76 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
the country and initiating the Lahore conspiracy case against them in
mid- 1929. Several of the accused began a hunger strike in Lahore Jail
against abysmal prison conditions. The government retaliated by try-
ing to amend the criminal law in the central legislature, so that the fast-
ing prisoners could be tried and sentenced in absentia.
Several Indian members of the central legislative assembly, including
M. A. Jinnah, Motilal Nehru, and M. R. Jayakar, staunchly opposed the
government’s attempt to subvert the elementary principles of criminal
jurisprudence. Jinnah, in particular, spoke eloquently of the “universal
resentment” against “this damnable system of Government,” and de-
manded humane treatment of prisoners whose cases were being tried.
“The man who goes on hunger- strike has a soul,” he urged. “He is
moved by that soul and he believes in the justice of his cause; he is not
an ordinary criminal who is guilty of cold- blooded, sordid, wicked
crime.”^62 The government did not budge. While most of the hunger-
strikers gave up their fast after days or weeks, one twenty- five- year- old
man from Bengal—Jatindranath Das—continued resolutely until, on
the sixty- third day, life fi nally ebbed away from him. When Rabin-
dranath Tagore received the grim news in Bengal, he composed one of
his finest Bengali songs:
All meanness is devoured by the fire of your anger—
O God, give us strength, have mercy on your devotees.
Sweep away, Almighty, what is false and petty—
May death be dwarfed by the ecstasy of life.
By churning the depths of suf fering, one will find immortality,
Those who fear death will be freed of their terror.
Your resplendent scorching power will melt and let flow,
Freed of the chain of stones, a stream of sac ri fice.^63The family of Terence MacSwiney, the mayor of Cork who had died in
Brixton Prison under similar circumstances in 1920, sent a telegram
saying they had learned with “grief and pride” of the death of Jatin Das
and that “freedom will come.” Huge crowds came to pay their last re-
spects at railway stations as his body was taken from Lahore to Cal-
cutta. Jatin Das had served in the Congress volunteer corps in 1928