Maulana Azad was elected as the president of the Indian National Congress in 1923 at the age of thirty-five, the youngest president of the party. He became the president again in 1940 and continued till 1946. As one of the most trusted lieutenants of Gandhi, he was always in the inner core of the party with leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, C. Rajagopalachari and Vallabhbhai Patel. His second stint as president was an eventful one with the Quit India movement in 1942 when he proposed the resolution at the Bombay session. Then he headed the delegation from the Congress, with Nehru and Patel, to the Cripps Mission of 1942—when the British government tried to secure Indian support for their efforts in World War II—and the Cabinet Mission of 1946, which discussed and finalized plans for the transfer of power from the British Raj to Indian leadership.
After the historic resolution of 8 August 1942 that asked the British to leave India, the entire Congress Working Committee was arrested. Gandhi and Sarojini Naidu were taken away to the Aga Khan Palace in Poona while Nehru, Patel and Azad were imprisoned in the Ahmednagar Fort. From there Azad wrote to a friend, ‘Only nine months earlier … the gate of Naini Central Jail was opened before me … and yesterday the new gate of the old Ahmednagar Fort was closed behind me.’ A man of frail health, he would spend a total of ten years and five months in jail during his lifetime. This was a time of great personal loss for both Azad and Gandhi. Azad’s wife Zulaikha Begum passed away, while at the same time Kasturba Gandhi died in Poona.
During the last years of the freedom struggle the Indian Muslim League led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah first presented itself as the only representative of the Muslims and then demanded a separate homeland. Azad was completely against the two-nation idea of Jinnah and fought it with great passion and energy. Being a man who had dedicated his life to Hindu–Muslim amity, he was deeply angered by Jinnah’s declaration that the Indian Muslims were to be a separate nation. During his negotiations with the Cripps Mission, Azad insisted that a secular organization like the Congress was the only true representative of the nation. For this the Muslim members of the Congress like M.A. Ansari, Asaf Ali, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, Ghaffar Khan and Azad had to face vicious personal attack from the Muslim League that tried to prove that they were traitors to their religion.
During meetings with the Cripps Mission, Azad led the delegation with Nehru, Patel and Ghaffar Khan, and vigorously opposed the formation of Pakistan. Jinnah insisted that if Pakistan was not conceded, then the country would face civil war. Azad, in contrast, was convinced that the communal violence that was sweeping across the country would abate once the country became independent. At one meeting Jinnah publicly insulted Azad by refusing to shake hands with him, but this open hostility did not stop Azad from continuing with his efforts. Like Gandhi, he was devastated by the partition of the country and the terrible carnage that raged afterwards. In his autobiography India Wins Freedom, while holding Jinnah responsible for the tragedy, he also mentions the mistakes made by the Congress.
After Independence he worked tirelessly, playing peacemaker during communal riots, and was devastated by Gandhi’s death. Azad was a member of Prime Minister Nehru’s first cabinet. He was India’s first Minister of Education, Culture & Fine Arts and laid much emphasis on scientific education. He also established cultural institutions like the Sahitya Akademi. Lalit Kala Akademi and the Sangeet Natak Akademi. Earlier, with M.A. Ansari and Ajmal Khan, he had also founded the Jamia Millia Islamia College in Delhi.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad died on 22 February 1958 and was buried opposite the Jama Masjid in Delhi. He left behind an inspiring legacy of Hindu—Muslim harmony and an overriding love for one’s country. A scholar who stepped out into the world of active politics, Azad’s formidable intellect enriched the freedom movement. As a linguist, writer and poet, he could have happily spent his life in the cocoon of books and learning, instead he chose the harder path of the struggle for freedom. He was a rationalist who was trusted for his organizing and negotiating skills, integrity and moderation. He believed that there was no innate difference or antagonism between Hindus and Muslims and faced much criticism for his secular views. He made many personal sacrifices for the cause of freedom because for him nothing was as important as being a patriotic Indian.
Annie Besant
To see India free, to see her hold up her head among the nations, to see her sons and daughters respected everywhere, to see her worthy of her mighty past, engaged in building a yet mightier future—is not this worth working for, worth suffering for, worth living and worth dying for?
—Annie Besant
She became more Indian than many Indians. The Englishwoman who wore a sari and sat comfortably cross-legged on the floor, using a low table to write on. She read Hindu religious books, translated them from Sanskrit into English and knew more about Hindu philosophy than many of her Indian friends. She believed in reincarnation and thought she had been an Indian in her last birth. For Annie Besant it was India not England that was her true motherland.
Annie Besant was born on 1 October 1847 to an English father—a doctor—and an Irish mother. She lost her father William Wood when she was just five and her mother Emily had to run a boarding house to bring up her children. Strapped for money, Emily asked a friend to bring up Annie. At twenty Annie married Reverend Frank Besant, but it was not a happy marriage. Annie was an ambitious, free-spirited woman who chafed at the genteel and predictable life of a Victorian clergyman’s wife and within five years she had separated from her husband. It was a very hard step to take as her two children were separated too, with the son staying with her husband and the daughter remaining with Annie.
Free at last to follow her dreams, Besant began to write and do social work. She joined a number of liberal organizations like the atheistic Free Thinkers and the socialist Fabian Society. At this time she honed her fine oratorical skills as she spoke at meetings across the country about the philosophy of the Free Thinkers. Her work with the socialist Fabians made her a friend of many leading intellectuals like the British playwright George Bernard Shaw, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb, early members of the Society. The Fabians worked to improve the condition of the poor in Britain and its colonies and were often prominent critics of the government. One of Besant’s earliest successes was organizing Britain’s first trade union for women and leading a strike by the women workers of a match factory, demanding safer working conditions.
Then to the surprise of her socialist friends, the atheist-activist Besant suddenly joined the Theosophical Society. This Society had been started by Madame Helena Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Olcott and was deeply into spiritualism, eastern philosophies like Hinduism and Buddhism, and also the occult. What attracted Besant to theosophy was the Society’s aim of building a ‘universal brotherhood of humanity’ that ignored race and religion and preached equality for all.
In 1893 Besant arrived in the country that had fascinated her since her childhood—India. She felt immediately at home at the Theosophical Society campus in Adyar on the outskirts of Madras and was soon seeking ‘the ways of wisdom from the Indian people’. At a time when most educated Indians were somewhat apologetic about their own culture, a European woman so enamoured of India must have been quite a startling experience. Besant soon realized that years of colonial rule and a westernized education system had created a deep inferiority complex among the intelligentsia and with typical energy she immediately began work to correct it.
Annie Besant’s greatest contribution to India was her relentless campaign to revive India’s pride in her culture, religions and history. She toured and lectured constantly, and soon her lectures on theosophy and various aspects of Indian philosophy were packing the auditoriums. Then the Society started schools where the curriculum was a mix of western and Indian subjects. She wanted the education of Indians to be in their own hands and not of the government or the missionaries. In 1898 she founded the Central Hindu College at Benaras in two rooms of a house and a school for girls followed soon after. The college
was later handed over to the educationist Madan Mohan Malaviya and became the core of the Benaras Hindu University.
In 1907 Annie Besant was elected the president of the Theosophical Society and remained in the post for the rest of her life. She immediately started the Theosophical Education Trust, and many more schools and colleges were opened in south India. She also started the Scouts and Guides movement in India and the Women’s Indian Association that worked for the education and emancipation of women. It was only in 1914, at the age of sixty-six, that Besant entered political life by starting a journal Commonweal and then a newspaper New India. In both she published a stream of articles critical of the government.
When the First World War started in 1914, Britain needed the support of its colonies and dominions and promised that after the war there would be greater freedom for them. However, India was deeply disappointed to find a big difference between the self-government allowed to the white English-speaking dominions like Canada and Australia and the treatment meted out to Asian and African colonies. This was the time when two Home Rule Leagues, one started by Tilak and the other by Besant, became very active, demanding self-government for India within the British Empire.
Besant’s fiery speeches made the government nervous and her writings often led to fines and penalties but she continued undaunted. She was arrested on a charge of sedition and defended herself in court by showing how the Asian and African colonies were being discriminated against. The government soon regretted its actions as reports of the court proceedings were carried in every newspaper in the country and led to a big rise in the membership of the Home Rule Leagues. Then in June 1917, when the Governor of Madras passed an internment order against the ‘high priestess of Home Rule’ and put her under house arrest, the country rose in protest. Besant had designed a red-and-green striped flag for the Home Rule Leagues and she flew it defiantly from her garden. There was criticism even in Europe and US President Woodrow Wilson spoke out in support of Home Rule. Besant was released three months later.
Riding on a wave of popularity, Besant was elected the first women president of the Indian National Congress at its session in Calcutta. She was fêted as the ‘living symbol of Mother India’ and in her address made a typical emotional appeal: ‘Western-born but in spirit Eastern, cradled in England but Indian by choice and adoption, let me stand as the symbol of the union between Great Britain and India—a union of hearts and free choice, not of compulsion, and therefore of a tie which cannot be broken.’
Matters within the party took a new turn after the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre of 1919. The mood of the people had changed as they had finally lost their faith in the justice and fair play of the Sahibs. One man who sensed it quickly was Mahatma Gandhi who knew the time was now right for a mass non-cooperation agitation. Besant was still convinced that progress should be made through constitutional reforms and that any campaign by the people would only degenerate into violence and anarchy. She accused Gandhi of leading ‘a revolution, a rebellion’ and Gandhi, accepting the charge, explained, ‘A revolution I do want and I think it absolutely necessary.’
At one time Besant had been the heroine of the young, including Jawharlal Nehru, but now she failed to gauge the mind of the people. It was Gandhi’s path that won the support of the party and Besant gradually faded from the political scene, though her work with the Theosophical Society continued. In 1925 she tried to get a Commonwealth of India Bill—seeking a constitution for India as a full-fledged dominion—passed in the British parliament but failed. Annie Besant continued to be the president of the Theosophical Society until her death at Adyar on 20 September 1933.
At a time when there were very few women in public life in India, Annie Besant inspired and enriched our freedom movement with her passionate and energetic support for the cause. She not only made India her home but also taught Indians to once again be proud of their heritage. Jawaharlal Nehru said Annie Besant enabled India ‘to find her own soul’. An eloquent speaker, experienced campaigner and formidable organizer, she brought her unique intensity and vigour to the national movement and proved that India was truly her real motherland.
Subhas Chandra Bose
‘Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom!’
—Subhas Chandra Bose
The government considered him one of the most dangerous freedom fighters and arrested him at the slightest excuse. His house in Calcutta was kept under constant police surveillance. In spite of it Subhas Chandra Bose and his nephew Sisir managed to slip out one day and drive across north India to far off Peshawar. Then began an adventure that made him the hero of Indians and a legend called Netaji.
Subhas Chandra Bose was born on 23 January 1897 into a Bengali family in Cuttack, Orissa. His father Jankinath was a public prosecutor and became a member of the Bengal Legislative Council. A brilliant student, Subhas joined the Presidency College in Calcutta but was expelled after he beat up a professor for making racist remarks. He then studied at the Scottish Church College to graduate in philosophy and then went to Cambridge to study at Fitzwilliam College. In 1920 he stood fourth in the Indian Civil Service (ICS) examination but decided not to join the ICS as he was deeply inspired by the nationalist movement at home. He met Gandhi immediately after returning to India and joined the Indian National Congress. Gandhi suggested that he should work with Chitta Ranjan Das, a successful barister and nationalist, and Das became Subhas Chandra’s mentor. During the Non-cooperation campaign Subhas Chandra and Jawaharlal Nehru were the most popular among the young leaders of the party as they led demonstrations and travelled across the country addressing meetings.
Unlike Nehru, Bose was not impressed by Gandhi’s absolute faith in non-violence. Bose was always attracted to more radical activities and was close to many of the revolutionaries of Bengal. Unlike Nehru who worked closely with Gandhi, he chose to work with C.R. Das who was a member of the Swaraj Party within the Congress. In 1921 he was arrested for the first time when he led a demonstration against the visit of Edward, the Prince of Wales, to India. This was the first of eleven jail sentences that he would endure in the following two decades. In 1924, when Das became the mayor of Calcutta, Bose was elected the alderman on a huge salary. He used most of the money for charitable work and for the organization of the party. Later he was also elected the mayor of the city. For a while he was the principal of the National College that later became Jadavpur University. This college had been started for students who had been expelled for joining the Swadeshi Movement. An earlier principal had been Aurobindo Ghose.
Right from the start Bose had radical views on the strategy to be followed in the freedom struggle. The government always suspected him of being involved in terrorist activity and, like Nehru, he had socialist views when it came to matters of economic reforms. For a while he was exiled to the jail in Mandalay in Burma where another firebrand Bal Gangadhar Tilak had spent six years. In 1933 the government sent him into exile again and he spent three years in Europe. Like Nehru again, he met many intellectuals and political leaders including Benito Mussolini of Italy, Eamon de Valera of Ireland and Romain Rolland from France. At this time Bose married an Austrian, Emilie Schenkl, and they had a daughter.
On his return to India Bose was elected the president of the Congress at the Haripura session in 1938. Gandhi and he respected each other but could not agree on their ideology. Bose had always been one of the loudest critics of Gandhi’s strategy of non-violence and now the ideological conflict between the two spilled over into the functioning of the party. Bose considered himself the representative of militant politics and was never open to discussion or compromise. The Congress had always been an umbrella organization that tolerated many opposing views under a common purpose that united it. And one of the strongest uniting threads was their commitment to Gandhi’s path of non-violence. It was a party that worked through consensus, but now Bose was openly dividing the party between the rightists who followed Gandhi and the leftists who agreed with him. This
reminded people of the split between the Moderates and the Extremists, and made many members extremely uncomfortable.
Things came to a head when next year, at the Congress session at Tripuri, he decided to stand again for president and managed to defeat Gandhi’s candidate Pattabhi Sitaramayya by a small margin. Gandhi frankly admitted that he saw it as a personal defeat. In his presidential address Bose declared that he wanted the Congress to give a six-month notice to the government to agree to immediate independence or launch a mass civil disobedience campaign. Which, most irrationally, he wanted Gandhi to lead! Gandhi felt the country was not ready for such a campaign and withdrew from the session. Then most of Gandhi’s followers who were members of the Working Committee, like Patel and Maulana Azad, threatened to resign. Finally realizing that he couldn’t possibly operate with such widespread rebellion in the ranks, Bose resigned.
As Rajendra Prasad was elected president in his place, Bose started a new party—the All India Forward Bloc—within the Congress, to follow his radical agenda. The division in the party in 1939 was one of the most serious crises the party had faced since the split between the Moderates and Extremists in 1907. Such a split would have pleased the government and spelt disaster for the freedom movement. Bose was trying to force the party into a radical and potentially violent campaign that it was not ready to undertake. He was also frankly critical of some of the leaders like Patel, Nehru and Azad and that did not go down well with the members. Nehru tried hard to mediate between the two groups but gave up when Bose refused to listen.
A Flag, a Song and a Pinch of Salt Page 3