When Baba Bhakna was saved from gallows by Motilal Nehru

Vishav Bharti
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, January 3

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It’s November 16, 1915. An old man, who is about to be hanged, is weighed as per the jail manual. Early in the morning, the door opens but water for the last bath is not brought. Instead, the deputy jailer of the Lahore Central Jail tells him that he is to live.

This old man was Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna, founder of the Ghadar Party. Baba Bhakna, along with 16 other Ghadarites, was virtually pulled out from the gallows at the last moment by Pandit Motilal Nehru’s fine legal mind.

Bhakna was sentenced to death with 23 other Ghadarites in ‘First Lahore Conspiracy Case’ in 1915.

But he lived with regret throughout his life that his seven comrades, including Kartar Singh Sarabha and Vishnu Ganesh Pingley, were hanged even as he survived. “Even death refused to embrace the unfortunates like us,” his eyes welled up, when freedom movement’s chronicler Malwinder Jit Waraich introduced Bhagat Singh’s nephew Prof Jagmohan Singh to Baba Bhakna in1966.

Bhakna, whose 150th birth anniversary is today, later recounted those moments in his autobiography Jeewan Sangram (life struggle).

“Early in the morning of our hanging, the deputy jailer got our doors opened, but as per rules no water was brought four our final bath. Upon being questioned, he disclosed that an order was received to postpone the execution.”

He recounted that later they came to know that the advocates who had witnessed the facade of the trial made a presentation before Pandit Motilal Nehru, who averred that 17 out of the 24 cannot be sentenced to death because they were arrested at the ports before they set their feet on the Indian soil. “This was a legal flaw. The lawyers’ deputation made representation before Viceroy’s Executive Council and Viceroy Lord Hardinge also, who later commuted the death sentence of 17, of whom I was one. Till today, the day of November 16, 1915 is etched deep in my mind, when my seven comrades embraced martyrdom gladly,” according to him.

He was later transported to the Cellular Jail, Andaman, where he led heroic struggles for the rights of the Sikh prisoners and refused to wear cap or accept unfair labour work. He remained in various jails till1930.

Despite Motilal Nehru’s intervention, he remained critical of the Congress. As per an anecdote, Babaji, along other freedom fighters, was invited over tea by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in 1960. Waraich recounted that Baba Bhakna put Nehru in dock, uttering, “I have failed to understand how you always claim that Bapu Gandhi won freedom without spilling even a single drop of blood. Just 250 freedom fighters of Ghadar Party were hanged and hundreds went to jails. Lakhs were killed during the Partition. In which account you place that blood? Please don’t forget that we brought freedom by spilling our blood, our martyrs’ blood. It didn’t come easily. Please respect the spilled blood of martyrs.”