In 1931, after returning to India from a tour of the world’s communist governments, Indian activist and political theorist M.N. Roy was charged by the British with “conspiring to deprive the King Emperor of his sovereignty in India,” under the notorious Section 121-A of the Penal Code. Tried in prison instead of a court—and allowed no defense statement, witnesses, or jury—Roy was sentenced to 12 years in squalid jails that would ruin his health.

Ironically, in Roy’s writings on British sovereignty in India, he had always grounded his arguments on English principles of justice. Accused by the authorities of advocating violence, he held that the use of force was honorable when employed to defend the “pauperized” masses of India against despotism, and was dishonorable when employed to oppress those masses. Over three centuries, the British had acquired “this valuable possession” through the “quiet” transfer of power from the declining Mughal empire to the East India Company—whose administration was backed by a large army—and, ultimately, to the British Crown.

  Arguing that the British government in India had not been established for the purpose of advancing the well-being of its people, but solely for the benefit of a “plutocratic dictatorship,” Roy held that the interests of the Indian people could only be served by an absolute severance from the British, by force if necessary.