Savarkar
Page 8
Cutting across ideological barriers, several national leaders such as Seth Dwarkadas, Y.V. Nene, Surendranath Banerjea and Dadabhai Naoroji rallied around Tilak. As Surendranath Banerjea wrote: ‘For Mr Tilak my heart is full of sympathy, my feelings go forth to him in his prison-house. A nation is in tears.’ 36 Tilak was provided financial assistance by the Bengali nationalists who even established a Tilak Defence Fund. They even got the famous Calcutta barrister, L.P.E. Pugh, to defend Tilak in court and paid his fees of Rs 10,000. 37 The trial took place over six days in Bombay (8 to 14 September 1897). However, it took the jury only forty minutes to arrive at a verdict of guilty, by a vote of six to three—six Europeans and three Indians. Tilak was sentenced to eighteen months’ rigorous imprisonment but he was released a few months before the end of his sentence.
After his conviction, there was an outpouring of support for Tilak all over the country. The front page of the moderate newspaper, Bengalee , of 25 September 1897 sported a black border (as did Amrita Bazar Patrika and Indian Mirror in Calcutta) as a mark of protest and stated:
This number of the Bengalee appears with a black border out of respect and sympathy for Mr Tilak. We believe him to be innocent of the charge laid to his door. No native of India, certainly, no one possessed of intelligence and capacity of Mr Tilak (and even his enemies must admit that he is a man of exceptional ability), can be otherwise than loyal to the British Government. 38
The equally moderate The Hindu in Madras of 15 September 1897, lamented:
The conviction of Mr Tilak has cast a gloom over the whole country. The news has been received everywhere with intense grief and with a sense of humiliation. It is not that law and justice have been vindicated, but that the policy of reaction which for some time the enemies of the Indian people have been urging, has triumphed. 39
Allahabad’s Advocate , another moderate newspaper, noted:
The sensation created by Mr Tilak’s conviction throughout the length and breadth of India is natural . . . The State trial has made his name a household word, and we think we are not exaggerating to say that every Indian who reads newspapers, or keeps himself in any way in touch with public opinion feels strongly for him on his misfortune, while there are thousands, nay, lakhs of men, who consider him a martyr to his country. 40
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While the spirit of revolution and political activism had fully possessed Vinayak, Babarao was largely untouched by it. He managed to pass fifth grade in English, but slowly his interest in studies waned. He carried on till the seventh grade driven by sheer fear of his father. Babarao was strangely attracted to two totally contradictory sets of people—on the one hand, god-men with long, matted hair and ash-smeared faces, and on the other, theatre artists with painted faces. Late-night discussions about drama, songs and dance, along with tea and snacks were his favourite pastimes. And during the day, he roamed around in the company of sadhus, trying to understand tantra. Around 1898–99, there was news about Swami Vivekananda teaching the tenets of Raja Yoga to anyone who stayed with him at his Mayawati Ashram. 41 Babarao, who had already begun showing signs of renunciation from family life, wanted to run away and take spiritual initiation under him. The Savarkars would have lost Babarao to both family and revolution had it not been for the scourge of plague that hit Maharashtra yet again—this time, closer home.
In 1899, when Nashik was hit by the plague, Damodarpant forced Babarao and Vinayak to discontinue school for a while and return to Bhagur. When the epidemic spread to Tryambakeshwar where Vinayak’s sister, Maina, and brother-in-law, Bhaskar Rao Kale, lived, Damodarpant advised them to shift to Bhagur as well. But as luck would have it, by the time everyone got to Bhagur, the plague had spread to Bhagur too. Given the repressive plague measures of the government, people concealed information about any plague victim in their houses. The death of rats would be passed off as a casual attack by a neighbourhood cat. The Savarkar household too kept shut about the death of rats in their courtyard and secretly disposed them. The plague soon hit the neighbourhood where the Savarkars lived. Vinayak sat by the window all night, frightfully listening to the cries of pain of several afflicted neighbours. He wanted to make a will that in case he were to die due to the plague, all his works, Durga Dasa Vijay, Sarvasaar Sangrah and other poems, should be posthumously published.
Spurred by a sense of duty and compassion, Damodarpant involved himself wholly in the relief operations, despite being warned against it. One evening, after returning from his visits to the houses of friends who were hit by plague, Damodarpant seemed very distraught. Without speaking a word, he retired upstairs to the upper floor of the house. Bal, who usually slept with his father, was strictly told not to come near him. Instead, he summoned Vinayak to him and with tears in his eyes said that his joints were hurting badly and it seemed to him that he might have contracted plague too. Vinayak recounts in his memoirs that right from childhood it was his nature that each time he was faced by a crisis, he would become cold and stone hearted, and turn action-oriented sans any emotions; he would look for ways to solve the problem on hand. He quickly brought medicines for his father and the family decided to keep the whole matter a secret, lest the police get to know and evict them. Bal was asked to play sentinel by the door and not let anyone inside.
Once, when Vinayak saw Bal strolling away from his designated spot at the door, he yelled at him in anger. The little boy came to his elder brother with tears in his eyes, telling him that his thighs too ached badly. He had contracted plague as well. An aghast Vinayak asked his sister-in-law, Yesu Vahini, to tend to Bal, while he would care for Damodarpant. Vinayak and Yesu eagerly waited for Babarao to return from Tryambakeshwar where he had gone to fetch Maina and her husband. Damodar’s condition rapidly worsened. The plague caused intense thirst, but they were not to give him water, even as he cried loudly for it, turning uncontrollably violent a few times. Babarao returned the next morning and seeing the condition at home, advised Maina and her husband to move elsewhere. That very night, on 5 September 1899, Damodarpant became violent and was locked up on the upper floor of the house. When they opened the door in the morning, they discovered that their beloved father had passed away. At the tender age of sixteen, Vinayak was orphaned.
The family could not even grieve his death because Bal’s condition was still precarious. With Damodarpant’s death, there was no way they could continue living in the house as the government would evict them to the segregation camps. With the help of a family friend, they got a little hut built for themselves on the outskirts of the city. Meanwhile, they had to spend a few nights at the Mahadev and Ganesh temples in town. Their paternal uncle, Bapu Kaka, came to his unfortunate nephews who had lost both their parents at such a young age. The ordeal was so physically and emotionally exhausting that Vinayak recollects in his memoirs that they felt they would collapse from sheer fatigue any moment. Unfortunately for them, in just a few days, Bapu Kaka also contracted plague.
The crisis that the Savarkar family faced was unprecedented. The place that they took shelter at was notorious for dacoits who they feared might loot them, knowing they were the erstwhile jagirdars. The desolate location had a cremation ground nearby; wails of people, the smell of burning corpses and the cries of owls and wolves made it an eerie experience. Vinayak recounts how a street dog came and kept them company all night during those frightful days and if any stranger came near the family, he would bark and scare them away.
The news of the crisis that befell the Savarkar family reached Nashik. One of Damodarpant’s friends, Ramabhau Datar, whom the former had helped when his father was afflicted by plague, brought all of them to Nashik. It was a Herculean task given the strict government vigil on people moving across towns. He kept the Savarkars at his house despite strong protests from the entire locality to not let them in because it was a communicable disease. Unfortunately, after reaching Nashik and within ten days of his younger brother’s demise, Bapu Kaka also passed away. The tragedy kept compounding with each pa
ssing day.
Bal was still suffering from the disease and was admitted to the plague hospital. Babarao refused to leave his side and tended to him at the hospital all day. There was a European nurse in the hospital who was extremely harsh in her treatment of patients and many felt that suffering the disease was much better than tolerating her rudeness and unskilled handling. When she tried the same with Bal, Babarao picked a quarrel with her, reported her to the senior doctor and also had the nurse fired. Thereafter, till the replacement filled in the nurse’s shoes, without caring for his own health, Babarao volunteered to nurse the patients himself. He was not allowed to come back home from the hospital or interact with others outside the hospital. It was only Vinayak and Yesu Vahini who stayed back at the outhouse of the Datars, worried every minute about what might be happening at the hospital. Vinayak would take food for his brothers each day and wait outside. He was not allowed to meet or interact with Babarao because of the fear of contracting the disease. His biggest nightmare of Babarao also falling victim came true one morning. Vinayak was crestfallen.
However, Babarao and Bal were cured, and by then, the plague too subsided in Nashik. The two returned home and in a few months recuperated completely. The family decided to settle down in Nashik itself.
That dreadful night, when the Savarkars ran in mortal fear, along with little Bal who was suffering from high fever, Vinayak bid a permanent farewell to Bhagur, the land of his parents and ancestors. A new life awaited him in Nashik.
3
The Birth of a Revolutionary
Nashik, 1899
The town of Nashik is deeply rooted in legends and boasts a hoary past that dates back to the times of the Ramayana. Back then it was known as Panchavat, the land of five banyan trees. Lord Rama, Sita and Lakshmana are supposed to have stayed here during their exile. This was also the place where Lakshmana cut off the nose of the demon princess, Surpanakha, and hence the place draws its name from nasika , the Sanskrit word for nose. Many people think that since the town is surrounded by nine mountain peaks (or shikhar s in Marathi), it was known as Nava-Shikha , that later became Nashik. 1 The Sita Gufa or Cave of Sita, where she prayed, and from where she was abducted by Ravana; the Ram Kund where Lord Rama supposedly took his daily bath, where mortal remains and bones are believed to dissolve magically as did King Dasharatha’s; and a host of other temples reverberate with this same faith. Once every twelve years, the Maha Kumbh at Nashik brings people from across India and outside to take a holy dip in the waters of the Godavari River. The town has also been part of several important ruling dynasties. Peshwa Baji Rao II wanted to make it his capital and also got a palace called the ‘Peshwa Wada’ (later known as Sarkar Wada) constructed there towards the end of the eighteenth century. Ironically, the British used the same building to conduct trials of revolutionaries of the freedom movement.
When the Savarkars moved to Nashik permanently in 1899, it was among the more backward towns of Maharashtra. Narrow lanes, irksome priests who harassed pilgrims, and dusty roads were all that it had. Being the district headquarters, it however offered better opportunities for English education, and it was mainly because of this that Damodarpant had insisted that both Babarao and Vinayak go to Nashik for their higher studies.
During the end of their earlier stay in Nashik, before Damodarpant’s demise, the Savarkar brothers had moved to the narrow, congested lanes of Tilbhandeshwar that also housed an eponymous temple of Lord Shiva. They had rented a single room on the top floor of the Vartak household. By then, Vartak had passed away. But his wife, a daughter and three sons—Nana, Trimbak and Shridhar—considered the Savarkars as their own family members. In 1899, on relocating to Nashik permanently, the family decided to stay in the same Tilbhandeshwar area where Ramabhau Datar’s house was also located. Ramabhau’s brother, Vaman, who later became a renowned doctor ‘Vaidya Bhushan’ Vaman Shastri Datar, was roughly the same age as Vinayak and hence the two became good friends. The Savarkars and Datars lived as one family, shared kitchens and pooled their incomes. There were many others in this new world who became Vinayak’s close associates and played an important role in his political activities.
When Babarao and Bal were admitted in the city’s plague hospital, the former met Trimbak Rao Mhaskar, an officer at the hospital. Even though Mhaskar, who was in his thirties then, was stricken by extreme poverty, he was compassionate and helpful to anyone who was in distress. Being educated, he managed to strike a chord with Babarao, the only literate and well-read patient in the hospital. Being a staunch patriot, Mhaskar organized small public gatherings and festivals in Nashik without garnering too much publicity from them. Eminent leaders of Nashik such as Bapurao Ketkar, Dajirao Ketkar, Loksevakar Barve, Raibahadur Vaidya, Kavi Parakh and others knew Mhaskar well and thought highly of his organizational skills.
Mhaskar’s friend, Raoji Krishna Paage, a government employee, was however a study in contrast. While Mhaskar was shy, an introvert, Paage was an attention-seeking, outspoken and witty man. Like Mhaskar, he too organized small public agitations all the time. They were however united in their goal of achieving freedom for India through armed revolution but had no clarity of thought or vision on how to get there. Being staunch Tilak supporters, they assumed that public mobilization through festivals and mass activism was the only way to national liberation. They had formed a students organization called Vidyarthi Sangha. Like a loving elder sibling, Mhaskar advised Vinayak on the need to be vigilant and careful, and not venture completely into the idea of a total armed revolution. Vinayak expressed his deepest thoughts and ideas to Mhaskar and Paage and revealed his desire to start an underground student society. He told them that merely organizing festivals of Ganesh and Shivaji would hardly achieve anything tangible; that one needed to strike at the very root of the poisonous tree, and that was possible only through total armed revolution. But the Chapekar incident and its fallout instilled in them fear of the consequences and they remained sceptic for a while.
Near the Datar and Vartak households lived a priest, Dhondobhat Vishwamitra. A fair, stocky and ebullient man, who relished paan, tobacco, tea, lemon soda and playing cards after his temple duties, Vishwamitra was the life of the locality. His Maratha maid’s son, Aabaa Darekar, was crippled after a prolonged fever at the age of eight. But he was a jolly fellow who composed bawdy songs (lavanis) and wrote a play, even as his mother struggled at housework to eke out a living. Aabaa, however, earned substantial money by selling kites, paper handicrafts, coloured paper caps and pet animals. He was the unofficial leader of the boisterous locality boys and even Ramabhau, Vaman, Trimbak and others were under his spell. It was amazing that despite being illiterate, he wielded such influence on educated, upper-caste, English-speaking boys.
Initially, Aabaa and his cronies did not like Vinayak too much and derided him as a bookworm and a nerd. Some in Aabaa’s group were envious of Vinayak’s poetry skills and carried tales to Aabaa about him, as he too was an amateur poet of sorts. However, Vinayak’s intelligence and wordplay had piqued Aabaa’s interest, and he wanted to know the secret behind his writing and oratorical skills. Vinayak’s ‘Sinhagadacha Powada’ or the ‘Ballad of Sinhagad’ 2 of 1670 attracted Aabaa’s attention. Finally, breaking the ice, he visited Vinayak to ask him for help with his writing; something that Vinayak immediately agreed to. Soon Aabaa’s group began respecting Vinayak. The lessons in grammar, poetry and history by Vinayak kindled Aabaa’s latent genius and he was deeply influenced by the spirit of freedom. Soon, he became one of Maharashtra’s famous patriots and freedom-poets, writing under the pen-name ‘Govind’. His most famous poem is entitled ‘Ranaaveen Swatantrya kona milaale’ (Who has ever won freedom without a bloody war?).
It was in these very narrow lanes of Tilbhandeshwar that the first modern, organized secret society of young revolutionaries in India took shape. Under sixteen-year-old Vinayak’s stewardship, and Mhaskar and Paage as members, the Rashtrabhakta Samuha, or The Society of Patriots, was formed
towards the end of November 1899. The three young men took an oath to liberate India through armed struggle and sacrifice their lives for the cause too, if needed. Many of the ideas about the methods and organization of the secret society were borrowed from Thomas Frost’s work Secret Societies of the European Revolution, 1776–1876 . Frost had surveyed several such societies and mentioned that a ‘secret society may be distinguished from other combinations [by] the adoption of an oath of secrecy and fidelity, an initiatory ceremony, and the use of symbols, passwords, grips, etc.’ 3
The trio decided to invite S.M. Paranjpe of Kal , whose writings and newspaper had inspired them, to be their adviser. Reaching out to a national hero like Tilak was considered unfeasible at this early stage and they decided to approach Tilak once they had some work to showcase. Spurred by his vow to the goddess after the execution of the Chapekars, Vinayak was comfortable with the idea of going it alone as well. Mhaskar provided the much-needed perspective, as he feared that Vinayak might do something stupid in his youthful exuberance. The trio decided to keep this society strictly secret and not even tell Babarao about it. The idea was to mobilize the youth and select a few of them for armed revolution after adequate training. Paage was already working closely with the youth and the newly founded Samuha needed to intensify that outreach. The trio used the cryptic acronym ‘Ram Hari’ for the society. Thus, someone mentioning ‘Today Ram Hari would be meeting’ would mean the members of the Samuha were scheduling a secret meet.