Chapter 109 - After the Verdict
This chapter will get me into trouble
This chapter will be cut heavily. Or at least names changed. Read it while you can. That’s all I can say. Don’t be fooled by what’s above the paywall.
Anyway. After Savarkar’s sentencing, the group of revolutionaries in Paris fell apart. They didn’t agree on what to do next. And there may have been issues with party funds.
Shyamji Krishna Varma, who basically funded all the ops, just wanted to lie low until everything died down. His followers didn’t agree.
Sukhsagar Dutt, who betrayed Savarkar (or there was another guy with the same name who did, we’re not sure. I’m assuming it’s the same guy because it makes the plot more exciting), came to a difficult end, according to David Garnett’s memoir — he got into a fight with the manager of his boardinghouse, and punched him. That dude died. Sukhsagar ran away, and in the era before forensics, he got away with murder. What happened to him subsequently? We’re not sure. But I made up an end for him.
Asaf Ali, who some sources say was the AA who betrayed Savarkar, went on to have a pretty nice life as a big lawyer and then an ambassador representing free India, and is even remembered as a great patriot. One can assume he met Jawaharlal Nehru in London, who then went by Joe, with whom he nurtured a lifelong friendship.
But the biggest ripple effect of Madanlal Dhingra’s assassination of Sir Curzon-Wyllie and Anant Kanhere’s assassination of Collector/Magistrate Jackson was that the Congress finally had leverage against the British. “The people are rising! They need legitimate ways to voice their concerns and govern themselves!” the Congress leaders could finally say.
So they extracted the Indian Councils Act, a.k.a Morley-Minto Reforms, from the British. This meant that the presidencies could have their own elected bodies to manage their affairs. But even here, Morley and Minto added a poison pill that would divide the country — separate electorates for Muslims.
I cover all this and more in this chapter.
After The Verdict
The verdict at The Hague had fallen upon the merry band of revolutionaries in Paris like a stack of bricks. Tatya’s arrest was now considered legal.
Everything they had worked toward collapsed at once. The money. The writing. The careful cultivation of Socialist allies. All of it had revolved around Tatya.
Now he would vanish into the Cellular Jail—out of sight, and soon enough, out of mind.
What now?
What were they, without him?
