Petitions
Ramniklal Chhotalal
21 January 1948.
This document is a highly personal and emotionally charged letter written in 1948 by Ramniklal Chhotalal, a Bombay-based sub-broker associated with the Native Share and Stock Brokers’ Association. Addressed to Mahatma Gandhi and copied to the President of the Constituent Assembly, the letter combines expressions of reverence for Gandhi with a detailed narrative of the author’s long-standing grievances against his former principal broker, Girdharlal Trikumlal, and associates. Ramniklal alleges that through deceit and manipulation beginning in 1937, his capital—once amounting to approximately Rs. 3,20,000—was effectively withheld and reduced to a negligible sum, leaving him financially ruined.
The letter recounts repeated efforts to recover his funds, allegations of sustained harassment and “organised tyranny,” and claims that he and his family were subjected to systematic intimidation and legal harassment, including High Court litigation. Ramniklal frames his response in the idiom of Gandhian satyagraha, describing multiple extended fasts undertaken in pursuit of justice and referencing his earlier imprisonment during the nationalist movement. Written amid acute personal distress, including his wife’s critical health condition, the letter appeals to Gandhian moral authority and public justice rather than formal legal remedies, presenting itself as a plea against perceived injustice and social “slow murder.”
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[unclear] all in the hands of my principal broker Girdharlal Trikumlal[unclear] who never parted with my capital though I request–ed 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, deeci–ving[unclear] 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 [unclear] ever 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[unclear] 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]
1.Certain content in the document was unclear or incompletely written. The same has been marked as [unclear].
2.Typographical errors in the original document have been retained to ensure authentic reproduction of the original document.