have been used in transporting the future victims with 31⁄2 gallons of gasoline, if I remember it correctly.

Well, that man was able to tell the court that 72 years earlier on a given afternoon, a given day, he provided a given jeep driven by a man he was able to identify with 312 gallons of gasoline. I doubt very much that any of us who only buy gas once a week would remember the looks of the man who gave us gas last week, never mind 72 years ago.

I also noticed that apart from this particular individual who really is a highly unsavory witness, to say the least, there was not one single witness who implicated the accused except by hearsay, which we would not accept. And two of the most incriminating witnesses conveniently implicated the accused on the basis of what they had been told by someone who conveniently had absconded and could not be reached and could not be brought to testify, so that the nature of the evidence made me suspicious.

I cannot say that the accused are innocent, and I cannot say they are guilty. But I saw the extraordinary length to which the prosecution went to build up its evidence by irrelevant witness following irrelevant witness and that the substance, real serious evidence, was really only that of one particular man who may or may not be telling the truth. In other words, I do not trust him, but as I have said in my report, it is not normally a sterling character who participates in plots to murder others. It might be interesting to note that one of the witnesses against Mr. Sarkar was his own wife who had set up a rival movement and who also happens to live with one of the main prosecution witnesses, and did so before he was arrested. It gives you an idea of the strange atmosphere of this prosecution.

But the first thing that struck me and that has become evident, even more apparent, since that time, from the reports I have received, is that far more than trying to decide or rather to obtain the conviction of five individuals on the grounds they may have perpetrated a murder, participated in a murder, the prosecution and the Government are obviously intent on using the judicial process for purely political motives of discrediting and destroying Ananda Marga.

For instance, you will have a witness in a murder trial concerned with whether so and so killed so and so in 1969 or 1970 testifying that a given individual who was an adherent of Ananda Marga ran unsuccessfully for Parliament in 1964. Since he was an adherent of Ananda Marga that should prove that Ananda Marga was a political movement. What on earth does that have to do with whether or not at a given time an order was given to kill a given individual?

A lot of evidence, most of it presented by police officers, was made to suggest that Ananda Marga was a movement which would try and overthrow the Government, which would try and use violence, which was antidemocratic and so on. But there is not one iota of concrete evidence and we are dealing here with a movement which had more than 2 million adherents, I gather, including many Government officials. One of the reasons, given, for instance, for the turncoat witness who implicated Mr. Sarkar for not telling the police earlier after being detained for many months what crimes he had committed, was that he did not trust the police because many of them were members of Ananda Marga. It illustrates two things.

It took the police a lot of work before he confessed. I am not saying he was tortured. He was detained for a long time before he confessed. There was no evidence at all, to my mind, that we are dealing with a movement which is subversive, which wants to use violence or that anyone organized or in a formal capacity wanted to use violence to overthrow the Government or advocated it. I am not saying there may not have been some hotheads somewhere as we have seen in all political parties who advocated the use of wrong methods. The fact Mr. Sarkar criticizes the system, that he says Indian Government officials are immoral, all of that does not bear the slightest relevance to whether or not he is guilty of a criminal charge. Furthermore, the very Government that prosecutes this man, publishes just before the trial begins what I would call a vile pamphlet while the case is before the court to describe Mr. Sarkar and the movement in terms which would land any American or Canadian newsman or pamphleteer writing the same thing in jail for contempt.

So the political overtones and the political use of the trial I find extremely disturbing.

There was criticism of the length of the proceedings, that it took a very large number of proceedings and years before the accused came to trial. Frankly, I must say after having studied the record, I cannot blame the Indian authorities for that. Their courts are not as efficient as ours. The system is different. Many of the delays were due to circumstances. Some of them were requested by the defense. Although it would be deplorable that somebody would be in jail for so long.

I also found that the fear that defense counsel had no access to their clients was not justified. The client-solicitor, the client-lawyer relationship and its secrecy seems to be respected, within limits, but I have seen worse in Canada at times of stress than I saw in India. While I do not say Canada provides a good standard in this domain, I can't throw a stone when I live in a glasshouse.

There are two things that I found that are really unacceptable and that convince me that the accused are not going to get a fair trial, even though the judge is doing his best. I will say publicly that Judge Singh who sits on the case does his best under the circumstances.

The two things that I found very significant are the following. One is the monetary situation, which is rather incredible. All the assets of Ananda Marga have been seized, and defense counsel, who are two of the most influential barristers of the Indian bar, have been defending the accused for a number of years now without getting paid. The supporters of Ananda Marga, the Ananda Marga adherents around the world, have tried to supply the defense lawyers with funds from foreign sources. And they have not tried to do it in a secretive manner, but by going straight to the authorities and saying the accused have not the means to defend themselves. In fact, the lawyers told me, they do not even have enough money to buy the transcripts of the evidence they need in a case where the trial lasts 1 year. The Indian Government refused.

Various personalities across the world, including the former Prime Minister of England, for instance, Sir Harold Wilson, wrote to Mrs. Ghandi to say at least permit the funding of the defense and if you are worried that the money is going to be used for subversive purposes, have it put in a trust fund, control it, and pay it directly to the lawyers,

both of whom are older and respectable men. I think none of them have any brief for Ananda Marga.

Well, the Indian Government procrastinated. Eventually the answer came down. They passed a law forbidding the provision of foreign subsidies or foreign funds to any Indian national, among others, for the defense. And as a result of my own report, the International Commission of Jurists itself wrote to the Indian authorities, again, asking that legitimate funds from legitimate sources be permitted to enter India for the sole purpose of funding the defense. The answer has not yet been received, but I was told yesterday by Mr. Wells, who is a London barrister and who helped the defense team in India and just came back to London, that he was told by Sir Harold Wilson that he had just received a letter from Mrs. Ghandi in which she said that if the accused are so poor, there is legal aid in India and the Indian Government will only be too happy to hire lawyers for them and pay them.

Now, I do not have to stress that if there is one case where you do not want Government lawyers, it is this one. And I will leave you to draw the conclusions that you have to.

The other point, which I think is also very significant, is that the defense is unable, has been unable and will be unable to produce one single witness for the defense. For the simple reason, and on that there is no contradiction from anybody I met in India, for the simple reason that anybody acknowledging being remotely connected with Ananda Marga immediately takes the road to prison. Who possibly can testify on behalf of Ananda Marga and what happened in the Indian Ananda Marga organization except people who were members of Ananda Marga? Unless you are a suicidal type, you are not likely to come forward and testify, even if you manage to reach a defense counsel before the police arrest you.

So as I say in my report, while the formalities of justice are observed, while the judge is very courteous and does his best, while lawyers are permitted to cross-examine at length, because of the absolutely antidemocratic conditions in India today, the defense is unable to call a single witness, except the accused who have all testified, I must say and denied in a rather more vigorous manner than I thought they would dare, every allegation of the prosecution. But what, if I can conclude my remarks, I found really bothersome in view of my background as a lawyer trained in the same tradition all of us are trained in North America, is that the trial is not the trial of the accused. It is the demolition of Ananda Marga.

[Mr. Sheppard's prepared statement follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CLAUDE-ARMAND SHEPPARD, OBSERVER OF THE P. R. SARKRA (LEADER OF THE ANANDA MARGA RELIGIOUS SOCIETY) IN PATNA, INDIA

I. INTRODUCTION

Gentlemen: I would like to preface my remarks by thanking you for your interest in the trial of Ananda Marga leader P. R. Sarkar presently ending in Patna, the capital of a distant Indian Province. It is indeed remarkable that, at a time when American political attention-as well as the attention of observers in many other countries-is directed to a certain political campaign, you find the time to interest yourselves in the vital issue of freedom in a remote country on another continent. It is also a very appropriate attitude since the loss of freedom and the destruction of civil liberties anywhere in the world ultimately affects us all.

I have been told that you might be interested in my background. Rather than wasting time on the subject, you will find a short curriculum annexed to the text of the present statement. But, basically, I am a practicing Montreal lawyer with some experience in criminal trials and particularly in criminal trials that have political overtones. I have also been interested for many years, both as a lawyer and as a citizen, in civil rights and political freedom in Canada and elsewhere. Earlier this year, I was commissioned by the International Commission of Jurists, Geneva, and the International League for Human Rights, New York, to attend, and report on, the trial in Patna in the Indian Province of Bihar, of Mr. Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar.

He and four others were charged at the end of 1971 with offences relating to the alleged murder in the summer of 1970 of a number of Ananda Marga defectors. After protracted preliminary hearings, the trial opened on December 22nd, 1975. It has not yet been completed.

Various reasons motivated the mandate I was given.

Alarm was expressed over what appeared to be excessive delays in the court proceedings; over the obstacles the accused were encountering in securing funds to pay for their legal defence; over alleged interference with their right to counsel; and over the practical difficulties in India's present political climate of presenting a full defence to charges which were said to be based on questionable or trumped up evidence. There were also fears about the general fairness of the trial.

Whether these apprehensions were founded or not, they were reinforced by the avowed hostility of the Indian authorities to Ananda Marga and by the clearly political overtones of the prosecution. The proceedings, if not actually designed to stamp out the movement, seem to have been manipulated by some so as to destroy the credibility of Ananda Marga and disillusion its followers.

Finally, considerable concern has been shown continuously, especially among Margis, over the state of health of Mr. Sarkar. Indeed, after a supposed attempt on his life, on February 12th, 1973, he decided to begin a hunger strike and to take in only liquids. This voluntary fast still continues to this day, more than three years later, and renders it physically and mentally impossible for Mr. Sarkar to attend the proceedings. He remains in Patna's Bankipore jail while the trial goes on in his absence.

However, recently he was brought into court to be questioned by the judge according to Indian procedure. His state of health is apparently so weakened that the only way he can communicate is by spelling out words which he does by pointing to the letters of a crudely-fashioned alphabet chart.

My findings are based not only on my personal observations made in the course of a relatively brief attendance at the trial in the Patna District Court from June 11th to 18th, 1976, but on many meetings with defence and prosecution counsel, with various other observers, and the examination of hundreds of pages of documents, briefs and transcripts. The fact that the proceedings are almost entirely conducted in English greatly simplified the task. I have continued to interest myself in the case and have remained in contact with appropriate sources of information.

II. HISTORY OF ANANDA MARGA AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE INDIAN AUTHORITIES

Ananda Marga was founded in Bihar in 1955 by Mr. Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar, who was then employed as a railway accountant. It describes itself as "an organization to propagate Ananda Marga (the Path of Bliss), a synthesis of traditional Tantric and yogic practices with a carefully planned program of service and social reform”. Mr. William T. Wells, Q.C., the British barrister who visited India in the spring of 1974 at the behest of the International Committee to Obtain Justice for Shrii Shrii Anandamurti, in his report spoke of its "twin objectives of individual regeneration through spiritual practices and of liberating and purifying the society, and ultimately of creating a world government, by substituting rule by moralists for the corrupt rule, as he saw it, of the governments around him".

The religious and social tenets of Ananda Marga were evidently quite appealing to many people and the movement spread to various parts of India where it eventually attracted more than two million adherents, including apparently many government and police officials. Abroad it is represented in dozens of countries on various continents, including Europe, Asia and North America, particularly in the United States.

Ananda Marga was critical of the existing social order and it was rapidly suspected of political ambitions. It soon incurred the anger of the Indian administration. Its widening appeal to many government officials obviously also disturbed the authorities. Hence, in 1969, the authorities, on the ground that Ananda Marga was a political party or organization, unsuccessfully attempted to prohibit civil servants from membership in the movement. In fact, not only the government, but various other elements in India opposed Ananda Marga. It even occasionally encountered mob violence. Ananda Marga made no secret of its formidable array of enemies and in one pamphlet even boasted :

"Conservative Hindus reacted against Anandamurti's program to abolish the caste system; prosperous businessmen and landowners felt threatened by his socialistic ideals; and most importantly communists found his organization eroding their base among the poor and among disaffected indellectuals. The Communist Party of India (CPI, the pro-Soviet bloc) was an important factor in Mrs. Gandhi's rising power, and it was not averse to contributing its power to the effort to suppress Ananda Marga. Anandamurti has accused the Soviet KGB of organizing much of the anti-Ananda Marga activity; recently, the Soviet press carried articles denouncing Ananda Marga and calling for its abolition not only in India, but throughout the world."

One objection to Ananda Marga which has surfaced time and again is its insistence on a society led by moralists or "sadvipras". According to Ananda Marga, only the "morally strong and selfless individuals" are entitled to govern society. This has led its critics to assert that the movement is basically antidemocratic and seeks to establish a fascist-tinged dictatorship.

The Indian Government eventually came to the conclusion that Ananda Marga wanted to capture political power by violence and armed revolution and that its so-called Voluntary Social Service or V.S.S. was really a para-military organization set up for the purpose of overthrowing the government. The prosecution in this case has argued that Ananda Marga was not really a spiritual movement but an instrument for the seizure of power.

This increasingly strident campaign was substantially bolstered by the discovery in the fall of 1971 of an alleged plot of the Ananda Marga leadership to assassinate some defecting adherents.

Indeed, in the course of a police raid in June 1971 on the former Ananda Margaheadquarters at Ranchi, in Bihar, the police arrested an Ananda Marga monk or avadhuta called Gour Mazumdar, but better known as Madhavananda, who had been general secretary of the V.S.S. and close to Mr. Sarkar. Four months later he was turned over to India's Central Bureau of Intelligence (C.B.I.), at the latter's request. After being detained and questioned by the C.B.I. for seven days he apparently confessed to them the murder of several disaffected Ananda Marga followers and implicated Mr. Sarkar and others in these killings as well as in plots to assassinate at least another fifty defectors. On October 31st, 1971, the police took him to court where, after pleading innocent to a charge relating to explosives supposedly found during the Ranchi raid, Madhavananda was asked by the magistrate if he had anything to add. According to the official story, he then spontaneously provided the magistrate with an extensive account of a number of murders of Ananda Marga defectors in which he claimed to have participated. He eventually admitting committing, or participating in, eighteen murders and agreeing to commit another fifty.

When asked later why he had waited in custody four and a half months before finally confessing, he explained that he had not told the Bihar police about these crimes because he did not trust them; many of them were members of Ananda Marga; he only felt confident enough to implicate himself and Mr. Sarkar when in the hands of the C.B.I.

At the end of December 1971, Mr. Sarkar and others were arrested and charged with complicity in, and/or perpetration of, the murders. In the meantime, Madhavananda had been pardoned for his participation in these same crimes. Under Indian law, the testimony of an accomplice such as Madhavananda apparently can only be received if he has first been pardoned and no longer faces prosecution for his crime.

It was not until the 5th of May 1972 that Mr. Sarkar and his four co-accused were formally charged. As we shall see in the next chapter, it took more than two and a half years for all the preliminary and committal hearings to terminate and for the actual trial to begin. In the meantime, the official campaign against Ananda Marga seemed to increase in ferocity. Eventually, when the State of Emergency was proclaimed by Prime Minister Indira Ghandi on June 26th,