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It was a happy coincidence that late 19th century Bombay produced two noted Parsi lawyers surnamed "Bahadurji” who were contemporaries. Dorabji Nasarvanji Bahadurji (1867-1956) and Rustamji Framji Bahadurji (circa1872-1951) were not related, and there is no record of direct interaction between them. Yet there were some parallels in addition to their shared surnames. Both were trained at the Middle Temple in London and were called to the Bar in 1895. They enrolled themselves as barristers in Bombay Presidency. The older man, Dorabji, spent his working life in Bombay and became an officer of the High Court. Rustamji started as a magistrate in Sukkur (Sind, in then Bombay Presidency), but his future lay not in western India, but in the "Chief Court of Oudh” headquartered at Lucknow, to which he migrated in 1901 and set up practice.   

In common with his namesake in Bombay, barrister Rustamji of Lucknow attained eminence amongst his professional peers and much material success as well. He too utilized his professional skills for the national cause in the pre-1947 period. While Mahatma Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel turned to Dorabji, Jawaharlal Nehru of Allahabad, who became India’s first prime minister, was the constant for Rustamji.     

Small wonder that the similarities beguiled the author of a recent historical bestseller into awarding to barrister "D. N. Bahadurji” ownership of a "grand mansion” in Lucknow!  

Rustamji was the second son of Framji Dorabji Bahadurji and his wife, Dinbai, of Bombay. While no details are available about Rustamji’s schooling, his undergraduate education was at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, following which he joined the Middle Temple and was called to the Bar. He settled into legal practice in 1901. 

The legal milieu in Lucknow could not have been more different than the magistracy in Sukkur. In Lucknow he was no longer a servant of the State, and plunged straightaway into private practice in the "Chief Court of Oudh” which was to become the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court. 

There was never a reason for him to regret this choice, for he earned the regard of his professional brethren. Over the years he was elected president of the Oudh Bar Association, chairman of the Oudh Bar Council and president of the UP (Uttar Pradesh) Lawyers’ Conference. 

Equally notable was that his skill and presence in Lucknow brought him to the notice of Nehru, scion of the province’s foremost political family.  

Defending the ‘dacoits’

The sensational Kakori train dacoity of 1925 was perpetrated by the Hindustan Republican Association, a self-styled "revolutionary” outfit openly unsympathetic to the Gandhian non-violent method of confronting British rule.  The founder was Jogesh Chandra Chatterji (1895-1969). As a Member of Parliament in independent India, Chatterji authored a memoir about his early life in subversive activities in 1920s Bengal and UP, recruiting idealistic youths to sacrifice their well-being and even lives for the country. According to Chatterji, the Kakori train dacoity (which the British were to denote as "Kakori Conspiracy”) was perpetrated to replenish the Association’s empty coffers by looting Railway money.   

The Saharanpur Passenger train bound for Lucknow halted briefly at the small station of Kakori, about 14 km northwest of Lucknow. It had barely left for the next station when the alarm chain was pulled. As it halted, shots were fired, passengers were warned to remain in their compartments and shut the windows. The guard and driver who came out to investigate were ordered to lie face down. The 10 armed perpetrators then entered the guard’s cabin, broke open and looted the iron chest containing the railway’s cash collection [amounting to Rs 8,000 (USD 97.6) today], accidentally killing a passenger before fleeing.

All the perpetrators — "daredevil revolutionary youths” — Chatterji’s words — were caught by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and charged with "waging war against the King.” At the ensuing trial some turned approver or confessed when confronted with the evidence. But the hard-core remained firm.   

The trial commenced in August 1927 at the Chief Court of Oudh in Lucknow. Motilal Nehru, his son Jawaharlal and senior Congressmen put together a strong defence committee headed by a prominent barrister of Calcutta. Rustamji was a member of the team, the majority being prominent UP lawyer-politicians such as Gobind Ballabh Pant who was to be independent India’s home minister.  

The appeal failed. The two judges of the Chief Court of Oudh, one British and one Indian, held that the conspiracy to overthrow the King Emperor was "most serious” while rejecting arguments for clemency. Sentences were passed which included imprisonment of various durations for some, and death by hanging for four. 

The salt Satyagraha

In 1930, several prominent Lucknow lawyers — all Congressmen — broke the law against the manufacture of salt. This was a fallout of Gandhi’s salt Satyagraha. On arrest, and in Gandhian fashion, they refused to defend themselves in court against the charge of inciting and abetting others to do likewise. The association, represented by member Rustamji, assumed their defence arguing that their arrest was illegal. Eventually the accused were sentenced to six months’ imprisonment.

"Jungle law in Lucknow” 

The National Herald daily newspaper based in Lucknow was founded by Jawaharlal in September 1938 as the organ of the Indian National Congress (it is still under the control of Nehru’s descendants) at a time when elected Congress ministries were in office in many provinces. Its proclaimed objective was faithful and undistorted reporting of news and views without fear or favor, a "missionary in the cause of Indian freedom.” Its first editor was K. Rama Rao (1897-1961).

In an editorial in August 1941 titled "Jungle Law in Lucknow Camp Jail” Rama Rao had alleged that lathis (sticks) and shoes had been used on political prisoners in the Lucknow Camp Jail, the superintendent of which was British. A follow-up editorial, "Jail or Jungle?” alleging substandard conditions in the jail appeared a week later.     

A charge of defamation was filed by the superintendent against Rao. The case came before the Sessions Court in early 1942. The judge ruled that the second editorial was indeed defamatory, pronounced Rao guilty and sentenced him to six months’ simple imprisonment, as well as a fine of Rs 750 to be handed to the complainant. In the event of default in payment, the jail sentence was to be extended by three months. 

Rustamji, who was Rama Rao’s counsel, immediately lodged an appeal before the chief judge of the Oudh Court. Rama Rao was released after furnishing bonds for Rs 6,000.   

While Rao’s self-justificatory account of the incident is silent on his legal counsel, Nehru, in a letter dated May 8, 1942 thanked Rustamji for rendering help.

The celebrated series of post-World War II courts-martial against personnel of Subhash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army (INA) were conducted under wide publicity at Delhi’s Red Fort and lasted from November 1945 to May 1946. They heralded the sunset of British rule in India. Placed in the dock for "waging war against His Majesty the King” and for murder were erstwhile officers and others of the INA who had defected from the British Indian Army.   

Historians have noted Jawaharlal’s initiative in getting together a strong defence team composed of  legal luminaries Bhulabhai Desai, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, Asaf Ali, Nehru himself and others. Rustamji did not figure in the early set of INA trials. At Jawaharlal’s personal request in 1946 to "supervise the INA cases,” Rustamji consented and was defence counsel in one of the later trials. He gave his services gratis, as referred to by the chief justice of the Allahabad High Court in a fulsome eulogy after Rustamji’s death in 1951.

Legal patriarch  

In time, Rustamji evolved into Lucknow’s legal patriarch, both respected and prosperous. He lived in a large bungalow in an elite part of the city. Although a confirmed bachelor he was informally referred to as "Papa” by his professional colleagues and others. His generosity towards the needy was proverbial and public. A good friend described it thus: "… (E)very Sunday a huge crowd of beggars collected in his front lawn, and after his morning prayers he used to distribute alms to them…  It was like a weekly distribution of wages.” 

For the well-to-do in straitened circumstances help was provided discreetly in sealed envelopes.          

Rustamji’s Sunday charity after prayers indicates he took his religion seriously. He was closely associated with his community — numbering about 150 at that time. His legal expertise was successfully utilized to obtain from the Lucknow Improvement Trust a very suitable piece of land in the leafy Hilton Lane in the heart of town for the Lucknow Parsi Anjuman. The objects of the association were to provide facilities for religious and social intercourse and to promote camaraderie among members of the community. Rustamji was its first president from 1939 to at least 1948, a few years before his death. The lane has been renamed R. F. Bahadurji Marg in deference to the community’s wishes.   

Rustamji’s health began to fail as he approached 80 years. He returned to Bombay, the city of his birth, and passed away there on August 4, 1951.

Note:  The author thanks Homi Sepai, a long-time, now retired, secretary of the Lucknow Parsi Anjuman for permission to photograph documents and a portrait of Rustamji, and for patiently answering her queries.