Teaching pioneer Fatima Shaikh was recently honoured with a Google Doodle on her birthday.

Fatima Sheikh

• Fatima Sheikh was an educator and social reformer, who was a colleague of the social reformers Jyotirao Phule and Savitribai Phule.
• She is widely considered to be India’s first Muslim woman teacher.
• Fatima Sheikh was the sister of Mian Usman Sheikh, in whose house Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule took up residence.
• One of the first Muslim women teachers of modern India, she started educating Bahujan children in Phules’ school.

Association with Phules

• Under pressure from upper castes, Jyotirao’s father evicted Savitribai and Jyotirao from the family home in the late 1840s.
• With nowhere else to go, the Phules would find shelter at the house of Mian Usman Sheikh, where they would live till 1856.
• As many from their own community abandoned them, Fatima Sheikh and her brother stood strongly with the Phules and the mission to educate girls and bahujans.
• Sheikh met Savitribai Phule while both were enrolled at a teacher training institution run by Cynthia Farrar, an American missionary.
• She taught at all five schools that the Phules went on to establish and she taught children of all religions and castes.
• Sheikh took part in the founding of two schools in Mumbai (then Bombay) in 1851.

Determined amidst opposition

• In Pune, a conservative bastion of culture and tradition, the very act of trying to educate the underprivileged caused uproar.
• It is said that the two women would often have stones and pieces of dung thrown at them while walking in the streets.
• Fatima specifically is said to have borne the wrath of both upper-castes and radical orthodox sections.

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Recently, 192nd birth anniversary of Savitribai Phule, w/o Jyotiba Phule (the pioneer of Satyashodhak Samaj) was celebrated.

Who was Savitribai Phule?

• A Dalit woman from the Mali community, Savitribai was born on January 3, 1831, in Maharashtra’s Naigaon village.
• Married off at the age of 10, her husband Jyotirao Phule is said to have educated her at home.
• Later, Jyotirao admitted Savitribai to a teachers’ training institution in Pune.
• Throughout their life, the couple supported each other and in doing so, broke many social barriers.

Pioneering first school for girls in India

• At a time when it was considered unacceptable for women to even attain education, the couple went on to open a school for girls in Bhidewada, Pune, in 1848.
• This became the country’s first girls’ school.

Opposition to Phules’ schools

• The Phules opened more such schools for girls, Shudras and Ati-Shudras (the backward castes and Dalits, respectively) in Pune.
• This led to discontent among Indian nationalists like Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
• They opposed the setting up of schools for girls and non-Brahmins, citing a “loss of nationality”, and believing not following the caste rules would mean a loss of nationality itself.
• Savitribai herself faced great animosity from the upper castes, including instances of physical violence.
• When serving as the headmistress of the first school in Bhide Wada, upper-caste men often pelted stones and threw mud and cow dung on her.

Phule’s role as a social reformer, beyond education

• Infanticide prevention: Along with Jyotirao, Savitribai started the Balhatya Pratibandhak Griha (‘Home for the Prevention of Infanticide’) for pregnant widows facing discrimination.
• Child adoption: The Phules also adopted Yashwantrao, the child of a widow, whom they educated to become a doctor.
• Reforms in marriages: Savitribai Phule also advocated inter-caste marriages, widow remarriage, and eradication of child marriage, sati and dowry systems, among other social issues.
• Denouncing Brahmanical ritualism: As an extension, they started ‘Satyashodhak Marriage’ – a rejection of Brahmanical rituals where the marrying couple takes a pledge to promote education and equality.
• Bubonic plague mitigation: Savitribai became involved in relief work during the 1896 famine in Maharashtra and the 1897 Bubonic plague. She herself contracted the disease while taking a sick child to the hospital, and breathed her last on March 10, 1897.

Savitribai’s literary works

• Savitribai Phule published her first collection of poems, called Kavya Phule (‘Poetry’s Blossoms’), at the age of 23 in 1854.
• She published Bavan Kashi Subodh Ratnakar (‘The Ocean of Pure Gems’), in 1892.
• Besides these works, Matushri Savitribai Phulenchi Bhashane va Gaani (Savitribai Phule’s speeches and songs’), and her letters to her husband have also been published.

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The 205th anniversary of the Bhima-Koregaon battle was recently celebrated in all harmony at the Ranstambh (victory pillar) in Perne village in Pune.

Battle of Bhima-Koregaon

• The 1818 battle of Bhima-Koregaon, one of the last battles of the Third Anglo-Maratha War culminated in the Peshwa’s defeat.
• It was fought on 1 January 1818 between the British East India Company (BEIC) and the Peshwa faction of the Maratha Confederacy, at Koregaon at the banks of River Bhima.
• A 28,000-strong force led by Peshwa Baji Rao II while on their way to attack the company-held Pune were unexpectedly met by an 800-strong Company force of which 500 belonged to the Dalit community.
• The battle was part of the Third Anglo Maratha war, a series of battles that culminated in the defeat of the Peshwa rule and subsequent rule of the BEIC in nearly all of Western, Central, and Southern India.

Role of Mahar Community

• Back in the seventeenth century, the community was particularly valued by the ruler Shivaji, under whom Maratha caste identities were far more fluid.
• The value of the Mahars for military recruitment under Shivaji was noted by the social reformer Jyotirao Phule.
• The Mahars were not only beneficiaries of the attempt at caste unity under Shivaji but were in fact valued for their martial skills, bravery, and loyalty.

Mahars during Maratha Empire

• The position occupied by the Mahars under Shivaji, however, was short-lived and under later Peshwa rulers, their status deteriorated.
• The Peshwas were infamous for their Brahmin orthodoxy and their persecution of the untouchables.
• The Mahars were forbidden to move about in public spaces and punished atrociously for disrespecting caste regulations.
• Stories of Peshwa atrocities against the Mahars suggest that they were made to tie brooms behind their backs to wipe out their footprints and pots on their necks to collect their spit.

Why is the battle significant?

• The battle resulted in losses to the Maratha Empire, then under Peshwa rule, and control over most of western, central, and southern India by the British East India Company.
• The battle has been seen as a symbol of Dalit pride because a large number of soldiers in the Company forces were the Mahar Dalits, the same oppressed community to which Babasaheb Ambedkar belonged.
• After centuries of inhumane treatment, this battle was the first time that Mahars had been included in a battle in which they won.

Dr. Ambedkar’s association

• It was Babasaheb Ambedkar’s visit to the site on January 1, 1927, that revitalized the memory of the battle for the Dalit community.
• He led to its commemoration in the form of a victory pillar, besides creating the discourse of Dalit valor against Peshwa ‘oppression’ of Dalits.

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An archive on the principal founder of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU), ‘Mahamana’ Madan Mohan Malaviya was recently unveiled.

Who was Madan Mohan Malaviya?

• Malaviya was born on 25th December, 1861 in Allahabad.
• He was a great Indian educationist and freedom fighter, distinguished from others for his significant role in Indian independence and his support of Hindu nationalism.
• At the Banaras Hindu University (BHU), which he founded in 1916, he served as Vice-Chancellor from 1919 to 1938.
• The University has around 12,000 students all across the field such as the arts, sciences, engineering and technology.

Political affiliations

• Malaviya rose up the ranks, and became president four times — in 1909 (Lahore), in 1918 (Delhi), in 1930 (Delhi), and in 1932 (Calcutta).
• He was part of the Congress for almost 50 years.
• He was one of the early leaders of the Hindu Mahasabha, and helped found it in 1906.
• He was a social reformer and a successful legislator, serving as a member of the Imperial Legislative Council for 11 years (1909–20).
• In the freedom struggle, he was midway between the Liberals and the Nationalists, the Moderates and the Extremists, as the followers of Gokhale and Tilak were respectively called.
• In 1930, when Mahatma Gandhi launched the Salt Satyagraha and the Civil Disobedience Movement, he participated in it and courted arrest.

Literary associations

• He remained the Hindustan Times’ Chairman from 1924 to 1946.
• He was involved with magazines including the-

1. Hindi language weekly, the Abhyudaya (1907)
2. English-language daily the Leader of Allahabad (1909) and
3. Hindi dailies Aaj

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A political party recently marked the  138th foundation day of Indian National Congress (INC) on December 28.

How the INC was founded?

• The INC came into being on December 28, 1885.
• The English bureaucrat Allan Octavian Hume is credited as the founder of the organisation.
• On that day, 72 social reformers, journalists and lawyers congregated for the first session of the INC at Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College, Bombay.
• Stated objectives of INC included-

1. First, the fusion into one national whole of all the different elements that constitute the population of India.
2. Second, the gradual regeneration along all lines, spiritual, moral, social, and political, of the nation thus evolved; and
3. Third, the consolidation, of, the union between England and India.

Real motive behind: ‘Safety Valve’ Theory

• At that point, the aim of this group was not to demand independence from the ongoing colonial rule but to influence the policies of the British government in favour of Indians.
• Its objective is often described as providing a “safety valve” as the time, through which Indians could air out their grievances and frustration.
• As Mr. Hume explained, the: Congress organization was ‘only one outcome of the labours of a body of cultured men, mostly Indians, who hound themselves together to labour silently for the good of India.’

Transformation towards freedom movement

Ans. Famous for 3P’s: Prayers, Protest and Petitions

• The party’s work continued, to shift the colonial administrators’ attitudes and policies on the rights and powers allowed to Indians.
• The members frequently protested issues of British colonialism, such as the Bengal famine and the drain of wealth from India.
• However, these protests were at this point usually limited to prayers, petitions and protests, including writing letters to the authorities.
• As the British rule continued, there grew differences in what the party’s functioning should be like.

Strength of INC

• Diverse participation: One of the biggest strengths of the party, which helped it appeal to a broad section of Indian society, was having members who held different ideological positions.
• Pan-India organization: Its popularity grew across every corner of India.

Early criticism of INC

• Non-effective: Hume and the party were criticised, by the British for attempting to change the existing systems that favoured them and by some Indians for not achieving significant results.
• Elite-organization: The party largely consisted of educated, upper-class people who were likely to have studied abroad.

Splits and reconvening

• In Surat in 1906, the divisions between the ‘moderates’ led by Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Surendranath Banerjea, and the ‘extremists’ led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak came to the fore and there was a split.
• While Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai wanted the Congress to boycott the visit of the Prince of Wales in protest against the Bengal Partition a year prior, the moderates opposed any such move.
• But by 1915, the Bombay session saw these two groups coming together again as one.
• The pattern of splits and eventual cohesion continued well after Indian independence, even after the party came to completely dominate successive general elections under PM Jawaharlal Nehru.

Important sessions of INC

Try this PYQ:

Q.Consider the following statements

1. The first woman President of the Indian National Congress was Sarojini Naidu.
2. The first Muslim President of the Indian National Congress was Badruddin Tyabji.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

 

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The President of India tweeted her greetings to the nation on December 19, marking Goa Liberation Day, which is celebrated annually to mark the success of ‘Operation Vijay’ undertaken by the Indian armed forces to defeat Portuguese colonial forces and liberate Goa in 1961.

What is the news?

• Goa was liberated 15 years after India attained freedom.
• Last year PM Modi accused Nehru as guilty of leaving satyagrahis in the dismay, refusing to send the Indian Army to liberate Goa, even after 25 of them were shot dead by the Portuguese Army.

Goa’s Colonization: A backgrounder

• Goa became a Portuguese colony in 1510, when Admiral Afonso de Albuquerque defeated the forces of the sultan of Bjiapur, Yusuf Adil Shah.
• The next four and a half centuries saw one of Asia’s longest colonial encounters — Goa found itself at the intersection of competing regional and global powers.
• It received a religious and cultural ferment that lead eventually to the germination of a distinct Goan identity that continues to be a source of contestation even today.
• By the turn of the twentieth century, Goa had started to witness an upsurge of nationalist sentiment opposed to Portugal’s colonial rule, in sync with the anti-British nationalist movement.

Beginning of freedom movement

• Tristao de Braganza Cunha, celebrated as the father of Goan nationalism, founded the Goa National Congress at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress in 1928.
• In 1946, the socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia led a historic rally in Goa that gave a call for civil liberties and freedom, and eventual integration with India.
• This event became a watershed moment in Goa’s freedom struggle.
• At the same time, there was a thinking that civil liberties could not be won by peaceful methods, and a more aggressive armed struggle was needed.
• This was the view of the Azad Gomantak Dal (AGD), whose co-founder Prabhakar Sinari is one of the few freedom fighters still living today.
• Finally, Goa was liberated on December 19, 1961 by swift Indian military action that lasted less than two days.

Recognition of Goa

• The Supreme Court of India recognized the validity of the annexation and rejected the continued applicability of the law of occupation.
• In a treaty with retroactive effect, Portugal recognized Indian sovereignty in 1974.
• Under the jus cogens rule, forceful annexations including the annexation of Goa are held as illegal since they have taken place after the UN Charter came into force.

Why was Goa left un-colonized?

As India moved towards independence, however, it became clear that Goa would not be free any time soon, because of a variety of complex factors.

• No immediate war: Then PM Nehru felt that if he launched a military operation (like in Hyderabad) to oust the colonial rulers, his image as a global leader of peace would be impacted.
• Trauma of Partition: The trauma of Partition and the massive rupture that followed, coupled with the war with Pakistan, kept the Government of India from opening another front.
• Internationalization of the issue: This might have led the international community to get involved.
• No demand from within: It was Gandhi’s opinion that a lot of groundwork was still needed to raise the consciousness of the people, and the diverse political voices emerging within be brought under a common umbrella.

Nehruvian dilemma

• India’s global image: Nehru was headed in shaping India’s position in the comity of nations.
• Trying peaceful options: He was trying to exhaust all options available to him given the circumstances that India was emerging from.
• Portuguese obsession: Portugal had changed its constitution in 1951 to claim Goa not as a colonial possession, but as an overseas province.
• Portugal in NATO: The move was apparently aimed at making Goa a part of the newly formed North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) military alliance. Hence the collective security clause of the treaty would be triggered.
• Weak indigenous push: Nehru saw it prudent to pursue bilateral diplomatic measures with Portugal to negotiate a peaceful transfer while, at the same time, a more ‘overt’ indigenous push for liberation.

Why did Nehru wait until December 1961 to launch a full-scale military offensive?

India could no longer be seen to delay the liberation of Goa because:

• Portuguese offensive against Satyagrahis: The firing incident also provoked a sharp response from the Government of India, which snapped diplomatic and consular ties with Portugal in 1955.
• India as torchbearer of de-colonization: India got itself firmly established as a leader of the Non Aligned World and Afro-Asian Unity, with decolonization and anti-imperialism as the pillars of its policy.
• Criticisms from African nations: An Indian Council of Africa seminar on Portuguese colonies organized in 1961 heard strong views from African as this was hampering their own struggles against the ruthless regime.
• Weakening Colonialism: The delegates were certain that the Portuguese empire would collapse the day Goa was liberated.

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PM will participate in a program commemorating Sri Aurobindo’s 150th birth anniversary.

Sri Aurobindo (1872 –1950)

• Sri Aurobindo Ghose was a philosopher, yogi, maharishi, poet, and Indian nationalist.
• He was also a journalist, editing newspapers such as Vande Mataram.
• He joined the Indian movement for independence from British colonial rule, until 1910 was one of its influential leaders.

Major activities                

• Aurobindo studied for the Indian Civil Service at King’s College, Cambridge, England.
• After returning to India he took up various civil service works under the Maharaja of the Princely state of Baroda.
• He became increasingly involved in nationalist politics in the Indian National Congress and the nascent revolutionary movement in Bengal with the Anushilan Samiti.
• He was arrested in the aftermath of a number of bombings linked to his organization in a public trial where he faced charges of treason for Alipore Conspiracy.
• However, Sri Aurobindo could only be convicted and imprisoned for writing articles against British colonial rule in India.

Try this PYQ:

Q. What was the main reason for the split in the Indian National Congress at Surat in 1907?

(a) Introduction of communalism into Indian politics by Lord Minto

(b) Extremists’ lack of faith in the capacity of the moderates to negotiate with the British Government

(c) Foundation of Muslim League

(d) Aurobindo Ghosh’s inability to be elected as the President of the Indian national Congress

 

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On November 16, events to commemorate the martyrdom of Uda Devi, a freedom fighter from the Pasi community, were held at various places in Uttar Pradesh.

Who was Uda Devi?

• Uda Devi is remembered not only for her stories of valour but also for her skill as a leader who managed to mobilise people — especially Dalit women — to take up arms against the British.
• Born in Ujirao, Lucknow, she was part of the royal guard of Begum Hazrat Mahal of Awadh.
• Her husband, Makka Pasi, worked as a foot soldier in the army of Awadh’s Nawab, Wajid Ali Shah.
• Hazrat Mahal’s palace had several women belonging to marginalised communities, and their occupation was mostly to take care of the needs of the royalty.
• Some of them, who showed promise, were also trained as warriors. Uda Devi was one of them.

Her legend

• Amid the revolt of 1857, on June 10, at Chinhat near Ismailganj, a battle was fought between the army of Lucknow and the British troops led by Henry Lawrence, in which Makka Pasi lost his life.
• The death of her husband spurred Uda Devi on to take up a more active role in the mutiny.
• On November 16, 1857, Uda Devi was among the soldiers who clashed with the British regiment stationed near the Gomti River.
• Although not much of the fight has been documented in history, it is said that Uda Devi killed at least three dozen British soldiers from atop a tree before she could be spotted.

Can you recall the Eka Movement of 1921 from your modern history references? If not, take your time to revise. Read about the contribution of Madari Pasi in this movement.

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On the occasion of the birth anniversary of tribal leader Birsa Munda, the Centre marked the second Janjatiya Gaurav Divas on November 15 to celebrate the contributions of tribal communities to Indian culture.

Who was Birsa Munda (1875-1900)?

• Birsa Munda was a tribal freedom fighter, religious leader, and folk hero who belonged to the Munda tribe.
• He spearheaded a tribal religious millenarian movement that arose in the Bengal Presidency (now Jharkhand) in the late 19th century, during the British Raj.

His legacy

(A) Birth and early childhood

• Born on November 15, 1875, Birsa spent much of his childhood moving from one village to another with his parents.
• He belonged to the Munda tribe in the Chhotanagpur Plateau area.
• He received his early education at Salga under the guidance of his teacher Jaipal Nag.
• On the recommendation of Jaipal Nag, Birsa converted to Christianity in order to join the German Mission school.
• He, however, opted out of the school after a few years.

(B) New faith ‘Birsait’ against religious conversion

• The impact of Christianity was felt in the way he came to relate to religion later.
• Having gained awareness of the British colonial ruler and the efforts of the missionaries to convert tribals to Christianity, Birsa started the faith of ‘Birsait’.
• Soon members of the Munda and Oraon community started joining the Birsait sect and it turned into a challenge to British conversion activities.
• The Mundas called him Dharati Aaba, the father of earth.

(C) The Ulgulan

• The Great Tumult or Ulgulan was a movement started by Birsa Munda against the exploitation and discrimination against tribals by the local authorities.
• Although the movement failed, it did result in the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act which forbade tribal lands passing to non-tribals, protecting their land rights for the foreseeable future.

(D) Death

• On March 3, 1900, Birsa Munda was arrested by the British police while he was sleeping with his tribal guerilla army at Jamkopai forest in Chakradharpur.
• He died in Ranchi jail on June 9, 1900, at the young age of 25.

(E) Creation of Jharkhand

• Birsa Munda’s achievements are known to be even more remarkable by virtue of the fact that he came to acquire them before he was 25.
• In recognition of his impact on the national movement, the state of Jharkhand was created on his birth anniversary in 2000.

Try this PYQ from CSP 2020

With reference to the history of India, “Ulgulan” or the Great Tumult is the description of which of the following event?

(a) The Revolt of 1857

(b) The Mappila Rebellion of 1921

(c) The Indigo Revolt of 1859-60

(d) Birsa Munda’s Revolt of 1899-1900

 

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This year, 2022, marks the 130th anniversary of the election, in 1892, of the first person of Indian origin, Dadabhai Naoroji to the House of Commons.

Why in news?

• Election of Rishi Sunak as British PM with a narrow majority has brought to focus Naoroji.
• He too had won Finsbury seat as a MP with a three vote’s majority.

Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917)

• Dadabhai Naoroji is well known as the “Grand Old Man of India” and “Unofficial Ambassador of India”.
• He was a Liberal Party Member of Parliament in the British House of Commons, represnting Finsbury Central between 1892 and 1895.
• He was the second person of Asian descent to be a British MP, the first being Anglo-Indian MP David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre.
• He was an Indian political leader, merchant, scholar and writer who was served as 2nd, 9th, and 22nd President of the Indian National Congress from 1886 to 1887, 1893 to 1894 & 1906 to 1907.
• His book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India brought attention to his theory of the Indian “wealth drain” into Britain.
• He was also a member of the Second Communist International (1889).

Other works

• Started the Rast Goftar Anglo-Gujarati Newspaper in 1854.
• The manners and customs of the Parsees (Bombay, 1864)
• The European and Asiatic races (London, 1866)
• Admission of educated natives into the Indian Civil Service (London, 1868)
• The wants and means of India (London, 1876)
• Condition of India (Madras, 1882)

Influence on Gandhi and Jinnah

• Before his Finsbury win, Naoroji met a young student of law in Inner Temple, 23-year-old Mohandas K Gandhi, and left an everlasting impact on the future leader.
• He also met another aspiring lawyer then enrolled at Lincoln’s Inn — 16-year-old Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who was to serve for a while as Naoroji’s secretary.
• Jinnah had the distinction of hearing Naoroji’s maiden speech in the House of Commons from the Visitors’ Gallery.

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Union Home Minister unveiled a 15-foot statue of Jayaprakash Narayan or JP on his 120th birth anniversary at the socialist icon’s birthplace, Sitab Diara village in Bihar’s Saran district.

Who was Jayaprakash Narayan?

• JP was born in 1902 in Bihar’s Sitab Diara, a village prone to frequent-flooding, after which his family moved to a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Balia district.
• He quit college to join the non-cooperation movement, before going to study at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was influenced by the ideas of Karl Marx.

Political affiliations

• JP returned to India in 1929 and joined the freedom struggle and the Indian National Congress, upon the invitation of Jawaharlal Nehru and drawn by a speech by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.
• He went on to become the founding members of the Congress Socialist Party (CSP).
• However after independence took it out of the Congress and formed the Socialist Party, which was merged with J B Kripalani’s Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party to form the Praja Socialist Party.

Dissociation from active politics

• While Nehru was keen on JP joining the Union government, JP sought to distance himself from electoral politics, opting to focus on social causes instead.
• He was disillusioned with political parties and called for communitarian democracy.
• Parties, he believed, were centralized and susceptible to moral and financial corruption.

The JP movement

• Students in Gujarat began demonstrating in late 1973, in response to mounting mess bills.
• The protests became widespread in the state, with workers, teachers and several other groups joining in the movement, calling for a change in government.
• JP saw the youth of Gujarat that had been able to bring about political change as an alternative route from electoral.
• The protests against corruption grew widespread, and students of Bihar began their movement in March 1974.
• The students approached JP, who left his self-imposed political exile and led the movement. At a rally in Patna he called for Sampoorna Kranti (Total Revolution).

Opposition to the Emergency

• When Indira Gandhi imposed an Emergency on June 25, 1975, JP shifted his focus to opposing the authoritarian rule and opposition parties looked to him for leadership.
• The Socialists were naturally drawn to him ideologically, while the RSS and its political front the Jana Sangh sought to return to the mainstream, and were happy to be dissolved into the Janata Party that JP had formed.
• JP is celebrated for launching a popular, mass movement against the Indira Gandhi government, which led to the formation of the Janata Party government in the 1977 general election.
• This was the first non-Congress government in the country.

Try this PYQ:

Who among the following were the founders of the “Hind Mazdoor Sabha” established in 1948?

(a) B. Krishna Pillai, E.M.S. Namboodiripad and K.C. George

(b) Jayaprakash Narayan, Deen Dayal Upadhyay and M.N. Roy

(c) C.P. Ramaswamy Iyer, K. Kamaraj and Veeresalingam Pantulu

(d) Ashok Mehata, T.S. Ramanujan and G.G. Mehta

 

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The Government of India began its year-long celebrations for the ‘Telangana Liberation Day’ on September 17, marking how on the same day in 1948, the state of Hyderabad got its independence from Nizam’s rule, as said in a press release.

Why in news?

• From 1911 to 1948, Nizam Mir Usman Ali, the last Nizam of Hyderabad, ruled the state composed of Telangana and parts of present-day Karnataka and Maharashtra (Marathwada).
• While these states mark the Liberation Day officially, Telangana has never done so.

Hyderabad’s accession into India: A backgrounder

(1) Reluctance of Nizam

• At the time of India’s independence, British India was a mix of independent kingdoms and provinces that were given the options of joining India, Pakistan, or remaining independent.
• One among those who took a long time to make a decision was the Nizam of Hyderabad.
• Believed to be one of the richest people in the world at the time, the Nizam was not ready to let go of his kingdom.

(2) Sufferings for the people

• Meanwhile, the majority population of Hyderabad state was far from enjoying the same kind of wealth as the Nizam did.
• The feudal nature of the state at the time caused the peasant population to suffer high taxes, indignities of forced labour, and various other kinds of exploitation at the hands of powerful landlords.

(3) Lingual friction

• There was also a demand by the Andhra Jan Sangham for Telugu to be given primacy over Urdu.
• By the mid-1930s, apart from a reduction in land revenue rates and the abolition of forced labour, introducing Telugu in local courts became another important issue.

(4) Mass movement

• Soon after the organisation became the Andhra Mahasabha (AMS), and Communists became associated with it.
• Together, the two groups built a peasant movement against the Nizam that found local support.

Who were the Razakars and the Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen?

• By October 1946, the Nizam banned the AMS.
• A close aide of the Nizam, Qasim Razvi, leader of the Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen, became closely involved in securing the Nizam’s position.
• The Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen was a political outfit that sought a greater role for Muslims in the early 20th century, but after Razvi took over the organisation, it became extremist in its ideology.
• It was under him that a militia of the ‘Razakars’ was formed to suppress the peasant and communist movement, launching a brutal attack.
• Around this time, the Standstill Agreement was also signed between the Nizam and the Indian government in November 1947, declaring a status quo.
• This meant that until November 1948, the Nizam could let things be as they were and not finalise a decision as negotiations with the Indian union continued.

How did the situation escalate to military action?

• In the first half of 1948, tensions grew as the razakar leaders and the government in Hyderabad began to speak of war with India and began border raids with Madras and Bombay Presidencies.
• As a response, India stationed troops around Hyderabad and began to ready itself for military intervention.

India commences Operation Polo

• With the Nizam importing more arms and the violence of the Razakars approaching dangerous proportions, India officially launched ‘Operation Polo’ on September 9 and deployed its troops in Hyderabad four days later.
• On September 17, three days after the deployment, the Nizam surrendered and acceded to the Indian Union in November.
• India has decided to be generous and not punish the Nizam.
• He was retained as the official ruler of the state and given a privy purse of five million rupees.

The legacy of Operation Polo

• It has also been said that the army’s march into Hyderabad did not just target the razakars and the radical extremist forces.
• A four-member goodwill mission led by Pandit Sunderlal was constituted by the then Prime Minister.
• At the request of then PM Nehru, a month was spent in Hyderabad in November 1948 where evidence was gathered and at the end, a report was filed.
• Estimated thousands of people died in communal violence during the military action.

Why debate now?

• The debate about whether the day of independence was about integration into the Indian union after months of negotiations, or liberation from an autocratic monarch has continued.
• Hyderabad’s history continues to affect today’s politics.
• After Qasim Rizvi left India for Pakistan, the organisation was handed over to Abdul Wahed Owaisi, the grandfather of a present day Parliamentarian.
• And communal-sectarian politics is storming up the city of Hyderabad leading to religious tensions.

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A recently-released Malayalam film Pathonpatham Noottandu (‘Nineteenth Century’) is based on the life of Arattupuzha Velayudha Panicker, a social reformer from the Ezhava community in Kerala who lived in the 19th century.

Who was Arattupuzha Velayudha Panicker?

• Born into a well-off family of merchants in Kerala’s Alappuzha district, Panicker was one of the most influential figures in the reformation movement in the state.
• He challenged the domination of upper castes or ‘Savarnas’ and brought about changes in the lives of both men and women.
• The social reform movement in Kerala in the 19th century led to the large-scale subversion of the existing caste hierarchy and social order in the state.
• Panicker was murdered by a group of upper-caste men in 1874 at the age of 49. This makes him the ‘first martyr’ of the Kerala renaissance.

What was Panicker’s role in initiating social reforms?

• Panicker is credited with building two temples dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva, in which members of all castes and religions were allowed entry.
• One was built in his own village Arattupuzha in 1852, and one in Thanneermukkom in 1854, another village in the Alappuzha district.
• Some of his most significant contributions were in protesting for the rights of women belonging to Kerala’s backward communities.
• In 1858, he led the Achippudava Samaram strike at Kayamkulam in Alappuzha.
• This strike aimed to earn women belonging to oppressed groups the right to wear a lower garment that extended beyond the knees.
• In 1859, this was extended into the Ethappu Samaram, the struggle for the right to wear an upper body cloth by women belonging to backward castes.
• In 1860, he led the Mukkuthi Samaram at Pandalam in the Pathanamthitta district, for the rights of lower-caste women to wear ‘mukkuthi’ or nose-ring, and other gold ornaments.
• These struggles played an important role in challenging the social order and in raising the dignity of women belonging to the lower strata of society in public life.

Other work

• Apart from issues related to women, Panicker also led the first-ever strike by agricultural labourers in Kerala, the Karshaka Thozhilali Samaram, which was successful.
• He also established the first Kathakali Yogam for the Ezhava community in 1861, which led to a Kathakali performance by Ezhavas and other backward communities, another first for them.

Try this PYQ:

Q. The Shri Narayan Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP) Movement(1902-03) was related to which of the following community?

a) Mopilla Community

b) South Indian Tea Planters

c) Ezhava Community in Kerala

d) North Eastern Tea Planters

 

Post your answers here.

9

Please leave a feedback on thisx

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Lok Sabha Speaker, who is currently in Canada for the 65th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, will travel to Mexico where he will unveil statues of Swami Vivekananda and Maharashtra-born freedom fighter and agriculturalist Pandurang Khankhoje.

Who was Pandurang Khankhoje (1883-1967)?

• Born in Wardha, Maharashtra, in the late 19th century, Pandurang Khankhoje came in contact with other revolutionaries early on.
• As a student, Khankhoje was an ardent admirer of the French Revolution and of the American War of Independence.
• Closer to home, the Hindu reformer Swami Dayanand and his Arya Samaj movement, which called for a spirit of reform and social change, became the hero to a young student group led by Khankhoje.

Revolutionary activities abroad

• Khankhoje decided to go abroad for further training in revolutionary methods and militaristic strategy.
• At this time, the British government’s suspicions of him were also growing due to his anti-government activities.
• Before leaving, he visited Bal Gangadhar Tilak, by whom he was inspired.
• Tilak advised him to go to Japan, which was itself a strong, anti-West Asian imperialistic force then.
• After spending time with nationalists from Japan and China, Khankhoje eventually moved to the US, where he enrolled in college as a student of agriculture.

Participation in the Indian independence movement

• Khankhoje was one of the founding members of the Ghadar Party, established by Indians living abroad in 1914, mostly belonging to Punjab.
• Its aim was to lead a revolutionary fight against the British in India.
• While in the US, Khankhoje met Lala Har Dayal, an Indian intellectual teaching at Stanford University.
• Har Dayal had begun a propaganda campaign, publishing a newspaper that featured patriotic songs and articles in the vernacular languages of India.
• This was the seed from which the Ghadar Party would emerge.

How did Khankhoje reach Mexico?

• At the military academy, Khankhoje met many people from Mexico.
• The Mexican Revolution of 1910 had led to the overthrow of the dictatorial regime, and this inspired Khankhoje.
• He also reached out to Indians working on farms in the US with the aim of discussing the idea of Indian independence with them.
• Along with the Indian workers, militant action was planned by Khankhoje in India, but the outbreak of the First World War halted these plans.
• He then reached out to Bhikaji Cama in Paris, and met with Vladimir Lenin in Russia among other leaders, seeking support for the Indian cause.

Association with Mexico

• As he was facing possible deportation from Europe and could not go to India, he sought shelter in Mexico.
• Soon, in part due to his prior friendship with Mexican revolutionaries, he was appointed a professor at the National School of Agriculture in Chapingo, near Mexico City.
• He researched corn, wheat, pulses and rubber, developing frost and drought-resistant varieties, and was part of efforts to bring in the Green Revolution in Mexico.
• Later on, the American agronomist Dr Norman Borlaug, called the Father of the Green Revolution in India, brought the Mexican wheat variety to Punjab.
• Khankhoje was revered as an agricultural scientist in Mexico.

Return to India

• Both Pandurang and Jean returned to India after 1947.
• His application for visa was initially rejected by the Indian government due to the ban by the British Indian Government, but was eventually overturned.
• He settled in Nagpur and subsequently embarked on a political career.
• Pandurang Khankhoje died on 22 January 1967.

The 119-year-old Curzon Gate in Bardhaman in West Bengal is at the centre of a political row.

Who was Lord Curzon?

• Born in 1859, Curzon was a British conservative politician who was educated at the elite institutions of Eton and Oxford.
• He served as Under-Secretary of State for India (1891-1892), and for Foreign Affairs (1895-1898), before being appointed Viceroy of India in 1899.
• As viceroy, his administration was known for intense activity and emphasis on efficiency.
• He stated in his budget speech in 1904, “Efficiency of administration is, in my view, a synonym for the contentment of the governed”.

Rise to infame

• Of all the Viceroys of India, Curzon is possibly the most criticised — he is the man who partitioned Bengal in 1905, and triggered a wave of Bengali nationalism that contributed to the wider Indian national movement.
• He was also one of the more openly imperialist of viceroys, and a man who saw Britain’s rule over India as critical to the survival of empire.
• In 1900, Curzon famously stated, “We could lose all our [white settlement] dominions and still survive, but if we lost India, our sun would sink to its setting.”

His works

• Curzon created a separate Muslim majority province of the North-West Frontier Province, sent a British expedition to Tibet and established a separate police service.
• He was instrumental in establishing the Archaeological Survey of India, in order to study and protect historical monuments.
• Early on in his career, Curzon earned some praise from his colonial subjects for taking action against Europeans in a number of high-profile racist attacks against Indians.
• In 1899, he punished white soldiers for raping a woman in Rangoon; he disciplined soldiers of the 9th Lancers for beating an Indian cook in Sialkot to death in 1902.
• He had tried unsuccessfully to get the Calcutta High Court to change the meagre punishment given to an Assam tea manager for murdering a “coolie”.

Why was he disliked then?

• Curzon was both vexed and enraged by the growing nationalist movement in India and he sought to throttle the growing aspirations of the educated Indian middle class.
• A staunch imperialist, he took a series of extremely unpopular measures, including passing, in 1899, the Calcutta Municipal Amendment Act.
• He reduced the number of elected representatives in the Calcutta Corporation.
• Among others was the Indian Universities Act (1904), that placed Calcutta University under government control, and the Indian Official Secrets Amendment Act (1904) which reduced the freedom of the press even further.
• Ironically though, it was his biggest and most reviled decision — to partition Bengal in 1905 — that led to a spurt in nationalist sentiment and revitalized the Congress.

How and why did the partition of Bengal take place?

• Calcutta was the capital of the British Raj, and Bengal Presidency was one of the largest provinces in India, populated by more than 78 million people.
• It was such a huge province encompassing present-day West Bengal, Bangladesh, Bihar, parts of Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Assam.
• For long, the British had maintained that Bengal was too large to efficiently manage and administer; it was also believed that with Calcutta as the nerve centre of the educated nationalists, the resistance to colonial rule would only increase.
• Home Secretary H H Risley noted in 1904, “Bengal united is a power; Bengal divided will pull in several different ways.

Actual course of Partition

• In July 1905, Curzon announced the partition of Bengal into two provinces.
• East Bengal and Assam, with a population of 38 million, was predominately Muslim, while the western province, called Bengal, and was reduced to 55 million people, primarily Hindus.
• Protests began almost immediately after the announcement, with meetings taking place in more than 300 cities, towns, and villages across Bengal.

What were the consequences of the partition?

• In opposition to the partition, nationalist leaders organized a campaign a boycott British goods and institutions and encouraged the use of local products.
• After a formal resolution was passed at a meeting in Calcutta in August 1905, the Swadeshi movement began.
• Students were at the forefront of the movement, which was characterized by boycotts of British educational institutions and law courts, and large bonfires of imported cotton textiles.
• There was a surge in nationalist rhetoric, and the song ‘Bande Mataram’, set to music by Rabindranath Tagore, became the informal anthem of the movement.
• The Swadeshi movement and boycott was not restricted to Bengal, and spread to other parts of the country, including Punjab, Maharashtra, and parts of the Madras Presidency.
• A number of secret societies, such as the Anushilan Samiti of Bengal, sought to overthrow British rule through violent means.
• Revolutionary groups used bombs, attempted to assassinate colonial officials, and engaged in armed robberies to finance their activities.

(Irreversible) Revocation of the Partition

• In 1905, Curzon resigned and returned to England after losing a power struggle with the commander-in-chief of the British Army, Lord Kitchener.
• The protests continued after his exit, and the colonial government in 1911 announced the reunification of Bengal.
• Thenceforth the capital of the Raj was shifted from Calcutta to Delhi.

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The Gadgil Wada of Pune was recently lighted into tricolour for the 75th anniversary of Independence.

Gadgil Wada was where plans for the reconstitution of the socialist Rashtra Seva Dal took place in early 1940s, with socialists like S.M. Joshi, N.G. Gore, Shirubhau Limaye and Kakasaheb in the lead.

Kakasaheb Gadgil

• Gadgil was an Indian freedom fighter and politician from Maharashtra, India.
• He was also a writer. He wrote in both Marathi and English.
• Gadgil graduated from Fergusson College in Pune in 1918, and obtained a degree in Law in 1920.
• In India’s pre-independence days, freedom fighters Lokmanya Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Vallabhbhai Patel influenced Gadgil.
• He joined the Indian National Congress in 1920, immediately after obtaining his law degree and started his active participation in the national freedom movement.
• He suffered imprisonment from the ruling British government eight times for the participation.

Notable work during freedom struggle

• In India’s pre-independence days, Gadgil served as the secretary of Poona District Congress Committee (1921–25), the president of Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (1937–45).
• He was elected to the central Legislative Assembly in 1934.
• Gadgil was a pioneer in social reform movements in Maharashtra in the 1930s.
• During the Civil Disobedience Movement, which began in 1930, Gadgil was listed as a leader for the Maharashtra Civil Disobedience Committee and the Pune War Council.
• He was associated with several public associations and institutions, including Sarvajanik Sabha, Pune; Young Men’s Association, Pune; Maharashtra Youth League, Bombay; Pune Central Cooperative Bank; and Pune Municipality.

Service after India’s independence

• Between 1947 and 1952 Gadgil served as a minister in the first central cabinet of independent India.
• He held the portfolios of Public Works, and Mines and Power.
• In his first year in the central Cabinet, he initiated the project of building a military-caliber road from Pathankot to Srinagar via Jammu in Kashmir as a part of India’s activities in the 1947 Indo-Pakistan War.
• As a cabinet minister, he also initiated the important development projects pertaining to Bhakra, Koyna, and Hirakund dams.
• He was a member of the Congress Working Committee from 1952 to 1955.
• His son Vitthalrao Gadgil was a veteran congressman and MP from Pune Lok Sabha constituency, and his grandson Anant Gadgil is currently spokesman for Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee.

Authorship

• Gadgil wrote several books and articles on politics, economics, law, and history.
• The following are some of Gadgil’s books:

1. Pathik (autobiography)
2. Rajya Shastra Wichar
3. Shubha Shastra
4. Waktrutwa Shastra
5. Gyanbache Arthashastra
6. Government from Inside
7. Shikhancha Itihaas (history of Sikhs)

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In his Independence Day address to the nation the Prime Minister paid tributes to women freedom fighters for showing the world the true meaning of India’s “nari shakti”. A look at the women he named in his speech:

Rani Laxmibai

• The queen of the princely state of Jhansi, Rani Laxmibai is known for her role in the First War of India’s Independence in 1857.
• Born Manikarnika Tambe in 1835, she married the king of Jhansi.
• The couple adopted a son before the king’s death, which the British East India Company refused to accept as the legal heir and decided to annex Jhansi.
• Refusing to cede her territory, the queen decided to rule on behalf of the heir, and later joined the uprising against the British in 1857.
• Cornered by the British, she escaped from Jhansi fort. She was wounded in combat near Gwalior’s Phool Bagh, where she later died.
• Sir Hugh Rose, who was commanding the British army, is known to have described her as “personable, clever…and one of the most dangerous Indian leaders”.

Jhalkari Bai

• A soldier in Rani Laxmibai’s women’s army, Durga Dal, she rose to become one of the queen’s most trusted advisers.
• She is known for putting her own life at risk to keep the queen out of harm’s way.
• Till date, the story of her valour is recalled by the people of Bundelkhand, and she is often presented as a representative of Bundeli identity.
• According to Ministry of Culture’s Amrit Mahotsav website, “Many Dalit communities of the region look up to her as an incarnation of God and also celebrate Jhalkaribai Jayanti every year in her honour.”

Durga Bhabhi

• Durgawati Devi, who was popularly known as Durga Bhabhi, was a revolutionary who joined the armed struggle against colonial rule.
• A member of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha, she helped Bhagat Singh escape in disguise from Lahore after the 1928 killing of British police officer John P Saunders.
• During the train journey that followed, Durgawati and Bhagat Singh posed as a couple, and Rajguru as their servant.
• Later, as revenge for the hanging of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev, she made an unsuccessful attempt to kill the former Punjab Governor, Lord Hailey.
• Born in Allahabad in 1907 and married to Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) member Bhagwati Charan Vohra, Durgawati, along with other revolutionaries, also ran a bomb factory in Delhi.

Rani Gaidinliu

• Born in 1915 in present-day Manipur, Rani Gaidinliu was a Naga spiritual and political leader who fought the British.
• She joined the Heraka religious movement which later became a movement to drive out the British. She rebelled against the Empire, and refused to pay taxes, asking people to do the same.
• The British launched a manhunt, but she evaded arrest, moving from village to village.
• Gaidinliu was finally arrested in 1932 when she was just 16, and later sentenced for life. She was released in 1947.
• Then PM Nehru described Gaidinliu as the “daughter of the hills”, and gave her the title of ‘Rani’ for her courage.

Rani Chennamma

• The queen of Kittur, Rani Chennamma, was among the first rulers to lead an armed rebellion against British rule.
• Kittur was a princely state in present-day Karnataka.
• She fought back against the attempt to control her dominion in 1824 after the death of her young son. She had lost her husband, Raja Mallasarja, in 1816.
• She is seen among the few rulers of the time who understood the colonial designs of the British.
• Rani Chennamma defeated the British in her first revolt, but was captured and imprisoned during the second assault by the East India Company.

Begum Hazrat Mahal

• After her husband, Nawab of Awadh Wajid Ali Shah, was exiled after the 1857 revolt, Begum Hazrat Mahal, along with her supporters, took on the British and wrested control of Lucknow.
• She was forced into a retreat after the colonial rulers recaptured the area.

Velu Nachiyar

• Many years before the revolt of 1857, Velu Nachiyar waged a war against the British and emerged victorious. Born in Ramanathapuram in 1780, she was married to the king of Sivagangai.
• After her husband was killed in battle with the East India Company, she entered the conflict, and won with support of neighbouring kings.
• She went on to produce the first human bomb as well as establish the first army of trained women soldiers in the late 1700s.
• Her army commander Kuyili is believed to have set herself ablaze and walked into a British ammunition dump.
• She was succeeded by her daughter in 1790, and died a few years later in 1796.

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Inspiring and controversial, this article explains the history of slogans that have endured in India’s politics.

(1) ‘Jai Hind’ by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

• Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose popularised ‘Jai Hind’ as a salutation for soldiers of his Indian National Army (INA), which fought alongside Netaji’s ally Japan in the Second World War.
• But according to some accounts, Netaji did not actually coin the slogan.
• A book says the term was coined by Zain-ul Abideen Hasan, the son of a collector from Hyderabad, who had gone to Germany to study.
• There, he met Bose and eventually left his studies to join the INA.
• Khan was tasked by Bose to look for a military greeting or salutation for the INA’s soldiers, a slogan which was not caste or community-specific, given the all-India basis of the INA.
• The idea for ‘Jai Hind’ came to Hasan when he was at the Konigsbruck camp in Germany.

(2) ‘Tum mujhe khoon do, main tumhe aazadi doonga’ by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

• This slogan had origins in a speech Netaji made in Myanmar, then called Burma, on July 4, 1944.
• Underlining his core philosophy of violence being necessary to achieve independence, he said, “Friends! My comrades in the War of Liberation! Today I demand of you one thing, above all.
• He ended the speech saying “Tum mujhe khoon do, main tumhe aazadi doonga” (Give me blood and I promise you freedom).

(3) ‘Vande Mataram’ by Bankim Chandra Chatterji

• The term refers to a sense of respect expressed to the motherland.
• In 1870, Bengali novelist Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay wrote a song which would go on to assume a national stature, but would also be seen as communally divisive by some.
• Written in Bengali, the song titled ‘Vande Mataram’ was not introduced into the public sphere until the publishing of the novel Anandamath in 1882, of which the song is a part.
• Vande Mataram soon became the forefront of sentiments expressed during the freedom movement.
• The novel, set in the early 1770s came against the backdrop of the Fakir-Sannyasi Rebellion against the British in Bengal.

(4) ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ by Maulana Hasrat Mohani

• ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ (Long live the revolution) was first used by Maulana Hasrat Mohani in 1921.
• Hasrat was his pen name (takhallus) as a revolutionary Urdu poet, which also became his identity as a political leader.
• Hasrat Mohani was a labour leader, scholar, poet and also one of the founders of the Communist Party of India in 1925.
• Along with Swami Kumaranand — also involved in the Indian Communist movement — Mohani first raised the demand for complete independence or ‘Poorna Swaraj’, at the Ahmedabad session of the Congress in 1921.
• His stress on Inquilab was inspired by his urge to fight against social and economic inequality, along with colonialism.
• Before Mohani coined this slogan, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia made the idea of revolution symbolic of the struggle for oppressed nationalities globally.
• It was from the mid-1920s that this slogan became a war cry of Bhagat Singh and his Naujawan Bharat Sabha, as well as his Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA).

(5) ‘Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna’ by Bismil Azimabadi

• This is the first line of a poem written by Bismil Azimabadi (and NOT Ramprasad Bismil), a freedom fighter and poet from Bihar, after the Jallianwalah Bagh Massacre of 1921 in Amritsar, Punjab.
• The lines were popularised by Ram Prasad Bismil, another revolutionary.
• He was a part of the Kakori train robbery, a successful and ambitious operation in which a train filled with British goods and money was robbed for Indian fighters to purchase arms.

(6) ‘Do or Die’ by Gandhi Ji

• In 1942, the Second World War commencing and the failure of Stafford Cripps Missions – which only promised India a ‘dominion status’ where it would still have to bear allegiance to the King of England .
• This made Gandhi Ji realise that the movement for freedom needed to be intensified.
• On August 8, 1942, the All-India Congress Committee met in Gowalia Tank Maidan (August Kranti Maidan) in Bombay.
• Gandhi addressed thousands after the meeting to spell out the way forward.

(7) ‘Quit India’ by Yusuf Meherally

• While Gandhi gave the clarion call of ‘Quit India’, the slogan was coined by Yusuf Meherally, a socialist and trade unionist who also served as Mayor of Mumbai.
• A few years ago, in 1928, Meherally had also coined the slogan “Simon Go Back” to protest the Simon Commission – that although was meant to work on Indian constitutional reform, but lacked any Indians.
• Meherally was a Congress Socialist Party member who was actively involved in anti-government protests.

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The fort of legendry Vannuramma in Nallamala forest in the present day Mydukur mandal of Kadapa district is trending due to its rundown condition.

Who was Vannuramma?

• Vannuramma ruled five ‘Durgams’ (under fiefdom) between 1781 and 1796 with Sakarlapadu as the administrative headquarters.
• According to historical accounts, she was born in Pathimadugu Rekulakunta, now in Kadapa district, and got married to Veerneni Chinna Narasimha Naidu in 1764.
• The family had the practice of praying at Vannuru Swamy temple in Kalyanadurgam of Anantapur district.
• Vannuramma thus got her name as she was born, as believed, as the god’s gift.
• Though there are not many historical accounts, Kadapa-based writer Bommisetty Ramesh brought out the first book last year on her.
• Based on information culled out from the Mackenzie Kaifiyat of Kadapa, he extensively toured the region ruled by her, collected folklore and verified the same with historians.

Her legend

• The very mention of the name ‘Vannuramma’ brought chill to the spine of the Matli kings and Kadapa Nawabs.
• Of all the Polegars (local chieftains) who had ruled the regional territories of Rayalaseema before the advent of the British, the lone woman ruler remains forgotten from the pages of history.
• Under attack from fellow Polegars, Vannuramma’s family fled Thippireddypalle and took shelter in Chagalamarri fort, where they lived for eight years before her husband breathed his last in 1780.
• Vannuramma wielded the sword when the Matli king Appayya Raju and Mysore Sultan Hyder Ali’s follower Meeru Saheb waged a war, invaded Sakerlapadu Durgam and robbed the property of locals.
• Mobilising her army, she declared a war and brought the territory back into her fold in 1781.

Her death

• Even the Golconda Nawabs, through their Kadapa henchman Khadarvali Khan, tried in vain to control her.
• It was then they hatched a plan to woo her adopted son and arrested her on some flimsy charges.
• When the unsuspecting Vannuramma attended the Matli king’s court to prove her innocence, she was slapped with charges of treason.
• The Nawabs captured her and sentenced her with ‘Korthi’, an inhuman form of punishment where a person is made to sit on a sharpened tree stump and left to die.
• Vannuramma died in full public view in the year 1718 of Salivahana Saka, which translates to August 16, 1796, i.e., 226 years back.

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Union Education and Skill Development Minister has urged NCERT and the Education fraternity to include enough information about Anushilan Samiti, especially in the upcoming National Curriculum Framework

Anushilan Samiti

• Anushilan Samiti was an Indian fitness club, which was actually used as an underground society for anti-British revolutionaries.
• It was founded by Satish Chandra Pramatha Mitra, Aurobindo Ghose and Sarala Devi.
• In the first quarter of the 20th century it supported revolutionary violence as the means for ending British rule in India.
• The organisation arose from a conglomeration of local youth groups and gyms (akhara) in Bengal in 1902.
• It had two prominent, somewhat independent, arms in East and West Bengal, Dhaka Anushilan Samiti (centred in Dhaka), and the Jugantar group (centred in Calcutta).
• It challenged British rule in India by engaging in militant nationalism, including bombings, assassinations, and politically motivated violence.

Revolutionary activities

• The Samiti collaborated with other revolutionary organisations in India and abroad.
• It was led by the nationalists Aurobindo Ghosh and his brother Barindra Ghosh, influenced by philosophies like Italian Nationalism, and the Pan-Asianism of Kakuzo Okakura.
• The Samiti was involved in a number of noted incidents of revolutionary attacks against British interests and administration in India, including early attempts to assassinate British Raj officials.
• These were followed by the 1912 attempt on the life of the Viceroy of India, and the Seditious conspiracy during World War I, led by Rash Behari Bose and Jatindranath Mukherjee respectively.

Defiance from militant nationalism

• The organisation moved away from its philosophy of violence in the 1920s due to the influence of the Indian National Congress and the Gandhian non-violent movement.
• A section of the group, notably those associated with Sachindranath Sanyal, remained active in the revolutionary movement, founding the Hindustan Republican Association in north India.
• A number of Congress leaders from Bengal, especially Subhash Chandra Bose, were accused by the British Government of having links with the organisation during this time.
• The Samiti’s violent and radical philosophy revived in the 1930s, when it was involved in the Kakori conspiracy, the Chittagong armoury raid, and other actions against the administration in British-occupied India.

Other personalities associated with Anushilan Samiti

• Legends like, Deshabandhu Chittaranjan Das, Surendranath Tagore, Jatindranath Banerjee, Bagha Jatin were associated with Anushilan Samiti.
• Dr Hedgewar who established the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was also an alumnus of the Samity.

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Hundred years ago, in August 1922 the “Rampa Rebellion” or “Manyam Rebellion” took place in the forests of the Godavari Agency in the Madras Presidency.

Rampa Rebellion

• The Rampa Rebellion of 1922, also known as the Manyam Rebellion, was a tribal uprising led by Alluri Sitarama Raju in Godavari Agency.
• It began in August 1922 and lasted until the capture and killing of Raju in May 1924.
• Forced labour, embargoes on collecting minor forest produce and bans on tribal agriculture practices led to severe distress among the Koyas in the area.
• Sitarama Raju did not belong to the tribal community, but understood the restrictions that the British colonial administration placed on the tribal way of life.

Background of the revolt

• The Rampa administrative area comprised around 1,800 square km and had a mostly tribal population of approximately 28,000.
• They had traditionally been able to support their food requirements through the use, in particular, of the podu system, whereby each year some areas of jungle forest were burned to clear land for cultivation.
• The British Raj authorities had wanted to improve the economic usefulness of lands in Godavari Agency, an area that was noted for the prevalence of malaria and blackwater fever.
• The traditional cultivation methods were greatly hindered when the authorities took control of the forests, mostly for commercial purposes such as produce for building railways and ships.
• This was done regardless of the needs of the tribal people.

Why did people revolt?

• The tribal people of the forested hills, who now faced starvation had long felt that the legal system favoured the muttadar (estate landowners) and merchants.
• This had also resulted in the earlier Rampa Rebellion of 1879.
• Now they objected also to the Raj laws and continued actions that hindered their economic position and meant they had to find alternate livelihood.
• They objected to attempts at that time to use them as forced labour in the construction of a road in the area.

Role of Raju

• Raju was a charismatic sanyasin, believed by many tribal people to possess magical abilities and to have an almost messianic status.
• He saw the overthrow of colonial rule in terms similar to a millenarian event and he harnessed the discontent of the tribal people to support his anti-colonial zeal.

Course of revolt

• Alluri Sitarama Raju, along with 500 tribal people, attacked the police stations of Chintapalli, Krishnadevipeta and Rajavommangi.
• They walked away with 26 police carbine rifles and 2,500 rounds of ammunition.
• Legend has it that Alluri himself would forewarn the British officers of an imminent attack and would challenge them to stop him with the superior resources that they had at hand.
• He was finally captured, tied to a tree and shot dead.

Try this PYQ:

Q. With reference to the history of India, “Ulgulan” or the Great Tumult is the description of which of the following event?

(a) The Revolt of 1857

(b) The Mappila Rebellion of 1921

(c) The Indigo Revolt of 1859-60

(d) Birsa Munda’s Revolt of 1899-1900

 

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Political factions in Bihar has planned to organise the birth anniversary of the 1857 uprising hero Veer Kunwar Singh on April 23 at Jagdishpur in Bhojpur.

Veer Kunwar Singh

• Kunwar Singh also known as Babu Kunwar Singh was a leader during the uprising of 1857.
• He belonged to a family of the Ujjainiya clan of the Parmar Rajputs of Jagdispur, currently a part of Bhojpur district, Bihar.
• At the age of 80, he led a selected band of armed soldiers against the troops under the command of the British East India Company.
• He was the chief organiser of the fight against the British in Bihar.
• He is popularly known as Veer Kunwar Singh or Veer Babu Kunwar Singh.

Role in 1857 Uprising

• Singh led the Indian Rebellion of 1857 in Bihar. He was nearly eighty and in failing health when he was called upon to take up arms.
• He was assisted by both his brother, Babu Amar Singh and his commander-in-chief, Hare Krishna Singh.
• He gave a good fight and harried British forces for nearly a year and remained invincible until the end.
• He was an expert in the art of guerrilla warfare.

In popular culture

• To honour his contribution to India’s freedom movement, the Centre issued a commemorative stamp on 23 April 1966.
• The Government of Bihar established the Veer Kunwar Singh University, Arrah, in 1992.

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The Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) has deferred its decision on a recommendation to remove the 1921 Malabar Rebellion martyrs, including Variamkunnaathu Kunhahamad Haji and Ali Musliyar, from the list of India’s freedom fighters.

Malabar Rebellion

• The Malabar Rebellion in 1921 started as resistance against the British colonial rule and the feudal system in southern Malabar but ended in communal violence between Hindus and Muslims.
• There were a series of clashes between Mappila peasantry and their landlords, supported by the British, throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.
• It began as a reaction against a heavy-handed crackdown on the Khilafat Movement, a campaign in defence of the Ottoman Caliphate by the British authorities in the Eranad and Valluvanad taluks of Malabar.
• The Mappilas attacked and took control of police stations, British government offices, courts and government treasuries.

Who was Variyankunna Kunjahammed Haji?

• He was one of the leaders of the Malabar Rebellion of 1921.
• He raised 75000 natives, seized control of large territory from the British rule and set up a parallel government.
• In January 1922, under the guise of a treaty, the British betrayed Haji through his close friend Unyan Musaliyar, arresting him from his hideout and producing him before a British judge.
• He was sentenced to death along with his compatriots.

Back2Basics: “Dictionary of Martyrs” Project

• The project for compilation of “Dictionary of Martyrs” of India’s Freedom Struggle was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, to the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) to commemorate the 150th anniversary of uprising of 1857.
• In this dictionary a martyr has been defined as a person who died or who was killed in action or in detention, or was awarded capital punishment while participating in the national movement for emancipation of India.
• It includes ex-INA or ex-military personnel who died fighting the British.
• Information of about 13,500 martyrs has been recorded in these volumes.

Who are included?

• It includes the martyrs of 1857 Uprising, Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (1919), Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-22), Civil Disobedience Movement (1930-34), Quit India Movement (1942-44), Revolutionary Movements (1915-34), Kissan Movements, Tribal Movements, Agitation for Responsible Government in the Princely States (Prajamandal), Indian National Army (INA, 1943-45), Royal Indian Navy Upsurge (RIN, 1946), etc.

Five Volumes

• Volume 1: In this volume, more than 4400 martyrs of Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh have been listed.
• Volume 2: In this volume more than 3500 martyrs of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Jammu & Kashmir have been listed.
• Volume 3: The number of martyrs covered in this volume is more than 1400. This volume covers the martyrs of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Sind.
• Volume 4: The numbers of martyrs covered in this volume is more than 3300. This volume covers the martyrs of Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura.
• Volume 5: The number of martyrs covered in this volume is more than 1450. This volume covers the martyrs of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Try this question from CSP 2020:

Q. With reference to the history of India, “Ulgulan” or the Great Tumult is the description of which of the following event?

(a) The Revolt of 1857

(b) The Mappila Rebellion of 1921

(c) The Indigo Revolt of 1859-60

(d) Birsa Munda’s Revolt of 1899-1900

 

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The Gujarat government has marked 100 years of the Pal-Dadhvav killings, calling it a massacre “bigger than the Jallianwala Bagh”.

Pal-Dadhvav Massacre

• The massacre took place on March 7, 1922, in the Pal-Chitariya and Dadhvaav villages of Sabarkantha district, then part of Idar state.
• The day was Amalki Ekadashi, which falls just before Holi, a major festival for tribals.
• Villagers from Pal, Dadhvav, and Chitariya had gathered on the banks of river Heir as part of the ‘Eki movement’, led by one Motilal Tejawat.
• The movement was to protest against the land revenue tax (lagaan) imposed on the peasants by the British and feudal lords.
• Tejawat, who belonged to Koliyari village in the Mewad region of Rajasthan, had also mobilised Bhils from Kotda Chhavni, Sirohi, and Danta to participate.

The fateful day

• Tejawat had been outlawed by the Udaipur state, which had announced a Rs-500 reward on his head.
• The Mewad Bhil Corps (MBC), a paramilitary force raised by the British that was on the lookout for Tejawat, heard of this gathering and reached the spot.
• On a command from Tejawat, nearly 2000 Bhils raised their bows and arrows and shouted in unison- ‘We will not pay the tax’.
• The MBC commanding officer, HG Sutton, ordered his men to fire upon them creating a huge stampede.
• Nearly 1,000 tribals (Bhils) fell to bullets. While the British claimed some 22 people were killed, the Bhils believe 1,200-1,500 of them died.

Must read:

Important Rebellions and Peasant Movements

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Maharashtra Governor has recently received flak for his remarks on the social reformist couple Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule.

Who were the Phules?

• Mahatma Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule stand out as an extraordinary couple in the social and educational history of India.
• They spearheaded path-breaking work towards female education and empowerment, and towards ending caste- and gender-based discrimination.
• In 1840, at a time when child marriages were common, Savitri at the age of ten was married to Jyotirao, who was thirteen years old at the time.
• The couple later in life strove to oppose child marriage and also organised widow remarriages.

The Phules’ endeavors and legacy

• Education: Jyotirao, the revolutionary that he was, observed the lack of opportunities for education for young girls and women.
• Leaders of the masses: He started to educate his wife at home and trained her to become a teacher. Together, by 1848, the Phules started a school for girls, Shudras and Ati-Shudras in Poona.
• Widow shelter: The historic work was started by Jyotirao when he was just 21 years old, ably supported by his 18-year-old wife. In 1853, Jyotirao-Savitribai opened a care centre for pregnant widows to have safe deliveries and to end the practice of infanticide owing to social norms.
• Prevention of infanticide: The Balhatya Pratibandhak Griha (Home for the Prevention of Infanticide) started in their own house at 395, Ganj Peth, Pune.

The Satyashodhak Samaj:

• Literally meaning ‘The Truth-Seeker’s Society’ was established on September 24, 1873 by Jyotirao-Savitribai and other like-minded people.
• The Samaj advocated for social changes that went against prevalent traditions, including economical weddings, inter-caste marriages, eradication of child marriages, and widow remarriage.
• The Phules also had far-sighted goals — popularising female education, establishing an institutional structure of schools in India, and to have a society where women worked in tandem with men.

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The stalemate continues in Visva-Bharati University as students demand the reopening of hostels and conducting of online examinations.

Visva-Bharati

• Visva-Bharati is a central research university and an Institution of National Importance located in Shantiniketan, West Bengal, India.
• It was founded by Rabindranath Tagore who called it Visva-Bharati, which means the communion of the world with India.
• Until independence, it was a college.
• Soon after independence, the institution was given the status of a central university in 1951 by an act of the Parliament.

Its establishment

• The origins of the institution date back to 1863 when Debendranath Tagore was given a tract of land by the zamindar of Raipur, zamindar of Kirnahar.
• He set up an ashram at the spot that has now come to be called chatim tala at the heart of the town.
• The ashram was initially called Brahmacharya Ashram, which was later renamed Brahmacharya Vidyalaya.
• It was established with a view to encouraging people from all walks of life to come to the spot and meditate.
• In 1901 his youngest son Rabindranath Tagore established a co-educational school inside the premises of the ashram.
• From 1901 onwards, Tagore used the ashram to organize the Hindu Mela, which soon became a center of nationalist activity.

Try this PYQ from CSP 2021:

Q. With reference to Madanapalle of Andhra Pradesh, which one of the following statements is correct?

(a) Pingali Venkayya designed the tricolour Indian National Flag here.

(b) Pattabhi Sitaramaiah led the Quit India Movement of Andhra region from here.

(c) Rabindranath Tagore translated the National Anthem from Bengali to English here.

(d) Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott set up headquarters of Theosophical Society fi rst here.

 

 

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Bihar CM has announced that February 15 would be celebrated as “Shahid Diwas” in memory of the 34 freedom fighters who were killed by police in Tarapur town of Bihar’s Munger district 90 years ago.

Why such move?

• The Tarapur massacre was the biggest carried out by the British police after the one in Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar in 1919.
• The freedom fighters had never got their due, the CM said.
• PM Modi too had referred to the Tarapur massacre in his Mann ki Baat radio address of January 2021.

Tarapur Massacre: Course of events

• On February 15, 1932, a group of young freedom fighters planned to hoist an Indian national flag at Thana Bhavan in Tarapur.
• Police were aware of the plan, and several officers were present at the spot. Around 2 pm, even as the police carried out a brutal lathicharge, Gopal Singh succeeded in raising the flag at Thana Bhavan.
• A 4,000-strong crowd pelted the police with stones, injuring an officer of the civil administration.
• The police responded by opening indiscriminate fire on the crowd.
• After about 75 rounds were fired, 34 bodies were found at the spot, even though there were claims of an even larger number of deaths.

Trigger for protest

• The hanging of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru in Lahore on March 23, 1931, sent a wave of grief and anger around the country.
• Following the collapse of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, the Mahatma was arrested in early 1932.
• The Congress was declared an illegal organization, and Nehru, Patel, and Rajendra Prasad were also thrown in jail.
• In Munger, freedom fighters Srikrishna Singh, Nemdhari Singh, Nirapad Mukherjee, Pandit Dasrath Jha, Basukinath Rai, Dinanath Sahay, and Jaymangal Shastri were arrested.
• A call given by the Congress leader Sardar Shardul Singh Kavishwar to raise the tricolour over government buildings resonated in Tarapur.

Back2Basics:

Explained: Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

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The Nation is remembering revolutionary freedom fighter and tribal leader Tilka Manjhi on his 272nd birth anniversary.

Tilka Manjhi (1750-1785)

• He organized Adivasis into an army and led the famous Santhal Hool in 1784 against the exploitative British.
• In 1770, there was a severe famine in the Santhal region and people were dying of hunger.
• Tilka Manjhi looted the treasury of the East India Company and distributed it among the poor and needy.
• Inspired by this noble act of Tilka, many other tribals also joined the rebellion.
• With this began his Santhal Hool, the revolt of the Santhals.
• He continued to attack the British and their sycophantic allies.
• From 1771 to 1784, Tilka Manjhi never surrendered.

Offensive with the colonists

• Tilka Majhi attacked Augustus Cleveland, an East India Company administrator and fatally wounded him.
• The British surrounded the Tilapore forest from which he operated but he and his men held them at bay for several weeks.
• When he was finally caught in 1784, he was tied to the tail of a horse and dragged all the way to the Collector’s residence at Bhagalpur, Bihar, India.
• There, his deeply wounded body was hung from a Banyan tree.

Try this question from CSP 2018:

Q.After the Santhal uprising subsided, what was/ were the measure/measures taken by the colonial government?

1. The territories called ‘Santhal Paraganas’ were created.
2. It became illegal for a Santhal to transfer land to a non Santhal.

Select the correct answer using the code given below:

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

 

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The Registry Building, a two-storey structure at Chandernagore built in 1875 and a symbol of French settlement of the colonial town, has been awaiting restoration for a long time.

French in India

• France was the last of the major European maritime powers of the 17th century to enter the East India trade.
• The French settlement in India began in 1673 with the purchase of land at Chandernagore from the Mughal Governor of Bengal.
• The next year they acquired Pondicherry from the Sultan of Bijapur. Both became the centers of maritime commercial activities of the French in India.
• Joseph Francois Dupleix who was initially appointed as Intendent of Chandernagore in 1731, sowed the seeds of colonization.
• The village, which hitherto was engaged in maritime commerce along with Pondicherry, got fortified by him.

Significance of Chandernagore

• Chandernagore, though a part of French colonies in India, was unique in many ways.
• It was very active in spearheading the freedom movement against the British. Due to its close proximity to Calcutta, it became a safe haven for freedom fighters of all hues.
• Even Aurobindo Ghosh who was one of the accused in the Alipore Bomb case of 1909, was acquitted unconditionally and after a short stay at Chandernagore moved to Pondicherry.
• Since the partition of Bengal in 1905, Chandernagore was in the thick of activities of freedom fighters against the British and produced several martyrs including Kanailal Dutt.

Merger into India

• As the British decided to hand over powers to the people of India by August 15, 1947, the people living under French rule in Pondicherry, Chandernagore, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam were eager to join their homeland.
• But the French were yet to learn their lessons. They tried all the tricks in the book to avert this.
• Facing the onslaught from the people under their rule and the British and Indian rulers, the French declared Chandernagore as free city in 1947.
• In June 1948, they conducted a referendum in which an overwhelming majority of 97 per cent people opted for a merger with India.
• After so many legal hurdles, it became a part of India on October 2, 1955.

Back2Basics: European Colonies in India

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