Radhabinod Pal
Radhabinod Pal | |
---|---|
Hazra Law College, University of Calcutta | |
Occupation | Jurist |
Known for | Tokyo Trial |
Spouse |
Nalini Bala Pal (m. 1907) |
Children | 14 |
Relatives | Debi Prasad Pal (son-in-law) |
Awards | Padma Vibhushan |
Radhabinod Pal (27 January 1886 – 10 January 1967) was an Indian jurist who was a member of the
Career
This section needs additional citations for verification. (July 2019) |
Radhabinod Pal was born in 1886 in the village of Salimpur,
He studied mathematics and constitutional law at
Pal was a major contributor to the formulation of the Indian Income Tax Act of 1922.[5] The British Government of India appointed Pal as a legal advisor in 1927. He worked as professor at the Law College of the University of Calcutta from 1923 till 1936. Pal became a judge of the Calcutta High Court in 1941 and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta in 1944.
He was asked to represent India as a member of the tribunal of judges officiating at the Tokyo Trials in 1946. In deliberations with judges from 10 other countries, Pal was highly critical of the prosecution's use of the legal concept of conspiracy in the context of pre-war decisions by Japanese officials. He also maintained that the tribunal should not retrospectively apply (
War crimes trial dissent
While finding that "the evidence is still overwhelming that atrocities were perpetrated by the members of the Japanese armed forces against the civilian population of some of the territories occupied by them as also against the prisoners of war", he produced a judgment questioning the legitimacy of the tribunal and its rulings. He held the view that the legitimacy of the tribunal was suspect and questionable, because the spirit of retribution, and not impartial justice, was the underlying criterion for passing the judgment.
He concluded:
I would hold that every one of the accused must be found not guilty of every one of the charges in the indictment and should be acquitted on all those charges.
Judge Pal never intended to offer a juridical argument on whether a sentence of not guilty would have been a correct one. However, he argued that the United States had clearly provoked the war with Japan and expected Japan to act.[6] He argued that "Even contemporary historians could think that 'as for the present war, the Principality of Monaco, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, would have taken up arms against the United States on receipt of such a note (Hull note[7]) as the State Department sent the Japanese Government on the eve of Pearl Harbor'." He also noted that "Questions of law are not decided in an intellectual quarantine area in which legal doctrine and the local history of the dispute alone are retained and all else is forcibly excluded. We cannot afford to be ignorant of the world in which disputes arise."
In his lone dissent, Judge Pal refers to the trial as a "sham employment of legal process for the satisfaction of a thirst for revenge". According to
Furthermore, he believed that the exclusion of Western colonialism and the use of the
When time shall have softened passion and prejudice, when Reason shall have stripped the mask from misrepresentation, then Justice, holding evenly her scales, will require much of past censure and praise to change places.
— Pal quoting Jefferson Davis in the conclusion of the dissent
The American occupation of Japan ended in 1952, after Tokyo signed the
Psychologist and cultural critic Ashis Nandy argued that Judge Pal's lone dissenting opinion, that the Japanese soldiers were only following orders and that the acts committed by them weren't illegal in an indictable sense, was because of "his long exposure to the traditional laws of India", combined with a sense of "Asian solidarity" within the "larger Afro-Asian context of nationalism".[11]
Significance in Indo-Japanese relations
In 1966, Pal visited Japan and said in a speech that he had admired Japan from an early age for being the only Asian nation that "stood up against the West".[11] The Emperor of Japan conferred upon Pal the First Class of the Order of the Sacred Treasure. Pal is revered by Japanese nationalists and a monument dedicated to him stands on the grounds of the Yasukuni Shrine.[16] The monument was erected after Pal's death.
Judge Pal's dissent is frequently mentioned by Indian diplomats and political leaders in the context of Indo-Japanese friendship and solidarity. For example, on 29 April 2005 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh referred to it as follows, in his remarks at a banquet in New Delhi in honour of the visiting Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi:
It is a noteworthy fact that though we have gone through various phases in our relationship, in times of difficulty, we have stood by each other. It is important to recall that India refused to attend the San Francisco Peace Conference in 1951 and signed a separate Peace Treaty with Japan in 1952".[17] "This, Pandit Nehru felt, gave to Japan a proper position of honour and equality among the community of free nations. In that Peace Treaty, India waived all reparation claims against Japan. The dissenting judgement of Judge Radhabinod Pal is well-known to the Japanese people and will always symbolise the affection and regard our people have for your country."[18]
On 14 December 2006, Singh made a speech in the
The principled judgment of Judge Radhabinod Pal after the War is remembered even today in Japan. Ladies and Gentlemen, these events reflect the depth of our friendship and the fact that we have stood by each other at critical moments in our history.[19]
On 23 August 2007, Japanese Prime Minister
Personal life
Pal married Smt. Nalini Bala in 1907 and was the father of nine daughters (Shanti Rani, Asha Rani, Leela Rani, Bela Rani, Nilima, Roma Rani, Renu Kana, Lakshmi Rani and Smriti Kana) and five sons (Prasanta Kumar, Pradyot Kumar, Pronab Kumar, Pratip Bijoy and Pratul Kumar). One son, Pronab Kumar Pal, also became a lawyer (a barrister), as did his two sons-in-law, Balai Lal Pal (with whom he co-authored a book[21]) and Debi Prasad Pal (who also served as a judge of the Calcutta High Court and Indian Minister of State for Finance).
In popular culture
In the 2016 miniseries Tokyo Trial, Pal is portrayed by Indian actor Irrfan Khan.
Notes
- ^ a b "Pal, Justice Radhabinod - Banglapedia". en.banglapedia.org. Retrieved 22 May 2020.
- ISBN 978-81-8038-264-2.
- ISBN 978-81-8038-479-0.
- ^ "Pal, Justice Radhabinod - Banglapedia".
- ISSN 0020-5893.
- ^ Zinn, Howard (2015). A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present. p. 411.
- US Govt. Printing Office. Retrieved 1 February 2013.
- ^ a b Onishi, Norimitsu (31 August 2007). "Decades After War Trials, Japan Still Honors a Dissenting Judge". The New York Times.
- ^ "International Military Tribunal for the Far East". Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 22 August 2007.
- Timothy Brook, The Journal of Asian Studies, August 2001.
- ^ a b c d Timothy Brook, "The Tokyo Judgment and the Rape of Nanking", The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 60, No.3 (Aug 2001), pp. 673–700.
- ^ "Researching War Crimes" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 20 February 2016.
- Bix, Herbert (2001). Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. Perennial.
- ^ Dower, John (1999). Embracing Defeat.
- ^ Kumao Toyoda 豊田隈雄, Sensô saiban yoroku『戦争裁判余録』, Taiseisha Kabushiki Kaisha, 泰生社 1986.
- ^ "Embattled Japan PM woos back conservatives". Reuters. 24 August 2007.
- ^ "chapter 66". Retrieved 22 May 2020.
- ^ http://pmindia.nic.in/speech/content.asp?id=114 Archived 12 December 2005 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Embassy of India in Japan; Prime Minister's speech to the Japanese Diet on 14 December 2006 (Doc file)
- ^ "Abe risks ire by meeting son of Indian judge". Reuters. 23 August 2007.
- ^ The Law of Income Tax in British India
References
- Pal, Radhabinod (1999). International Military Tribunal for the Far East: Dissentient Judgment of Justice Pal (PDF). Tokyo: Kokusho. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 July 2011. Reprinted from: Pal, Radhabinod (1977). "Judgment of the Member from India". In Röling, B. V. A.; Rüter, C. F. (eds.). The Tokyo Judgment. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (I.M.T.F.E.), 29 April 1946-12 November 1948, Volume 2. University Press Amsterdam.
- Nandy, Ashish. The Savage Freud and Other Essays on Possible and Retrievable Selves. Delhi; London: OUP, 1995. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1995.
- Pal, Radhabinod. "In Defense of Japan's Case 1 & Case 2", Kenkyusha Modern English Readers 17, Kenkyusha Syuppan Co., Tokyo, Japan.
- Nakazato(中里), Nariaki(成章) (2011). Judge Pal: International Military Tribunal for the Far East and Indian nationalism. ISBN 9784004312932.
- Pal, Radhabinod; Pal, Balai Lal (1940). The Law of Income Tax in British India (First ed.). Calcutta: Eastern Law House. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
External links
- Justice Radhabinod Pal, Rash behari and Netaji are still respected in Japan: Sushma Swaraj
- Pal, Justice Radhabinod - Banglapedia
- Judge Pal's Profile
- Complete Dissentient Judgment of Justice Pal
- Decades After War Trials, Japan Still Honors a Dissenting Judge (Japanese Honor Judge Pal)
- A website with photos, videos and documents on Justice Radhabinod Pal