Nai Taleem: Gandhi’s Challenge to Hegemony

On 18 March 1922, Gandhiji faced a trial in Ahmedabad on the charge of sedition for writing and publishing ‘three seditious and inflammatory articles’ in his weekly paper Young India during the previous year 1921.

This aroused considerable interest not only in India, but also in Europe, and America. . . . Never before was such a prisoner arraigned before a British court of justice. Never before were the laws of an all-powerful government so defiantly, yet with such humility, challenged. . . . Men of all shades of opinion . . . condemned it in no uncertain term, marvelled at the wisdom, compassion and heroism of the thin spare figure in a loin cloth thundering his anathemas against the government. And yet none could be gentler nor more sweet tempered than the prisoner . . . [who] with a smile and a nod of thanks . .  . for everyone including the prosecutors . . . made the occasion momentous and invested the trial with a historic significance. . . . District and Session Judge Robert Broomfield . . . was mild-mannered and apologetic . . . [he] gave the impression of a man who was performing a distasteful task with courtesy and good sense . . . when he took his seat, bowing gravely to the distinguished prisoner. Gandhiji returned the bow.