INDIAN FREEDOM STRUGGLE
This was written by me for Facebook on 13th and 14th August 2013 on Indian Freedom struggle.
India and freedom struggle
Ramachandran V
(in three parts)
Part 1
Most of us knew how important the freedom struggle was and the second world war
with the consequent difficulties also played a part in winning the freedom from
the British rulers. We also knew that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Pandit
Jawaharlal Nehru with one concentrating on the struggles and the other on
sharing power with the British contributed for freedom of this country. In the
life of the many people who contributed towards the same goal, a few have only
come to light and many have been forgotten over the years, because many of them
left the Congress Party due to ideological differences at different stages.
It may be a surprise to many that , a group of radical hindus and britishers of
occultist movement Theosophical Society was formed as an organization to prove
to the illiterate people of Jaitapur, with the so called Nuclear expert A.O.
Hume at the helm of affairs in the year 1884 about some superstitions in the Hindu Society. Even before that Rajaram Mohan
Roy was preaching and spearheading a movement against “Sati”. Later this mantle
fell on Keshub Chandra Sen and Debendranath Tagore. Sir Valentine Chirol has
observed that in India national movement began with religious reformation. Sen
had established Brahmo Samaj and Dayanand Saraswathi started Arya Samaj in
April 1875. An Indian Association was formed in 1876, Poona Sarvajanik Sabha in
1876, National Conference in 1883, Madras Mahajana Sabha in 1884 and Bombay
Presidency Association in 1885. The cultural Renaissance in Poona was organized
by Prathna samaj founded by Mahadev Govind Ranade. Hundreds of Indian Language
Papers spread movements all over the world and progressive Indians thought of
starting one to petition the British Rulers to redress the grievances and thus came
into being – All India Association. The credit for starting this Organisation
should go to the English Civilian A.O. Hume and later this organization was
called the Indian National Congress. Local committees were formed in Karachi,
Lahore, Ahmedabad, Bombay, Poona, Lucknow, Allahabad, Calcutta and Madras. On
28th December 1885, the Indian National Congress met at Gokuldas Tejpal
Sanskrit College, Bombay. Leading personalities like R. G. Bandarkar, W.C.
Bonnerji, Dadabhai Naoroji, Pherozeshah Mehta, K T Telang and many other
delegates attended it along with editors of newspapers.
During the early days of the Indian National Congress, it was a resolution
passing body and practically there was no activity other than this and was
happy with the arrangements made by the British time to time on sharing power
at different levels. Before British Government came up with appeasing
programmes with Minto-Morley Reforms, there was already important developments
that had taken place in the Indian scene Gopalakrishna Gokhale and his group
believed enough action was being taken by the British themselves and there was
a sense of fairplay in that. However the group led by Bala Ganghadar Tilak
believed otherwise and felt that mass action to instill patriotism was required
and that Tilak thundered “Swaraj” is my birthright and also penned many
articles on that in his paper “Kesari”. Bipin Chandral Pal of Bengal and Lajpat
Rai of Punjab belong to this Group and were so identified as Lal-Bal-Pal. Tilak
was charged with instigating the murder of two plague inspectors at Poona.
Damodar Chapekar was hanged for these murders while his brother was awarded
life sentence. Of course, as already described the INC was passing resolutions
and presenting them to redress grievances and also asking for a greater role in
governance.
In 1905, Lord Curzon’s ill advised action of partition of Bengal resulted in
unprecedented upsurge of national awakening and patriotism, gave rise to
extremist school of nationalism which took birth in Maharashtra and Bengal and
later the entire Northern India. Aurobindo and Barindra Ghosh had founded
Anushilan Samiti in Bengal. Revolutionaries actions included hurling of bombs
by Prafulla Chaki and Khudiram Bose that killed two English Ladies Mrs. Kennedy
and her sister, though the target was the District Judge of Muzaffarpur. In the
first Alipur Conspiracy case, Aurobindo was charged but was discharged for lack
of evidence. From now on, younger generation formed groups in Barisal,
Chittagong, Midnapur, Hooghly, Dacca, Mymensingh, Behrampur and Calcutta. In
Maharashtra, it was lead by the legendary Veer Sarkar. Public opinion forced
the annulment of the partition of Bengal.
At Surat, in 1907, the INC split into two groups. The groups were identified as
Moderates and Extremists by British rulers. At the same time, there were
agitations which were carried out, outside the Indian soil, by Madame Cama,
Shyamji Krishna Verma and Sirdar Rana, to name a few. The Indian flag was
unfurled at the International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart in 1907. The
above movements and their actions badly affected the British. British Industry
were affected due to reduction in import of British goods. Naturallly the
British employed the time tested principle of ‘divide et impera’ – divide and
rule. Seeds of dissention were sown to isolate Muslims from the national
stream. Minto-Morley reforms introduced separate electorates for muslims.
Communal riots broke out at many places and these took precedent over the
nationalist movment and the British Governement came out with more repressive
laws so that the tide of nationalism is checked.
(To be continued)
India and freedom struggle
Ramachandran V
(in three parts)
Part 2
We saw at the end of part 1, how the british employed the ‘divide et impera’
and how communal clashes erupted all over India based on dissention sowed to
isolate Muslims from the national stream. Still we were seeing the years of
1907 of the freedom struggle. Sarojini Naidu joined the Indian national
movement in the wake of partition of Bengal in 1905. She came in contact with
Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Rabindranath Tagore, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Annie Besant,
C. P. Ramaswami Iyer, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Further as we
proceed, In a letter to the Earl of Crewe, Secretary of State for India, sent
from Shimla to London on Aug. 25, 1911, Hardinge pointed out that it has “long
been recognized to be a serious anomaly” that the British governed India from
Calcutta, located on the eastern extremity of its Indian possessions. He then
turned to more pressing reasons to move away from Calcutta, which for 150 years
had served as Britain’s capital in India. The viceroy alluded to burgeoning
opposition to British rule in Calcutta that was making it less than a
hospitable home. The foundation stone of the Delhi city was laid on 15 December
1911. On 23rd December 1912 when the Viceroy Lord Hardinge rode into Delhi, a
bomb was hurled at him by Rash Behari Bose. The Viceroy was wounded. The
Minto-Morley reforms did not satisfy anyone. Veer Savarkar was arrested in
London and lodged in the prisons of Andamans. Sir Curzon Wylie was shot by a
youth, Madan Lal Dhingra. Ghadar party was formed on the West Coast of America
and Canada by the Sikh emigrants. An important person for organizing the Ghadar
party, was Oxford educated Lala Har Dayal who first fled to Switzerland in 1914
and from there went to America.
Even as the above took place, V O Chidmbaram Pillai, a follower of Bala
Ganghadra Tilak purchased a ship S.S. Galia much against the troubles given by
the British India Steam Navigation Company and started his own company in 1906
and named the company as Swadesi Shipping company. Against the problems posed
by the BISNC, he operated sevices between Tuticorin and Colombo. On February
23, 1908 Chidambaram gave a speech at Thoothukudi, encouraging the workers at
Coral Mill (now part of Madura Coats) to protest against their low wages and
harsh working conditions. Four days later, the workers of the Coral Mill went
on strike. Chidambaram and Subramanya Siva led the strike. Hearing of his intention
to speak at a rally celebrating the release of Bengali leader Bipin Chandra
Pal, he and Siva were arrested on March 12, 1908. He was charged with sedition
and a sentence of two life imprisonments (in effect 40 years) was imposed. He
was finally released on December 12, 1912. On June 17, 1911, Vanchinathan (born
in Tirunelvali) assassinated Ashe, the district collector of Tirunelveli, who
was also known as Collector Dorai. He shot Ashe at point-blank range when
Ashe's train had stopped at the Maniyachi station, en route to Madras. He
committed suicide thereafter. Subrmanya Bharathi is considered to be one of the
greatest Tamil poets of the modern era. Most of his works were on religious,
political and social themes. The freedom fighters used to sing his songs. In
1908, an arrest warrant was issued against Bharathi by the government of
British India for his revolutionary activities forcing him to flee to
Pondicherry where he lived until 1918. You can add many more names to this list
of freedom fighters from South India even from the days of the East India
company. There was Kattabomman, Tippu Sultan and many more who fought wars with
the british much before the freedom movement started.
Deeply moved by the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre in Punjab, Subhash Chandra Bose
left his Civil Services apprenticeship midway and returned to India. The
Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place in the Jallianwala Bagh public garden in
the city of Amritsar on 13 April 1919. The shooting that took place was ordered
by Brigadier-General Reginald E.H. Dyer. On hearing that a meeting of 15,000 to
20,000 people including women, children and the elderly had assembled at
Jallianwala Bagh, Dyer went with fifty Gurkha riflemen to a raised bank and
ordered them to shoot at the crowd. Dyer continued the firing for about ten
minutes, until the ammunition supply was almost exhausted; Official British
Indian sources gave a figure of 379 identified dead and the indian national
congress said approximately 1000 died.
One of the great and famous freedom fighters was ever born on the soil of
Andhra Pradesh was Alluri Sita Rama Raju. In August 1922, Sita Rama Raju along
with 500 other people attacked a police station in a place called Chinta Palli.
They seized all the weapons in the police station. They also attacked the
Krishna Devi peta police station and seized the weapons from this station too.
The years 1921–31 constitute a heroic chapter in both Pingali Venkayya's life
and in the history of the freedom struggle in the present AP. During the National conference
at Vijayawada in 1921, Venkayya proposed a tricolour with an Ashoka Chakra at
the middle. Gandhi liked the result, and the design was later adopted as the
National Flag of India. Chandrasekara Azad was attracted towards revolutionary
activities. He joined the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA) and was
involved in the Kakori Conspiracy (1926), the attempt to blow up the Viceroy's
train (1926), the Assembly bomb incident, the Delhi Conspiracy, the shooting of
Saunders at Lahore (1928) and the Second Lahore conspiracy. Azad was on the
wanted list of the police. On 27February 1931, in the Alfred Park, Allahabad,
when an associate betrayed him, well-armed police circled Azad. Tanguturi
Prakasam Pantulu - When the Simon Commission visited India, the congress party
decided to boycott it with the slogan "Simon, go back" and the
commission visited Madras on 3 February 1928 and when the police prevented and
resorted to shooting, Prakasam bared his chest and dared to shoot. When the
Simon Commission visited Lahore on 30 October 1928, Lala Lajpat Rai led a
non-violent protest against the Commission in a silent march, but the police
responded with violence. Seeking revenge for the death of Lala Lajpat Rai at
the hands of the police, Bhagat Singh was involved in the murder of British
police officer John Saunders. He was convicted and subsequently hanged on 23rd
March 1931, for his participation in the murder, aged 23. Rajaguru and Sukhdev
who were also involved in this murdeer were also hanged on this day. His legacy
prompted youth in India to begin fighting for Indian independence. In this
part, we have seen a large number of youngsters have given their life for this
country to get independence, which of course was got through non-violence and
methods of Satyagraha as M K Gandhi led the movement after returning from South
Africa in 1915. Though he organized the people and united them to fight on one
platform, his major thrust of non violent movement started in Dandi March in
1930. In January 1930, the Indian National Congress too empowered Gandhi to
begin civill disobedience. The third part will start from this movement of Salt
satyagraha.
(To be continued)
India and freedom struggle
Ramachandran V
Part 3
On January 26, 1930 at the banks of the river Ravi in Lahore, Jawaharlal Nehru
moved a resolution that declared complete independence as the goal of the
Congress. The gathering took a pledge not to rest until ‘Purna Swaraj’. The
Congress decided to target the 1882 British Salt Act that gave the British the
monopoly on the collection and manufacture of salt and allowed them to levy a
salt tax. Gandhi lead the salt satyagraha movement. On 12 March 1930, Gandhi
and 78 followers began their 24-day march to Dandi. Gandhi stopped at many
villages where he spoke out against the Salt Laws, encouraged Indian officials
to resign from their posts, and urged Indians to boycott foreign cloth. The
march to Dandi continued to draw international media attention with foreign
journalists writing about and documenting the march. Thousands of Indians
joined Gandhi along the way. Sardar Patel went on the route to be followed for
dandi march in advance and enthused people to join the march. On 5 April 1930,
Gandhi and his fellow marchers reached the shores of Dandi, and the next
morning Gandhi bent down and picked up a clump of mud and salt—symbolizing a
defiant breakage of the British Salt Laws. C. Rajagopalachari who lead the
march from Tiruchirapalli to Vedaranyam on the eastern coast and made the salt
with his followers was also arrested. On April 23, 1930, Ghaffar Khan was
arrested. Usha Mehta, an early Gandhian activist, remarked that "Even our
old aunts and great-aunts and grandmothers used to bring pitchers of salt water
to their houses and manufacture illegal salt. And then they would shout at the
top of their voices: 'We have broken the salt law!'" Women like Kamaladevi
Chattopadhyay, Hansa Mehta, Amina Tyabji, and Rukmini Lakshmipathy broke the
salt laws. A pinch of salt made by Gandhi himself sold for 1,600 rupees. As
journalists from US and Europe covered this, international condemnation
resulted for this crackdown of the Britishraj. The Salt Satyagraha has become
an iconic campaign within the history of nonviolent struggle because it
delegitimized British rule.
Gandhi announced on 24 April 1930, a planned non-violent raid on the salt works
at Dharasana, just 25 miles south of Dandi. He was arrested on the night of 4th
May 1930, a few days before the action was to take place. When Abbas Tybaji and
Kasturbhai Gandhi attempted to lead the volunteers, they too were arrested.
However, the Working Committee member Sarojini Naidu then stepped in and helped
to lead the volunteers in performing the action. The attempt to get to the salt
works was thwarted by steelcaped lathis of the british and batches and batches
of volunteers marched towards the works until 6th June 1930. The British
government arrested over sixty thousand people by the end of the month. A large
number of men were severely injured by this police acton. The civil
disobedience in 1930 marked the first time women became mass participants in
the struggle for freedom. Kuttimalu Amma began her public life as an active
Khadi and Swadeshi worker in 1930.. She led batches of women volunteers and
successfully conducted picketing of foreign cloth-shops in Calicut in 1931.
Second Round table conference was held in 1931, but nothing came out of it and
Gandhi resumed the civil disobedience movement. Bina Das, daughter of Beni
Madhav Das - the teacher who inspired young Subhas, was just 21 years old in
1932, when she opened fire on Stanely Jackson, then governor of Bengal. In her
statement at the Special Tribunal of the Calcutta High Court she explained how
oppression of basic human rights had compelled her to take such extreme action.
At the same time Capt. Dr. Lakshmi Sehgal was the commander-in-chief of Netaji
Subhas Chandra Bose's 'Rani of Jhansi Regiment' of the Indian National Army
Azad Hind Fauz. Kodi Katha Kumaran of Tirupur died protecting the Indian Flag
on January 11, 1932. K. Kelappan gave the lead to the Payyannur and Calicut salt
Satyagraha and was chosen as the first Satyagrahi from Kerala in the individual
satyagraha movement launched by Gandhiji. He played a dominant role in the
famous Vaikom Satyagraha and was the leader of the Guruvayur Satyagraha in
1932.
A third round table conference was held in 1932 and the British PM announced
the communal award of separate electorates for depressed classes and as Gandhi
threatened to go on fast, the scheme was scrapped. This followed in 1935,
British Parliament passing the Government of india act giving wide autonomy to
the eleven provinces and in 1937 elections were held to provincial assemblies.
The Congress won absolute majority in 6 provinces. Between now and 1939, there
was deepening conflict between the Congress and Muslim League. Subhas Chandra
Bose was elected President of the Indian National Congress and he defeated the
candidate supported by Gandhi – Pattabhi Sitaramayya. Subhas wanted congress to
give an ultimatum that India be granted freedom within six months. Later Subhas
resigned from the Congress and formed Forward Bloc. Bose was arrested in
July1940 and released in December 1940. He left India on January 17, 1941 and
reached Berlin via Kabul and failed to get the support of Hitler but got the
support of the Japanese. He formed Azad Hind Fauz in SE Asia to fight the
British and came upto Kohima on the Indian Border. In August 1945 Japan
surrendered to the Allies and that was the end of Bose’s fighting and his
dealth is still a mystery. Gandhi declared for Individual Satyagraha in 1941
and Quit India movement in 1942. He gave the people the mantra – “Do or Die”.
Leaders were arrested and sent to unknown destinations. Serving on the Congress
Working Committee Pattabhi was arrested with the entire committee and
incarcerated for 3 years without outside contact in the fort in Ahmednagar,
Maharashtra. Mathai Manjooran was involved in the Quit India Movement of 1942
and he and his friends got actively involved in attempts to sabotage several
strategic railway bridges in the Malabar region to cripple the military
movements across the area. The tumultuous Kizhaariyoor bomb case is the result
of one of such attempts. Railway lines and post offices became the targets of
peoples’ ire. Socialists Jayaprakash Narain, Asaf ali, Achyut Patwardhan went
underground and helped in the movement. Thousands laid down their lives facing
British bullets. Unable to sustain the fury and wide spread discontentment, the
British Government tried to pacify. A cabinet Mission came to India and the
years 1942 to 1945 also saw M.A. Jinnah set his eyes on a separate Pakistan.
Again there was turmoil, as three officers of Azad Hind Fauzwere tried for
sedition – Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Sahgal and G.S. Dhillon. There were
demonstrations and agitations all over India.
The new Labour Government in Britian finally offered full independence to india
on March 14, 1946 and the Viceroy invited Congress and League in August 1946 to
constitute new executive councils as both had won the largest numbers of seats.
Nehru became the vice-president of this council. League joined after initially
boycotting it. Riots in Bengal, Bihar and other places made national leaders to
feel that partition was inevitable and during this period in February 1947 Lord
Mountbatten was appointed as Viceroy. Protracted negotiations and discussions
led to partition of India and on 15th August 1947, India became Independent.
(Jai Hind!)
