One rebellious voice inside the British Empire dared to expose a colonial slaughter long before India attained freedom, and it cost them dearly. One of the few Indians appointed to high government positions during the British colonial era was barrister Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair.
He left the Viceroy’s Council in 1919 in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Punjab, northern India, where British forces shot and killed hundreds of people attending a public gathering. Theresa May, the prime minister of the United Kingdom at the time, called the slaughter a “shameful scar” on Britain’s history in India on its 100th anniversary.
A libel prosecution against Nair resulted from his criticism of Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab at the time, which brought attention to the murder and the conduct of British authorities. In a biography written by KPS Menon, the first foreign secretary of independent India, Nair was described as “a very controversial figure of his time.”
In addition to criticising colonial government and even Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian freedom hero who is today considered the father of the country, Nair was well-known for his independent opinions and dislike of radical politics.
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