Why in the News?
PM recently remembered Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair, a nationalist and jurist who famously fought a courtroom battle against British officials involved in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919.
Nair’s stand in the courtroom is now a subject of a forthcoming film, Kesari Chapter 2.
About Sir Sankaran Nair:
- Born in 1857 in Mankara village, Kerala, Nair came from an aristocratic family.
- He was educated at Presidency College in Madras and pursued a law degree.
- Nair began his legal career with Sir Horatio Shepherd, Chief Justice of Madras High Court.
- In 1897, Nair became the youngest president of the Indian National Congress (Amravati (Mh) Session) and was appointed as a permanent judge of the Madras High Court in 1908.
Role in the Jallianwala Bagh Case:
- Nair challenged Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, for his role in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (1919), accusing him of following policies that led to the massacre.
- O’Dwyer sued Nair in England for defamation. Despite biased British courts, Nair refused to apologize, even when O’Dwyer offered to forgo the £500 penalty.
- The trial highlighted the bias in the British judicial system and fuelled Indian resentment against British rule.
Other Contributions:
- Nair made progressive rulings, like supporting inter-caste and inter-religious marriages and ruling against treating converts to Hinduism as outcasts.
- He supported India’s self-government and played a key role in expanding the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms (1919).
- In 1922, Nair critiqued Gandhi‘s methods in his work “Gandhi and Anarchy”.
- He helped draft the 1919 constitutional reforms, pointing out flaws in British rule, with many of his suggestions accepted.
| [UPSC 2007] Which one of the following aroused a wave of popular indignation that led to the massacre by the British at Jallianwala Bagh?
(a) The Arms Act (b) The Public Safety Act (c) The Rowlatt Act (d) The Vernacular Press Act |
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