MADAN LAL DHINGRA

Today in our profession I find that there is a crisis of courage. Professionals are becoming ‘spineless!’ One of the reasons for this may be that we did not study the real history of valour in our country. The history we studied was written by Britishers which was obviously far from being ‘true and fair.’

Today, I intend to write about the great martyr of India, Madan Lal Dhingra, who made the highest sacrifice for the Independence of our country. Born on 18th February, 1883, he lived a heroic life for just 26 years till he went to the gallows on 17th August, 1909.

As a college student in Amritsar, he thought seriously about India’s poverty and came to the conclusion that the key solution to this plight was ‘Swaraj’ and ‘Swadeshi’. He had observed how Britishers were looting India.

Right from his college days, he took part in or led the agitations to fight against injustice. His father, who was a civil surgeon and in the service of the British Government, hated the movement for Independence. Madan Lal was rusticated from the college; he refused to apologise and went away to look for work. He took on a few odd jobs at a low level, as a clerk or even as a labourer. Everywhere, due to his protest against injustice, he was fired. He then came to Bombay. His elder brother, again a doctor, compelled him to go to London in 1906 and paid for his education in mechanical engineering.

But eventually his own family totally disowned him; so much so that when in August, 2015 he was remembered with great reverence as a martyr, his descendants refused even to participate in the function! They did not even allow converting the ancestral house into a museum. Instead, they sold it to someone else.

While in London, Madan Lal came in contact with the well-known activists for freedom, Shyamji Krishna Varma and Veer V.D. Savarkar. Madan Lal was brilliant in academics and also had other talents. However, he dedicated his life only to the cause of Independence. In England in July, 1909, he assassinated Curzon Wyllie, who was the political adviser to the Secretary of State for India. Madan Lal considered him to be responsible for many tyrannical and inhuman acts in India.

Even during the trial that led to his conviction and death sentence, he showed extraordinary courage. He made very bold statements fearlessly. His historic statement made in the court was privately admired by many British leaders, including Winston Churchill. Churchill reportedly described it as ‘the finest statement ever made in the name of independence’.

He had the courage to warn the judge after his death sentence was announced, ‘I am proud to have the honour of laying down my life for my country. But remember, we shall have our time in the days to come’. He went to the gallows smilingly and said, ‘I may be re-born of the same mother and I may re-die in the same sacred cause till the cause is successful. Vande Mataram’.

His historic statement can be a source of inspiration for all the struggles for Independence around the globe. It is worth reproducing. His statement read as follows:

‘I do not want to say anything in defence of myself, but simply to prove the justice of my deed. As for myself, no English law court has got any authority to arrest and detain me in prison, or pass sentence of death on me. That is the reason I did not have any counsel to defend me.

And I maintain that if it is patriotic in an Englishman to fight against the Germans if they were to occupy this country, it is much more justifiable and patriotic in my case to fight against the English. I hold the English people responsible for the murder of 80 millions of Indian people in the last fifty years, and they are also responsible for taking away £100,000,000 every year from India to this country. I also hold them responsible for the hanging and deportation of my patriotic countrymen, who did just the same as the English people here are advising their countrymen to do. And the Englishman who goes out to India and gets, say, £100 a month, that simply means that he passes a sentence of death on a thousand of my poor countrymen, because these thousand people could easily live on this £100, which the Englishman spends mostly on his frivolities and pleasures. Just as the Germans have no right to occupy this country, so the English people have no right to occupy India, and it is perfectly justifiable on our part to kill the Englishman who is polluting our sacred land.

I am surprised at the terrible hypocrisy, the farce, and the mockery of the English people. They pose as the champions of oppressed humanity – the peoples of the Congo and the people of Russia – when there is terrible oppression and horrible atrocities (being) committed in India; for example, the killing of two millions of people every year and the outraging of our women. In case this country is occupied by Germans, and the Englishman, not bearing to see the Germans walking with the insolence of conquerors in the streets of London, goes and kills one or two Germans, and that Englishman is held as a patriot by the people of this country, then certainly I am prepared to work for the emancipation of my Motherland. Whatever else I have to say is in the paper before the Court… I make this statement, not because I wish to plead for mercy or anything of that kind. I wish that English people should sentence me to death, for in that case the vengeance of my countrymen will be all the more keen. I put forward this statement to show the justice of my cause to the outside world, and especially to our sympathisers in America and Germany.’

Friends, as CAs we are very much concerned with ‘Independence’ and ‘True & Fair’ things. If we inculcate even one per cent of Madan Lal Dhingra’s courage, the profession and the country can regain its past glory!

Namaskaars to such real heroes of India.