A Flag, a Song and a Pinch of Salt Freedom Fighters of India

Subhadra Sen Gupta   a flag, a song and a pinch of salt Freedom Fighters of India Illustrations by Ravi Ranjan PUFFIN BOOKS

Contents About the Author Dedication Foreword: Mission Freedom Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar Abul Kalam Azad Annie Besant Subhas Chandra Bose Bhikaiji Cama Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Aurobindo Ghose Gopal Krishna Gokhale Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Birsa Munda Sarojini Naidu Dadabhai Naoroji Jawaharlal Nehru Vallabhbhai Patel V.O. Chidambaram Pillai Lajpat Rai

Chakravarti Rajagopalachari Bhagat Singh Bal Gangadhar Tilak Afterword: Mohammed Ali Jinnah & the Partition of India What Happened and When Follow Penguin Copyright

PUFFIN BOOKS A FLAG, A SONG AND A PINCH OF SALT Subhadra Sen Gupta was born in Delhi and holds a Masters degree in History. She has been writing since college and has worked as a copywriter in many advertising agencies. She specializes in historical fiction and non-fiction, travel writing, detective and ghost stories as well as comic strips. She has published over twenty-five books for children and adults, with Puffin, Rupa, Scholastic, HarperCollins, Pratham, India Book House and Ratna Sagar. Three of her books—A Clown for Tenali Rama, Jodh Bai and Twelve O’Clock Ghost Stories (Scholastic) have won the White Raven Award at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair.

For Ian Baker, the kind of Englishman Indians will always admire. And if you are lucky, he joins your family. Here’s to many more arguments over nimbu pani… With love.

Mission Freedom ‘Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action— Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.’ —Rabindranath Tagore They were all pilgrims who had chosen the long and rocky path towards a dream called freedom. They were ordinary men and women— schoolteachers, lawyers, traders, students, housewives, peasants and craftsmen. When they marched along the dusty and narrow streets of India’s towns and villages, they faced policemen armed with sticks and guns and men on horses carrying spears. They had no protection against the lathi blows or the bullets and their only armour was their spirit of determination and raw courage. They did not fight back or run away. They did not pick up stones or guns, set fires or destroy other people’s property. There was no uncontrolled rage and no wish to harm innocent people. They just marched on. India’s long march to independence is the story of these people and their leaders who fought a prolonged battle against the might of the biggest empire in the world. The freedom fighters were able to mobilize millions to join the biggest mass movement the world has ever seen. And what made it one of the greatest freedom struggles in the history of the world was that it was, for the most part, a resolutely non-violent one. It was as if the will

power of India’s quiet millions finally defeated the empire over which the sun never set. Our greatest freedom fighters are these forgotten men and women because they put their trust in Mahatma Gandhi’s Satyagraha and put their lives on the line for India’s freedom. Kazi Nazrul Islam once sang to them: ‘Battle-weary rebel, I shall embrace peace Only when the wailing of the tortured Is heard no more. Only when the oppressor lays down his sword In the battlefield. Battle-weary rebel, Only then shall I embrace peace.’ THE SEPOYS OF 1857 Ninety years before India finally became independent, the people had risen in a violent uprising that had shaken the hold of the East India Company over its Indian colony. The Great Uprising of 1857 was very different from the nationalist freedom movement. It was an armed uprising and was met with an armed response; the superiority of the British army in arms and organization had finally won them the war. It began with the uprising of the sepoys in the army of the East India Company and drew into it all the people who had grievances against the British. The sepoys were protesting the introduction of a new rifle that was greased with the fat of cows and pigs. The deposed Indian rulers were making a final attempt to reclaim their kingdoms. The zamindars who had lost their ancestral rights to the land wanted them back. Each group had a different motive for joining the uprising. On 11 May 1857, when the sepoys from Meerut swept into the Red Fort and declared the old Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar their king, no one really knew what they would do next. All they had was their fear that the British were trying to attack their religion and an unclear resentment of their officers. As the rebellion spread across the many army battalions stationed across the Indo-Gangetic plain, it gathered into this whirlwind

people making a desperate, final attempt to get back the privileges they had lost to the British. All the leaders were fighting for their own demands. Begum Hazrat Mahal, wife of the deposed Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh, wanted the kingdom for her son Birjis Qadr. Nana Saheb, the adopted son of the last Maratha Peshwa Baji Rao II, wanted the pension that the British were refusing to give him. Rani Lakshmi Bai wanted the kingdom of Jhansi for her adopted son. There was no common national goal; no one was thinking of the welfare of the common people. This was the last stand of the moth-eaten, feudal past, distrustful of change, hankering for the old days. Men like Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah, suspicious of western civilization, were leading a campaign against the influence of modern education and technology—everything from schools to the railways and telegraphs made them nervous. Zamindars like Kunwar Singh and Beni Madho wanted the return of the old feudal system where they, not the British, could exploit the peasants. Khan Bahadur Khan and Prince Firuz Shah dreamed of the revival of the Mughal Empire. Poor Bahadur Shah, an old pensioner of the British, was probably only trying to stay alive. Still, they fought with remarkable courage against an opponent better armed and organized. Even the British spoke in admiration of the indomitable spirit of Rani Lakshmi Bai. The sepoys often lacked experienced leaders or a proper battle strategy, but even then for months held on to a large chunk of north India. Sadly, there was no clear vision of the future, and as the objectives of the various leaders were not the same, there was no central leadership with a common plan. One wonders what would have happened if this ragtag force of disorganized warriors had actually managed to defeat the British. The war of 1857 was not a national revolt as most of India did not join the rebels. The Sikhs, fearful of the revival of the Mughal Empire, stayed loyal to their British officers and Sikh soldiers were inside the Residency in Lucknow facing the siege by the sepoys. Most of the Indian princes offered their help to the East India Company and the land south of the Vindhyas

remained peaceful. After the first shock of quick defeats the British reorganized quickly, and with the death of Lakshmi Bai on 17 June 1858, the rebellion was effectively over. It was a cruel, ruthless war with vicious attacks by both sides and the reprisals of the British afterwards were even more brutal. In the long struggle for independence, the greatest achievement of the Uprising of 1857 lay in opening the minds of people to the idea of freedom. For long Indians had believed the British to be invincible but the sepoys proved them wrong. For the first time Indians realized that the mighty Company Bahadur could be defeated and that the god-like gora sahibs were human, after all. The people who led the uprising became heroes and would inspire freedom fighters in the future, making later leaders like V.D. Savarkar call it India’s ‘First War of Independence’, despite the lack of the concept of a nation or of what could be called ‘independence’. GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS All that would come with the struggle for freedom that began with the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 and a band of freedom fighters who were secular, democratic humanists. The poet Subramania Bharati captured the soul of these freedom fighters the best when he wrote: ‘All human beings are equal Joy will abound if we but see That we are all one humankind … Sound the drum, the message of unity; Proclaim, flourish in love, Proclaim welfare to all mankind on this Our vast and variegated planet.’ The biggest difference between the leaders in 1857 and the people who met in Bombay to form the Congress was that these were modern, western educated men—lawyers, teachers, businessmen and social reformers. Many of them like Dadabhai Naoroji and Gopal Krishna Gokhale were equally involved in education and social reform. They were not only seeking political progress but were equally keen to modernize society. Over the years the issues that would be taken up included opening schools and

colleges with a modern curriculum for both boys and girls; the emancipation of women; a fight against the caste system and untouchability; the rights of peasants and artisans; and religious tolerance. What was being sought was a transformation of society because the leaders understood well that India could not be a truly independent nation without equality, education and freedom from traditions that kept them from thinking as one people. For the first two decades the Congress was a constitutional organization that met once a year to discuss political reform and the ways in which they could gain more rights for Indians. Their petitions to the government were usually about Indians being taken into the Indian Civil Service, more Indians in the legislative council and the opening of schools and colleges. The members of the party were all western educated, upper-middle-class men like Surendranath Banerjea, Pherozeshah Mehta and Gopal Krishna Gokhale. Later their work was often ridiculed as being one of prayers and petitions that were ignored by the government, but it is these men who set in place the basic principles of the party—equality, secularism, political and social reform, and democracy. They were the first to understand that if the country was to survive as a nation, it had to be strictly secular, with everyone having the right to vote. With the partition of Bengal in 1905 by the British, the national movement moved into the next phase. For the first time there was a popular upsurge that included people from every section of society. This was the time when Bal Gangadhar Tilak began Swadeshi—a mass movement of the boycott of foreign goods and the celebration of popular patriotic festivals around Ganesha and Chhatrapati Shivaji. Now the common people in the cities also became a part of the political movement, but this made the old- style constitutionalists very nervous. They felt that a mass movement would be hard to control and could turn violent. What Tilak understood and they did not was that no freedom struggle could succeed without the involvement of the people. This was the time when the Congress split between the Moderates led by Gokhale and the Extremists led by Tilak. It

paralyzed the national struggle for many years, and the government, taking advantage of the confusion, arrested and jailed Tilak. THAT MAN FROM SOUTH AFRICA The massacre of innocent people at Jallianwalla Bagh in Amritsar in 1919 finally made everyone realize that they were wrong to believe that the British government was a ‘benevolent’ one and that it cared for the people. Jawaharlal Nehru wrote about how he was shocked to discover that General Dyer was not going to be punished for ordering soldiers to fire at an unarmed and peaceful crowd. At this time Gandhi became the leader of the Congress and unveiled his plans for Satyagraha—peaceful protest by the masses. His experience in South Africa had shown him the futility of a violent uprising against a powerful opponent and he knew that violence only led to a spiralling of death and destruction, and to the suffering of innocent people. If this national movement was to succeed it had to be a peaceful mass uprising. The strategy of Non-cooperation and Civil Disobedience was to make it impossible for the government to operate. Schools, colleges, law courts and government offices closed as people walked out, farmers refused to pay their taxes and factory workers went on strike. There was a boycott of foreign textiles and liquor, shops selling foreign goods were picketed and huge bonfires of foreign clothes were lit by the Satyagrahis. What was amazing was that, on the whole, this mass demonstration was kept peaceful. During the Non-cooperation Movement when policemen were killed by a mob in Chauri Chaura, Gandhiji immediately called off the agitation. Such an incident never happened again. Many people thought ahimsa, the creed of non-violence, was a clever political strategy devised by Gandhi. Chauri Chaura proved that for him it was a matter of principle and he would never compromise on it. To organize an all-India protest movement and then ensure that it remained non-violent sounds like an impossible task even today when we have so many means of communication. At a time of only postcards and telegraph messages, the

leaders of the Congress made it possible. It was because of their discipline, their complete dedication to the cause and their faith in Mahatma Gandhi. The most awe-inspiring example of this dedication to ahimsa occurred during the Salt Satyagraha when Sarojini Naidu led Congress workers to a picket at the Dharasana Salt Works in Gujarat. The Satyagrahis marched up to the gates of the factory, were brutally beaten by the police, and when they fell down injured, another group replaced them—but no one raised a hand to hit back. As always Jawaharlal Nehru captured the mind of the Mahatma the best. He wrote in The Discovery of India: ‘… the dominant impulse in India under British rule was that of fear, pervasive, oppressing, strangling fear … It was against this all-pervading fear that Gandhiji’s quiet and determined voice was raised: Be not afraid.’ FREEDOM’S DREAM TEAM This spirit of sacrifice and passion for the cause among the people is at the core of India’s freedom struggle. People died, were seriously wounded, lost their livelihood, were jailed and tortured—and they still went on. Among these leaders were successful lawyers like C.R. Das, Motilal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel and C. Rajagopalachari who gave up lucrative practices, donned khadi and began to live simple lives. Jawaharlal Nehru, the pampered only son of a very affluent family, wandered around the countryside in the heat and dust, talking to peasants to find out their problems. In twenty years he spent nearly eleven years in jail and used this time to write books. Patel, who enjoyed playing bridge at the exclusive Ahmedabad Club, spent months in a thatched hut in Bardoli coordinating a no-tax campaign by the farmers. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the son of a tribal chieftain, spent weeks in chains in a jail in Peshawar. The Congress was a modern organization that did not hark back nostalgically to some mythic, perfect past—it looked forward. The campaign against untouchability, for the emancipation of women and for building religious tolerance formed the content of the speeches of the Congress leaders. Gandhi would sit in the village courtyards talking of

sanitation and the need for education, and against untouchability. Many dismissed his insistence on the spinning of cotton and wearing khadi as one of his crazy ideas but in fact there was an economic rationale behind it. He understood the importance of self-respect for the poor and wanted the villages to be economically self-sufficient. One of the biggest champions of farmers was Nehru who wanted land reforms that would give poor peasants rights to the land that they cultivated. Mohammed Ali Jinnah criticized Gandhi for using ‘Hindu’ terms like Satyagraha, ahimsa and Ram Rajya, and called the Congress a ‘Hindu’ party. However, the truth is that in spite of the majority of the Congress members being Hindu, not one resolution was passed by it demanding any special privileges for Hindus. Gandhi was a deeply religious man, who was also completely secular. His prayer meetings were held not in a temple but in the open air, everyone was welcome and prayers from every faith were recited. He never believed in rituals and took off his sacred thread when he discovered that Dalits were not allowed to wear them. And this reluctant mahatma wore the khadi dhoti of a peasant. If India has stayed secular till today it is because its freedom was won without any call to religion. There were many threads in our freedom struggle along with the Congress party. There was the revolutionary movement led by men like Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen and Chandrashekhar Azad. There were peasant and tribal uprisings that took place from the nineteenth century. All these inspired the people and made them aware of the national movement. If the main thrust of the freedom struggle was led by the Congress party, it was because it was a rainbow organization that allowed many ideologies to thrive within its fold. There were conservatives like Patel and Rajagopalachari, socialists like Nehru, and revolutionaries like Aurobindo Ghose and Subhas Chandra Bose. Every decision was taken after prolonged discussions; Gandhi did not get his way each time and often had to give in to the majority opinion. In the sixtieth year of our Independence, is there any relevance in remembering these long-gone men and women? India’s freedom struggle affected events around the world. When the British left India in 1947, it

activated the end of imperialism in Asia and Africa. In the following decades colonial states would virtually vanish from the map of the world. This is because India, the jewel in the crown of the British king, showed the colonies that freedom could be won. After Independence India took the lead in the fight against imperialism and soon the European powers withdrew from their colonies. India was the first brick to fall; the entire colonial edifice followed soon after. Many people think Mahatma Gandhi’s ideologies of Satyagraha and ahimsa are irrelevant today at a time when children make heroes of suicide bombers and blind, hate-filled intolerance is taught by religious leaders. Many of us now wonder—can non-violence still work in our ever-violent world? Three extraordinary men made it the core of their freedom and civil rights movements in these past six decades and showed us that it is the only way for unarmed, powerless people to make their voice heard. First there was Martin Luther King and the civil rights battle in the United States. Then Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress won equality and freedom in apartheid South Africa—that would have pleased Mahatma Gandhi immensely. Finally Lech Walesa and Solidarity brought democracy to Poland. All of them acknowledged their debt to Gandhi’s philosophy of Satyagraha and ahimsa. Satyagraha does work. Violence in any form is an endless spiral that always spins out of control. A violent uprising only gives the oppressor an excuse to use more violence and the only result is that more innocents die. Mahatma Gandhi knew it—there is no solution in the barrel of a gun. The greatest gift to us from these freedom fighters is democracy, which allows us to choose the leaders who can build a great nation. They gave the power to the people, and as every election proves it, the people understand this power very well. The selection of freedom fighters whose life stories this volume recounts is by no means exhaustive. There were many, many more, whose extraordinary stories will hopefully be told in forthcoming volumes. The legacy of all these men and women is the knowledge that ordinary people

can demand—and fight for—justice and equality. Read the stories of how they triumphed over the greatest adversities, how they failed and picked themselves up, and tried again.

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar ‘The outcaste is a by-product of the caste system. There will be outcastes as long as there are castes. And nothing can emancipate the outcaste except the destruction of the caste system.’ —B.R. Ambedkar The little boy was very excited about going to school with his elder brother, but his first day in school taught him lessons in reality that he never forgot. He discovered that the teachers did not want to teach him, his classmates refused to sit beside him and no one would touch him because, he was told, he was born polluted. The two boys had to carry gunny sacks to sit on and

listen from outside the classroom. No child played with them or shared their food and they were not even allowed to draw water from the school well. The thirsty boys would have to wait till someone was kind enough to pour water into their waiting hands. If no one did, they remained thirsty till they got home. Little Bhimrao learnt that in Hindu society he was labelled ‘untouchable’—considered to be outside the formal Hindu caste system— and that he was being ostracized only because of his birth. It was a stigma he would fight for the rest of his life with single-minded passion and defiant rage. In Bhimrao the Dalits—the downtrodden untouchables—of India finally found the courageous, tough-talking, formidably knowledgeable and energetic leader who would demand and win them self-respect and equality. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born on 14 April 1891 at Mhow in central India. He was the fourteenth child of Ramji Sakpal and Bhimabai. They belonged to the Mahar caste, and in spite of being untouchable, the Mahars had a martial history. Mahars had fought in the army of Shivaji and they still joined the Indian army because it gave them opportunities for education and employment that were not open to them in Hindu society. Bhimrao’s father Ramji was a subedar major and taught at an army school. Even though he had very little money, Ramji ensured that his sons went to school. After Ramji retired they came to live in a single room in a chawl in Bombay and he struggled to get Bhimrao educated. The boy was the first untouchable student in his school and college. He completed his graduation from Elphinstone College, Bombay, with the help of a scholarship from Sayajirao Gaekwad, the Maharaja of Baroda. Bhimrao loved books and realized early that the only way to overcome the inhumane caste system was through education. When some college pundits refused to teach him Sanskrit, he found an enlightened teacher who would do so. Later his knowledge of Hindu scriptures became so vast that he would often defeat supposedly learned orthodox Hindus in debate. Ambedkar’s education was endangered when his father died right after his graduation and again Gaekwad came to his rescue. He sponsored Ambedkar’s postgraduate studies at Columbia University in the United

States on the condition that Ambedkar would serve in the Baroda government for ten years when he came back. The atmosphere of intellectual freedom in America was a revelation to the young student; for the first time he could follow his dreams. He studied many subjects, got a Ph.D in Economics and even presented a paper at an anthropological seminar on ‘Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development’. Ambedkar then went to London, simultaneously studying at the London School of Economics and preparing for the Bar. He gained a Masters degree and also became a barrister by 1920. And this was the boy who was made to sit outside class, and refused lessons in Sanskrit. Coming back to India in 1924 Ambedkar immediately joined the Baroda government and was appointed the Military Secretary to the Maharaja. Then the enthusiastic young man had his next encounter with reality when he realized that his brilliant academic career did not make the slightest difference to people. In society he was still a Mahar. At work, his colleagues ostracized him, his subordinates would throw the files onto his tables from a distance and no one would fetch him a glass of water. Even worse, he couldn’t find a room to rent as he wandered around Baroda, and even friends refused to give him shelter. In desperation he gave a false Parsi name and got a room in a Parsi dharamshala but the secret was soon out. As he wrote later, ‘On the second day of my stay, when I was just leaving for my office … a mob of some fifteen or twenty Parsis arrived with lathis accosted me, threatening to kill me, and demanded who I was. I replied, “I am a Hindu.” But they were not to be satisfied with this answer.’ Ambedkar was forced to resign from his job and return to Bombay. He began his legal practice in Bombay High Court while also teaching law in a college, and soon with the encouragement of the Maharaja of Kolhapur, he began his activities as a social worker, writer and educationist. He started the fortnightly Mook Nayak (leader of the silent) and then the organization Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha to serve the cause of the Dalits. He knew that their salvation lay in education, and remembering his experience in Baroda, he set up students hostels, libraries and study circles. He began to travel widely, speaking at meetings and spreading the message

of social equality as well as inter-caste marriage and dining. He was the first Dalit leader who came to his people with not just hope but also a path to win equality and soon his followers started calling him ‘Babasaheb’. In 1927 Ambedkar’s first Satyagraha was at the Chavdar Taley, the only public tank in Mahad from which untouchables were not allowed to take water. Ambedkar and his followers drank the water and then burnt a copy of the Manusmriti as he believed that this ancient treatise was the source of all the inequalities in Hindu society. The Satyagrahis—peaceful protestors— were attacked by a mob armed with lathis, but they resolutely refused to retaliate. Ambedkar then took the battle to court and won the case ten years later. In another Satyagraha, he led his followers into the Kalaram Temple in Nasik. The result of these Satyagrahas was that for the first time the Dalits began to question their treatment by society and realized they had the same rights as everyone else. They had to raise their heads, question, protest and fight, and take their destiny in their own hands because society was not going to do it for them. And Ambedkar was the best example of what this defiance and courage could achieve. If this Mahar boy could defy segregation, travel overseas and return a barrister, so could they. The Dalits were nearly a quarter of the population and Ambedkar made them realize that if they united they had a voice no government or political party could ignore. He made them conscious of their rights and taught them self- respect, and that was his greatest achievement. Ambedkar was nominated to the Bombay Legislative Assembly in 1926 and he brought forward many bills for the welfare of the depressed classes, but the bills were all defeated because of opposition by orthodox Hindu members. Meanwhile, he had become a lecturer at the Government Law College and would go on to become its principal. He attended all three Round Table Conferences as the representative of the Depressed Classes and here he came into conflict with another leader who was championing the cause of the people he called Harijans—Mahatma Gandhi. Ambedkar and Gandhi could never agree on the correct path for the emancipation of the Dalits. Ambedkar felt that the only way the Dalits

could make their voice heard was if they had separate electorates—electoral seats where only Dalits voted for Dalits. Gandhi was fighting to keep Dalits within the Congress’s fold, because he knew the government was trying to divide the people to weaken the national freedom movement. When earlier the Muslims had been given separate electorates, it had led to the demand for a separate homeland and Gandhi was nervous about further seats being reserved for any community. Both of them were correct in their own way, but it led to feelings of uncertainty and distrust that once led Ambedkar to say bitterly, ‘Mahatmas have come and Mahatmas have gone, but the untouchables have remained untouchables.’ When the government announced separate seats for the Depressed Classes in the Communal Award of 1932, Gandhi went on a fast in Yeravada Jail. Ambedkar faced a lot of pressure from other leaders to give in to Gandhi and he also began to fear that if Gandhi died, then his people would face violent reprisal from other Hindus. So he was forced to abandon the plan and negotiate the Poona Pact with the Congress. In the Pact, more seats were reserved within the general category for Dalits, with the promise of Congress support. It was a decision Ambedkar would regret for the rest of his life as he never received the full support of the party during elections or for important legislations, not even as Law Minister in independent India. Meanwhile, his social work was going apace, and he established a number of schools and colleges including the Siddhartha College in Bombay. By this time he had come to the conclusion that it was not possible for his people to gain equality within Hindu society and he began to look for a truly egalitarian religion. To his anguish and amazement, he found that converts to Islam, Christianity and Sikhism had carried their earlier inequalities and some form of caste system with them. If the Christians had separate churches, Muslims and Sikhs did not intermarry with the Dalit converts. This was the time when he began to study Buddhism. When India became independent, the Constituent Assembly was set up to frame the Constitution of the new nation. In recognition of Ambedkar’s great scholarship in jurisprudence and constitutional law, he was appointed

the Chairman of the Drafting Committee. He was also the first Law Minister of the country. Creating a new constitution was a very long and complex process and by the end it was mainly the work of Ambedkar and B.N. Rau, the legal advisor to the Constituent Assembly. Through four months of discussions and debates, he patiently explained the clauses to the members and successfully piloted the Constitution through the Assembly. The new Constitution was inaugurated on 26 January 1950. Though once again Ambedkar was ambivalent about his achievement and wrote with his usual bluntness, ‘People always keep on saying to me, “O, you are the maker of the Constitution”. My answer is, “I was a hack. What I was asked to do, I did much against my will”.’ Ambedkar would face his greatest disappointment when the Hindu Code Bill was never tabled in Parliament in spite of the promise of support from Prime Minister Nehru. In spite of indifferent health, he had worked relentlessly for months on drafting a bill that would create uniform laws for all Hindus and guarantee the rights of women. However, most of the Congress members opposed it and Nehru bowed to their pressure. Bitter and disillusioned, Ambedkar resigned from his post and could not win another election because orthodox Hindus would not vote for him. He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha and was a member for the rest of his life. This was the time when he decided to convert to Buddhism, the only religion that he found to be truly enlightened and egalitarian. He had once said, ‘Unfortunately for me, I was born a Hindu untouchable. It was beyond my power to prevent that, but I declare that I will not die a Hindu.’ On 14 October 1956 he and thousands of his followers became Buddhists at Nagpur and over the years it has led to a revival of Buddhism in India. It was his final rejection of a religion that never gave his people the true equality he had worked for. The next year, on 6 December 1956, Ambedkar died in Delhi. He was cremated at Dadar, Maharashtra, and the stupa on the site named Chaitanya Bhumi has become a pilgrimage for Dalits. For all his great contributions to the nation Ambedkar was awarded the Bharat Ratna only in 1990. The delay would not have surprised him. Today

his statue stands in the Parliament House in New Delhi as testimony to his work, but the iniquities of the caste system remain. What he did achieve was to make enlightened Indians realise how the caste system was one of the causes of the economic and social backwardness of the country and that no country could progress when large sections of its people were denied their rights. The Constitution at least gave equality to all in the eyes of the law. India has changed since his death. Today Ambedkar’s people proudly call themselves Dalits and not Harijans, and they do not bow to or accept any form of discrimination. They have gained the courage to stand up and protest and demand their rights, and they have learnt the power of the ballot box. Society no longer condones caste and segregation. Yet even today politics is caste-based and Dalits face discrimination. Dr Ambedkar’s dream of a truly egalitarian Indian society has still not come true.

Abul Kalam Azad Today, if an angel descends from the sky and declares from the heights of Delhi’s Qutub Minar that India can get Swaraj in twenty-four hours provided she gives up the idea of Hindu-Muslim unity, I will forgo the Swaraj rather than the Hindu-Muslim unity, because if Swaraj is delayed, it will be a loss for India alone, but if this unity is lost, it will be a loss for the entire humanity … —Abul Kalam Azad In 1904, at the Lahore railway station, a group of Muslims was waiting to receive a very special guest. He was a ‘learned Islamic scholar’ from

Calcutta who was going to address a gathering in the city. When the train arrived, a slim, fair teenager with just the beginnings of a beard alighted and shyly introduced himself as the guest speaker. As the men discovered that the great scholar was sixteen years old, they became quite nervous about the lecture he would deliver. To their surprise, Abul Kalam Ghulam Muhiyuddin spoke so well that the audience was deeply impressed. He was born in Mecca in 1888 to an Indian father and an Arab mother. His father Maulana Khairuddin was an eminent Islamic scholar who had settled in Mecca after the Uprising of 1857 but then returned to Calcutta when Abul Kalam was a boy. The son would also earn the title of ‘Maulana’ for his knowledge and writings on a variety of Islamic subjects. In Calcutta, he was tutored at home and his education was a strictly traditional Islamic one that would make him an Islamic Ulema or teacher. He learnt Arabic, Persian and Urdu, mathematics, Unani medicine and calligraphy, and completed his studies years ahead of others his age. He was not allowed to study English, but the enterprising boy persuaded an acquaintance to teach him the English alphabet and then taught himself with the help of a dictionary. It was a very disciplined and rather lonely childhood where studies took precedence over games, and books not children were his companions. Later he studied at the famous Al Azhar University in Cairo, travelled to Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Turkey and was exposed to the nationalist movements there. Even his cloistered existence could not keep Abul Kalam away from the events outside. This was the time just after the partition of Bengal in 1905 and the city was aflame with protests. He too was carried away by the mood of defiance and met leaders like Aurobindo Ghose, who was at that time advocating a revolution through his fiery speeches and writings. Inspired by newspapers like Bande Mataram and Jugantar that carried the message of the nationalists, he too started an Urdu weekly Al-Hilal in 1912 when he was just twenty-four years old. This was the time he began writing under the pen name ‘Azad’. Al-Hilal became an instant success with twenty-six thousand copies being sold within a few months. People would wait for it to arrive and then

sit in groups and listen as one man read out the paper. It created a wider awareness among the Muslims of the political events of the time and Azad wrote passionately in favour of the nationalist movement. He said that it was time for Muslims to stop showing a blind loyalty to the British Empire. The government retaliated with heavy fines and then forced Azad to leave Bengal. He was arrested and jailed for four years in Ranchi Jail in Bihar. Mahatma Gandhi had heard of this new champion of freedom and was keen to meet Azad in jail, but the government refused permission. They finally met in 1920 at the Chandni Chowk residence of Hakim Ajmal Khan and Azad was deeply impressed by Gandhi’s strategy of Swadeshi, Satyagraha and ahimsa. He lived like a true Satyagrahi for the rest of his life, often visiting Sabarmati Ashram and regularly spinning cotton on his charkha. During Gandhi’s fast in 1947 when everyone feared for his life, it was Azad who managed to convince him to stop fasting. For Gandhi, he was the symbol of his dream of Hindu–Muslim unity, the true secular leader. As Azad recalled later, ‘We had differences also … but we never went different ways … with every passing day my faith in him became stronger and stronger.’ Maulana Azad was elected as the president of the Indian National Congress in 1923 at the age of thirty-five, the youngest president of the party. He became the president again in 1940 and continued till 1946. As one of the most trusted lieutenants of Gandhi, he was always in the inner core of the party with leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, C. Rajagopalachari and Vallabhbhai Patel. His second stint as president was an eventful one with the Quit India movement in 1942 when he proposed the resolution at the Bombay session. Then he headed the delegation from the Congress, with Nehru and Patel, to the Cripps Mission of 1942—when the British government tried to secure Indian support for their efforts in World War II —and the Cabinet Mission of 1946, which discussed and finalized plans for the transfer of power from the British Raj to Indian leadership. After the historic resolution of 8 August 1942 that asked the British to leave India, the entire Congress Working Committee was arrested. Gandhi and Sarojini Naidu were taken away to the Aga Khan Palace in Poona while

Nehru, Patel and Azad were imprisoned in the Ahmednagar Fort. From there Azad wrote to a friend, ‘Only nine months earlier … the gate of Naini Central Jail was opened before me … and yesterday the new gate of the old Ahmednagar Fort was closed behind me.’ A man of frail health, he would spend a total of ten years and five months in jail during his lifetime. This was a time of great personal loss for both Azad and Gandhi. Azad’s wife Zulaikha Begum passed away, while at the same time Kasturba Gandhi died in Poona. During the last years of the freedom struggle the Indian Muslim League led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah first presented itself as the only representative of the Muslims and then demanded a separate homeland. Azad was completely against the two-nation idea of Jinnah and fought it with great passion and energy. Being a man who had dedicated his life to Hindu–Muslim amity, he was deeply angered by Jinnah’s declaration that the Indian Muslims were to be a separate nation. During his negotiations with the Cripps Mission, Azad insisted that a secular organization like the Congress was the only true representative of the nation. For this the Muslim members of the Congress like M.A. Ansari, Asaf Ali, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, Ghaffar Khan and Azad had to face vicious personal attack from the Muslim League that tried to prove that they were traitors to their religion. During meetings with the Cripps Mission, Azad led the delegation with Nehru, Patel and Ghaffar Khan, and vigorously opposed the formation of Pakistan. Jinnah insisted that if Pakistan was not conceded, then the country would face civil war. Azad, in contrast, was convinced that the communal violence that was sweeping across the country would abate once the country became independent. At one meeting Jinnah publicly insulted Azad by refusing to shake hands with him, but this open hostility did not stop Azad from continuing with his efforts. Like Gandhi, he was devastated by the partition of the country and the terrible carnage that raged afterwards. In his autobiography India Wins Freedom, while holding Jinnah responsible for the tragedy, he also mentions the mistakes made by the Congress. After Independence he worked tirelessly, playing peacemaker during communal riots, and was devastated by Gandhi’s death. Azad was a

member of Prime Minister Nehru’s first cabinet. He was India’s first Minister of Education, Culture & Fine Arts and laid much emphasis on scientific education. He also established cultural institutions like the Sahitya Akademi. Lalit Kala Akademi and the Sangeet Natak Akademi. Earlier, with M.A. Ansari and Ajmal Khan, he had also founded the Jamia Millia Islamia College in Delhi. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad died on 22 February 1958 and was buried opposite the Jama Masjid in Delhi. He left behind an inspiring legacy of Hindu—Muslim harmony and an overriding love for one’s country. A scholar who stepped out into the world of active politics, Azad’s formidable intellect enriched the freedom movement. As a linguist, writer and poet, he could have happily spent his life in the cocoon of books and learning, instead he chose the harder path of the struggle for freedom. He was a rationalist who was trusted for his organizing and negotiating skills, integrity and moderation. He believed that there was no innate difference or antagonism between Hindus and Muslims and faced much criticism for his secular views. He made many personal sacrifices for the cause of freedom because for him nothing was as important as being a patriotic Indian.

Annie Besant To see India free, to see her hold up her head among the nations, to see her sons and daughters respected everywhere, to see her worthy of her mighty past, engaged in building a yet mightier future—is not this worth working for, worth suffering for, worth living and worth dying for? —Annie Besant She became more Indian than many Indians. The Englishwoman who wore a sari and sat comfortably cross-legged on the floor, using a low table to write on. She read Hindu religious books, translated them from Sanskrit

into English and knew more about Hindu philosophy than many of her Indian friends. She believed in reincarnation and thought she had been an Indian in her last birth. For Annie Besant it was India not England that was her true motherland. Annie Besant was born on 1 October 1847 to an English father—a doctor —and an Irish mother. She lost her father William Wood when she was just five and her mother Emily had to run a boarding house to bring up her children. Strapped for money, Emily asked a friend to bring up Annie. At twenty Annie married Reverend Frank Besant, but it was not a happy marriage. Annie was an ambitious, free-spirited woman who chafed at the genteel and predictable life of a Victorian clergyman’s wife and within five years she had separated from her husband. It was a very hard step to take as her two children were separated too, with the son staying with her husband and the daughter remaining with Annie. Free at last to follow her dreams, Besant began to write and do social work. She joined a number of liberal organizations like the atheistic Free Thinkers and the socialist Fabian Society. At this time she honed her fine oratorical skills as she spoke at meetings across the country about the philosophy of the Free Thinkers. Her work with the socialist Fabians made her a friend of many leading intellectuals like the British playwright George Bernard Shaw, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb, early members of the Society. The Fabians worked to improve the condition of the poor in Britain and its colonies and were often prominent critics of the government. One of Besant’s earliest successes was organizing Britain’s first trade union for women and leading a strike by the women workers of a match factory, demanding safer working conditions. Then to the surprise of her socialist friends, the atheist-activist Besant suddenly joined the Theosophical Society. This Society had been started by Madame Helena Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Olcott and was deeply into spiritualism, eastern philosophies like Hinduism and Buddhism, and also the occult. What attracted Besant to theosophy was the Society’s aim of building a ‘universal brotherhood of humanity’ that ignored race and religion and preached equality for all.

In 1893 Besant arrived in the country that had fascinated her since her childhood—India. She felt immediately at home at the Theosophical Society campus in Adyar on the outskirts of Madras and was soon seeking ‘the ways of wisdom from the Indian people’. At a time when most educated Indians were somewhat apologetic about their own culture, a European woman so enamoured of India must have been quite a startling experience. Besant soon realized that years of colonial rule and a westernized education system had created a deep inferiority complex among the intelligentsia and with typical energy she immediately began work to correct it. Annie Besant’s greatest contribution to India was her relentless campaign to revive India’s pride in her culture, religions and history. She toured and lectured constantly, and soon her lectures on theosophy and various aspects of Indian philosophy were packing the auditoriums. Then the Society started schools where the curriculum was a mix of western and Indian subjects. She wanted the education of Indians to be in their own hands and not of the government or the missionaries. In 1898 she founded the Central Hindu College at Benaras in two rooms of a house and a school for girls followed soon after. The college was later handed over to the educationist Madan Mohan Malaviya and became the core of the Benaras Hindu University. In 1907 Annie Besant was elected the president of the Theosophical Society and remained in the post for the rest of her life. She immediately started the Theosophical Education Trust, and many more schools and colleges were opened in south India. She also started the Scouts and Guides movement in India and the Women’s Indian Association that worked for the education and emancipation of women. It was only in 1914, at the age of sixty-six, that Besant entered political life by starting a journal Commonweal and then a newspaper New India. In both she published a stream of articles critical of the government. When the First World War started in 1914, Britain needed the support of its colonies and dominions and promised that after the war there would be greater freedom for them. However, India was deeply disappointed to find a

big difference between the self-government allowed to the white English- speaking dominions like Canada and Australia and the treatment meted out to Asian and African colonies. This was the time when two Home Rule Leagues, one started by Tilak and the other by Besant, became very active, demanding self-government for India within the British Empire. Besant’s fiery speeches made the government nervous and her writings often led to fines and penalties but she continued undaunted. She was arrested on a charge of sedition and defended herself in court by showing how the Asian and African colonies were being discriminated against. The government soon regretted its actions as reports of the court proceedings were carried in every newspaper in the country and led to a big rise in the membership of the Home Rule Leagues. Then in June 1917, when the Governor of Madras passed an internment order against the ‘high priestess of Home Rule’ and put her under house arrest, the country rose in protest. Besant had designed a red-and-green striped flag for the Home Rule Leagues and she flew it defiantly from her garden. There was criticism even in Europe and US President Woodrow Wilson spoke out in support of Home Rule. Besant was released three months later. Riding on a wave of popularity, Besant was elected the first women president of the Indian National Congress at its session in Calcutta. She was fêted as the ‘living symbol of Mother India’ and in her address made a typical emotional appeal: ‘Western-born but in spirit Eastern, cradled in England but Indian by choice and adoption, let me stand as the symbol of the union between Great Britain and India—a union of hearts and free choice, not of compulsion, and therefore of a tie which cannot be broken.’ Matters within the party took a new turn after the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre of 1919. The mood of the people had changed as they had finally lost their faith in the justice and fair play of the Sahibs. One man who sensed it quickly was Mahatma Gandhi who knew the time was now right for a mass non-cooperation agitation. Besant was still convinced that progress should be made through constitutional reforms and that any campaign by the people would only degenerate into violence and anarchy. She accused Gandhi of leading ‘a revolution, a rebellion’ and Gandhi,

accepting the charge, explained, ‘A revolution I do want and I think it absolutely necessary.’ At one time Besant had been the heroine of the young, including Jawharlal Nehru, but now she failed to gauge the mind of the people. It was Gandhi’s path that won the support of the party and Besant gradually faded from the political scene, though her work with the Theosophical Society continued. In 1925 she tried to get a Commonwealth of India Bill—seeking a constitution for India as a full-fledged dominion—passed in the British parliament but failed. Annie Besant continued to be the president of the Theosophical Society until her death at Adyar on 20 September 1933. At a time when there were very few women in public life in India, Annie Besant inspired and enriched our freedom movement with her passionate and energetic support for the cause. She not only made India her home but also taught Indians to once again be proud of their heritage. Jawaharlal Nehru said Annie Besant enabled India ‘to find her own soul’. An eloquent speaker, experienced campaigner and formidable organizer, she brought her unique intensity and vigour to the national movement and proved that India was truly her real motherland.

Subhas Chandra Bose ‘Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom!’ —Subhas Chandra Bose The government considered him one of the most dangerous freedom fighters and arrested him at the slightest excuse. His house in Calcutta was kept under constant police surveillance. In spite of it Subhas Chandra Bose and his nephew Sisir managed to slip out one day and drive across north India to far off Peshawar. Then began an adventure that made him the hero of Indians and a legend called Netaji.

Subhas Chandra Bose was born on 23 January 1897 into a Bengali family in Cuttack, Orissa. His father Jankinath was a public prosecutor and became a member of the Bengal Legislative Council. A brilliant student, Subhas joined the Presidency College in Calcutta but was expelled after he beat up a professor for making racist remarks. He then studied at the Scottish Church College to graduate in philosophy and then went to Cambridge to study at Fitzwilliam College. In 1920 he stood fourth in the Indian Civil Service (ICS) examination but decided not to join the ICS as he was deeply inspired by the nationalist movement at home. He met Gandhi immediately after returning to India and joined the Indian National Congress. Gandhi suggested that he should work with Chitta Ranjan Das, a successful barister and nationalist, and Das became Subhas Chandra’s mentor. During the Non- cooperation campaign Subhas Chandra and Jawaharlal Nehru were the most popular among the young leaders of the party as they led demonstrations and travelled across the country addressing meetings. Unlike Nehru, Bose was not impressed by Gandhi’s absolute faith in non- violence. Bose was always attracted to more radical activities and was close to many of the revolutionaries of Bengal. Unlike Nehru who worked closely with Gandhi, he chose to work with C.R. Das who was a member of the Swaraj Party within the Congress. In 1921 he was arrested for the first time when he led a demonstration against the visit of Edward, the Prince of Wales, to India. This was the first of eleven jail sentences that he would endure in the following two decades. In 1924, when Das became the mayor of Calcutta, Bose was elected the alderman on a huge salary. He used most of the money for charitable work and for the organization of the party. Later he was also elected the mayor of the city. For a while he was the principal of the National College that later became Jadavpur University. This college had been started for students who had been expelled for joining the Swadeshi Movement. An earlier principal had been Aurobindo Ghose. Right from the start Bose had radical views on the strategy to be followed in the freedom struggle. The government always suspected him of being involved in terrorist activity and, like Nehru, he had socialist views when it came to matters of economic reforms. For a while he was exiled to the jail

in Mandalay in Burma where another firebrand Bal Gangadhar Tilak had spent six years. In 1933 the government sent him into exile again and he spent three years in Europe. Like Nehru again, he met many intellectuals and political leaders including Benito Mussolini of Italy, Eamon de Valera of Ireland and Romain Rolland from France. At this time Bose married an Austrian, Emilie Schenkl, and they had a daughter. On his return to India Bose was elected the president of the Congress at the Haripura session in 1938. Gandhi and he respected each other but could not agree on their ideology. Bose had always been one of the loudest critics of Gandhi’s strategy of non-violence and now the ideological conflict between the two spilled over into the functioning of the party. Bose considered himself the representative of militant politics and was never open to discussion or compromise. The Congress had always been an umbrella organization that tolerated many opposing views under a common purpose that united it. And one of the strongest uniting threads was their commitment to Gandhi’s path of non-violence. It was a party that worked through consensus, but now Bose was openly dividing the party between the rightists who followed Gandhi and the leftists who agreed with him. This reminded people of the split between the Moderates and the Extremists, and made many members extremely uncomfortable. Things came to a head when next year, at the Congress session at Tripuri, he decided to stand again for president and managed to defeat Gandhi’s candidate Pattabhi Sitaramayya by a small margin. Gandhi frankly admitted that he saw it as a personal defeat. In his presidential address Bose declared that he wanted the Congress to give a six-month notice to the government to agree to immediate independence or launch a mass civil disobedience campaign. Which, most irrationally, he wanted Gandhi to lead! Gandhi felt the country was not ready for such a campaign and withdrew from the session. Then most of Gandhi’s followers who were members of the Working Committee, like Patel and Maulana Azad, threatened to resign. Finally realizing that he couldn’t possibly operate with such widespread rebellion in the ranks, Bose resigned.

As Rajendra Prasad was elected president in his place, Bose started a new party—the All India Forward Bloc—within the Congress, to follow his radical agenda. The division in the party in 1939 was one of the most serious crises the party had faced since the split between the Moderates and Extremists in 1907. Such a split would have pleased the government and spelt disaster for the freedom movement. Bose was trying to force the party into a radical and potentially violent campaign that it was not ready to undertake. He was also frankly critical of some of the leaders like Patel, Nehru and Azad and that did not go down well with the members. Nehru tried hard to mediate between the two groups but gave up when Bose refused to listen. At this time the Second World War broke out and Bose felt that India should take advantage of Britain’s preoccupation with the war and need for Indian support to demand independence. He was planning mass civil disobedience to protest against India being included in the war but Gandhi did not agree with the plan. The government, nervous about further protests, arrested him, but Bose went on fast in prison and nearly died. Forced to release him, the government put him, virtually under house arrest in Calcutta. On 19 January 1941 Bose and his nephew Sisir managed to leave the house and drove away in a car. They reached Peshawar and were helped by Afghans to cross the border. Bose grew a beard and wore Afghan clothes, but as he couldn’t speak Pushto, he pretended to be deaf and mute. Helped by the German secret service, he crossed into Russia using the passport of an Italian nobleman Count Orlando Mazzotta. When he arrived in Moscow he discovered that the Soviets, who were fighting the war on the side of the Allied nations (which included Britain), were not too keen to get involved. The Soviets put him on a plane to Berlin. The Germans, part of the Axis nations fighting the Allies, were more interested and offered him the opportunity to make radio broadcasts, and he began to make speeches on the Azad Hind Radio from Berlin. At this time the BBC reported that he was dead at which he began a broadcast saying, ‘I am Subhas Chandra Bose who is still alive and talking to you.’ His plan

was to build an army with the Indian soldiers who had been captured by Germany in North Africa and march towards India through Afghanistan. He also managed to meet Hitler and other Nazi leaders. However, it became clear pretty soon that Hitler, busy with his plans to invade Russia, was not too keen to support such an ambitious plan. In 1943 a disappointed Bose travelled by a German submarine to reach Japan and got a warmer welcome, even meeting the Japanese Prime Minister Tojo. By then the Japanese had swept across Southeast Asia. They had captured British colonies like Singapore and a large group of Indian soldiers were now prisoners of war in Japanese camps. The Indian National Army (INA) was originally formed with these soldiers in 1942 by Captain Mohan Singh and was later taken over by the Indian Independence League established by Rash Behari Bose. Rash Behari was a revolutionary who had been living in exile in Japan for many years. He now handed the INA to Subhas. The INA or the Azad Hind Fauj, with thousands of soldiers and volunteers, was organized into a proper army with the help of the Japanese. It even had a women’s unit called the Rani Lakshmi Bai regiment. Bose established a provisional government of Free India and gave the call ‘Dilli Chalo!’ to his troops. In their advance through Burma, the INA fought beside the Japanese. The Andaman and Nicobar islands were captured and Bose renamed them Shaheed and Swaraj. He was escorted everywhere by the Japanese and was not aware of the real situation on the islands. After occupation the Japanese had imprisoned many Indian freedom fighters in the Cellular Jail and were even torturing them. The Japanese army reached the borders of Assam and Bose raised the Indian tricolour at the town of Moirang in Manipur as the army laid siege to Kohima and Imphal. The INA soldiers fought bravely and Bose hoped that Indian soldiers in the Allied army would desert and join him but that did not happen. Then the tide turned as the Germans were defeated in Europe and the Japanese began to retreat. Conditions worsened during the monsoons as food supplies dried up and the soldiers struggled against a hostile terrain.

After being defeated at Kohima the Japanese surrendered and with them the INA also lost their war of independence. No one really knows how Bose died. He is said to have died in a plane crash over Taiwan on 18 August 1945. However, for many years, rumours circulated that he had survived and reappeared in India. Bose’s final fate has remained one of the enduring mysteries of the war. All through this extraordinary adventure spanning continents, Indians had listened and prayed for him. Bose’s popularity had soared with every victory of the Azad Hind Fauj. So when three officers of the INA—Dhillon, Shah Nawaz and Sehgal—were put on trial at the Red Fort for treason, lawyer-politicians Bhulabhai Desai and Nehru came forward to defend them. Because of their huge popularity they were not punished though they were cashiered from the army. Rabindranath Tagore called him ‘Desh Nayak’; to the people he was their ‘Netaji’. Gandhi was sure he was alive and would come back one day. During the war years most of the nationalists were in jail and it was the exploits of Subhas Chandra Bose and the INA that kept the freedom movement alive in the minds of the people. His bravery and charisma were unquestionable and he was a hero for young Indians. People listened eagerly to his broadcasts and followed the movements of the INA. He was a man of great personal courage and sincere patriotism who inspired many to join the struggle for freedom. Bose’s patriotism was undeniable but the question remains if his decision to ally with Germany and Japan would have brought us freedom or replaced one colonial power with another. Indian freedom fighters were ill-treated in the Andamans, and then when the tide turned against them, the Japanese abandoned the INA soldiers to starvation and death. After all, ironically, the Japanese were also an imperialist power and had never given freedom to any country that they had conquered. Subhas Chandra Bose remains one of the most tragic heroes of our freedom struggle.

Bhikaiji Cama This flag is of India’s independence. Behold, it is born. It is already sanctified by the blood of martyred Indian youth. —Bhikaiji Cama It was a cosmopolitan gathering at the International Socialist Congress in Germany. On 22 August 1907 there was a rustle of interest among the delegates when an Indian woman in a sari, with the pallav demurely covering her head, confidently walked up on stage. Then after a passionate speech she unfurled a flag before the gathering; it had horizontal stripes in

green, yellow and red, with the words ‘Bande Mataram’ proudly emblazoned in the centre. It was the flag of a colonized and enslaved nation declaring to the world its determination to win freedom. When Bhikaiji Cama unfurled the first Indian flag to the world, she declared, ‘I appeal to lovers of freedom all over the world to cooperate with this flag in freeing one-fifth of the human race.’ Bhikaiji Cama was born on 24 September 1861 to Sorabji Framji Patel, a businessman, and his wife Jijibai, into a very affluent Parsi family in Bombay. Bhikaiji did her schooling from the Alexandra Native Girls’ English Institution. In 1885 she married Rustomji Cama, a barrister, but it was not a happy marriage as there was no meeting of minds between them. Rustomji was a conservative man who admired the British and believed British rule was beneficial to India while his wife was fired by nationalism and the struggle for women’s emancipation. Cama was very excited by the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 as she felt that such an organization could spearhead India’s struggle for freedom. She also believed that if women showed some courage and stepped out to join the political movement, it would lead to their emancipation. Cama’s thinking was far ahead of her times; many women in nineteenth-century India lived in purdah, most of them were uneducated and they had no rights at all. Few of them would have had the courage to step out of their homes. Through her free-spirited life Cama would show Indian women what they could achieve if they wanted to. Cama could have led a life of luxury and ease; instead she became involved in political activities, social service and also began to write political articles for the newspaper The Bombay Chronicle, brought out by Pherozeshah Mehta. In 1896 there was an outbreak of bubonic plague in Bombay and she personally nursed patients, working with the teams from the Grant Medical College. She contracted plague herself but survived. In 1902, still in fragile health, she left for London for medical treatment. Cama did not know that this was the be ginning of a long exile from her homeland. While she was in London she received an order from the government that she would not be allowed to return to India unless she gave

an undertaking not to take part in the nationalist movement. She refused to do so and stayed back in London. Cama began to work as the private secretary of Dadabhai Naoroji who was at that time contesting for a seat in the House of Commons. She also came into contact with a number of Indian revolutionaries who were living in exile in London. Among them were Shyamji Krishna Verma, Sardar Singh Rana, V.D. Savarkar and Lala Hardayal who formed the Ghadar party. So far Cama had been a follower of the moderate and liberal path of Naoroji, but now she became more influenced by the militant ideology of the Russian Revolution that inspired these men. With Lala Hardayal, she began to publish a newspaper Bande Mataram, inspired by the newspaper of the same name published by Aurobindo Ghose in Calcutta. Cama became a popular speaker, giving fiery lectures at London’s Hyde Park and addressing meetings to build awareness of what British rule had really done to the Indian people. Like Naoroji, she often spoke of how India was being impoverished by the policies of the British government. Then in 1907 she attended the International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart, Germany, where delegates from twenty-five countries were participating. Here, at the end of her speech, she unfurled a tricolour flag designed by her and Savarkar. She called it the ‘Flag of Indian Independence’ and later with some modifications, this would become the flag of independent India. She had instinctively understood the need for a symbol of our national struggle and one day Satyagrahis would lead processions defiantly holding a tricolour aloft above them. Later she travelled across the United States, Europe and even North Africa on lecture tours and the flag was always displayed on stage. Everywhere she spoke on the two issues closest to her heart—India’s freedom and women’s emancipation. In 1910, looking at an all-male audience in Cairo, Egypt, she asked angrily, ‘I see here the representatives of only half the population of Egypt. May I ask where is the other half? Sons of Egypt, where are the daughters of Egypt? Where are your mothers and sisters? Your wives and daughters?’

The British government was very unhappy with her activities, and fearing that they would deport her, Cama shifted to Paris. Here, influenced by the political writings of Vladimir Lenin, Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi, her political ideology took a turn towards leading a militant revolution in India. Her home became a centre for young revolutionaries and she encouraged them to train in the use of arms. She smuggled arms and revolutionary literature into India through the French colony of Pondicherry. The British government requested her extradition on ground of seditious activities but the French government refused. In retaliation, the Indian government seized her properties in Bombay. In 1910 Savarkar was arrested in London and was to be sent to India by ship. Cama and her comrades planned to rescue him when his ship arrived in France. Savarkar managed to jump off the ship and swim ashore at the French port of Marseilles, but Cama, who was supposed to receive him, arrived late. Savarkar was arrested by the French police and the British government immediately demanded that he be handed over to them. Cama fought to get him asylum in France but failed, and Savarkar was sent back to India and imprisoned in the Andamans. Cama was deeply influenced by the Socialist movement and the revolution in Russia and often wrote in Socialist newspapers. Lenin invited her to live in Russia and she corresponded with the Russian writer Maxim Gorky. During the First World War she was interned in France for three years. In 1935, at the age of seventy-five, Cama was finally allowed to return to India after thirty-four years in exile. By then she was seriously ill and died on 16 August 1936. A fighter till the end, Bhikaiji Cama was one of the earliest women revolutionaries of India. A variation of the flag that she had designed was flown on 31 December 1929 at the Indian National Congress at Lahore. She did not live to see the tricolour rise on the dome of the Rashtrapati Bhawan on 15 August 1947 and then fly on the ramparts of the Red Fort.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi The woes of Mahatmas are known to Mahatmas alone. —Mahatma Gandhi In the early years of the twentieth century, the Vegetarian Society was meeting at a restaurant in London. One of the speakers that evening was a young law student who had written a speech on the benefits of vegetarianism. However, when it was his turn to speak, he was so overcome with panic that he lost his voice after reading the first sentence and someone else had to read out the speech for him.

This shy, timid lawyer would one day address mass rallies of lakhs of spectators and make a nation listen to his every utterance. Many years later, talking of his fear of public speaking, Gandhi said, ‘My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words.’ He always spoke softly, in this slightly hesitant, reflective manner, but what he spoke of were some of the hardest truths as he challenged the might of the biggest colonial empire in the world. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869, in the port city of Porbandar in Kathiawar, Gujarat, the youngest son of Karamchand ‘Kaba’ Gandhi and his wife Putlibai. Kaba Gandhi was the Diwan of the princely state of Porbandar and later of Rajkot. Young Mohandas was a diffident child, afraid of thieves, ghosts and snakes, and he was deeply influenced by his mother who was a gentle, compassionate and religious woman. He was just thirteen when he was married to Kasturbai, who would remain loyal and stoic beside him for the next sixty-two years. They had four sons. When Gandhi was eighteen, the family decided to send him to England to study law. For the first few days in London he nearly starved because he couldn’t muster up the courage to ask his landlady for vegetarian meals. He was saved when he found a vegetarian restaurant and soulmates in the Vegetarian Society. For a while, he even decided to ‘play the English gentleman’ and acquired a smart wardrobe of suits, silk top hat, spats and a silver-knobbed cane. It would take him ten minutes to tie his cravat before a minor. He even took lessons in dancing, French and playing the violin. Fortunately, this phase did not last too long and soon he immersed himself in law and reading books on philosophy, religion and vegetarian diets. Gandhi was called to the Bar in 1891 and soon returned to Rajkot. Here, to the bewilderment of his family, he insisted on a ‘sahib’ lifestyle with the children wearing European clothes, everyone sitting down at a dining table with crockery and cutlery for meals, and eating porridge and drinking cocoa. However, his law practice wasn’t doing too well as initially Gandhi found it hard to stand up in court and examine witnesses. He still lost his

voice. So when he received a job offer from an Indian firm in South Africa he accepted with alacrity. Gandhi arrived in Durban to work for Abdulla Sheth, who owned one of the largest trading firms in Natal. Within a week of arriving, the young lawyer got his first taste of a racism that he had not encountered in Britain. While he was travelling to Pretoria by train, a white passenger objected to sharing the first-class compartment with a coloured man. When Gandhi refused to move out as he had a ticket, he was pushed out on to the platform and his baggage thrown out after him, as the train steamed out of the station. He spent the night shivering miserably in the waiting room. This personal experience of racism made him realise the terrible humiliation and inhumanity of apartheid—the rigid separation of whites and non-whites—in South Africa. Soon he was exploring the conditions in which the Indian community lived there. Many had gone as indentured labourers in the sugar and coffee plantations and then stayed on; the rest were mostly traders. The Indians were contemptuously called ‘coolie’ or ‘sami’ and they had few rights and were often burdened with high taxes. Gandhi began to take up cases of racial discrimination and joined the fight against a proposed bill that aimed to deprive Indians of their right to vote. He became the secretary of the Natal Indian Congress and for the first time exhibited his extraordinary talent for organizing a public service campaign. One of the cases he handled was that of an indentured labourer Balasundaram, who had been mercilessly beaten by his white employer. Gandhi won the case and then instead of asking for punishment, he requested that Balasundaram be released from his contract. Soon, other labourers were pouring into his office and he handled so many cases that he was often referred to as the ‘Coolie Barrister’. Meanwhile, Gandhi, who had planned to stay in South Africa for only a year, discovered that there was much work for him there. So in 1896 he went back to India to get his family with him to South Africa. He used this opportunity to create awareness in India about the colour bar in South Africa. He wrote in newspapers, distributed pamphlets and travelled to many cities, addressing meetings where he appealed to people to support

the work of the Natal Congress. He met many leaders, like Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Badruddin Tyabji. Among them he got the most empathy and practical advice from the learned and astute Gokhale whom Gandhi always called his mentor. Impressed by his impassioned appeal, Pherozeshah Mehta convened a meeting in Bombay where Gandhi’s voice faltered again and his address had to be read out. The Gandhi family faced a nasty reception when their ship docked at Durban. Reports of his activities in India had reached Natal and the whites were up in arms. First the ship was quarantined with the excuse that there had been an outbreak of the plague in India and then a mob waited at the dock for Gandhi to disembark. As the passengers left the ship after twenty- three days, Gandhi was advised to leave only after darkness fell, but he refused to skulk into Durban like a criminal. He let his family be taken away first and then left the ship alone. He planned to walk from the docks to a friend’s house, a distance of two miles, and he was immediately surrounded by a violent mob that attacked him with punches and kicks. He would have been fatally injured had it not been for the presence of mind of Mrs Alexander, the wife of the police superintendent, who shielded him till the police arrived. The mob followed and surrounded his friend’s house, forcing him to slip away in disguise. When the authorities asked him to give a list of his assailants so that they could be prosecuted, Gandhi refused. Later he wrote that his action ‘produced such a profound impression that the Europeans in Durban were ashamed of their conduct’. In spite what he had seen and suffered, he still considered himself a loyal subject of the British Crown. In 1899, when the Boer War broke out between the English and Afrikaner colonial settlers, he joined the Indian Ambulance Corps for the British and worked in dangerous conditions. Gandhi hoped that this show of loyalty by the Indian community would make the government grant them citizenship, but to his great disappointment, after the war was over their condition became much worse.

During the following years, as his law practice flourished, Gandhi gradually evolved his concept of Satyagraha, a term variously translated as ‘soul force’, ‘truth force’ and ‘militant non-violence’. It was the name he gave to non-violent resistance to any form of oppression. He led a Satyagraha against the government when they refused to recognize non- Christian marriages and during the protests some demonstrators were killed. At a meeting to mourn the dead Gandhi finally declared that he no longer felt any loyalty to the British government. He discarded his European clothes, shaved his head and donned a dhoti and kurta. In 1914 the Gandhi family sailed for India. His activities had made him quite a celebrity in his homeland. His mentor Gokhale advised him to first travel across the country to become familiar with the people and their problems. So Gandhi and Kasturba travelled by train all across India, with crowds greeting them at every station. He met Rabindranath Tagore at Shantiniketan and a very close bond developed between them. It was the poet who dubbed him ‘Mahatma’, though Gandhi personally preferred to be called ‘Bapu’. The ever-energetic Gandhi tried to reorganize the Shantiniketan kitchen into a vegetarian one and Tagore indulgently allowed him to do so. The menu went back to fish curry soon after the Gandhis left. Gandhi set up his first ashram at Sabarmati, near Ahmedabad in Gujarat. Here people of every religion and caste lived and ate together. It was an austere lifestyle: they grew their own vegetables, milked the cows, cooked and cleaned together. However, when Gandhi brought a Harijan couple to live there, donations dried up and many of the inmates left. The ashram was threatened with closure but was saved by a young man who drove up to the gates, gave a bag of money to Gandhi and drove off. Later he discovered that the man was Ambalal Sarabhai, a mill owner, and he had donated thirteen thousand rupees, a very substantial amount in those days! The first call for help came from Champaran in Bihar. A farmer begged Gandhi to come and help the peasants who were being forced to grow indigo by British landlords. Gandhi walked from village to village to collect the facts, the first Congress leader to do so. He was arrested and taken to a court in Motihari, but such a huge crowd gathered outside that he had to

come out to control them! He presented a detailed report of the farmers’ situation to the government; it led to an enquiry and a new settlement for the farmers. At the same time, Gandhi the social reformer was talking to the villagers about good hygiene and the importance of education, religious tolerance, the rights of women and the atrocious unfairness of the caste system. Here, he gathered his first batch of devoted followers—Rajendra Prasad, J.B. Kripalani and Maulana Mazharul Haq. Champaran made him realize that a Satyagraha gave people the courage to protest and that it would work in India. More Satyagrahas soon followed. During a farmers’ strike, demanding the reduction of taxes in the Kheda District of Gujarat, he was joined by Vallabhbhai Patel. Then he led a strike at the cotton mills of Ahmedabad even though the largest mill owner was Ambalal Sarabhai, his anonymous benefactor. What caught everyone’s attention was that standing at the gates of the mill beside Gandhi and the striking workers was Ambalal’s sister Anasuya Sarabhai! The massacre at Jallianwalla Bagh in 1919 turned what had been a sporadic campaign into a national one. Gandhi’s call for nationwide hartals was a success. Soon after, he gradually started taking control of the Congress party. The party was still an urban gathering of upper class, western educated men, but Gandhi knew that if it was to be taken seriously as a party that represented the country, it had to become a party of the masses, where the poor also had a voice. A meticulous maker of lists and a master at raising funds, Gandhi was a genius at organization. When he organized Congress sessions, he would worry about everything from cleanliness to drinking water and seating arrangements. He travelled relentlessly, addressing rallies everywhere, telling people that they had to stand up for their rights and join his Satyagraha. Soon he had Congress workers canvassing for members in districts. Then all proceedings at the provincial level were held in the regional language and at the national level in Hindustani. The Indian National Congress was now a truly national party. In 1920 the Non-cooperation Movement was launched. The idea was to make it impossible for the British to govern India. There was a boycott of