Freedom fighters

This Day …15 August…. That Year in 1947 ….@ Madras….

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The front page view of The Hindu, dated August 15, 1947.
The Hindu ArchivesThe front page view of The Hindu, dated August 15, 1947.

Deepa Alexander digs through editions of The Hindu of August 1947 and rediscovers the city’s first dawn of freedom

Celebrate with Nehru guns, Freedom sparklers and Ashoka wheels for Rs. 5,” advertised T.S. Abdeally and Bros.

P. Orr & Sons sold Vertex pocket watches for a special price of Rs. 65. Frank Capra’s classic, It’s A Wonderful Life, was playing at New Elphinstone. Madras Theatres celebrated with no shows “and a special bonus to staff”.

There is more than a century of information in The Hindu archives and it threatens to wash over me. The staff hefts the big blue file with August 1947 emblazoned on it, and turn the chemically-treated yellowing pages to the edition dated August 14.

“Quit India.” “Jai Hind.” “Satyameva Jayate”. “Vande Mataram.” A million rallying cries. Momentous though it was, the memory of our first Independence Day has faded with time although its emotional resonance never lost its glow. These pages are a chronicle of its people, hallowed by history, embellished by the celebration of our freedom struggle.

August 15, 1947 was also a Friday, like this year, a day of thundershowers according to the weather report in The Hindu, priced then at 2 annas.

Advertisements and announcements meld into the tale. Historical figures flit in and out of the pages. But the festivities in the city and across India began a day earlier, on August 14.

A page from the August 17, 1947 edition. Photo: The Hindu Archives

The music lined up for the eve of Independence included concerts by Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar at Gokhale Hall and organist Handel Manuel and a BBC violinist at St. Andrew’s Church. In an advertisement, Lady Colleen Nye, the Governor’s wife and patroness of the Madras Provincial Welfare FUND, urged citizens to proudly wear the National Flag.

At another level, the edition was pure political narrative. The editorial on page 4 urged France and Portugal to also “give up their colonial possessions in India”. The distribution of portfolios, the division of the Army between India and Pakistan and the renunciation of knighthoods and titles by S. Radhakrishnan, later the President, and R.K. Shanmukham Chetti, independent India’s first Finance Minister, crowded the pages.

At the same time, to celebrate the founding of Pakistan, a grand reception was accorded in Karachi to the Mountbattens “who flew down in their personal York”, even as fires raged in Lahore.

A BRIDGE TO THE PAST The Tricolour fluttering atop the flag mast at Fort St. George on August 15, 1947 was the first symbol of free India in Madras. Photo: V. Ganesan

Madras remained untouched by the epic spasms of the violence of Partition. Although prohibitory orders in the city “were to be enforced for bundobast”, radio sets were installed at various parks so that the public could listen to AIR broadcasting the assumption of power ceremonies, flag hoisting at India Gate, and poems by Hafeez Jullundhuri. In Mylapore, Rukmini Devi inaugurated the Fine Arts Society at Vivekananda College.

All through the evening and night, happy throngs of people visited places of worship, invoking the gods to bless their new nation. In a spirit of unity, people of all communities and castes wore the flag. “It is difficult to see even a single person without wearing a National Flag”, says an article. The Tricolour also fluttered atop almost every building in the city, Government or private, with the merchants of Madras taking the lead in illuminating the buildings.

On August 15, the newspaper brought out a free 20-page supplement, its cover page in the colours of the flag, with the words ‘Dominion of India’ proudly emblazoned. Inside was a collector’s edition of articles by eminent persons — ‘Birth of Great Asiatic Power’ by K.M. Munshi, ‘The Saga of the Nehrus’ by Krishna Huthee Singh and ‘Patriotism of India’s Press’ by Leonard W. Matters, the Australian-born London representative of The Hindu.

‘Free India is Born’, screamed the headline with the editorial ‘A Red Letter Day’ announcing “India enters the comity of free nations today, an equal among equals”. Texts of speeches by Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajendra Prasad ran alongside congratulatory messages from King George VI and other world leaders. While people in Delhi toasted the nation and the king, India Office, the seat of power for nearly a century, closed down unsung. Trains filled with refugees, the coaches smeared with taunts, were drawing in at stations in Punjab and Bengal.

The Chief Justice of Madras administering the Oath to H. E. Sir Archibald Edward Nye, the Governor of Madras, at the Secretariat, Fort St. George, on August 15, 1947. Photo: The Hindu Archives

Madras, however, heard the endless sweet echo of M.S. Subbulakshmi who performed on AIR that evening at 8. ‘Freedom’s Progress Through The Years’, a photographic journey of the most iconic moments of our struggle was published alongside advertisements by Bosotto HOTEL and Spencer and Co.

Independence brought freedom of a more visible nature to a whole category of people. Jail doors opened for many convicts who had been granted pardon. Many INA leaders were also released.

The celebrations of August 15 are reported in the August 17 edition: how trumpets that sundered the morning air when the Governor of Madras, Sir Archibald Nye, in a final burst of British pomp and glory, unfurled the Tricolour at Island Grounds; how O.P. Ramaswami Reddiar, Prime Minister (which was how the post of Chief Minister was then designated) hoisted the flag at Ripon Building, the headquarters of the Corporation, to cries of unrestrained happiness. This was after both were sworn into their new offices by the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, Frederick Gentle. The swearing-in was held at Fort St. George, in the crowded Cabinet Room, photographers capturing the moment in a blitz of flashbulbs.

Horsemen in glistening jackets and GOLD sashes stood amidst the large crowds that streamed along the beachfront to Fort. St George, to gaze with pride at the Indian flag fluttering over the first fort of the British East India Company. It is a picture that holds pride of place in that edition.

On that page is the story of how the world map was redrawn one night. It’s a page that defines what India was, and is. It’s a page that defines us.

Keywords: The Hindu, India Independence, Independence Day, Fort. St George,

Source:::: The Hindu

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Our National Anthem…Sung By the People , For the People…

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Jana gana mana…

The anthem that binds us together, the anthem that makes us get on our feet every time we hear it; not due to compulsion but due to respect and love for our country. It never fails to bring out the patriotism in all of us.

Being Indian came up with this beautiful video where our national anthem is sung by the people, for the people.

Happy Independence Day. 

Source::::You Tube and Storypick

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UNSUNG HEROINES OF INDEPENDENCE….

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SOURCE::::: “THE HINDU”….ARTICLE BY BULA DEVI…..
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Making history: Women picketers preparing for a protest in Madras in 1930. Photo: The Hindu Archives
Making history: Women picketers preparing for a protest in Madras in 1930. Photo: The Hindu Archives

Women’s participation in the freedom struggle, barring a few cases, has received little attention in post-1947 male-centric historical records

Though India’s freedom struggle saw a significant participation of women, unfortunately several of them have remained invisible to this day — unknown and unsung. The few women freedom fighters who made it into history books invariably came from elite or middle class backgrounds and their male relatives had often encouraged them to join the movement. In contrast, there were innumerable ordinary women, with no formal education or very little schooling, hailing from poverty-stricken, conservative homes, who got involved in the struggle with undaunted spirit and great commitment.

Raj Kumari Gupta was one of them. Born about a century ago in the little-known Banda zilla of Kanpur, she and her husband worked closely with Mahatma Gandhi and Chandrashekhar Azad. Her crucial contribution to the Kakori dacoity case barely figures in the narratives of freedom. Raj Kumari, who was given the charge of supplying revolvers to those involved in the Kakori operation, apparently hid the firearms in her undergarment and set out in khadi clothes to deliver them, with her three-year-old son in tow. On being arrested, she was disowned by her husband’s family and thrown out of her marital home.

There is also the case of Tara Rani Srivastava. She was born in Saran near Patna and participated actively with her husband Phulendu Babu in the Quit India movement. On Gandhiji’s call, Phulendu assembled a massive crowd of men and women in front of the Siwan police station to hoist the national flag on its roof. The just-married couple stood in front of the crowd and raised slogans. Phulendu soon fell to police bullets but Tara Rani was not deterred. Demonstrating exemplary courage, she bandaged his wounds and marched with the national flag straight towards the police station. By the time she returned, her husband had died.

Whether these women can be considered as revolutionaries or not, there can be no denying that they fought against great personal odds for the freedom of the country. They displayed great resolve despite seeing their children ascend the gallows. It is said that the night before activist Ram Prasad Bismil, a member of the Hindustan Socialist Republic Association, was to be hanged on December 18, 1927, in Gorakhpur jail, his mother came to see him. On seeing her, Bismil’s eyes became moist, but his visitor remained calm. She had never actively participated in politics but she understood the underlying importance of her son’s passionate espousal of revolution. She apparently told Bismil not to shed tears like a kayar(coward). Bismil is then said to have answered saying that he was crying because he would not have a mother like her. Steeled by her son’s death, she is believed to have said in a speech subsequently that she was ready to give another son to the nation. Saying this, she had raised the hand of Bismil’s brother.

Given domestic constraints, many women found it difficult to get directly involved in public action, but contributed in their own ways. Many took to spinning the ‘charkha’ as a mark of support for the Swadeshi movement. Others acted as secret envoys and messengers — passing on proscribed material, helping fugitives from the law shift from one place to another and ensuring that they were fed and looked after.

Ganga Devi from Uttar Pradesh had no formal education and had been married at the age of 13 into a home which had over 60 family members. Her husband, a government employee, enforced strict restrictions on her movement so as to keep her away from the raging political ferment of those times. But that did not stop Ganga from encouraging her children to be sympathetic to the rebels. She saved money from the household expenses and cooked food for men in hiding while her husband was asleep, washing the utensils herself to keep the matter a secret even from family retainers.

The stories of these women do not generally surface in contemporary India save for efforts like those undertaken by the Gandhi Smriti in Delhi recently, when it launched a permanent exhibition on ‘Great Indian Women Freedom Fighters’.

According to Charu Gupta, associate professor, Department of History, Delhi University, history writing in the 60s did not register the role of ordinary women in the freedom movement. She observes, “Implicitly the history of that time projected only a select group and this gave rise to a distorted vision.” She points out how the entire portrayal of the freedom struggle tended to be male-centric, bourgeois and upper caste, with the participation of women being seen as an extension of their domestic roles of serving their families.

The lack of the presence of ordinary women in historical work, according to Ms. Gupta, was due to several factors — the biggest constraint being that history writing was generally based on official records. She, however, believes that this approach has been undergoing a change, with historians now more inclined to base their work on “creative sources” like personal diaries, family histories, newspaper reports, magazine articles and oral narratives.

As Suruchi Thapar-Bjorkert observes in her book Women in the Indian National Movement Unseen Faces and Unheard Voices, 1930-42: “Reinterpreting Indian nationalist history required going beyond archival, official and unofficial sources.” On oral narratives, she says, “As a methodological tool, these narratives revealed the individual subjectivities of participants in the nationalist movement. Documenting these life histories opened a new world before me: a world more real than officials records.”

Women like Abadi Bano Begam, a widow and a freedom fighter from Lucknow, known by her honorific ‘Bi Amman’, need acknowledgement. She observed strictpurdah all her life and when the time came to speak on behalf of her jailed son, she did so from behind her burqa in 1917. This was, perhaps, the first time a Muslim woman in purdah had addressed a political gathering. (Women’s Feature Service)