Session 7

Approver's testimony, as Shahid Amin states himself, 'record and reaffirm' the silences of some 200 peasants who took part in the Chauri Chaura incident. It successfuly incriminates protestors, and provides a one dimensional view of the entire event: from a criminal perspective. He shows how the prosecution effects the Approver's testimony, in order to make a cohenrent narrative, and find intent in the protests to damage and harm. One of the key things Amin mentions is the role of the AT to join together different incidents and give them a meaning. Indeed, it becomes the prosecution's peroragative to select and provide meaning to all events through the AT. Thus, reconstructing history through the narrative of reports, we find that everything written is inteneded to incriminate the accused. He also sheds light on (what feels like) the helplessness of the approver, who systematically incriminates himself in order to get a pardon, incriminating others in the process. Thus he becomes the target of the ire of accused. Not only this, the defense too only shreds the approver, his character, his motivations for accusing people in order to poke holes in the prosecution's narrative. Lastly, Amin also indulges in a critique of the judicial system of the time, exposing it's biasness towards authority, forever stripping the rebel from his voice. He does so by quoting a judgement about the AT, where the judges claim that though Mir has gone out of line in places, he is still a man of sound mind, and so for his own benifit did not go too out of line (paraphrasing). The judiciary does one over, they ascribe a conciousness to the approver, all whilst stripping the rebel of his conciousness.