As Bollywood gears up for the discharge of Kesari: Chapter 2 on April 18, 2025, all eyes are on Akshay Kumar, who steps into the function of Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair – a reputation that will not instantly resonate with many, however one which performed a defining function in India’s battle in opposition to colonial oppression.
Directed by debutant Karan Singh Tyagi and produced by Karan Johar, the movie relies on The Case That Shook the Empire, a historic account written by Nair’s great-grandson, Raghu Palat and his spouse, Pushpa Palat.
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File photograph of Chettur Sankaran Nair
At its core, the movie highlights not solely one of many darkest chapters in British colonial historical past – the Jallianwala Bagh bloodbath – but additionally the monumental courtroom battle that adopted, spearheaded by a person of unshakeable convictions.
Born in 1857 in Mankara, a village in Kerala’s Palakkad district, Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair hailed from an aristocratic lineage with shut associations to the East India Firm. His early training led him to Presidency Faculty, Madras, the place he was drawn to the sphere of regulation.
He started his authorized profession in 1880 on the Excessive Court docket of Madras beneath the mentorship of Sir Horatio Shepherd, who would later develop into Chief Justice. Nair’s brilliance and fierce independence shortly turned evident.
All through his authorized profession, Nair was recognized for his refusal to evolve. Early on, he opposed a decision handed by Indian vakils (legal professionals) of Madras that discouraged working beneath English barristers. For Nair, skilled selections ought to be ruled by benefit and shopper curiosity, not nationalism or peer stress. His stand led to his boycott by fellow legal professionals, however he remained undeterred.
Nair was appointed Advocate-Basic and later turned a choose of the Madras Excessive Court docket. His judicial tenure was marked by daring judgments upholding inter-caste and inter-religious marriages, in addition to rulings that challenged the inflexible orthodoxy of caste-based discrimination. His 1914 ruling in Budasna v Fatima, the place he held that converts to Hinduism couldn’t be thought-about outcastes, stays a landmark judgment to this present day.
In 1897, he turned the youngest president of the Indian Nationwide Congress on the time and the one Malayali to carry the place. Nair was not afraid to ruffle feathers – be it among the many Anglo-Indian elite, the Brahmin institution, or the British authorities.
File photograph of Chettur Sankaran Nair
He participated within the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms and advocated for growing Indian participation in governance. By 1915, he was inducted into the Viceroy’s Government Council, overseeing the training portfolio.
But, Nair’s political ideology was as nuanced as his authorized profession. Whereas he believed in constitutional reform, he was crucial of sure elements of Gandhi’s political strategies, significantly civil disobedience. This ideological divergence would later discover expression in his controversial e book Gandhi and Anarchy.
On April 13, 1919, British Brigadier Basic Reginald Dyer ordered troops to open hearth on a peaceable gathering in Amritsar’s Jallianwala Bagh.
A whole lot of unarmed civilians, together with ladies and kids, have been mercilessly gunned down. The bloodbath turned a watershed second in India’s freedom wrestle.
A nonetheless from Kesari Chapter 2
On the time, Nair was the one Indian member of the Viceroy’s Government Council. Appalled by the federal government’s justification of the bloodbath, he resigned in protest – a transfer unprecedented for its sheer audacity.
His resignation despatched shockwaves by means of the colonial administration and lent weight to nationalist sentiments throughout the nation. It additionally led to the elimination of martial regulation in Punjab and the institution of a committee beneath Lord William Hunter to analyze the bloodbath.
In 1922, Nair revealed Gandhi and Anarchy, the place he criticised British colonial rule and laid blame on Michael O’Dwyer, the then-Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, for the atrocities at Jallianwala Bagh. Infuriated, O’Dwyer sued Nair for defamation in an English court docket.
What adopted was a historic trial on the King’s Bench in London. The five-and-a-half-week-long case, the longest-running civil trial of its time, noticed Nair being tried in entrance of an all-English jury presided over by a blatantly biased Justice Henry McCardie. Regardless of the skewed judicial atmosphere, Nair stood his floor.
A nonetheless from Kesari Chapter 2
His lead counsel, Sir Walter Schwabe, mounted a spirited defence, although repeatedly interrupted by McCardie, who appeared intent on swaying the jury in O’Dwyer’s favour.
In the end, the decision went in opposition to Nair – 11 jurors to at least one. He was fined 500 Kilos and requested to pay trial bills. But, when O’Dwyer supplied to waive the penalty in trade for an apology, Nair refused.
He would relatively pay the worth than retract the reality. “If there was one other trial, who was to know if 12 different English shopkeepers wouldn’t attain the identical conclusion?” he stated.
Although he misplaced the case, Nair emerged morally victorious. His defiance introduced worldwide consideration to British atrocities in India and galvanised nationalist resolve again dwelling. His loss was, in some ways, India’s achieve.
Nair died in 1934, abandoning a legacy that is still woefully under-acknowledged. His descendants continued to serve the nation: his grandson Kunhiraman Palat Candeth performed a key function within the liberation of Goa in 1961, and different relations have held distinguished positions in Indian public life.
A nonetheless from Kesari Chapter 2
Greater than only a jurist or a politician, Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair was a person who refused to bend to injustice. In an period when many selected the protection of silence, he wielded his voice – and his pen – with braveness.
With Kesari Chapter 2, his story will lastly get the cinematic tribute it deserves. In an age of manufactured heroes, here’s a actual one. And his story, now greater than ever, calls for to be heard.
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