Mumbai Fables Read online

Page 19


  5.4. Crowd gathered outside the court. Source: Blitz, October 24, 1959.

  5.5. The murder scene. Source: Blitz, October 24, 1959.

  With photographs, Blitz presented the visual drama of the courtroom entry of “the handsome, smartly uniformed Commander Nanavati, with an array of seven medals glittering on his breast, but sad-eyed and quiet.” Every time he was spotted going in and out of the court, accompanied by naval officers, the crowd would shout “Nanavati Zindabad” (Long Live Nanavati) and “good luck.” The tabloid recounted the details of the case built by “the learned, soft spoken, thin-lipped, and bushy-browed” chief prosecutor Trivedi and the alternative theory put forward by the defense. It reminded readers of the prosecution’s case for premeditated murder, substantiated by the evidence of the servants, the ballistic expert, and the police surgeon, who stuck to his view that three successive shots could not go off accidentally. The image of Mamie Ahuja was recalled to once again retell the defense’s assertions about Ahuja’s alleged affairs and love letters. The readers were reminded of Commander Samuel’s testimony that Nanavati had looked dazed and disoriented, muttering “fight, fight” when he appeared at the provost-marshal’s residence. This was to bolster the argument that the gun had gone off in a struggle.

  Blitz noted the drama of Nanavati’s appearance as defense witness number one. Sylvia was once again portrayed as a pretty, blue-eyed, and remorseful wife, painfully recounting her act of betrayal. Blitz reminded readers that senior naval officials, including the navy chief, Admiral Katari, had appeared as defense witnesses. Citing the jury’s not guilty verdict and its dismissal by the judge, it closed the recapitulation of the trial by quoting Judge Mehta: “I think our whole law is on trial and that our whole Constitution is on trial.” It was now for the Bombay High Court to decide, Blitz declared, whether Commander Nanavati is “guilty or not guilty.”

  The trial was over, but the next week Blitz’s front page was still asking: “nan avati: What Next?” People, the article claimed, were eagerly awaiting the answer to this question. Popular excitement ran high. There were rumors among the “gullible” and the “superstitious” that Ahuja’s ghost was stalking the city. Street hawkers were selling replicas of Nanavati’s revolver and Ahuja’s towel. The public sentiment was decidedly pro-Nanavati. Reportedly, the city teenagers put new words to the tune of “Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley”:33

  You’re not going to hang, Nanavati,

  you don’t have to cry;

  Hold up your head, Nanavati, ’cause you

  ain’t going to die.

  Blitz boasted that its print order had soared to 152,000 to meet the huge demand, which had reportedly led the newspaper hawkers to scalp the tabloid at as much as eight times the price. The date on the newspaper’s masthead was Saturday, but impatient readers rushed to the newsstands, which received the tabloid on Friday. Old city residents remember that copies circulated among friends. It was as if Blitz had traversed the whole of Bombay, creating a print city through its circulation. A film journalist, who was then a schoolboy in the city, remembers cutting school and traveling ticketless on the suburban train from Kandivli to Churchgate to catch a glimpse of Nanavati and Sylvia. Nanavati appeared to him as a hero—a portrayal, he now understands, shaped by the tabloid.34 As far away as the railway bookstall in Madras, the arrival of the Blitz from Bombay was eagerly awaited.35

  Blitz roused and shaped the popular imagination with its aggressive coverage of the case. Front-page headlines, sensational stories, and exclusive photographs became regular features of its reporting of the case. In the lull before the case was taken up by the High Court, Blitz tried to keep the interest alive and its circulation up by somehow bringing up the issue. It even commissioned a palmist-astrologer to interpret Nanavati’s horoscope to foretell his legal fate. While predicting auspicious developments in the domestic sphere, the fortuneteller announced that since the case was sub judice, he had placed his legal prediction in a sealed envelope in custody of Blitz, to be opened after the court’s verdict.36 The movie correspondent published an article, “L’Affaire Nanavati—Hollywood Version,” discovering the resonance of the case in the 1959 film Anatomy of a Murder, starring Jimmy Stewart, Lee Remick, and Ben Gazzara. Illustrated with movie stills, the article highlighted the film’s fascinating depiction of the trial of an army lieutenant charged with murdering his wife’s rapist.

  A week before the case opened before the High Court, Blitz published another summary of the case, illustrated with photographs and graphic representations of the prosecution and including defense theories of the murder. In an era before television, this was the closest the public could get to the case as a compelling visual drama.

  THE DENOUEMENT

  Blitz’s coverage of the case went into high gear as the High Court took up the lower court’s referral on February 8, 1960. Over the year and half that the case was deliberated in the High Court, before it moved on to the Supreme Court, there were numerous legal twists. Through it all, Karanjia relentlessly publicized its factual, legal, and moral dimensions. By the end, he had turned Nanavati into a cause célèbre.

  Unlike the drama of witnesses and cross-examinations in the trial, the issues before the High Court concerned the interpretation of law and rules of evidence. Still, the public interest remained undimmed. The courtroom was overcrowded, and police forces lined the High Court corridors on each floor to regulate entry. Once again, legal luminaries were ranged on opposite sides. Y. V. Chandrachud, the government pleader and later the chief justice of India, led the prosecution. A.S.R. Chari, a leading Bombay lawyer, appeared for the defense. Blitz announced the importance it attributed to the High Court proceedings by publishing the photographs of the main cast of characters. There were the by-now familiar pictures of the famous accused and the victim—Commander Nanavati in his naval uniform and Ahuja in a suit. But also illustrating the story were portraits of the two counsels and the High Court justices, Naik and Shelat, in their legal robes.

  The accompanying articles drew the readers’ attention to the main points in Sessions judge Mehta’s reference. First, the Sessions judge had ruled that the jury verdict was “perverse” because it had no reasonable basis in the evidence presented. He highlighted several facts that undermined the theory of an accidental shooting. He pointed out that had there been a struggle, the towel would not have remained in place on Ahuja’s body. The defense had also failed to explain, according to him, how Ahuja knew that Nanavati’s envelope contained a revolver when he allegedly lunged for it. Second, his opinion was that Nanavati was guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. In view of Nanavati’s excellent record of service, however, Judge Mehta recommended a nominal sentence.

  The defense’s first move was to challenge the dismissal of the jury’s verdict. It contended that the High Court should rule only on the Sessions judge’s reference, not on Nanavati’s guilt or innocence. It was overruled. The government pleader claimed that the Sessions judge’s instructions to the jury contained severe “misdirections” and “non-directions” that had tainted the verdict. Therefore, he argued, the court should rule on Nanavati’s guilt. The High Court agreed and asked the government to argue the case on the merits of the evidence. For the next three weeks, the prosecution and defense counsels battled over the interpretation of evidence.

  Blitz fully covered the courtroom tussle between the prosecution and the defense, but it also published juicy tidbits. Chief among these were Sylvia’s letters to Ahuja, full of love and longing. “I want to love you in every way—with love and quietness and with passion. I want to cook for you, sew for you (poor you!). I want to look after you when you’re ill, bear your children and be with you always. Please say you’ll have me, please say you want me.” With his wife deeply in love with another man and planning to leave him, Nanavati appeared as a grossly wronged husband. Ahuja, by contrast, was portrayed as an immoral playboy, callously playing with the emotions of an impressionable and lonely wi
fe.

  On March 9 the High Court resumed the delivery of the judgment that it had begun the previous day. “There is nothing surprising or abhorrent in the step Nanavati took in avenging his injuries,” observed Justice Shelat, but, he continued, “the law of the country did not permit the avenging of a wrong by taking law into one’s own hands.” The verdict? “The accused is convicted under Section 302 I.P.C. (Murder) and is sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for life.”37 The judge had rejected the theory of sudden provocation and ignored the trial judge’s recommendation that Nanavati be charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Tension broke in the hushed courtroom. Many rushed out to flash the news of the bombshell judgment to the thronging crowd outside.

  The front-page headline in Blitz read: “nan avati . . . What Next?”38 A dispirited report speculated on Nanavati’s options—appeal to the nation’s highest court, the Supreme Court in New Delhi, undergo the sentence, and a pardon by the state governor or the president of India. A prominent boxed item on the front page read: “Love Letters of Mrs.? to Ahuja,” with the question mark covering a woman’s face. The letters were frank and intimate, with sentiments such as “I shan’t see you for a very long time—ten days at least. I shall probably die in that time. What is there to live for, if I can’t see you, hear you, touch you?”39 Defense Counsel Chari had brought these letters to the court’s attention to assert that they proved that Ahuja lived dangerously and was aware of the consequences of such a life. It is for this reason, the counsel argued, that the court should accept Sylvia’s evidence that she had seen Ahuja with a revolver and had warned Nanavati that her lover might shoot him. Supposedly, this was why Nanavati had gone armed with a gun to Ahuja’s residence.

  The defense’s arguments for Nanavati’s innocence had failed to move the High Court, but all was not lost. On March 11 Sri Prakasa, the governor of Bombay, invoked the constitution of India to direct that Nanavati be held in naval custody pending disposal of his appeal to the Supreme Court. The order was issued even before the Sessions judge could issue a warrant for Nanavati’s arrest following the conviction by the High Court, ensuring that the commander did not go to jail at all.40 Prime Minister Nehru acknowledged that, in response to the appeal by the navy chief and with the clearance of the law minister, he had advised the governor to suspend the sentence and remand Nanavati to naval custody.41 Both the governor’s decision and Nehru’s intervention in a provincial matter were unprecedented and were construed as unwarranted executive interference in the judiciary. The controversy raged in the Parliament, the provincial legislature, newspapers, and among lawyers. Even the Communist Party, with which Blitz was friendly, condemned the governor’s action.42 The High Court picked up the gauntlet as well. After rejecting Nanavati’s petition seeking leave to appeal his conviction before the Supreme Court, it appointed a full bench of seven judges to consider the constitutionality of the governor’s action.43

  A sensational case of adultery and murder was now a high-stakes legal spectacle. The trial, the jury verdict, Nanavati’s conviction by the High Court, and the governor’s suspension of his sentence had escalated the case into a constitutional tangle. Brought into view was a crisis in the liberal constitutional order’s management of society. The very idea of equality before the law as the means of governing social conflicts was being tested. On trial was the ability of the principle of separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary to check the abuse of power.

  Blitz jumped into the legal fray with a column by Ramesh Sanghvi, a barrister.44 He wrote that the case was no longer just a matter of the death of a rich businessman and the life of a naval officer. Hitting high rhetorical notes in the law, he declared that the battle concerned issues much bigger than the fate of one man; it was about the fate of countless Indians who have no medals to bedeck their chests but depend on the supremacy of the jury system. He pointed out that no judge could discard the decision of the jury in Britain. In importing this system into colonial India, however, the British had introduced the provision for an appeal against the jury verdict to the High Court. This anachronism in the law permitted Englishmen, who were invariably the High Court judges, to maintain control over Indians. In using this anachronistic provision in the Indian criminal law to reexamine the evidence and convict Nanavati in the High Court, the prosecution had perpetuated the colonial violation of justice. It was a clear case of double jeopardy.

  The constitutional card was not the only one that Blitz played. Its trumps were morality and patriotism. Karanjia bylined a lead story headlined “Let the People Rally to the defence of nan avati!” He began by asking a series of rhetorical questions. Why did the governor intervene? Why did Nehru offer advice? Why did the jury return a verdict of not guilty? “Finally, what magnet or magic brought some 20,000 citizens to crowd around the Bombay High Court to ‘Jai’ [felicitate] the man charged with killing, four times everyday of the long trial?” The answers, Karanjia claimed, lay in the “greatly derided and heavily ridiculed middle-class morality.” According to him, everyone, barring the members of the upper strata and an “amoral minority of the intelligentsia, hails Nanavati as the man who fired those shots on his beh alf —that is, on behalf of the sanctity of his home and honour of his family—against the plague of corruption, be it of the financial or moral variety, that is eating into the body, mind and soul of the nation.” Ahuja, he suggested, had come to stand for the wealthy, corrupt, immoral, and “unsocialist” forces ranged against the country, whereas Nanavati had become a symbol of the “avenging conscience of humanity.” It was a popular revolt against the corruption of public life, not an expression of communal solidarity, for those who regularly gathered at the trial were not only Parsis but included Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and even Sindhis. The people had risen against the enemies of the nation.

  Ratcheting up the sensational twist to the morality angle, Blitz published a copy of a letter allegedly sent to Nanavati by “Mrs X,” a “beautiful 30-year old Anglo-Indian married woman.” Mrs. X wrote that she and her husband met Ahuja at lunch at a friend’s house. During the absence of her husband, who spent days away from home on work, she often went to Ahuja’s apartment for parties. At one of those parties, he plied her with drink and broke down her resistance. He stripped her naked and “proceeded to satisfy his lust.” When she woke up, filled with guilt and a hangover, Ahuja offered her a packet of yellow powder to cure the hangover. This cleared her mind, and she went home. Despite the guilt and a resolve never to repeat the experience, she succumbed the moment he called a few days later. She fell under his spell, like a “woman possessed.” She went to his house, where, “once more, he satisfied his lust and I meekly submitted.” This occurred several times. Mrs. X could not understand why she could not resist him, until a South Indian gentleman told her about a mysterious love potion commonly used in his part of the country. Apparently, this potion’s magical effect lasted only when the object of love was present; it became dormant when the person was away. This explained to Mrs. X her mood swings. Armed with this precious knowledge, she broke up with Ahuja. “Something tells me,” she told Nanavati, “that what happened to me happened to your wife too.” She implored him to inquire if such a thing happened to Sylvia before judging her. After all, the culprit was not a charming seducer but a love potion–dispensing villain who preyed deviously on unsuspecting married women to satisfy his lust.

  Not content with playing the morality card, Blitz also tugged at the heartstrings. It published a story about “the agony of the family.” Nanavati’s eldest son, Feroze, had become the butt of cruel jokes in school. His six-year-old daughter, Tannaj, and three-year-old Jimmy had to be withdrawn from school. Nanavati was forced to sell his car, refrigerator, camera, and Sylvia’s sewing machine and jewelry to pay for his legal costs.

  By this time, Blitz had dropped all pretense of only reporting the story. The tabloid had openly become a protagonist in the legal, political, and moral theater it had helped to stage.
It appealed to readers to sign and mail its draft letter of support to the governor. It exhorted them to attend a public meeting in Nanavati’s support. The weekly triumphantly reported that people responded enthusiastically. The hall was packed with thirty-five hundred people, and five thousand waited outside, jostling to get in. But plans for rousing speeches had to be put off. Karanjia explained to the expectant crowd that the government had advised him to adjourn the meeting because the matter was sub judice. Then he pointed to Commander Nanavati’s portrait and thundered, “The struggle will continue.” Accompanying the jubilant report on the meeting was a dark front-page story by Karanjia, alleging that certain political forces had manufactured the controversy over the governor’s action in their plot against Prime Minister Nehru and Defense Minister Krishna Menon. Nanavati was a mere pawn in their game. Doing their bidding was “an insignificant Bombay weekly edited by a Parsi stooge.” The poison pen was aimed at his archrival D. F. Karaka, against whom Karanjia had fought and won a defamation suit in 1952. Karaka’s endorsement of Nanavati’s conviction provided Karanjia with an irresistible opportunity to strike once again at his Parsi foe.

  Meanwhile, the High Court upheld the governor’s order as constitutional but regretted his use of extraordinary powers.45 It worried that the suspension of Nanavati’s sentence would convey the impression of special treatment for a particular person. Clearly, the court was unhappy. But not Blitz. It celebrated the decision with the headline “vox populi . . . vox dei! Full Bench Upholds Governor’s Order.”46 Accompanying the story was a photograph of Karanjia and Sanghvi, both smartly dressed in suits, presenting two petitions: one with a “wide and cosmopolitan range” of fifty thousand signatures, and the second signed by a group of Sindhis in Bombay. It also published a spoof piece on the deliberations of a fictitious club determined to combat the menace of Nanavatism. The members of the club were moneybags and “Chupo Rustoms” (Judas-like men) who had gathered to denounce the violations of their fundamental right to prey on army and navy wives.47