Was it outrage? Or tame acceptance? Shame? Anger? Shock? How did the Indian press react to the hanging of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru on March 24, 1931? Did leading newspapers hit back at the British Raj? Did they comment on the likely political consequences?
Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were hung in the Lahore prison - their crime: the shooting and killing of British Superintendent of Police Saunders on December 17, 1928.
The Hindu has answered our curiosity by republishing an editorial that the news daily put out a day after the executions. The paper was openly critical of hangings, and pulled no punches in describing the trial as a farce -
A Rude Shock
The news of the execution of Bhagat Singh and his two comrades, accused in what is known as the Lahore Conspiracy Case, will come upon the public as a rude shock. That the Government had every need to proceed with caution will be evident if one recalls the extraordinary circumstances connected with the trial of the accused.
Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were actually hung a day earlier than scheduled, at Lahore Central Jail, after a hurried trial. The Hindu, then under the stewardship of A Rangaswami Iyengar, who was also a leading member of the staunchly nationalist Swaraj Party, actively questioned the manner in which the trial had been conducted.
A Farce of a Trial
The trial went on in their (Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev) absence without any counsel representing them; without any cross examination of the approvers and without testing the evidence of other witnesses. Nor should it be forgotten that two of the seven approvers subsequently retracted their earlier story. To carry out a sentence of death passed as the result of a trial in such extraordinary circumstances will have been in any case to incur a very grave responsibility.
Terming the execution a ‘blunder’, The Hindu even condemned the manner in which the British government totally ignored public opinion -
The Raj’s ‘Latest Blunder’
But in this case the additional point had been raised that there was legally no authority competent to give effect to the sentence... By the indecent haste with which they have proceeded in the matter they have defied public opinion and exasperated it in a manner that it is difficult to envisage the gravity of the reactions in this country to their latest blunder.
The article ends by quoting Mahatma Gandhi’s reaction to the execution:
What The Mahatma Said
As Gandhiji says, the Government “have lost a golden opportunity of winning over the revolutionary party. It as their clear duty, in view of the settlement, at least to suspend indefinitely the execution.”
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