras a few days after the India prosecution commenced, as many of my friends informed me that keen disappointment was felt by some high-placed officials at
their inability to find something which would enable them to send me to prison and that the Police were trying to fabricate false evidence against me. An impartial and thorough student of the history of our times like yourself could not but be aware how mercilessly and deliberately the peaceful nationalist movement was suppressed in that year, thus making room for what neither the Government nor the

¹ Courtesy National Archives, Pondicherry, procured by Abhay Singh Nahar.

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Nationalists really wanted, viz., terrorist violence.

"My public utility was thus unexpectedly checked—let me hope, temporarily—and I had no special love for the interesting role of a martyred victim to official blindness and police lies. I, therefore, sought refuge under the French flag in Pondicherry.

"After I came to Pondicherry, I was living as an independent journalist, not attached to any particular paper, but receiving money from various newspapers for signed articles. I challenge the Government of Madras to produce a single article signed by me which any impartial court could pronounce guilty under the law.

"... Subsequently the Pondicherry journals, with some of which I had already severed my connections, were proscribed by the British Government.

"In the month of July 1911. Collector Ashe of the Tinnelvelly District was shot dead by a Brahmin, Vanchi Iyer, and, as though to encourage the inventive skill of the Madras Police, Vanchi Iyer committed suicide, leaving no clue whatsoever as to the possible abettors.

"The lower Police, to whom by the way, political motives and political crimes were, and still are, as strange and unfamiliar as Differential Calculus, at once imagined that the newspapermen who had been talking sxvadeshi

"During the trial of the Ashe murder case at the Madras High Court, I could get some glimpses into the sort of 'evidence' which made the police suspect me as a possible abettor.

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"It would appear that some of the so-called 'conspirators' —the charge of any conspiracy to murder Mr. Ashe, be it noted, broke down in the course of the trial and was abandoned by the Government—had with them copies of a harmless love poem and a social reform novelette written by me. It must also be mentioned that the particular men in whose possession these books were found were acquitted by the Court as nothing could be found to connect them with even the general 'conspiracy' on which charge some of their fellow-accused were ultimately sent to goal.

"The only charge which the Police could maintain against these acquitted men was that they were found in possession of books published by me! And, of course, I was guilty because they had my book! Q. E. D.

"With such wonderful 'evidence' in their hands, the Police got warrants issued against all the refugees in Pondicherry, making a noteworthy exception in the case of my friend, Mr. Aurobindo Ghose, evidently because they thought he was too powerful a personality to play such vulgar tricks against.

"Our names were proclaimed in British India and a reward of a thousand rupees was offered for the capture of any of us. I naturally wanted to protest.

"But, in the meanwhile, as a result of some mysterious agreement between the British and French Governments, a company of policemen, about 200

"... Later on, they said they were going to use personal violence against some of us and carry us away by force. A

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few adventurous Sub-Inspectors tried to influence some local rowdies to injure us. In one case, at any rate, there was a midnight visit from the rowdies and my own house was looted and robbed in my absence by men who afterwards confessed the guilt and whom everybody knew to be the hirelings of the British spies.

"Later on, in the month of April 1912, two local informers who were proved to be in the pay of the British police stationed here—the same force that induced the Government of Madras to issue warrants against us on the charge of conspiracy—brought an accusation against myself and some other refugees charging us of a criminal conspiracy to murder all Europeans (of course, including the French).

"But the French Magistrates were not nervous fools and they could see, after due investigation, that the whole thing was a clumsy conspiracy engineered by the British Police, and juge d'instruction said this in so many words a number of times during the trial. ... For, the charges against us were sought to be established by devices as stupid and absurd as they were cruel and mean.

"So the British Police continued to stay here and I may add that they are still with us, although in a much lesser number than before, and are overwhelming us with the kindness

"The local [French] Governors have again and again expressed to me, in the course of personal interviews, their perfect satisfaction as to the legality and innocent nature of my private and public life here. I have been living in Pondicherry for more than five years now.

"And because a crime is enacted about three years after I

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left British India, in some obscure corner of a far-off district where a previous Collector had incurred unpopularity [in the Tinnelvelly Riots affair], the British Government, on the advice of the lower Police, issues a warrant against me on the charge of conspiracy, while the same charge of conspiracy brought against me by the hirelings of the same Police people was, after a long and painfully sifting enquiry (including house searches and all that sort of thing) dismissed as frivolous and baseless by the local Magistrate who had a much better opportunity of ascertaining my life and character than the Government of Madras.

"I wish I had sufficient power of language to depict the whole absurdity and injustice of the thing. I have heard and read about many countries and I may record my sincere conviction that nowhere in the world is the sacredness of individual liberty more cynically ignored than in Madras and certain other Provinces of India."

Here Bharati has touched on several aspects of the thoughtless persecution to which he was subjected. This is not the whole of the story. Some missing parts are disclosed in the following chapters.

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