The Trial of Radha Charan Mitra

So the case is cited, and should be cited by a student, as evidence on a disputed question: whether the application of English criminal law to Indians at Calcutta in 1775 was a novelty invented for Nandkumar, or the continuation of what had been done there for a decade.

What it does not prove

Be careful here, because an answer that overstates the point is as wrong as one that omits it.

Radhacharan Mitra was pardoned. Nandkumar was hanged. If a student uses the 1765 case to argue that Nandkumar's execution was ordinary and unremarkable, the reply is immediate: the earlier man's life was spared and the later man's was not, and the judges of 1775 had the same power to respite that had been exercised in 1765.

Nor does the case answer Macaulay's third proposition. That hanging a Brahmin for forgery was shocking to Indian notions is a statement about Indian opinion, and it is not refuted by showing that it had happened before. If anything the 1780 petition of the British inhabitants of Bengal supports Macaulay on that point: it records the "general consternation" and astonishment with which Indians of all ranks were seized by the example of Radhacharan Mitra, because they understood from it that they might be tried by a law they did not know for an act their own law did not treat as capital.

The 1765 case therefore proves that the practice existed, and simultaneously shows what the practice did to Indian confidence in the courts. Both halves belong in an answer.

A worked example

Two questions, and the same case answers each differently.

"Was the application of English criminal law to Nandkumar unprecedented?" No, and Radhacharan Mitra's conviction in 1765 is the proof. English criminal law had been administered at Calcutta under the Charters of 1726 and 1753 by the Governor and Council as Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer, and it had been applied to a Hindu of rank in a capital case.

"Did Indians accept the application of English criminal law to them?" No, and the same case is the proof of that too. The contemporary petition of 1780 records the consternation the conviction caused among Indians precisely because it showed them what could be done.

That is the discipline this paper rewards: the same fact, used for the two different propositions it actually supports, rather than for the one a textbook happens to have attached to it.

What beginners get wrong

"Radha Charan was tried by the Supreme Court." The trial that matters was in 1765, and the Supreme Court was created in 1774. The 1775 proceeding against a man of that name was a charge of conspiracy, not a trial for forgery.

"He was hanged." He was convicted and condemned, and then pardoned.

"The case is about Radha Charan." In practice the case is about Nandkumar: it is cited by both sides in that controversy, and it has no other significance in this syllabus.

Limits and criticism

The honest thing to say about this topic is that MU has printed a case name whose reference is not certain, and that the sources treat it as a footnote to a larger argument rather than as a leading case in its own right. Stephen gives it a paragraph; the Impey Memoirs give it a sentence and a footnote; the contemporary petition gives it a page because of the alarm it caused.

A student should therefore not try to build a large answer out of it. What is worth having is the date, the statute, the outcome, the pardon, and the use to which the case is put in the Nandkumar debate. That is what an examiner can reasonably ask.

Quick revision

• 1765, at Calcutta, before the Supreme Court existed: Radhacharan Mitra, a Hindu of rank, tried for forgery under 2 Geo. II c. 25, convicted and condemned to death, then pardoned by the King.
• Period spellings: Radachurn Mettre, Radachund Mettre.
• Cited by Stephen and by the Impey Memoirs to answer Macaulay's claim that the English forgery statute had never been enforced against Indians at Calcutta.
• The 1780 petition of the British inhabitants records the "general consternation" the conviction caused among Indians.
• A different Radhacharan was charged with conspiracy in the Supreme Court in 1775 along with Nandkumar and Fowke. Distinguish the two.

Test yourself

1. In what year and in what court was Radhacharan Mitra tried, and what was the outcome? In 1765, at Calcutta, before the criminal jurisdiction exercised by the Governor and senior members of Council as Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer under the Charters of 1726 and 1753. He was convicted of forgery under 2 Geo. II c. 25 and condemned to death, and was pardoned.

2. Why is the case cited in the controversy over Nandkumar? Because it shows that the English forgery statute had been applied at Calcutta to a Hindu of rank in a capital case ten years before Nandkumar, which contradicts the claim that it had never been put in execution against Indians there.

3. What does the case NOT prove? It does not show that Nandkumar's execution was unremarkable, because Radhacharan Mitra was pardoned and Nandkumar was not; and it does not show that Indians accepted the application of English criminal law, because the contemporary petition of 1780 records the consternation this very conviction caused.

4. What is the ambiguity in MU's label, and how should it be handled? MU lists the case among cases showing the working of the Supreme Court, but the trial that matters was in 1765, before that Court existed; a different Radhacharan was charged with conspiracy in the Supreme Court in 1775. An answer should give the 1765 trial as the case, state its significance, and distinguish the 1775 conspiracy charge in a sentence.