Savarkar
Page 7
Despite these cautionary words from the governor, the British in general and Walter Rand, in particular, were keen to eradicate the plague quickly as it adversely affected their commercial interests. European countries were refusing to purchase goods from Indian territories as they feared that the epidemic might spread. The Government of India passed the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, that empowered authorities to take drastic steps to contain the plague. Ironically, by 12 March 1897, instead of doctors and nurses, 893 officers and men—both British and native—were placed on plague duty. It was incumbent on the principal occupant of every house to report any case of outbreak of plague or deaths caused by it in their family to the committee. In their zeal, Rand and his men ruthlessly searched every house to find plague victims, showing little respect even for places of worship, ill-treating old men and molesting women. Victims of plague were forced to vacate their houses overnight and leave the town to live in isolation camps. Their possessions were destroyed or burnt. At a time when the patients needed treatment, rest and recuperation, they were hounded out of their homes and all their properties and possessions destroyed to quarantine the town. Funerals were declared unlawful until the deaths were registered. This constant harassment by the soldiers caused a deep sense of hatred and resentment. Tilak thundered in the Kesari about the inhuman conduct of Rand’s men and criticized the methods adopted by the Plague Committee. ‘The Government should not have entrusted the execution of this order to a suspicious, sullen and tyrannical officer like Rand,’ noted Tilak. 17
And then one day, on the evening of 22 June 1897, Poona shook to its very foundations. Walter Rand and his lieutenant, Charles Ayerst, were shot at. Rand lingered on for a few days before succumbing to his injuries; Ayerst died immediately. The assassins, it later emerged, were two brothers, Damodar Hari Chapekar and Balakrishna Hari Chapekar. It seemed like their actions were a protest and revenge against the repressive plague control measures that Rand had implemented. Who were the Chapekars who had in effect reignited the spark of revolution that had dimmed after Wasudev Balwant Phadke’s death?
The three Chapekar brothers—Damodar, Balakrishna and Vasudev—were driven by a revolutionary zeal of religion-based nationalism. Around 1885, their father, Hari Bhau, who was a kirtankar (professional singer of devotional songs) migrated to Poona from their native place Chinchwad. His young sons barely received any formal education. They were known to mock those who took English education and did not even spare Ranade or Tilak. In his autobiography, Damodar Chapekar writes: ‘My father had taught me the First English book at home. I studied the Second Book for four months in the New English School, but having in the meantime imbibed a dislike for the English language and left off studying it.’ 18
The young Chapekars were a witness to the upsurge of nationalistic feelings brought about by Tilak’s Ganapati and Shivaji festivals. They were volunteers at the festivals and actively participated in the melas, performing acrobatics and cultural programmes. But soon they were disillusioned even with these festivals and their grandiose arrangements. The ‘great deal of talk’ in these festivals ‘exasperated’ them. 19 They believed that the ostentatiousness involved would not have been something that even Shivaji, had he been alive, would have approved. The real tribute to Shivaji was not in talking about him or celebrating him in grandeur, but in picking up arms and fighting for the nation as their hero did. They dismissed the constitutional methods of the Congress, which they dismissed as a sham and a mere ‘talkative body’ and were not inspired even by the mass politics of extremist nationalists like Tilak. 20
Damodar, whose views had inspired his two younger brothers, strongly believed that it was English education that had led to the moral degradation of Indians and diverted them away from their cultural moorings to the path of vice. The British Empire to him was not just political subjugation but also included social, religious and cultural. Damodar notes:
So strange is the influence of the study of English that if one simply intends to learn that language or if a child learns by heart only the first two or three letters of its alphabets, he begins at once to look upon his elders as fools and despises his good and ancient religion. If the mere odour of English education has this effect, where is the wonder if any righteous person who fully tastes it should turn an Englishman from top to toe and an earnest votary of the bottle? 21
. . . When the English assumed the administration of India they thought it necessary to extinguish the spirit of the Hindus by making them addicted to the vice of education. 22
As devout Hindus, they found the British interference in their religious customs and practices reprehensible. The Scoble Bill was one such example of British interference. The general pro-Muslim policies of the British, including supporting Muslim claims when it came to matters of playing processional music outside mosques, angered the Chapekars. Incidentally, in 1894, Walter Rand had ruthlessly punished some respectable Hindus in Wai for playing musical instruments before a masjid, thus breaking government rules. 23
After failing to get enlisted in the army despite several attempts, possibly because of the British policy of excluding Chitpawans from government services and the army, Damodar Chapekar notes:
A system of administration so cruel as that of the English cannot, even if search be made, be found, in any region of this globe. Far better were the tyrannical Yavana kings who with sword in hands actually cut the throats of men as if there were so many goats. But the English are perfidious and I positively declare that no other people can be found on this earth who are as villainous as they and who like them ruin others by a show of kindness . . . Hitherto there have been many cruel Yavana kings in India but they made no rules from excluding Hindus from particular appointments or for limiting the number of those open to them. 24
Damodar Chapekar created a group of more than a hundred young boys dedicated to the cause of armed revolution. This ‘Chapekar Club’ was also known as ‘Rashtra Hitecchu Mandali’ or society for promoting national interests. One of the tasks was to collect arms, which was difficult to procure in British territory and had to be purchased from the adjacent domain of the Nizam of Hyderabad. But they always suffered from a paucity of funds. 25 Elaborating on the activities of this Club, Damodar writes:
We used to teach the following exercises: wrestling, danpatta, kathi , lance exercises, high and long jumps and boxing. 4 to 6 in the evening was the appointed time . . . we also collected historical works containing accounts of warriors and established a library at the place . . . In the evening one of us two brothers used to give historical readings. Selecting some episode in ancient history, we used to deliberate upon it in a way suited to impress upon the minds of the boys a sense of self-respect and love for one’s own religion . . . Whenever in the course of our readings we came across descriptions of battles containing such terms and expressions as Morchebandi, Khandak, Ganimikava and Chapa , as well as names of arms we explained them with sufficient clarity to make them understand. 26
The group decided to smear tar and disfigure the Queen Victoria statue in Bombay. After the act, Damodar, writing under the pseudonym ‘Dandapani’ (literally meaning ‘The one with a staff in hand’) to Suryoday , a local newspaper from Thane, notified the editor about his association with the group and made its aims and objectives explicitly clear.
We have formed an association called Dandapani. Our fixed determination is to die and kill others for the sake of our religion. It’s first achievement was the blackening of the face of the statue of the Queen of England who made a distinction between Natives and Europeans . . . This Dandapani Association will not be overawed by any one. Anyone who encourages immorality, whether the Queen or someone superior to her is the enemy of this association. 27
But the ultimate path that the Chapekars chose was that of political assassination. They were inspired by tales of the Mahabharata and the Gita that spoke of how killing for swadharma, or one’s faith, and vanquishing evil by the forces of virtue were not i
mmoral. On 22 June 1897, the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria was being celebrated in Poona. Damodar and Balakrishna, each armed with a pistol, selected a spot near Ganeshkhind Road and waited for their victims in pitch darkness. Even as the official carriage was returning from Government House after the celebrations, the brothers exchanged their code words: ‘Gondya aala re aala ’ (Our target has come). Balakrishna leapt at the carriage and shot its occupant point-blank. He then realized that it was not Rand but his military escort, Ayerst, whom he had shot. The road was too dark for the coachman of the carriage that was following behind to notice what had happened in front. Balakrishna quickly signalled Damodar, who took his position and jumped into Rand’s carriage that followed and shot him in his head from the back. Rand was rushed to Sassoon Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries on 3 July 1897. The brothers slipped away in the darkness after accomplishing their task.
The British government was rudely awakened by these killings and announced a bounty of Rs 20,000 for information about the assassins. The Chapekars’ ex-associates, the Dravid brothers, turned informants of the government and passed on the details of the plot to the British. Based on this, the Chapekars were arrested and charged under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). In his confession recorded on 8 October 1897 before Chief Presidency Magistrate W.R. Hamilton, Damodar elaborated on the motivations behind the attack:
I went to Poona . . . the operations for the suppression of the plague were commenced . . . In search of houses a great zulum (atrocity) was practised by the soldiers. (They) entered the temples and brought out women from their houses, broke idols and burnt Pothis (holy books), we determined to revenge these actions but it was of no use to kill common people, it was necessary to kill the chief man. Therefore we determined to kill Mr Rand who was the chief. 28
Balakrishna managed to escape, but once again with the information passed on by the Dravid brothers, the government managed to intercept him. To avenge the treachery of the Dravids, the youngest brother, Vasudev, along with Mahadev Vinayak Ranade and Khando Vishnu Sathe murdered them near their house in Sadashiv Peth on 8 February 1899. All of them were however rounded up by the police.
On 18 April 1898, Damodar Hari was hanged. The following year, Vasudev, Balakrishna and Ranade were also executed on 8 May, 10 May and 12 May respectively.
The assassination and the subsequent execution of the Chapekars caused a sensation all over Bombay Presidency. The stories of their chivalry, the trial details and the manner in which they embraced the gallows with verses from the Gita on their lips moved Vinayak immensely. He was incensed when several newspapers chided the Chapekars for being misguided and rash young men. While their actions lacked strategy and careful planning, to abuse martyrs who had laid down their lives for the country was something that Vinayak simply could not accept. He lost sleep for several nights after this. In a moment of intense emotion, he rushed to the idol of the Ashtabhuja Bhawani in his home town in Bhagur and poured his heart out to her. He made a fervent vow in front of his family goddess that he was committing himself and his life to free the motherland through armed struggle. He declared in her presence: ‘Shatrus maarta maarta mare to jhunjen! ’ (I will wage war against the enemy and slay them till my last breath). Little did he know that the innocent vow taken by a teenager was to have so many repercussions on so many people—from bloodshed, attacks, executions and incarcerations. But the seed of revolutionary thought was firmly sown that night in presence of the goddess and there was no looking back thereafter.
Vinayak even wrote a prayer in the Durga Dasa Vijay that he was composing in honour of the goddess, where he beseeched her to grant him the strength to follow up on this resolve. His associates burned copies of this work a few years later when the police raided their house suspecting conspiracy, lest it land up in the wrong hands. Vinayak also wrote a play on the Chapekars, titled Veershriyukta , to spread the spirit of revolution in Bhagur, and a local theatre group of Ranoo Darji was willing to stage it too but backed out in the last minute fearing consequences. Vinayak’s poem ‘Chapekarancha Phatka’ was a rage till even the 1910s and inspired youngsters across Maharashtra. Each time he sang or recited the poem, Vinayak would tremble with emotion and his voice would choke with both anger and sorrow.
Damodarpant was deeply worried by this revolutionary turn in his son’s nature. Although it was he who had instilled patriotism and a love for Tilak and his works in Vinayak from a young age, and was proud of his metamorphosis, seeing his son become so emotionally attached to the idea at such a young age, his constant talk of murdering the British, his many sleepless nights, restless behaviour, and pensive mood worried him. One night, Damodarpant came to Vinayak’s room and saw him breaking down while writing a poem. He picked up the paper and saw that his son was writing about the Chapekars. He complimented the poetry but then with great affection held his face with both his hands and told him: ‘Tatya, you are the only hope for our family, the centre of our household and the source of support for me. Don’t put your life at risk. You have no idea what the dreadful consequences are of the path that you are trying to tread. Continue your poetry; study well, become a famous man and then do whatever you wish.’ 29 Vinayak remained silent but told himself that nothing and nobody could now change his resolve.
The general tendency in Poona and the rest of Bombay Presidency was to assert that these revolutionary deeds were the work of isolated cranks. Even the Kesari did not support the Chapekars, and Tilak called the assassination a ‘shocking tragedy at Poona which we all deplore’, although he blamed the colonial high-handedness in dealing with the plague that led to ‘feelings of dissatisfaction’. 30 This was wordplay. Tilak did not go all out to criticize them but made a fleeting and cursory condemnation of the violence. It was public knowledge that he tacitly supported the Chapekars.
But it was the Kal , a newspaper edited by the indefatigable Shivram Mahadev Paranjpe (1864–1929), that published an editorial which appeared to argue that the Chapekars had acted according to what they believed to be the law of God—a law higher than that of man. 31 Paranjpe was an old associate of Tilak. Following his brave editorials, Paranjpe was severely ostracized and was in fact barred by Dadabhai Naoroji from attending any Congress sessions, lest the organization got tainted.
The fiery articles of the Kal that shone with revolutionary zeal had a great impact on Vinayak and he became a diehard admirer of Paranjpe and the newspaper. In his own words:
Wherever I went, I would insist on reading the Kal and also used to read it out to other people . . . because there was no other journal that would (openly) justify the armed revolution . . . (and) if it (the Kal ) had not directly shaped my opinion, it certainly influenced my knowledge, understanding, linguistic style and enthusiasm . . . If at all I am to revere someone as the Guru of my revolutionary inspiration, it is certainly the Kal . 32
An unexpected fallout of the Chapekar incident was the arrest of Tilak on charges of sedition under Section 124A. It produced as evidence a speech he had made in 1897 at the Shivaji festival and which had been reported in the Kesari a few days before the assassinations. The Bombay government claimed that an unsigned report on the Shivaji festival at which Tilak and others spoke, and a poem written under a pseudonym, which was far from unique in subject, opinion or rhetorical strategies were an incitement to ‘disaffection of the Government’. 33
The poem ‘Shivaji’s Utterances’ (and signed ‘mark of the Bhawani Sword’) appeared in the editorial columns of the Kesari . In it, the eponymous figure laments the plight of India in a language that traffics in opacity. Its opening lines read: ‘By annihilating the wicked I lightened the great weight on the globe. I delivered the country by establishing Swarajya and by saving religion. I betook myself to shake off the great exhaustion which had come upon me. I was asleep, why then, did you my darlings awaken me?’
According to the unsigned report of the Shivaji festival held from 12 to 14 June 1897, Professor Jinsinwale, one of the
prominent attendees, said in his lecture: ‘If no one blames Napoleon for committing two thousand murders in Europe, if Caesar is considered merciful though he needlessly committed slaughters in Gaul . . . many a time, why should so virulent an attack be made on Shri Shivaji Maharaja for killing one or two persons? The people who took part in the French Revolution denied that they committed murders, and maintained they were removing thorns from their path, why should not the same principle be made applicable to Maharashtra?’ 34
Histories of extraordinary violence were invoked in the article to draw attention to the double standards by which Indian political violence is deemed savagery, while the same in other parts of the world is feted as chivalry. Tilak reportedly said:
Let us even assume that Shivaji first planned and then executed the murder of Afzulkhan. Was this act of the Maharaja good or bad? This question, which has to be considered should not be viewed from the standpoint of even the Penal Code or even the Smritis of Manu or Yagnavalkya or even the principles of morality laid down in the western and eastern ethical systems. The laws, which bind society, are for common men like yourselves and myself. No one seeks to trace the genealogy of a Rishi nor to fasten guilt upon a king. Great men are above the common principles of morality. These principles fell in their scope to reach the pedestal of great men. Did Shivaji commit a sin in killing Afzulkhan or now [sic]? The answer to this question can be found in the Mahabharata itself. Shrimat Krishna’s advice [teaching] in the Geeta is to kill even our teachers [and] our kinsmen. No blame attaches [to any person] if [he] is doing deeds without being actuated by a desire to reap the fruit [of his deeds]. Shri Shivaji Maharaja did nothing with a view to fill the small void of his own stomach [i.e., from interested motives]. With benevolent intentions he murdered Afzulkhan for the good of others . . . do not circumscribe your vision like a frog in a well; get out of the Penal Code, enter into the extremely high atmosphere of the Shrimat Bhagavad Geeta and then consider the actions of great men. 35