Draupadi

by

Mahasweta Devi
About  Mahasweta Devi
Mahasweta Devi (14 January 1926 – 28 July 2016) was a famous women social activist, writer
and journalist from India who worked hard for the growth of the tribal people. Indeed, she was
fondly called, ‘The Mother of the Sabar’ because of her extensive work in support of the Sabar
tribe.
Mahasweta was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 14th January 1926 but later after the partition of
India, their family moved to West Bengal. Mahasweta was born in a literate family. Both her
parents were well-known writers. Mahasweta also received good education. She acquired a
Bachelors and Master’s degree in English. Basically interested in writing, Mahasweta Devi wrote
more than 100 novels and over 20 collections of short stories.

The Indian government honoured Mahasweta with various literary awards such as the Sahitya
Akademi Award, Jnanpith Award, Ramon Magsaysay Award and also the civilian awards Padma
Shri and Padma Vibhushan.
The legendary and glorious mother of Bengal passed away on Jul 28, 2016 due to multiple organ
failure.

An Introduction to Draupadi
Draupadi is a short story of around 20 pages originally written in Bengali by Mahasweta Devi. It
was anthologized in the collection, Breast Stories, translated to English by Gayatri Chakravorty
Spivak. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak herself gives an introduction to her translation in the
following words:
“Draupadi” first appeared in Agnigarbha (“Womb of Fire”), a collection of loosely connected,
short political narratives. As Mahasweta points out in her introduction to the collection, “Life is
not mathematics and the human being is not made for the sake of politics. I want a change in the
present social system and do not believe in mere party politics.”
Historical Context of Draupadi
In 1970, the implicit hostility between East and West Pakistan flamed into armed struggle. In
1971, at a crucial moment in the struggle, the armed forces of the government of India were
deployed, seemingly because there were alliances between the Naxalites of West Bengal and the
freedom fighters of East Bengal (now Bangladesh). “If a guerrilla-style insurgency had persisted,
these forces would undoubtedly have come to dominate the politics of the movement. It was this
trend that the Indian authorities were determined to pre-empt by intervention. “Taking advantage
of the general atmosphere of jubilation at defeat of West Pakistan, India’s principal national rival
in South Asia”, the Indian prime minister was able to crack down with exceptional severity on
the Naxalites, destroying the rebellious sections of the rural population, most significantly the
tribals, as well. This is the setting of “Draupadi.”

Draupadi Title Analysis

Draupadi is the name of the central character. She is introduced to the reader between two
uniforms and between two versions of her name: Dopdi and Draupadi. It is either that as a tribal
she cannot pronounce her own Sanskrit name (Draupadi), or the tribalized form, Dopdi, is the
proper name of the ancient Draupadi. She is on a list of wanted persons, yet her name is not on
the list of appropriate names for the tribal women.
The story is stripped away from the Mahabharata‘s grand narrative and royal attributes and
situated in Champabhumi, a village in West Bengal The ‘cheelharan’ of Draupadi is
reconstructed in Devi’s story, subverting the narrative where Draupadi is rescued by a man, Lord
Krishna. Instead, in Devi’s narrative, Dopdi is not rescued, yet she continues to exercise her
agency by refusing to be a victim, leaving the armed men “terribly afraid”.
Draupadi by Mahasweta DeviSummary
The story of Draupadi is set among the tribal’s in Bengal. Draupadi or Dopdi as her name
appears in dialect, is a Santhals tribe girl, who is vulnerable to injustice but resist the burnt of
social oppression and violence with strong will and courage and even try to deconstruct the age
old structures of racial and gender discrimination.
The most interesting part of the story is that Dopdi Mejhen is portrayed as an illiterate,
uneducated tribal woman. Yet she leads the politicized life amongst all because she is engaged in
an armed struggle for the rights and freedom of the tribal people.
Draupadi, or Dopdi as her name appears in dialect, is a rebel, hunted down by the government in
their attempt to overcome these groups.
“Name Dopdi Mejhen, age twenty-seven, husband Dula Majlni (deceased), domicile Cherakhan,
Bankrajharli, information whether dead or alive and/or assistance in arrest, one hundred
rupees…”

The government uses all forces available to them, including kidnapping murder, and rape, and
any tribal deaths in custody are invariably ‘accidents’

Draupadi and her husband Dulna are on the ‘most wanted’ list in West Bengal. They murder
wealthy landlords to claim wells and tube-wells which are their main sources of water in the
village. They fight for their right to basic means of nourishment.
Dulna is eventually gunned down by policemen; however Draupadi manages to escape and
begins to operate helping fugitives who have murdered corrupt property owners and landlords,
escape. She tactfully misleads the cops who are on her trail, so that the fugitives’ campsite
remains a secret.
However, she is finally caught and kept in police custody. This is where the story actually
begins.

Over the course of a few days, Draupadi is repeatedly raped, deprived of food and water and
tortured by multiple officers who state that their orders to “make her” have come from their Bade
Sahib, officer Senanayak, in charge of her case.
The Senanayak, an officer appointed by the Government to capture Draupadi and stop her
activities. The Senanayak the military official, is a senseless, cruel officer for whom murders,
assaults, counter-assaults and sadistic tortures on the tribal activists reaches a point where if
anyone is captured, their eyeballs, intestines, stomachs, hearts, genitals and so on become the
food of fox, vulture, hyena, wild cat, ant and worm.
After days, the policemen take her back to the tent and tell her to clothe herself, because it is
time for her to meet Senanayak. As the guard pushes a bucket of water forward, for her to wash
herself, she laughs, throws the water down and tears the piece of cloth on her body. She proceeds
to walk out of her tent, towards Senanayak, naked and with her head held high.
Senanayak is taken aback and quickly turn away his eyes from her body. She walks right up to
him, hands on her hips and says

“the object of your search, Dopdi Mehjen. You asked them to make me. Don’t you want to see
how they made me?”

When Senanayak asks where her clothes are, she replies angrily, that clothes were useless
because once she was stripped, she could not be clothed again. She spits on Senanayak with
disgust and says

“How can you clothe me? Are you a man? There isn’t a man here, that I should be ashamed.”

She pushes Senanayak with her exposed breasts and for the first time, he is afraid to counter an
unarmed woman.
In that moment, though Draupadi has no weapons, she uses her body as her greatest weapon. The
body which was abused, tortured and seen as the cause of her downfall becomes the very weapon
with which she stands up for herself.
She refuses to let them take advantage of her emotions, even though she has been physically
assaulted. Draupadi realizes that raping women does not make the male species ‘masculine’.

In fact, it neutralizes the very purpose. Here Mahasweta Devi presents Draupadi as a strong
female character, transgressing sexual orientation and social standards. The story ends with a
magnificent final scene in which she faces her abusers, naked and bloody, but fiercely strong.

The Trial of Bhagat Singh

Backdrop

Bhagat Singh is one of India's greatest freedom fighters. The youth of India were inspired by
Bhagat Singh’s call to arms and enthused by the defiance of the army wing of the Hindustan
Socialist Republican Association to which he, Sukhdev and Rajguru, belonged. His
call, Inquilab Zindabad! became the war-cry of the fight for freedom.

On April 8, 1929, Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutt threw a bomb in the Central Legislative
Assembly "to make the deaf hear" as their leaflet described the reason for their act. As intended,
nobody was hurt by the explosion as Bhagat Singh had aimed the bomb carefully, to land away
from the seated members, on the floor. The bomb, deliberately of low intensity, was thrown to
protest the repressive Public Safety Bill and Trades Dispute Bill and the arrest of 31 labour
leaders in March 1929. Then a shower of leaflets came fluttering down from the gallery like a
shower of leaves and the members of the Assembly heard the sound of, ‘Inquilab Zindabad!’
and ‘Long live Proletariat!’ rent the air.

Bhagat Singh and B.K.Dutt let themselves be arrested, even when they could have escaped, to
use their court appearances as a forum for revolutionary propaganda to advocate the
revolutionaries’ point of view and, in the process, rekindle patriotic sentiments in the hearts of
the people. Bhagat Singh surrendered his automatic pistol, the same one he had used to pump
bullets into Saunder’s body, knowing fully well that the pistol would be the highest proof of his
involvement in the Saunders’ case.

The authorities believed that in Bhagat Singh they had caught a big fish and that he was the
mastermind behind all revolutionary activity in India. The government was, however, intrigued
by the two revolutionaries giving themselves up so easily. The British did not want to take any
chances, so even the summons to the two revolutionaries were delivered to them in jail.

Trial

The style and format of the writing in the handbills struck British intelligence as suspiciously
familiar. The format and style in these handbills was similar to the style and format of the
handwritten posters that announced the murder of Saunders and which had been plastered on the
city’s walls. The British began to suspect that Bhagat Singh was one of Saunder’s killers. He
was singled out as the author of the text on the leaflets as well as on the posters. Bhagat Singh
was charged with attempt to murder under section 307 of the Indian Penal Code. Asaf Ali, a
member of the Congress Party was his lawyer.

The Trial started on 7 May, 1929. The Crown was represented by the public prosecutor Rai
Bahadur Suryanarayan and the trial magistrate was a British Judge, P.B Pool. The manner in
which the prosecution presented its case left Bhagat Singh in no doubt that the British were out
to nail him. The prosecution’s star witness was Sergeant Terry who said that a pistol had been
found on Bhagat Singh’s person when he was arrested in the Assembly. This was not factually
correct because Bhagat Singh had himself surrendered the pistol while asking the police to arrest
him. Even the eleven witnesses who said that they had seen the two throwing the bombs seemed
to have been tutored
.

Some of the questions asked in court were:

Judge: ‘Were you present in the Assembly on the 8th of April, 1929?

’

Bhagat Singh: ‘As far as this case is concerned, I feel no necessity to make a statement at this
stage. When I do, I will make the statement.’

Judge: ‘When you arrived in the court, you shouted, “Long Live Revolution!”. What do you
mean by it?’

As if it had already made up its mind, the court framed charges under Section 307 of the Indian
Penal Code and Section 3 of the Exposive Substances Act. Bhagat Singh and Dutt were accused
of throwing bombs ‘to kill or cause injuries to the King Majesty’s subjects. The magistrate
committed both of the revolutionaries to the sessions court, which was presided over by Judge
Leonard Middleton. The trial started in the first week of June, 1929. Here also, Bhagat Singh
and Dutt were irked by the allegation that they had fired shots from a gun. It was apparent that
the government was not limiting the case to the bombs thrown in the Assembly. It was
introducing extraneous elements to ferret out more information about the revolutionary party
and its agenda.

However, Judge Leonard Middleton too swallowed the prosecution story. He accepted as proof
of the verbal testimony that the two had thrown the bombs into the Assembly Chamber and even
said that Bhagat Singh fired from his pistol while scattering the leaflets there. The court held that
both Bhagat Singh and Dutt were guilty under Section 3 of the Explosive Substances Act, 1988
and were sentenced to life imprisonment. Judge Middleton rules that he had no doubt that the
defendant’s acts were ‘deliberate’ and rejected the plea that the bombs were deliberately low-
intensity bombs since the impact of the explosion had shattered the wood of one and a half inch
thickness in the Assembly.

The two were persuaded to file an appeal which was rejected and they were sent for fourteen
years. The judge was in a hurry to close the case and claimed that the police had gathered
‘substantial evidence’ against Bhagat Singh and that he was charged with involvement in the
killings of Saunders and Head Constable Chanan Singh and that the authorities had collected
nearly 600 witnesses to establish their charges against him which included his colleagues, Jai
Gopal and Hans Raj Vohra turning government approvers.

Bhagat Singh was sent to Mianwali Jail and Dutt to Borstal Jail in Lahore and were put on the
same train though in different compartments on 12th March, 1930 but after requesting the
officer on duty to allow them to sit together for some distance of the journey, Bhagat Singh
conveyed to Dutt that he should go on a hunger strike on 15th June and that he would do the
same in Mianwali Jail. When the Government realized that this fast had riveted the attention of
the people throughout the country, it decided to hurry up the trial, which came to known as the
Lahore Conspiracy Case. This trial started in Borstal Jial, Lahore, on 10 July, 1929. Rai Sahib
Pandit Sri Kishen, a first-class magistrate, was the judge for this trial. He earned the title of Rai
Sahib for loyal service to the British. Bhagat Singh and twenty-seven others were charged with
murder, conspiracy and wagering war against the King.

The revolutionaries’ strategy was to boycott the proceedings. They showed no interest in the
trial and adopted an attitude of total indifference. They did not have any faith in the court and
realized that the court had already made up its mind. A handcuffed Bhagat Singh was still on
hunger strike and had to be brought to the court in a stretcher and his weight had fallen by 14
pounds, from 133 to 119. The Jail Committee requested him to give up their hunger strike and
finally it was his father who had his way and it was on the 116th day of his fast, on October 5,
1929 that he gave up his strike surpassing the 97-day world record for hunger strikes which set
by an Irish revolutionary.

Bhagat Singh started refocusing on his trial. The crown was represented by the government
advocate C.H.Carden-Noad and was assisted by Kalandar Ali Khan, Gopal Lal, and Bakshi Dina
Nath who was the prosecuting inspector. The accused were defended by 8 different lawyers. The
court recorded an order prohibiting slogans in the courtroom. The government advocate filed
orders by the government sanctioning the prosecution under the Explosive Substances Act and
Sections 121, 121 A, 122 and 123 of the Penal Code relating to sedition.

When Jai Gopal turned approver, Verma, the youngest of the accused, hurled a slipper at him.
After this incident, the accused were subjected to untold slavery. The case built by the
prosecution was that a revolutionary conspiracy had been hatched as far as back as September,
1928, two years before the murder of Saunders. The government alleged that various
revolutionary parties had joined together to forge one organization in 1928 itself to operate in
the north and the north-east of India, from Lahore to Calcutta.
The case proceeded at a snail’s pace and hence the government got so exasperated that it
approached the Lahore High Court for directions to the magistrate. A division bench of the
Lahore High Court dismissed the application of Carden-Noad. Through March, 1930, the
proceedings were relatively smooth. The magistrate could not make any headway without the
cooperation of the undertrials. On1 May, 1930, the viceroy, Lord Irwin, promulgated an
Ordinance to set up a tribunal to try this case. The Ordinance, LCC Ordinance No.3 of 1930,
was to put an end to the proceedings pending in the magistrate’s court. The case was transferred
to a tribunal of three high court judges without any right to appeal, except to the Privy Council.

The case opened on 5 May 1930 in the stately Poonch House. Rajguru challenged the very
constitution of the tribunal and said that it was illegal ultra vires. According to him, the Viceroy
did not have the power to cut short the normal legal procedure. The Government of India Act,
1915, authorized the Viceroy to promulgate an Ordinance to set up a tribunal but only when the
situation demanded whereas now there was no breakdown in the law-and-order situation. The
tribunal however, ruled that the petition was ‘premature’. Carden-Noad, the government
advocate elaborated on the charges which included dacoities, robbing money from banks and the
collection of arms and ammunition. The evidence of G.T. Hamilton Harding, senior
superintendent of police, took the court by surprise as he said that he had filed the FIR against
the accused under the instructions of the chief secretary to the government of Punjab and he did
not know the facts of the case. Then one of the accused J.N Sanyal said that they were not the
accused but the defenders of India’s honour and dignity.

There were five approvers in total put of which Jai Gopal, Hans Raj Vohra and P.N.Ghosh had
been associated with the HRSA for a long time. It was on their stories that the prosecution
relied. The tribunal depended on Section 9 (1) of the Ordinance and on 10th July 1930, issued an
order, and copies of the framed charges were served on the fifteen accused in jail, together with
copies of an order intimating them that their pleas would be taken on the charges the following
day. This trial was a long and protracted one, beginning on 5 May, 1930, and ending on 10
September, 1930. It was a one-sided affair which threw all rules and regulations out of the
window. Finally the tribunal framed charges against fifteen out of the eighteen accused. The
case against B.K.Dutt was withdrawn as he had already been sentenced to transportation for life
in the Assembly Bomb Case.

On 7 October 1930, about three weeks before the expiry of its term, the tribunal delivered its
judgement, sentencing Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru to death by hanging. Others were
sentenced to transportation for life and rigorous imprisonment. This judgement was a 300-page
one which went into the details of the evidence and said that Bhagat Singh’s participation in the
Saunders’ murder was the most serious and important fact proved against him and it was fully
established by evidence. The warrants for the three were marked with a black border.

The undertrials of the Chittagong Armoury Raid Case sent an appeal to Gandhiji to intervene. A
defence committee was constituted in Punjab to file an appeal to the Privy Council against the
sentence. Bhagat Singh did not favour the appeal but his only satisfaction was that the appeal
would draw the attention of people in England to the existence of the HSRA. In the case of
Bhagat Singh v. The King Emperor, the points raised by the appellant was that the ordinance
promulgated to constitute a special tribunal for the trial was invalid. The government argued that
Section 72 of the Government of India Act, 1915 gave the governor-general unlimited powers to
set up a tribunal. Judge Viscount Dunedin who read the judgment dismissed the appeal. Thus
from the lower court to the tribunal to the Privy Council, it was a preordained judgement in
flagrant violation of all tends of natural justice and a fair and free trial.

Justice by Galsworthy

Justice, a drama written by John Galsworthy aimed to bring reforms in the British system of
Justice. The play is not just about bringing reforms in solitary confinement but about the judicial
process and the broader relationship of punishment to crime.
The four-act play revolves around the protagonist William Falder, a young solicitor's clerk, who
embezzled money from his firm to rescue the woman he loves from her unhappy marriage. He is
handed over to the police after he confesses his forgery. The judge, in the trial then sentences
him a three years penal servitude. He has been put in solitary confinement and finds himself to
be a victim of the terrible system. The authorities admit that he is mentally and physically in bad
shape but do nothing to help him.

He was supposed to register himself with the police authorities but he failed to do so and
commits suicide as he thought that he would be put in prison again. The socio-revolutionary
significance of Justice consists the portrayal of the inhuman system that exists between the crime
and punishment awarded for the same.

Galsworthy believed that solitary confinement is a long slow dragging misery, whose worst
moments are necessarily and utterly hidden from one’s eyes. Galsworthy knew that he would get
a widespread support from the people as his drama had deeply touched the people. His drama
showed people the reality of a prison life. He helped people realize that celibacy and a
monotonous diet were a severe punishment in itself and when combined with solitude and
absolute silence made it more miserable. He believed that a person could be reformed with
kindness and there was no need for solitude or silence.

Justice impacted and moved a lot of people including Winston Churchill and he was greatly
influenced by the solitary confinement scene in the drama. Churchill had major legislative
changes in mind and considered Galsworthy the most respected of all the people that influenced
him. Churchill's intention as Home Secretary was to carry out a sweeping revision of penal
policy along three main lines of advance: the improvement of prison conditions; the exclusion of
petty offenders from gaol; and the reform of sentencing policy.
Galsworthy was a firm believer that encouraging mental and moral development through
expanded educational facilities was the most effective way to reform a criminal. He suggested
many ways such as copybooks being allowed in the Berlin prison and allowing more
communication with family and friends outside to bring about reforms in the prisoners. He also
suggested that prisoners' aid societies should be linked up into prisoner's labour exchange so that
the prisoners could be employed and wouldn't have to turn to crimes again.

Churchill in 1910 announced certain reforms for reducing the numbers of people sent to prison.
He proposed a wider application of the recently passed Probation of Offenders Act, more time-
to-pay for debtors and fined offenders, and more help for discharged prisoners to keep them from
re-offending. Juveniles would not be committed to prison except for serious offences. Lastly he
announced a reduction in solitary confinement from three months to one month.

This was just one milestone achieved and there were many more yet to be achieved. Later
through a public letter Galsworthy suggested the end in his efforts towards bringing reforms and
the reason for this is unknown.

Justice might have not led to abolishing separate confinement but is a partial success. Without
the drama reaching politicians, middle classes or the judges; the decision for reducing the
solitary confinement to one month couldn't have been made.

It is shocking to see the relevance and impact of Galsworthy's Justice is the fact that to this day
his drama remains one of the best-known examples of such system of justice.
Act 1
As the play opens in a solicitor’s firm, Cokeson, the managing clerk, is found at his table, adding
up figures in a bank pass book. He is sixty and honest-looking. The office boy, Sweedle, comes
to tell Cokeson that somebody wants to see Falder, the junior clerk. Cokeson is rather hesitant in
permitting private interviews in the office. He is a devout Christian and adheres to some
principles. He does not like to entertain private callers in the office as it goes against the rule.
When Ruth Honeywill comes, Cokeson tells her that she could not see Falder in his office. But
when Ruth insists on seeing Falder telling him that it is a question of life and death for her, the
old man relents and permits her to see Falder. At this stage Falder comes. He is rather pale and
nervous. Cokeson leaves the room telling him that he must not take more than a minute with the
woman.
Falder is with Ruth. Ruth tells him her harrowing tale of woe. Her husband, a drunkard, tried to
kill her again and somehow she managed to save herself. Now she has left her husband’s with
her children and she does not dare go back again even to take her things. From their conversation
we come to know that Ruth is an unhappy married woman in love with Falder. Falder too loves
her passionately and is determined to rescue her from the hell and to give her a happy home. We
know further that Falder and Ruth have planned to leave the country that night. Falder gives
Ruth some money and asks her to wait for him at an appointed place at the appointed time.
While Falder and Ruth are locked in a passionate embrace, kissing each other, Cokeson comes
back. When Ruth leaves, Cokeson tells Falder that he should not encourage private callers to
meet him in the office. He also gives him a pamphlet on ‘Purity in the home’. But the scene
proves beyond doubt that the old man is kind-hearted forgiving and affectionate in his relation
with the young man.

As Falder goes into his office, Walter How, the junior partner of the firm comes. He is a young
man of liberal views and pleasant manners. His father, James How, the senior partner comes and
discusses business with his son. While checking the balance in the bank he finds some
discrepancies and enquires of his son what exactly was the amount he had drawn a few days
back. Walter says it was nine pounds, but the entry shows it was ninety. So they are convinced
that the cheque must have been altered by the person who cashed it. Now, Cokeson gave the
cheque to Davis who left to settle in another country on the very day the cheque was cashed. So
Davis is the suspect. But James How wonders who altered the counterfoil of the cheque-book
which was with Walter on the day Davis left. The bank’s cashier comes and identifies Falder
who had cashed the cheque. Falder confesses and tells that he was in a daze while doing it all.
But James considers it a deliberate forgery and refuses to let Falder go on the plea that it was his
first offence. Walter and Cokeson fail to save Falder; he is handed over to the police.

Act 3
Falder is seen in the dock-accused of forgery. Rather grim-faced judge and the lawyers are seen
arguing before the jury. The prosecution counsel wants the accused to be convicted and
sentenced, for the forgery is proved He argues that the offence was well-planned and deliberate.
Falder altered the cheque to swindle and took a long time to alter the counter foil. So it could not
be a case of momentary insanity, nor was it a case of mere coincidence. Falder’s crime is shown
to be all the more unpardonable, because while altering the cheque and the counterfoil he
believed that Davis would be the prime suspect. Thus he took his time to consider the entire
process and to shift the blame to an innocent person who was no longer there to defend himself.

The defence counsel, Hector Frome, does not deny that Falder had altered the cheque. But then
he analyses the circumstances that made him commit the crime. He loved Ruth, the unhappily
married woman, and wanted to save her from the hell in which her husband treated her cruelly,
tortured her and almost strangled her to death only that morning. He tried desperately to find
ways and decided to leave the country with Ruth and give her happy home in the foreign land.
But he did not have money enough to realize his dream. So, in his desperate bid to get money he
saw the cheque as a god-send and in a daze altered it. Later he altered the counterfoil, too, to
avoid a row and to ensure a safe passage. Falder did never think of committing forgery before,
but to save Ruth he could not help doing what he did.

But the court of justice-the judge and the jury-did not agree to Frome’s argument. Both the
forgery and Falder’s relation with a married woman were immoral in its eyes Hence Falder was
unanimously found guilty and sentenced to penal servitude for three years.

Act 3
Act 3 Scene 1
The scene opens in a room in the prison. It is Christmas Eve. Between the governor and the
warder there is a discussion about the prisoners-the old ones and the new, Falder. Then comes
Cokeson to see Falder. From what he says we know that the old man has some affection for him.
He says that Fader’s sister is not permitted by her husband to see him and his other sister is an
invalid. Falder is already considered an outcast by even his relatives. When Falder was
sentenced, Ruth promised to wait for him, fending for herself. But she could not do so, and for
the sake of her children she decided to go to the workhouse. Cokeson persuaded her not to do so.
But as she found it impossible to earn a living, she saw no alternative to going back to her
husband -the cruel drunkard. Cokeson told the governor how Falder was attached to her.

Then Cokeson resents the way the prisoners are treated. The solitary confinement has shattering
effects on the mind of the prisoner. The old man would not keep even his dog in such a miserable
state. But the prison doctor does not agree with him. Of course, Falder is nervous and
melancholy but his physical health is not affected Cokeson leaves with the assurance that
governor will visit Falder soon.

Act 3 Scene 2
The scene takes us to the prison cells of four prisoners- Moaney, Clipton, O’Cleary and Falder.
The behaviour of the first three shows abnormality, for they are all victim’s of loneliness. Falder
too is found suffering terribly from melancholia and nervousness. But the doctor says he is not
different from others. The governor advises him not to think about his private affairs too much
and to get over his afflictions.

Act 3 Scene 3
Falder is shown in his narrow cell. He is found standing on the floor, trying to hear something.
He is motionless. Then he heaves a sigh and goes to do the work allotted to him. He is lost in
sadness. He paces up and down like a helpless, caged animal. In the fading light he peeps into a
tin, trying to see his own face. He stands behind the door and tries to listen to something. Then
the cell is lighted. Falder gasps for breath. He listens to a distant sound that grows louder, leaving
him hypnotized. He creeps towards the door. But then he raises his clenched fist, pants violently
and flings himself on the door, beating desperately on it. The scene is gloomy and sickening.
Act 4
Ruth Honeywill comes to see Cokeson in his office. From their conversation we know that
Falder is released from prison. She was no longer living with her husband. The day before she
saw Falder. He was all skin and bone and he was yet to find an employment. Ruth tells Cokeson
the harrowing tale of her unhappy marriage with Honeywill, how she had to leave him, how she
earned her living and her humiliations and despair. But even then she pleads for Falder, to let
him have another chance. Falder had tried elsewhere, but when it was found out that he was a
convict he was hounded cut. Cokeson tells Ruth that he will talk with his employers and let her
know it they are agreeable to giving him another chance. There, of course, is a vacancy, though
another man is going to join. Somehow that man has to be kept away.

But before Cokeson could talk to his employers, Falder comes in Cokeson is embarrassed. Falder
just asks for a chance, for he thinks he has paid enough for what he did. He is an outcast, rejected
by all ; even his sister could not kiss him now. He is utterly frustrated, having no home, no
living, no friend. Cokeson understands him and promises to help him with another chance.

As they were talking, James and Walter How come in. They greet Falder. Cokeson asks them to
consider giving Falder another chance, for he has atoned enough for what he did. Walter is all
sympathy for Falder, but James would like Falder to dissociate himself from Ruth. Falder does
not agree. But Ruth promises that she will keep away from him. After this James agrees to
employ Falder in his office again.

The title of the play is a deliberate choice of Galsworthy who intends to make it sound ironical.
In fact, the main tune of the play deals with the crux of justice, or rather the edifice of justice that
appears majestic and awe-inspiring, but in the name of justice it crushes the poor under its
wheel. The title is an impassioned commentary on the legal system and the prison administration
in a commercial society in which hypocrisy and false values heap injustices on the Falders and
make them find peace in death.

Justice as a Social Tragedy

The term tragedy is broadly applied to dramatic representations of serious and important actions
which turn out disastrously for the central character or the tragic protagonist. Aristotle defined
tragedy as ‘the imitation of an action that is serious and also having magnitude, complete in
itself, incorporating incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish the catharsis of
such emotions.
In Greek as well as Shakespearean tragedies we find tragic incidents showing suffering and
defeat. But these do not leave us depressed, we feel relieved and even exalted. According to
Aristotle, a tragic hero will evoke pity and fear, if he is neither thoroughly good nor thoroughly
bad, but one who is good with a tragic flaw in his character. The hero is not an ordinary man and
this is why the tragic situation and the tragic flaw in his character evoke so much pity and terror.
Such a hero, better though than we are, is shown suffering a change in fortune only because of
this flaw-which is but an error of judgement.
But in modern tragedies the tragic heroes are ordinary mortals like ourselves, -not like Hamlets
and Othellos and Macbeths. They are mostly the offsprings of social problems, and so their
bewildered defeat evokes in us only compassionate understanding instead of tragic pity and
terror. Galsworthy’s Justice has such a hero in William Falder who is only a poor clerk with little
means to help an unhappy woman he is in love with. There is little grandeur in his act of forgery
and in his death. We feel sorry for him, because we have our sympathy for him. At the end we
feel depressed, not relieved and exalted. Ruth Honeywill, too, claims our sympathy, though she
is not dead. We feel sorry for her, for the death of Falder leaves her without a friend in a cruel
society.
Falder’s error of judgement leads him to his detection. It shows his desperation, not cool
calculation when he alters the counterfoil of the forged cheque. If he had not altered coat counter
foil, Davis would remain the suspect. In spite of the fact that the pathos in his character draws
tears in our eyes, Falder is too weak and pathetic to reach the tragic height. Falder is just a
helpless victim of a system where in the name of morality and justice, the poor and the weak are
constantly crushed beyond recognition. The flaw is not in Falder, it is in our system of things, in
our stale values. His end represents the frustration of the modern man who is constantly harassed
and tormented by the false values of a commercial society.

Now, one really has reason to wonder what makes Galsworthy call Justice a tragedy when it does
not quite conform to the Aristotelian definition or Shakespearian practices in the genre.
Galsworthy’s principal concern seems to be the problems of modern society, and so his
characters are made to represent certain ideas. Obviously such characters do not have any scope
to grow, nor the situations develop to help them grow. In Justice, for example, Falder is rather
flat and a mere type, remaining the same from beginning to end-brooding, nervous and dazed.
But that is only natural. For Falder is born in a society where Macbeths and Othellos do not fit
in.
So the Aristotelian definition or Shakespearian attitude to heroes in tragedy loses its relevance
for Galsworthy. As Prof. Nicoll rightly says, Galsworthy has given a new dimension to tragedy
by showing the waste caused by the destruction of innocent and well-meaning social beings
by malicious social forces which are as strong today as the gods and the destiny were in the past.
We have to judge Justice in the light of this new concept of tragedy. According to this new
concept the modern dramatist is required to create his work accommodating two demands: the
demand of Art and the demand of life.
Galsworthy tries sincerely to keep away from these apparently conflicting demands and succeeds
in reconciling them to a considerable extent. And the result of all this is his innovation-the
new social tragedy in which the most powerful character is the society with its all-pervasive
influences. When the individuals like Falder come in conflict with this powerful character, they
are ruthlessly eliminated. The other characters in the tragedy are poor and weak victims of the
social forces and they are mercilessly treated for straying from the rut.
Character of Falder
Though Falder is not a hero in the Aristotelian or Shakespearian sense, the entire dramatic action
of Justice emanates from him, right from the first Act. Everything happens around him; he
claims all our attention, sympathy and pity. He does everything and suffers not for himself, but
for Ruth Honeywill. But even then we find him an unheroic hero whose tragedy is never grand
and sublime, whose suffering and fall do not inspire awe. If we admire him, it is because he is
victim of a social injustice which we all resent. He does not stir our deeper emotions beyond pity
which is aroused by the spectacle of waste.
Falder is a young clerk of twenty-three. He is pale, good looking, but a bit timid and nervous. He
is soft-spoken and nice, but rather weak and pensive. He gives us the impression of a scared
young man who is constantly haunted by something he has done in a desperate bid to save a
married woman. But in spite of all this he has a heart of gold that bleeds to see others suffer.
When he sees Ruth languishing in her hell, waiting only to be throttled to death by her cruel
husband, he tries to assuage her agonies and gives her his sincere love which is warm enough to
make the unhappy woman dream of a new, happy home with Fader. He considers his love for
Ruth very precious and he does not have much qualm to forge the cheque with a view of building
a happy home for Ruth.
Falder never thinks of being dishonest, he hates swindling and all his life he has learnt to
preserve the integrity of his character. But when he sees no alternative to forging the cheque he
sacrifices his honesty and integrity at the altar of his love for Ruth, for he considers this love
more precious and above anything else. All along he has remained faithful and devoted to Ruth,
not because he pities her, but because his love for her pervades his entire existence giving it both
succour and meaning in an otherwise drab and dreary world. He is prepared to sacrifice his life to
see her happy and he actually does it without any remorse.
In the office he is liked by all in spite of his weakness. His meekness and sincerity endear him to
others, and Cokeson and the Hows do not have anything to complain about as long as he is in the
office But when it is impossible for Ruth to stay with her husband, he frantically tries to get the
money necessary for paying their travelling expenses to a far-away land where he dreams of
giving Ruth a happy home. He is really in a daze while altering cheque, and when he realises
what he has done he does not let his qualm scare him away from his pledge to Ruth. As he has
promises to keep, he does not think of rest. His only thought is about Ruth, and he silently
shelves his scruples. He alters the counterfoil of the cheque he has forged only to prevent
detection before he leaves the country with Ruth. He knows that Davis is already beyond
anybody’s reach, and, so, even if the forgery is detected, no harm can touch him. But, as ne is not
an adept, he is caught on the very day he has planned to leave. However, James How and
Cleaver do not see this reason. The judge and the jury too find him guilty; he is found to have
committed forgery deliberately, in a planned way. Hence he is sentenced to penal servitude.
Falder, in his solitary cell, is a broken man ; the price he is made to pay is too heavy for a weak
young man like him – it shatters him completely and even robs him of his faith in life. When he
comes out of the prison he finds himself without a shelter and without a living. Even the doors of
his own sister’s home is closed before him; no employer would have him in his office. The
stigma of being convicted once appears to be too large to be rubbed out. He is an outcast in his
own society. But even then he does not forget his Ruth, though now he is sceptical of being of
any use to her. When again they meet, Falder seems to have regained his lost hope, for Ruth is
still there as helpless as ever.

Cokeson and James How help him dream again, for they agree to give him another chance. But
James has one condition : he must sever his relation with Ruth and keep away from her. Falder
refuses to do that, he cannot give up one for whom he has suffered so much. However, Ruth is
quite agreeable to How’s suggestion and tries to persuade him to reason. But Falder will not be
persuaded. At last James relents and does not insist on his condition as forcefully as he does in
the beginning. But the society never stops chasing Falder with a vengeance, the law never gives
him the respite even though he has done nothing to malign it. He is caught in a vicious web and
even James How fails to extricate him when the custodian of the legal system comes to pounce
upon his prey for not reporting himself at the police station.
Falder knows that it is no use struggling, for he cannot get away from justice. Each time he tries
to live, the society hurls him down the precipice and he is made to Crawl under its wheel only to
get crushed in the process. So, only to flee this society, Falder jumps to his death. It is his only
bold attempt to give ‘justice’ the slip, and it helps us see the rot.
The pathos in Falder’s character moves us all to pity, but he does not emerge as a tragic hero in
the true sense. There is little grandeur in his suffering; even his death leaves him pathetic. He
represents the frustration of the modern man who is constantly baffled and harassed by the false
values of a heartless commercial system.