Émile Zola – the giant of French literature who staked his everything in fight against injustice

What hope can there be for a society in which justice is hostage to prejudice and truth a hunted beast? The question is not who will bell the cat, the question is - who will bell the bell?

- SATISH KUMAR SHARMA

Sometime in September 1894, the French Intelligence discovered that someone in the military was passing secrets to the German Embassy. The prejudice-ridden top brass charged a Jewish officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus of treason, without any evidence. The court-martial convicted him and he was sent to imprisonment in the Devil’s Island in French Guiana (the same as in Henri Charriere’s popular 1969 novel, Papillon).

Sometime later, another officer, one Lt. Col. Picquart, presented to his bosses the evidence that the real culprit was one Ferdinand Esterhazy. But they, rather than correcting the mistake, made one Major Henry forge documents to create false evidence against Dreyfus and transferred Picquart, the whistleblower, to Africa.

No action was taken against Esterhazy but, apparently, he had many enemies including his own estranged family and creditors. They and Dreyfus’ lawyer dug up more evidence to nail Esterhazy and made it public. So, the military conduced a charade of an in camera court-martial in January 1898, in which Esterhazy was tried but acquitted but on the other hand, Picquart was punished for violation of professional secrecy.