Petitions
Ramniklal Chhotalal
21 January 1948.
Ramniklal Chhotalal, a sub-broker at the Native Share and Stock Brokers’ Association in Bombay, wrote to Mahatma Gandhi in January 1948, with a copy to the President of the Constituent Assembly. The letter was marked as “Letter No. 3,” suggesting earlier correspondence.
The letter is not a constitutional submission. It is a personal plea for justice against a former principal broker, Girdharlal Trikumlal, whom Ramniklal accused of systematically deceiving him, withholding his capital of Rs 3,20,000 from 1937, and reducing him to near-destitution. He described years of what he called organised tyranny: blackmailing, harassment of his wife and children, and High Court suits in Calcutta that had turned his brokers and neighbours against him. He had undertaken a 31-day fast in 1940 to seek justice from the guilty party directly, in what he described as the spirit of a true satyagrahi. He had also fasted 21 days in 1943 in sympathy with Gandhi’s own fast in jail.
The letter opened with relief at Gandhi’s survival after a bomb was thrown at him by a Pakistan refugee, and closed with Ramniklal half-starving, his wife in a dying condition at her parents’ house, keeping himself sane by reading newspapers and studying judicial reforms.
The document has no constitutional demand. It found its way into the Constituent Assembly’s files likely because a copy was addressed to the President of the Assembly. It reads as a desperate personal appeal routed through every authority the writer could think of.
RAMNIKLAL
CHHOTALAL
Podar Estates
Malaal[unclear] , Bombay 211/48
To
Mahatma Gandhiji
Hon’ble President of Consembly
New Delhi
Copy to
Presi. the
Consembly[unclear] N.Delhi
[unclear]
21/48 [unclear]
Respected Sirs,
(Letter No.3)
By Reg. A/D
THANK GOD that Mahatma ji is saved from a Bomb thrown on him by a Pakistan Refugee who could not tolerate Gandhiji’s views, viz. to love the Muslims however atrocious they be, and to love them as Christ and Gandhiji would do even in case the relatives of Chirist and Gandhiji be harrassed or killed by the Muslims in Pakistan. But it is beyond the capacity of these bereaved Refugees to be Christlike or Gandhilike.
My woes : SAVE US FROM SLOW- MURDER
I have been working as a sub-Broker, since 1919, in the Native Share and Stock Brokers’ Association, Bombay. On 17th March 1937, I had a nett capital of Rs. 3,20,000/- and it was all in the hands of my principal broker Girdharlal Trikumlal who never parted with my capital though I requested him at least twenty to thirty times from February 1937 till I frantically broke off with him in 1939 by which time my said capital was reduced to Rs. 3000/- only, comparatively.
I was informed by some one that Girdharlal and K.B. Vakil his guide in using ingenious tricks of deceit against me, were determined to make me a debtor (so that I be under his long–time obligation and so that I be unable to make any complaint against his past crimes of double-crossing, deceiving and misleading me as my brokers and well-wishers as he had so ingeniously posed so long. Many times I had felt his plotting designs but due to standing business of mine, he never made it impossible for me to get out of his octopus clutches, and whenever my business was stopped by me, he never parted with my natt[unclear] capital, one the cash balance being Rs. 80,000/-, the next time it being Rs. 40,000/- both the times I remained out of Bombay so that he may not involve me into fresh speculative business again as usual. But he never parted with my capital keeping ever[unclear] all of it with himself giving me only household expenses like a stingy father to a spendthrift son. I had worked with 20 Brokers, none of whom were INSINCERE with me except[unclear] [unclear] him though two or three brokers out of twenty had sometimes acted dishonestly.
In 1940, I fasted for 31 days in order to get true justice from the guilty himself and he never enquired about my health during such a risky fast.
I fasted in 1940 in Dr. Jossawala’s[unclear] Clinic for 31 days for getting true justice without going to a Law Court as at that time I knew not what Law meant and what a Court meant, my nature being that of a true Satyagrahi. I was jailed in 1932 (or so) for 4 months for picketing at Army and Navy as a protest against the Lathi charge upon the Stock Exchange procession. I fasted for 21 days in 1943 along with Gandhiji symphetically at my Malad residence when Gandhiji fasted for 21 days in jail, but my pure minded fast was misinter–preted by the 5th columnist hibelings[unclear] of and by messrs-Girdharlal Trikunlal & his Tyranny Company.
I am suffering from Feb-1937, from the organised tyranny of this G.T. Company. They are torturing me my wife and consequently my children through other by their blackmailing, spending hundreds of rupees, through others. They are slow-murdering us through others systematically. They have involved me into 2 High Court Suits at Calcutta changing my all my Calcutta Brokers into my enemies, and here changing my nearest neighbours into enemies.
My wife is in a dying condition at her delivery bed, at her parents’ house. I am half-starving with a shattered mentality. I keep myself sane by reading the newspapers, Indian politics and finding out Judicial Reforms.
Yours Truly
Ramnikal Chhotalal[unclear]