Who is Sir Sankaran Nair?
A few weeks back, a tweet from a famous Bollywood director generated a lot of curiosity on an individual who has been forgotten by India’s history books. It is an irony that most of us learn history via movies than from schools. Keeping the criticism aside, the reality is that, given the nation’s long heritage and history, it is important that mass media channels like cinema and TV do play a critical role in taking the stories of untold heroes to the public.
In today’s episode, we will learn the story of a former President of the Indian National Congress, an Advocate General and the senior most Indian in the Viceroy’s council fight a case on principle against powerful men of the British Empire. So lets sit on our time machines and set our destination to the infamous date of April 13, 1919 and head to Amritsar.
Jallianwala Bagh needs no introduction. General Reginal Dyer opened fire on thousands of civilians gathered in peace after sealing all possible exits of the Bagh. Over 1500 people were killed and injured in one the massive massacres in World History in a matter of minutes (the casualty numbers vary dramatically as the press was censored then by the Punjab government of British India). Many leaders across the globe, including British leaders condemned this horrible mass murder. During that time, the central figure of our story was a very senior member in the Viceroy’s cabinet. He resigned in protest of this incident, thereby embarrassing the British India government. He was not shy to accuse Reginald Dyer to be the mercenary arrow launched by Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor Punjab — who according to him was the main villain behind this attack through his policies. And for this, our unsung hero, Sir C. Sankaran Nair, would face a case in British court which he would do so willingly without any fear.
Sankaran Nair was born prophetically in 1857, when the first war of Indian Independence was raging on. 20 years later, he graduated with a law degree from the Madras Law College. Sankaran Nair has the distinction of being the only Malayali President of the Indian National Congress when he was elected to that role in 1897.
In 1906 he became Advocate General of Madras Presidency and after that remained a permanent judge in Madras High Court for 7 years. During his time, the famous “Collector Ashe murder trial” happened, where he happened to be on the bench. Sankaran Nair gave a separate judgement which is one of the well articulated resource material for the history of the Indian freedom movement of the period. In 1912 Sankaran Nair was knighted. And in 1915 he was the only Indian inducted into the Viceroy’s Executive Council of Lord Chelmsford — he oversaw 30 departments that were all led by Englishmen! This position was equivalent to that of a Cabinet minister.
When the Jallianwala Bagh incident happened, Sankar Nair was appalled at what happened in Punjab and even more appalled at how the Viceroy Lord Chelmsford and his administration were supportive of the act as opposed to condemning it or investigating it. And Sankaran Nair resigned. It is said that he was called in by the Viceroy post his resignation to ask who should be named as his successor. Apparently, Sankaran Nair thought for a bit and pointed to the peon standing at the doorway and said he should be the one. When the Viceroy was outraged at the suggestion, Sir Sankaran Nair is supposed to have responded “Why not? He is tall and handsome. And will say Yes to whatever you say and make an ideal member of your council”!
Sankaran Nair’s resignation gave a huge jolt to the arrogant British India administration. Right away press censorship was abolished. In addition the martial law in Punjab was lifted. There was a commission appointed under Lord Hunter with both Indian and British representatives to investigate the massacre. There were celebrations across the country for what he did — and Sir Sankaran Nair proceeded to London to make the British political leadership aware of the horrific acts by their army in India, brutal terrorism inflicted on their own citizens and argue for a constitutional change to declare India as a dominion.
Now one could ask, how come we haven’t heard of this man before in our textbooks? The answer is simple — Sankaran Nair did not approve of Gandhi’s means of struggle — he felt it was unconstitutional and could incite more riots. He wrote a book titled “Gandhi and Anarchy” , in 1922, expressing his views. And this book/monograph would be the primary reason to reduce him to mere footnote in our history books.
But it is the same book that also ignited one of the cases that would shake the firmness of the British Empire while also bringing global awareness to Jallianwala Bagh. Sankaran Nair had argued that the policies of Lieutenant Governor Michael O’Dwyer resulted in the massacre and he is responsible for the murder of innocent civilians along with General Reginald Dyer who gunned the crowd down. Michael O’Dwyer promptly sued Sankaran Nair for libel in a British Court. A 12 member bench presided by Justice McCardie sat heard the case at Court of King’s bench at London, with all 12 members being British men. The case hearing commenced on 30th April 1924 and went on for full 5 weeks, making it one of the longest civil law hearings in legal history.
It was clear right from the beginning that the jury is going to be strongly biased against Sankaran Nair and would deliver a verdict in favor of O’Dwyer. During the course of the case, several members of the jury openly supported the advocate & arguments of O’Dwyer as opposed maintaining their neutrality. In the end 11 of the 12 jury members unsurprisingly gave a verdict in favor of O’Dwyer and penalised Sankaran Nair a princely sum of 7500 pounds (roughly equivalent of Rs 4.8 crores today, split as 500 pounds for O’Dwyer and 7000 pounds as court costs!). The only jury member who gave an dissenting view supporting Sankaran Nair’s stand was the British leftist economist Harold Laski. The Hindu called the trial “a hideous mockery,” adding, “The case has only served to demonstrate once again that when there is the slightest touch of politics involved for an Indian, justice cannot be expected in an English Court and from an English jury.”
Post the trial, O’Dwyer offered the option to Sankaran Nair that he could just apologize for his statements and not actually pay the whopping fine. The ever principled Sankaran Nair turned that option down as he stuck to his opinion. Sankaran Nair also had the option to appeal, given there was a dissenting jury, but he refused to take that route too, stating that he didn’t trust another “12 English shopkeepers” would give him a verdict any different. It is an undeniable fact that this case of O’Dwyer v. Sankaran Nair was very instrumental in bringing visibility to the Jallianwala Bagh atrocities across the entire world.
O’Dwyer was eventually assassinated in 1940 by Udham Singh, as a revenge for Jallianwala Bagh. Sir Sankaran Nair went on to make a lot of impact in Indian politics and played a key role in Britain granting dominion status to India. Sankaran’s legacy will take several write-ups. The book “The case that shook the empire” written by the couple Raghu & Pushpa Palat (Raghu is the great grandson of Sir Sankaran Nair) is being made a movie by Karan Johar. Hopefully more of us will know the forgotten history of this phenomenal individual at least through that!
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#history #india #indiannationalcongress #gandhi #gandhiandanarchy
#trial #defamation #odwyer #dyer #amritsar #punjab #ukhistory
#colonialhistory #chelmsford #unsungheroes #dominion
