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Title: Hunger-Strikersā Demands Reiterated Author: Bhagat Singh Date: 28th January, 1930 Language: en Topics: hunger strike, India, letter Source: http://www.shahidbhagatsingh.org/index.asp?link=hunger_strike_demands Notes: [The Lahore Conspiracy Case (LCC) prisoners had suspended their hunger strike on the assurance that the Government of India was considering the Jail Committee Report and that the jail reforms would be punished for participating in the hunger strike. After the hunger strike was suspended, the GOI, however, resorted to delaying tactics. Disciplinary acting was also taken against hunger strikers in U.P. and Punjab jails (other than LCC prisoners). It was in this connection that Bhagat Singh wrote this letter to the GOI, which was short of a notice-cum-ultimatum for resuning the hunger strike.]
The Home Member,
The Govt. of India, Delhi.
Through
The Special Magistrate,
Lahore Conspiracy Case, Lahore.
SIR,
With reference to our telegram dated 20^(th) Jan. 1930, reading as
follows, we have not been given any reply.
Home Member, India Government. Delhi Undertrials, Lahore Conspiracy Case
and other Political Prisoners suspended hunger-strike on the assurance
that the India Govt. was considering Provincial Jail Committeeās
reports. All India Government Conference over. No action yet taken. As
vindictive treatment to political prisoners still continues, we request
we be informed within a week final Govt. decision. Lahore Conspiracy
Case undertrials.
As briefly stated in the above telegram, we beg to bring to your kind
notice that the Lahore Conspiracy Case undertrials and several other
political prisoners confined in Punjab jails suspended hunger strike on
the assurance given by the members of the Punjab Jail Enquiry Committee
that the question of the treatment of political prisoners was going to
be finally settled to our satisfaction within a very short period.
Further, after the death of our great martyr Jatindra Nath Das, the
matter was taken up in the Legislative Assembly and the same assurance
was given publicly by Sir James Crerar. It was then pronounced that
there has been a change of heart and the question of the treatment of
political prisoners was receiving the utmost sympathy of the government.
Such political prisoners who were still on hunger strike in jails of the
different parts of the country then suspended their hunger strike on the
request being made to this effect in an AICC resolution passed in view
of the said assurance and the critical condition of some of the
prisoners.
Since then all the local governments have submitted their reports. A
meeting of Inspectors- General of Prisons of different provinces has
been held at Lucknow and the deliberations of the All-India Govt.
Conference have been concluded at Delhi. The All-India Conference was
held in the month of Dec. last. Over not carried into effect any final
recommendations. By such dilatory attitude of the government we no less
than the general public have begun to fear that perhaps the question has
been shelved. Our apprehensions have been strengthened by the vindictive
treatment meted out to hunger strikers and other political prisoners
during the last four months. It is very difficult for us to know the
details of the hardships to which the political prisoners are being
subjected. Still the little information that has trickled out of the
four walls of the jails in sufficient to furnish us with glaring
instances. We give below a few such instances which we cannot but feel,
are not in conformity with the govt. assurance.
Dakshineshwar Bomb Case in Lahore Central Jail, joined the hunger strike
last year. Now as a punishment for the same, for each day of his period
of hunger strike, two days of the remission so far earned by him have
been forfeited. Under usual circumstances his release was due in Dec.
last, but it will be delayed by full four months. In the same Jail
similar punishment has been awarded to Baba Sohan Singh, an old man of
about seventy, now undergoing his sentence of life transportation in
connection with the (first) Lahore Conspiracy Case. Besides, among
others, Sardar Gopal Singh confined in Mianwali Jail, Master Mota Singh
confined in Rawalpindi Jail have also been awarded vindictive
punishments for joining the general hunger strike. In most of these
cases the periods of imprisonment have been enhanced while some of them
have been removed from the Special class.
Sachindra Nath Sanyal, Ram Kishan Khattri and Suresh Chandra
Bhattacharya, confied in Agra Central Jail, Raj Kumar Sinha, Sachindra
Nath Bukshi, Manmath Nath Gupta and several other Kakori case prisoners
have been severely punished. It is reliably learnt that Mr. Sanyal was
given bar-fetters and solitary cell-confinement and as a consequence
there has been a break-down in his health. His weight has gone down by
eighteen pounds. Mr. Bhattacharya is reported to be suffering from
tuberculosis. The three Bareilly Jail prisoners also have been punished.
It is learnt that all their privileges have been withdrawn. Even their
usual rights of interviewing with relations and communication with them
were forfeited. They have all been considerably reduced in their
weights. Two press statements have been issued in this connection in
Sep. 1929 and Jan. 1930 by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.
copies of the same, which were sent to different political prisoners,
were withheld by the jail authorities. Further, the govt. refused a
Congress deputation to meet the prisoners in this respect.
23^(rd) and 24^(th) Oct., 1929, by orders of high police officials. Full
details have appeared in the press. The copy of the statement of the one
of us recorded by the Special Magistrate, Pt. Shri Krishan, has been
duly forwarded to you in a communication dated 16^(th) Dec., 1929
Neither the Punjab Government nor the Govt. of India felt it necessary
to reply or even acknowledge receipt of our communication praying for an
enquiry. While, on the other hand, local government has felt the
imperative necessity of prosecuting us in connection with the very same
incident for offering āvoilentā resistanceā.
confined in the Lahore Borstal Jail, when being taken to and produced in
the Magistrateās Court, were found handcuffed and chained together in
flagrant breach of the unanimous recommendations of the Punjab Jail
Enquiry Committee and also of Inspector-General of Prisons, Punjab. It
is further noteworthy that these prisoners were undertrials, changed for
a bailable offence. A long statement issued by Dr. Mohd. Aslam, Lala
Duni Chand of Lahore and Lala Duni Chand of Ambala in this connection
was published in Tribune.
When we learnt these and other sufferings of the political prisoners we
refrained from resuming our hunger strike, though we were much grieved
as we thought that the matter was going to be finally settled at an
early date, but in the light of the above instances, are we now to
believe that the untold sufferings of the hunger strikers and the
supreme sacrifice made by Jatin Das have all been in vain? Are we to
understand that the govt. gave its assurance only to check the growing
tide of public agitation and to avert a crisis? You will agree with us
if we say that we have waited patiently for a sufficiently reasonable
period of time. But we cannot wait indefinitely. The government, buy its
dilatory attitude and the continuation of vindictive treatment to
political prisoners, has left us no other option but to resume the
struggle. We realise that to go on hunger strike and to carry it on is
no easy task. But let us at the same time point out that India can
produce many more Jatins and Wagias, Ran Rakshas and Bhan Singhs. (The
last two named laid down their lives in the Andamans in 1917 ā the first
breathed his last after 63 days of hunger strike while the other died
the death of a great hero after silently undergoing in human tortures
for full six months.)
Enough has been said by us and the members of the public (inquiry
committee) in justification of the better treatment of political
prisoners and it is unnecessary here to repeat the same. We would
however like to say a few words as regards the inclusion of motive as
the basis and the most important factor in the matter of classification.
Great fuss has been created on the question of criteria of
classification. We find that motive has altogether been excluded so far
from the criteria suggested by different provincial governments This is
really strange attitude. It is through motive alone that the real value
of any action can be decided. Are we to understand that the Government
is unable to distinguish between a robber who robs and kills his victim
and a Kharag Bahadur who kills a villain and saves the honour of a young
lady and redeems society of a most licentious parasite? Are both to be
treated as two men belonging to the same category? Is there no
difference between two men who commit the same offence, one guided buy
selfish motive and the other by a selfless one? Similarly, is there no
difference between a common murderer and a political worker, even if the
latter resorts to violence? Does not his selflessness elevate his place
from amongst those of ordinary criminals? In these circumstances we
think that motive should be held as the most important factor in the
criteria for classification.
Last year, in the beginning of our hunger strike, when public leaders
including Dr. Gopi Chand and Lala Duni Chand of Ambala ā the last named
being one of the signatories to the Punjab Jail Enquiry Committee Report
ā approached us to discuss the same thing and when they told us that the
government considered to treat the political prisoners convicted of
offences of violent nature as Special class prisoners, then by way of
compromise we agreed to the proposal to the extent of excluding those
actually charged with murder. But, Later on, the discussion took a
different turn and the communique containing the terms of reference for
the Punjab Jail Enquiry Committee was so worded that the question of
motive seemed to be altogether excluded, and the classification was
based on two thing:
These criteria, instead of solving the problem, made it all the more
complicated.
We could understand two classes amongst the political prisoners, those
charged for non-violent offences and those charged for violent offences.
But then creeps in the question of social status in the report of the
Punjab Jail Enquiry Committee. As Chaudhary Afzal Haq has pointed out,
and rightly too, in his note of dissent to this report, what will be the
fate of those political workers who have been reduced to pauperās
conditions due to their honorary services in the cause of freedom? Are
they to be left at the mercy of a magistrate who will away try to prove
the bonafide of his loyalty by classifying everyone as an ordinary
convict? Or, is it expected that a non-cooperator will stretch his hand
before the people against whom he is fighting as an opponent, begging
for better treatment in jail? Is this the way of removing the causes of
dissatisfaction, or rather intensifying them? It might be argued that
people living in property outside the jails, should not expect luxuries
inside the prison when they are detained for the purpose of punishment.
But, are the reforms that are demanded, of a nature of luxury? Are they
not the bare necessities of life, according to the most moderate
standard of living? Inspite of all the facilities that can possibly be
demanded, jail will ever remain a jail. The prison in itself does not
contain and can never contain any magnetic power to attract the people
from outside. Nobody will commit offences simply to come to jail.
Moreover, may we venture to say that it is a very poor argument on the
part of any government to say that its citizens have been driven to such
extreme destitution that their standard of living has fallen even lower
than that of jails? Does not such an argument cut at the very root of
that governmentās right of existence? Anyhow, we are not concerned with
that at present. What we want to say is that the best way to remove the
prevailing dissatisfaction would be to classify the political prisoners
as such into a separate class which may further be subdivided, if need
be, into two classes ā one for those convicted of nonviolent offences
and the other for persons whose offences include violence. In that case
motive will become one of the deciding factors. To say that motive
cannot be ascertained in political cases is hypocritical assertion. What
is it that today informs the jail authorities to deprive the
āpoliticalsā even of the ordinary privileges? What it is that deprives
them of the special grades or ānambardariesā, etc.? What does make the
authorities to keep them aloof and separated from all other convicts?
The same thing can help in the classification also.
As for the special demands, we have already stated them in full in our
memorandum to the Punjab Jail Enquiry Committee. We would however
particularly emphasise that no political prisoner, whatever his offence
may be, should be given any hard and undignified labour for which he may
not feel aptitude. All of them, confined in one jail, should be kept
together in the same ward. At least one standard daily newspaper in
vernacular or English should be given to them. Full and proper
facilities for study should be granted. Lastly, they should be allowed
to supplement their expenses for diet and clothing from their private
sources.
We still hope that the government will carry into effect without further
delay its promise made to us and to the public, so that there may not be
another occasion for resuming the hunger strike. Unless and until we
find a definite move on the part of the government to redeem its promise
in the course of the next seven days, we shall be forced to resume the
hunger strike.
Yours, etc.
Bhagat Singh, Dutt
& others
dated: 28^(th) Jan., 1930 Undertrials, Lahore Conspiracy Case