As November approaches old-timers’ memories are revived of the INA trials of 1945 in the Red Fort that continued up to May 1946 at adjoining Salimgarh. Trials in the Red Fort actually began in the Mughal days since the time of Shah Jahan when the Diwan-e-Aam was the venue. Aurangzeb continued them and so did his successors. Mohd. Farrukhseyar tried his uncle and ex-emperor, Muizuddin Jahandar Shah (son and heir of Bahadur Shah I). Mohammad Shah Rangila held some frivolous trials, among them the one after the shoesellers’ riot of March 1729 at Chandni Chowk in which the tooth of his beloved courtesan Nur Bai was broken when someone threw a stone at her palanquin while she was on her way back from the Red Fort. The sentence was that the culprits were to provide shoes for a year to the royal harem. But the courtesan’s tooth, unfortunately, could not be replaced in an age when tooth transplants were a long way to becoming a reality.
Probably, the colourful emperor liked the gap-toothed smile of his beloved, with the gap making it even more coy. His son Ahmed Shah and queen Qudasia Begum were tried too and while the former died after being blinded, his mother spent her life sans power in the Suhagpura or widows’ quarter in the fort. Shah Alam was tried, blinded and deposed temporarily by Ghulam Qadir Rohilla in 1788. And his grandson, Bahadur Shah Zafar was deposed after trial by the British and sent into exile in Rangoon.
Some 87 years after that the British again held Red Fort trials. Those who have seen the son et lumiere show at the fort will remember the hubbub when the scene of the Indian National Army men’s trial was enacted. Among the defence counsel were Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, Bhulabhai Desai and Jawaharlal Nehru, a briefless lawyer until then. Sir Naushirwan P. Engineer was appointed counsel for the prosecution.
According to Wikipedia sources, among the 10 court martials held, the most celebrated was the one of Shahnawaz Khan, Prem Sehgal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, three officers of the British Indian Army who were taken prisoners-of-war in Malaya, Singapore and Burma during the second World War. They had, along with a large number of officers and men joined Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army and fought for it side by side with the Japanese forces. The three were charged with “Waging war against the King Emperor” and murder and abetment.
The second of the 10 trials was against Abdul Rashid, Fateh Khan and Shinghara Singh. In the light of the public unrest during the first trial, with the Congress and Muslim League joining forces, the charge of treason was dropped but the three defendants were sentenced to deportation for life. The sentence was however not carried out under public pressure and Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, was forced to release them. But rumours that some of the INA prisoners had been executed in the Red Fort refused to die down.
Zahooruddin Qureshi, then a young man, disclosed in the 1960s that he and several others used to go and stand as close to the fort as they could to see the comings and goings on of the two dozen defence counsel and senior military officers. The flags of the Congress (Tiranga with charkha) and the one of the Muslim League, green with the crescent moon and star on it, were seen fluttering on the roadside trees and slogans of “Larke lenge Hindustan” and “Ek Nare Taqbi” were heard even as the police charged at the demonstrators. But after the verdict was delivered the tension simmered down.
During the trials Mir Mushtaq Ahmed, later Chief Executive Councillor of Delhi, used to carry a chair and paste anti-government posters on the walls not only in Old Delhi but also as far as Connaught Place. He was arrested for this. Mir Sahib, who died a few years ago, would talk about those days with great pride, saying that he and some others would go behind the fort and shout slogans against the British. There was no Ring Road then and gypsies who used to camp there in the open space were also persuaded with a few rupees to shout “Qaumi naras”. Another protestor was Hanwant Sahay, who was sentenced to seven years imprisonment in the Hardinge Bomb Case of 1912 but continued to take part in the Freedom Movement after his release. The trials were followed by mutiny in the Royal Indian Navy that spread from Bombay to Karachi and from Vizag to Calcutta. Then an Army mutiny took place in February 1946 in Jabalpur, besides revolts in Madras and Pune. In all 45 men were tried for treason, though a large number were discharged.
Even after Independence there were trials in Salimgarh, attached to the fort, of those held on the charge of spying for Pakistan or China. Over 30 years back the superintendent of the Press rotary of a CP newspaper, Philip Ambrose, while on his way home from night duty, suddenly disappeared. It was later learnt that he had been accosted by CID men and taken to the fort where he was detained for about a month and questioned about the Pakistani High Commission men with whom he used to go for shikar. His torture included not being allowed to sleep, with a bright light being shone on his face all night. Philip was finally released as no charges could be proved against him. He resumed newspaper work and often spoke about his ordeal in the fort. Likewise, Afzal Peshawari, a hotelier, was held and interrogated in the fort after explosions in the Jama Masjid area post-Independence. Now, of course, Salimgarh has become a Freedom Movement museum and the Army barracks cleared of troops staying in them. So naturally the Red Fort trials have ceased. But son et lumiere revives them alright every evening, especially so from November to May, making some to believe that a torture cell still exits there.
(The author is a veteran chronicler of Delhi)
