Category Archives: Freedom Fighters (under research project)

The ballad of the Khan Sahib

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Madurai, TAMIL NADU :

KhanSahibMPOs07mar2018

One explanation for Kamal Haasan launching his political party in Madurai was that his hero was Maruthanayagam Pillai, soldier, rebel and valiant son of the district.

It was about this hero that he wanted to make a film extraordinaire several years ago.

I was on the fringe of the project as, coining a term, the factioneer, engineering fact with fiction.

Part of the fiction is the name Maruthanayagam. More factual is the name Yusuf Khan, and it’s as Yusuf Khan he’s a military hero of mine. Much has been written about this soldier of fortune, but the Tamil ballad Khan Saibu Sandai (The War of Khan Sahib) offers much more personal detail. In it Maruthanayagam finds no mention; who it sings of is “the hero who belongs to the Alim family”. Adding, “…let me sing the story of the brave warrior of Sikkandar Sahib”.

Whatever his lineage, it is agreed he ran away from Panaiyur in the Pandya heartland and worked with Jacques Law in Pondicherry c.1744, where, possibly, he learnt his soldiering.

 

Then we hear of him with a troop of Nellore lances-for-hire teaming with Chanda Sahib and the French to besiege Robert Clive in 1751 at Arcot. Seeing him in action, Clive bought over the Nellore Subedar, as he called Yusuf Khan, who the next year helped Clive win at Kaveripakkam. Later, after action near Srirangam, Clive was told by a friend, “Your Nellore sepoys are glorious fellows, their Subedar as good a man as ever breathed. He is my sole dependence.”

Next, when the French besieged Nawab Wallajah and his British protectors in Trichy, Yusuf Khan lost not one food convoy from Madras over three months. Stringer Lawrence, ‘The Father of the Indian Army’, wrote, “He is an excellent partisan… brave and resolute, but cool and sensible in action – in short, a born soldier, and better of his colour I never saw … He never spares himself, but is out on all parties…” All this led to Lawrence recommending Yusuf Khan being made “Commandant of all the Sepoys” in 1754 and for a gold medal from the Company.

With the Nawab and the Company unable to collect revenue from the southern districts they had won, Khan Saheb who had been responsible for the gains was appointed Governor of Madurai.

Over the next three years, he subdued the local chieftains, collected revenue and earned a reputation for outstanding administration. But Yusuf Khan could never get away from soldiering. When Lally besieged Madras in 1758-59, he failed, because Yusuf Khan, racing up from Madurai, cut almost daily over two months Lally’s supply lines. Lally was to say, “They were like the flies, no sooner beat off from one part, they came to another.” Yusuf Khan was a master of guerilla warfare.

With such praise, Yusuf Khan began growing more ambitious. When he found revenue he collected going mostly to Wallajah from the English, he decided to rebel. He hoped for support from Hyder Ali (which never came) and from the French, who supplied a few hundred mercenaries led by a Marchand.

From August to November 1763 the English besieged Madurai, constantly shelling it, but unable to breach Yusuf Khan’s defences. They then withdrew to regroup. In February 1764, they recommenced the siege, but without significant progress. Yusuf Khan sent them a message early in April 1764: “As long as I have a drop of blood in my body I shall never render the place to nobody.”

English attack after attack was beaten back, many a British officer, once his comrades, killed. A British officer wrote: “You’ll easily form an idea of Yusuf Khan’s abilities from his being able to keep together a body of men of different nations, who with cheerfulness undergo the greatest miseries on his account; wretches who have stood two severe sieges, one assault and a blockade of many months.”

By September 1764 Yusuf Khan was prepared to negotiate surrender terms. The English insisted on unconditional surrender. And Marchand and his ilk, impatient with the negotiations (or heavily bribed), acted, arresting Yusuf Khan and surrendering Madurai on October 15, 1764.

The Company wanted Khan Saheb brought to trial in Madras, but Lawrence ordered him given to the Nawab who immediately hanged him and desecrated the body. He was buried where he was executed, two miles west of Madurai, his tomb at Samattipuram a dargah to some, a pallivasal (mosque) to others, but venerated by all in the Pandya country.

Footnote: A dissertation by Dr Asadulla Khan, then of New College, discusses Yusuf Khan’s family. It would appear that he married a Christian girl, Maza, c.1759; father, very likely Portuguese or French, her mother, possibly, a Maravar, a community which she often interceded for with Khan Saheb. They had a son, Mohammed Sultan, born c.1762. As a young man he joined Hyder Ali’s army. Mother and son, it is suggested, sought refuge in Mysore after fleeing Madurai.

The boats on the Canal

It was a lively presentation that Manohar Devadoss made recently at the Madras Literary Society on his life with books, most he’d illustrated. One striking illustration at the presentation is what I feature today; a boat in full sail on the Buckingham Canal. Mano says he saw this long country boat near Pulicat in 1966 and thought it “an artist’s delight”. His sketch became the first subject of “our heritage greeting card project,” ‘our’ being wife Mahema, who used to write the text for the illustrations he did for greeting cards they sold for charities.

Mahema concluded that year: “These boats are very picturesque, with sails billowing in the breeze. When there is no breeze, the boats are sometimes dragged by the boatmen from along the banks, their bare bodies glistening in the sun. As the boats approach the city, the sails are lowered so that they could pass under the numerous bridges. The men then punt the boats in rhythm to their melodious folk songs.” Taken up as he was with them, Mano did his first oil painting that year, based on his sketch, and several water-colours in later years, one of which I feature.

The chronicler of Madras that is Chennai tells stories of people, places, and events from the years gone by, and sometimes from today.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> Madras Miscellany – History & Culture / by S. Muthiah / March 06th, 2018

Alam Beg, martyr of Sepoy Mutiny, wants to return home

Books (incl.Biographies - w.e.f.01 jan 2018 ), Freedom Fighters (under research project), Travel & Tourism, World Opinion

BRITISH INDIA :

The resting place: The skull was found in a store room of The Lord Clyde pub in London. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The resting place: The skull was found in a store room of The Lord Clyde pub in London. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Skull of soldier, executed by the East India Company for rebellion in 1857, found its way to London pub; it’s now with historian Kim Wagner

Headhunting is usually associated with primitive tribes and contemporary terrorists, but the colonial rulers of India also collected heads of Indian soldiers as war trophies.

A 160-year-old skull of sepoy Alam Beg, now in the possession of a historian in London, is proof that colonial rulers who brought many modern practices to India were also at times inhuman.

In 1857, Alam Beg, also known as Alum Bheg, was a soldier with the 46th Bengal Native Infantry, an arm of the East India Company.

The Mutiny that year, after having covered the north Indian heartland, spread to Sialkot (now in Pakistan), where Alam Beg and his companions tried to follow their fellow soldiers and attacked the Europeans posted there. On July 9, 1857, they killed seven Europeans, including an entire Scottish family.

Alam Beg, along with his comrades, left Sialkot and trekked all the way to the Tibetan frontier only to be turned away by the guards on the Tibetan side. He was reportedly arrested from Madhopur, a scenic town on the northern part of the Indian Punjab and taken back to Sialkot. A year later, he was tried for the brutal killing of the Scottish family and blown up from the mouth of a cannon. The Mutiny ended soon after. Alam Beg’s tragic story surfaced more than a century later thanks to an Irish captain Arthur Robert George Costello, who was present at his execution.

The skull of Alam Beg. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The skull of Alam Beg. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Present at execution

The Irishman was a captain in the 7th Dragoon Guards, dispatched to India after the Mutiny had shaken the bonds between the East India Company and the native soldiers. Costello had not seen any episodes of the Mutiny but was present at the execution, said historian Kim Wagner, who possesses the skull now.

Costello picked up the skull and returned to London with it. In 1963, the skull was discovered in a store room of The Lord Clyde pub of London, after it had changed hands. The new owners were less than happy to find this war ‘trophy’ from 1857, but treated it as a solemn object from a disturbing past of British history in the subcontinent. The owners of the pub learnt from a note left in an eye socket that it belonged to Alam Beg, who played a leading role in the mutiny of sepoys in Sialkot. They desired to repatriate the skull to the soldier’s family. For years, they tried but failed. It is not known how the skull of Alam Beg ended up in the Victorian-era pub. But it is possible that the Irish captain who witnessed the execution of the leader of the mutinous soldiers visited the pub or someone deposited it there, given the fact that it had links with the history of the Indian Mutiny. In fact the pub was named after Collin Thomson, also known as Lord Clyde, who was a military commander and played a role in crushing the mutiny in north and northwest India. So it is possible that soldiers after their Indian stint would visit the pub.

In 2014, the owners of the pub contacted Kim Wagner who has been writing about South Asian history for years. They urged him to take the skull and return it to the descendants of Alam Beg. Mr. Wagner brought it home and the skull finally added to his research on South Asia which was published late last year as “The Skull of Alum Bheg: The Life and Death of a Rebel of 1857.” The historian believed that only by making people aware of the skull that Alam Beg can be returned to his motherland.

His research showed that most of the soldiers of the 46th Bengal Native Infantry were from modern states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and Havildar Alam Beg most probably hailed from Uttar Pradesh. Though he wanted to return him to a dignified family grave yard of Beg’s family, it was not possible as the East India Company left no records of the soldiers of the 46th Bengal Native Infantry.

“There are no longer any records for sepoys of the Bengal Army – the best I could do was locate the area where the 46th regiment recruited from,” Mr. Wagner said.

The Mutiny of 1857 was crushed mercilessly and many gruesome incidents of that era find mention in official records. In 2014, around the time when Mr. Wagner began writing his book on Alam Beg, Ajnala in Punjab’s Amritsar hit the headlines when authorities discovered skeletons of 282 soldiers who were executed after the Mutiny. They apparently had surrendered hoping for a fair trial, but the Deputy Commissioner of the district Frederick Henry Cooper ordered execution of the rebels. They were buried with medals and even money of the East India Company that many of them had in their pockets. The grisly discovery is yet to receive a closure as the family members of those soldiers remain untraced.

Similar is the condition of Alam Beg as his journey back home remains incomplete but Mr. Wagner believed that his only physical remain should find a proper peaceful burial. Mr. Wagner is aware that the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been vocal about honouring the fallen soldiers of India in various colonial era battles. He says that something similar can be done in case of Alam Beg as well.

“After all these years, it is high time for Alum Bheg to return home…he was probably born in what is today India, he was executed in what is now Pakistan,” Mr. Wagner wrote in his book proposing that a burial for Alam Beg near the India-Pakistan border would be the most suitable tribute to his sacrifice.

The historian said that in the absence of the descendants of such soldiers, it is the Indian government that should bring back Alam Beg to his motherland.

Headhunting by colonial rulers from Europe was a rampant practice in the 19th century and activists worldwide have been vocal in demanding human remains from Western museums and collectors should be returned to their countries of origin. Such a movement is yet to begin in India whose soldiers from the colonial past in many instances continue to remain anonymous and abroad.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National / by Kallol Bhattacharjee / New Delhi – February 04th, 2018

Role of Muslims in freedom struggle

Community Involvement / Social Issues, Freedom Fighters (under research project), , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The freedom movement of India was not the sole agenda of a particular political party but it had moved aam aadmi in the form of masses in his/her own capacity. The history of Indian national movement would be biased and incomplete without the presentation of the actual role of Indian Muslims in it, right from the revolt of 1857 to the day of Independence in 1947.

Shoulder to shoulder they fought with the other communities for the Independence of India. The contribution of Muslim poets, revolutionaries and writers is not known today. Instead of secular historiography, it has been communalised.

                                             Courtesy: Mapsofindia.com

The Muslims and other minorities never envisaged India as adopted land because Muslims of India have not come from outside but are the converts to Islam and have deep feeling sense of belonging to this country and therefore contributed to the cultural, economic, intellectual and spiritual progress throughout the ages.

The role, significance and uprising of Indians against British imperialists can be seen since mid of 18th century in the form of Battle of Palashi (Plassey), June 23, 1757. It was Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah who first awakened Indian rulers and gave a call to oppose the British. He, however, lost the battle and was executed at the young age of 24. This was soon followed by the great Tipu Sultan, who was killed by Lord Wellesley during the fourth Anglo-Mysore war in 1799.

The contribution of Muslim revolutionaries can be witnessed from the first half of 19th century. The Faraizi and the Wahhabi Movements had disturbed the pace of British plan in the initial stages of its expansion in India. The Wahabi movement of Syed Ahmed Barelvi was the most organised one. He appealed to all Hindus and Muslims to overthrow the British and thus he was killed in 1831 at Balakot.

The number of Muslims executed only in Delhi during 1857-58 was 27,000. During this revolt, Asghari Begum (mother of Qazi Abdur Rahim, the revolutionary of Thana Bhawan, Muzaffarnagar) fought against the British and was burnt alive when defeated. It was estimated that about 225 Muslim women gave their lives in the revolt.

Similarly, barely is known about the contribution of Muhammad Ashfaq Ullah Khan of Shahjehanpur who conspired and looted the British treasury at Kakori (Lucknow) to cripple the administration and who, when asked for his last will, before execution, desired: “No desire is left except one that someone may put a little soil of my motherland in my winding sheet.”

Likewise, the present generation does not know about Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, a great nationalist who had passed 45 years of his 95-years of life in jail for the freedom of India and thus awarded ‘Bharat Ratna’ in 1987. Barkatullah and Syed Rehmat Shah of Ghadar Party sacrificed their lives. Umar Subhani, an industrialist and a millionaire of Bombay who, then, presented a blank cheque to Gandhiji for Congress expenses and who ultimately sacrificed his life for the cause of Independence. Maulana Hasrat Mohani, with his poetry, infused zeal of freedom in young hearts.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, at the age of 35, became the youngest person to serve as the President of the Indian National Congress. He was the icon of Hindu-Muslim unity as well as espousing secularism and socialism. Raj Mohan Gandhi in his book ‘Understanding Muslim Minds’ mentioned that Maulana went straight to Congress office just after the funeral procession of his wife, Zuleikha Begum and led Quit India Movement.

Manmohan Kaur in her book entitled as ‘Women In India’s Freedom Movement’ makes reference to only Begum Hazrat Mahel and Bi-Amma out of the hundreds of women who fought the battle of freedom along with their men folk against the British Raj. The history of the Indian national movement would be incomplete without mentioning the heartily services of Abadi Begum (mother of Maulana Muhammad Ali), Amjadi Begum (wife of Maulana Muhammad Ali), Amina Tyabji (wife of Abbas Tyabji), Begum Sakina Luqmani (wife of Dr Luqmani and daughter of Badruddin Tyabji), Nishat-un-Nisa (Begum Hasrat Mohani), Saadat Bano Kitchlew (wife of Dr Saifuddin Kichlew), Zulekha Begum (wife of Maulana Azad), Mehr Taj (daughter of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan), Zubaida Begum Daoodi (wife of Shafi Daoodi, the reputed nationalist of Bihar) and many others.

Santimoy Ray’s ‘Freedom Movement And Indian Muslims’ challenges the many prejudices that generate bias and hatred against the Indian Muslims, particularly their contentions role in Indian freedom movement.

This shows the great sacrifices they made to oust the British rule in all the national uprisings from Sanyasi Movement to Independence, finally led to the withdrawal of British from India in 1947. It is such a pity that their roles in the struggle for freedom has not been adequately presented in the Indian history. The comprehensive study about the role of Muslims struggle for freedom is essential to help eradicating prejudices and many misconceptions against the Muslims grown in the absence of fair historiography.

I’m recalling some of the beautiful lines of Faiz Ahmed Faiz …

Ye daagh daagh ujaalaa, ye shab-gaziida sahar,
Vo intizaar thaa jis-kaa, ye vo sahar to nahiiN,
Ye vo sahar to nahiiN jis-kii aarzu lekar
Chale the yaar ke mil-ja`egi kahiiN na kahiN
Falak ke dasht meN taroN kii aakhiri manzil,
KahiN to hogaa shab-e sust mauj kaa sahil,
KahiN to jaake rukegaa safiina-e-gham-e-dil.
Abhii chiraagh-e-sar-e-rah ko kuchh khabar hii nahiiN;
Abhii giraanii-e-shab meN kamii nahiiN aa’ii,
Najaat-e-diidaa-o-dil ki ghaRii nahiiN aa’ii;
Chale-chalo ke vo manzil abhii nahiiN aa’ii.

Meaning:

This stain-covered daybreak, this night-bitten dawn,
This is not that dawn of which there was expectation;
This is not that dawn with longing for which
The friends set out, (convinced) that somewhere there we met with,
In the desert of the sky, the final destination of the stars!
Somewhere there would be the shore of the sluggish wave of night,
Somewhere would go and halt the boat of the grief of pain.
The lamp beside the road has still come no lessening,
The hour of the deliverance of eye and heart has not arrived.
Come, come on, for that goal has still not arrived.

(Author is currently preparing for civil service examinations.)

source: http://www.twocircles.net / TwoCircles.net / Home> Articles> Indian Muslim / by Shaik Amer Arafath / August 14th, 2015

Hayat-i-Qudsi, life of the Nawab Gauhar Begum alias the Nawab Begum Qudsia of Bhopal

Books (incl.Biographies - w.e.f.01 jan 2018 ), Community Involvement / Social Issues, Freedom Fighters (under research project), Leaders, World Opinion, , , , ,

Bhopal, MADHYA PRADESH :

Hayat-i-Qudsi, life of the Nawab Gauhar Begum alias the Nawab Begum Qudsia of Bhopal
Hayat-i-Qudsi, life of the Nawab Gauhar Begum alias the Nawab Begum Qudsia of Bhopal
COVER of the book by Sultan Jahan Begam, Nawab of Bhopal, 1858-1930
Publication date : 1918
Publisher : London Paul, Trench, Trubne
Digitizing sponsor : Univesity of Toronto 
Contributor : Robarts – University of Toronto
Language : English 
source:  https://archive.org/details/hayatiqudsilifeo00sult

The abiding fame of Faizabad

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Books (incl.Biographies - w.e.f.01 jan 2018 ), Community Involvement / Social Issues, Freedom Fighters (under research project), Leaders, World Opinion, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Faizabad, UTTTAR  PRADESH :

EPITOMISING SYNCRETIC CULTURE Begum Akhtar
EPITOMISING SYNCRETIC CULTURE Begum Akhtar

“Shaharnama Faizabad” offers detailed information about the social and cultural life of the historic town

Although Faizabad had acquired prominence during the reign of the early Nawabs of Awadh, it lost some of its lustre when, soon after taking over the reins of the kingdom in 1775, Nawab Asif-ud-Daula shifted the capital from Faizabad to Lucknow.

Yet, it continued to enjoy a lot of influence until the last Nawab Wajid Ali Shah was deposed and banished to Matia Burz near Calcutta (now Kolkata). It was so because of its famed Begums who wielded considerable political and financial clout. However, in the last century, a Begum of a different kind brought the town national recognition when, at the end of every gramophone recording, she would proudly announce: “Mera naam Akhtari Bai Faizabad”. For most of her performing career, Begum Akhtar was known as Akhtari Bai Faizabadi and she truly represented the refined composite culture of Faizabad that abuts the Hindu holy town of Ayodhya.

Last year, Vani Prakashan had brought out an excellent book on Lucknow that offered scholarly research along with useful touristic information. Titled ‘The Other Lucknow: An Ethnographic Portrait of a City of Undying Memories and Nostalgia’, it was edited by Nadeem Hasnain and was based on a research project sponsored and funded by the Ayodhya Shodh Sansthan (Ayodhya Research Institute), an autonomous organisation of the Uttar Pradesh government’s Department of Culture.

FaizabadBookMPOs13jan2018

It’s a matter of rejoicing that this year, Vani Prakashan has published a companion volume on Faizabad with the help of the same Ayodhya Shodh Sansthan. The fact that this volume is in Hindi and it offers very detailed information about the historic town, its social and cultural life, and places of religious and cultural significance would warm the cockles of everybody’s heart. Hindi writer Yatindra Mishra, who recently won the President’s Golden Lotus award for his biography of Lata Mangeshkar, has edited this 640-page tome titled “Shaharnama Faizabad” (A Chronicle of Faizabad). A scion of the erstwhile ruling family of Ayodhya, Mishra’s love for Faizabad is evident in the care and fastidiousness with which he has performed this daunting task with the help of many experts including historians Salim Kidwai, Madhu Trivedi and Yogesh Pravin, Islamic culture scholar Mirza Shahab Shah and Kosala Museum’s Deshraj Upadhyaya, to name only a few. Mishra has not only edited the book but has also contributed a large number of detailed comments on the Faizabad region’s history and culture, making use of painstakingly done research into archival material and other sources.

The book is divided into five sections and opens with the history of Faizabad and the way its architecture and culture took shape under the Nawabs. After Nawab Saadat Khan ‘Burhan-ul-Mulk’ was awarded the Suba of Awadh by the Mughal Emperor, he built a temporary fort called Qila Mubarak near Lakshman Ghat in Ayodhya. After some time, he built a cantonment at a distance of five kms from Qila Mubarak and it was known as Bangla. During the reign of Nawab Mansur Ali Khan ‘Safdarjung’, Bangla acquired the name of Faizabad. This section also tells us a very interesting fact about the royal emblem of the Nawabs as it depicted fish (considered to be auspicious) along with the bow and arrow of Ram, the presiding deity of the adjoining Ayodhya. Detailed information about the arts, architecture, music, jewellery and ornaments, and prominent Nawabs and Begums and their Hindu and Muslim courtiers has been provided in this opening section.

The second section is one of the most interesting and valuable parts of this book as it deals with the events and heroes of the great revolt of 1857, often described as the First War of Indian independence.

Ripple effect

As is well known, the deposition of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah had also played an important role in spreading anger and anguish among the sepoys who hailed from the Awadh region in considerably large numbers. Mangal Pandey belonged to village Dugvan-Rahimpur of Tehsil Sadar in Faizabad district. We also come to know about Maulavi Ahmad Ullah Shah alias Danka Shah who, as early as in February 1857, had started condemning foreign rule in his public speeches. He was imprisoned and sentenced to death. Faizabad remained independent till January 6, 1858 and was defeated by the Nepalese army that attacked its forces and subdued them.

While the third section gives detailed descriptions of important religious places belonging to all the religions present in the region, the fourth section offers invaluable historical information about the writers, poets, courtesans, high-brow as well as folk musicians, folk art, village fairs as well as local festivals, bazaars and traditional haats, instruments and their makers, journalists, newspapers, magazines and printing presses of the region. It’s a fairly long list and offers a glimpse into the cultural richness of Faizabad.

The fifth and final section deals with prominent social workers, sportspersons, educational institutions and public libraries, thus completing a full circle. It’s not possible to discuss such a voluminous book in any detail here. Suffice it to say that those who are interested in knowing the history and culture of Awadh cannot afford to ignore this work.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Books / by Kuldeep Kumar / June 16th, 2017

Maulavi Ahmad Ullah Shah and great revolt of 1857

Amazing Feats, Books (incl.Biographies - w.e.f.01 jan 2018 ), Community Involvement / Social Issues, Freedom Fighters (under research project), Leaders, World Opinion, , , , , , , ,

Arcot, MADRAS (now TAMIL NADU ) /  Faizabad, UTTAR PRADESH :

BookAhmedalluhMPOsJAN13mpos2018

BookAhmedalluh02MPOsJAN13mpos2018

source: http://www.nbtindia.gov.in / National Book Trust, India / Home> Books> National Biography

200th Christmas for Faizabad church

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Freedom Fighters (under research project), Leaders, World Opinion, , ,

Arcot, MADRAS (now TAMIL NADU ) /  Faizabad, UTTAR PRADESH :

A German music band celebrates Christmas with children
A German music band celebrates Christmas with children

Faizabad

Built 200 years ago, Wesleyan Chapel, a fine specimen of British Architecture, for the British soldiers posted in Faizabad Cantonment, Church of North India is all decked up to celebrate Christmas.

Wesleyan Chapel, built in 1816, merged with Diocese of Lucknow in 1970 and then came to be known as Church of North India.

Talking to TOI, Rev Kaushalendra Solomon, pastor of the church said that special prayer service would be held at midnight on Christmas and then in the morning. Different religious activities will continue in the church till December 31and a special watch night service would be held on New Year eve.

The church committee led by secretary Chitij Charles has ensured special decoration with flowers and lighting as the Church has completed 200 years. Rev Solomon said that they get special cakes baked for Christmas celebrations at a local bakery.

“Ghulam Mohammad, a local scholar, said that Maulvi Ahmad Ullah Shah, who was leading the 1857 mutiny against Britishers from Faizabad, had instructed his soldiers not to damage the Wesleyan Chapel because it was a place of worship.”

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> Neww> City News> Lucknow News / by Arshad Afzal Khan / TNN / December 25th, 2017

How a short film on Bhopal pays a poignant tribute to an age when women ruled the state

Community Involvement / Social Issues, Freedom Fighters (under research project), Leaders, World Opinion, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Bhopal , MADHYA PRADESH :

Begamon ka Bhopal is a lyrical ode to a forgotten time.

An 18-year-old widow who declared her infant daughter queen; a wife who survived an assassination attempt and held her husband captive; a princess who abdicated the throne in favour of her mother; a ruler who served as the only woman chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University.

The erstwhile royalty of Bhopal has borne some of the bravest, most dynamic rulers in the 19th and 20th century India. These nawabs were popular, fair, reformist, and fierce; they were also women.

While several women have enjoyed power as regent mothers and influential wives throughout history, Bhopal and its royalty are unique. Between 1819 and 1926, the kingdom saw four women rule it – women who were Nawab Begums, not just Begums, who ruled through inheritance, not proxy.

A still from Begamon ka Bhopal.
A still from Begamon ka Bhopal.

The movie

Much has been written about these women and their reign, including by the Nawab Begums themselves, documenting both the personal and the political events of their times.

The footprints they left behind have become part of Bhopal’s everyday life, informing and forming its consciousness and character. It is the exploration of this connect that has resulted in Begamon ka Bhopal, a short film, which is both an ode to the universal feeling of nostalgia, and a document of how an interaction with history can turn deeply existential and personal.

The movie has been directed by Rachita Gorowala, a 30-year-old alumna of Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai, and FTII, Pune, and will be available to viewers in January on filmsdivision.org.

Gorowala says she made the movie as her own experiment with truth: “A fascination with Pathan woman rulers who ruled Bhopal for over 100 years started me on Begamon ka Bhopal. A journey that may have begun on the lines of fascination with history became existential, introspective and deeper as an experiment with cinema.”

The movie speaks of a Bhopal long past, and seeks to conjure it up through a writer rooted in the city, a grandson who has preserved reels of films shot by his grandfather between 1929 and 1975, two royal descendants, a royal attendant.

The overarching emotion running through the movie is huzoon, a Persian word for powerful nostalgia, a longing for something lost but not gone. The characters speak of their own past lives, or their engagements and attempts to understand the past life of their city.

The emotion and the sense of old Bhopal is created through both audio and visual evocations – the magnificence and now the absence that marks palaces (Moti Mahal, Shaukat Mahal), the Taj-ul Masjid that is a solid link to the past and the present of the city. Music has been used powerfully – songs written and sung by Firoza Khan, one of the former royals who features in the movie – play like both a dirge and an ode.

“As a student of cinema, I learnt that a film is a medium of time and not of telling stories. Stories are meant to be heard and read. It is through juxtaposition of images and sounds that one creates an emotional journey,” says Gorowala.

Begamon Ka Bhopal is her first short film in the genre of poetic-realism, “a lyrical, musical, introspective journey”. “The movie is an ode to the times that once existed in Bhopal, through an everyday nostalgia that is lived by a writer, a film keeper and royal descendants. Each in their own way hold onto time and thus become it,” she says.

The movie has a lot of frames that show only parts, fragments – walking feet, hands busy with embroidery, dry rustling leaves – which seem to reflect the fragments in which we understand and engage with the past, the parts we hold on to, some passages, some stories that call out to us especially, and through which we try to understand the whole, through which we seek to anchor ourselves in the ocean of time.

The character Salahuddin, writer Manzoor Etheshaam, Nawabiyat descendants Firoza Khan and Meeno Ali, the royal attendant Zohra Phupo, all have important roles, the three women are symbols of the past and have survived into the present, the two men belong to the present and are trying to hold onto their connect with the past.

There is a powerful scene of Firoza fingering dolls as she talks of her own moulding into a member of a royal family post her marriage in 1961; she talks as she dresses up, her begum-ness coming alive with each addition of earrings, kangan, kaajal.

The Begums

For her movie, Gorowala had rich material to draw on. Bhopal’s famous Begums had a lot of variety among them in terms of personality and traits – the first, Qudsia, defied her court’s nobles and conventions to declare her infant daughter King in 1819.

Saif Ali Khan Pataudi has the blood of these begums in his veins. Photo: India Today
Saif Ali Khan Pataudi has the blood of these begums in his veins. Photo: India Today

Qudsia ruled as proxy for her daughter for 18 years, defending her kingdom against the battering armies of the mighty Marathas – Scindias, Holkars, Gaekwads – and her daughter’s inheritance against internal opposition.

However, some nobles managed to convince the British that a woman ruler was un-Islamic. Thus began a period of daughters inheriting the kingdom and their husbands ruling it. Qudsia’s daughter, Sikander, was married to her cousin Jahangeer. Jahangeer proved unpopular. He even tried to kill his pregnant wife, but she escaped, took refuge in another fort, and subsequently managed to imprison him inside the fort.

Jahangeer died at 26, and once again, his six-year-old daughter Shahjahan was declared king, with power to pass on to her husband when she would get married.

However, Qudsia argued and harangued the British till this clause was removed. Thus, Sikander, and then Shahjahan, both ruled Bhopal as kings who inherited the kingdom. After Shahjahan’s death in 1901, her daughter Sultan Jahan ascended the throne.

While Qudsia was brought up illiterate and in purdah, she rose to the occasion when the need befell her. Sikander was raised to be king. Shahjahan was the most feminine and the least austere of the four, and wrote several books. Sultan Jahan went back to observing purdah, and was the first chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University.

After Sultan Jahan, the throne went to a man, her son Mohammad Hamidullah Khan. However, after Hamidullah died in1960 and his eldest daughter Abida Sultan migrated to Pakistan, his younger daughter, Sajida Sultan, came to power. Sajida’s husband was Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi, the grandfather of Saif Ali Khan.

Incidentally, Abida Sultan’s son Shaharyar M Khan, Pakistan’s former foreign secretary, authored the book, The Begums of Bhopal, on his path-breaking ancestors.

source: http://www.dailyo.com / Daily O  / Home> Art & Culture / by Yashee   @ yasheesingh / December 24th, 2017

Yusuf Meherally, The Forgotten Freedom Fighter For Whom Bombay Once Stood Still

Amazing Feats, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Freedom Fighters (under research project), Leaders, World Opinion, , , , , , ,

Bombay (now Mumbai), MAHARASHTRA :

Both “Quit India” and “Simon Go Back” slogans were coined by a lesser-known hero of India’s struggle for freedom, Yusuf Meherally. Here’s his untold story.

India’s fight against colonial rule was a long drawn out battle that gained momentum in several phases since it started in the early 20th century. Examples of these phases are the Non-Cooperation movement of 1920-22 and the Civil Disobedience movement of 1930-32. However, the one rallying call that gave the country its ultimate push towards complete independence was “Quit India”.

By far the strongest and most vociferous appeal made by the Indian National Congress (INC), “Quit India” asked the British, loud and clear, to leave India once and for all. Interestingly, contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t Mahatma Gandhi who coined this iconic slogan.

Both “Quit India” and “Simon Go Back” slogans were coined by a lesser-known hero of India’s struggle for freedom, Yusuf Meherally.

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The son of a well-to-do businessman, Yusuf Meherally was born in Bombay on September 3, 1903. Fifty years earlier, his great-grandfather had established one of Bombay’s first textile mills and the family had prospered ever since.

As a young boy, Meherally was curious about the nationalist movements developing around him. While he was in high school, he would spend much time reading about the revolutionary movements of the different nations and the role youth had played in them. Having witnessed his family’s upper class prejudices all his life, the sensitive boy was also deeply affected by the struggles of the working class.

Having soon become a staunch supporter of the freedom struggle, young Yusuf was looked upon as an embarrassing renegade by his pro-British family. Unaffected by their disapproval, he joined the movement immediately after finishing his schooling from Bharda High School.

After earning a B.A. in History and Economics from Elphinstone college, he was studying law at the Government Law College in February 1928 when Simon Commission reached Bombay. A group of seven British Members of Parliament, the Simon Commission had arrived in India to suggest constitutional reforms but didn’t have a single Indian member. This unfair and insulting decision had led to much anger and disappointment among Indians.

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Having founded the Bombay Youth League the very same year, Meherally immediately organised a protest against the Simon Commision. He had initially planned an ambitious expedition on boats to meet the members at sea itself, but the plan was leaked and the police took stringent steps to prevent it from happening.

Undaunted, Meherally and other young men dressed up as coolies to get access to the Bombay port where they greeted the members of the commission with black flags and the slogan “Simon Go Back”. The resolute demonstrators were lathi-charged thrice but they did not budge an inch. As the news of the demonstration spread like wildfire, establishments across the city began observing spontaneous hartals.

Overnight, Meherally’s courage and slogan were on everyone’s lips, including Mahatma Gandhi’s. Not only had he dared to shout his slogan to the face of a powerful British politician, he had also defied the directions of his political seniors who counselled inaction.

Threatened by his growing popularity and radical views, the British debarred him from practising law to the consternation of his family. The rarity of this action can be seen from the fact that though several nationalist leaders were lawyers, none of them had been barred from practising law.

Two years later, when the Civil Disobedience movement was launched, Meherally and his band of young volunteers worked tirelessly to keep the morale of the public up in face of the severe repressive measures that the British unleashed.

As INC’s prominent leaders courted imprisonment and went to jail during the Salt Satyagraha, Meherally kept the movement running till he himself was arrested in 1930 and sentenced to four month’s imprisonment.

Gandhi during the Salt March, March 1930
Gandhi during the Salt March, March 1930

In 1932, Meherally was again arrested for conspiracy and sentenced to a two-year term in the Nasik prison. It was here that he met and interacted with the radical socialist leaders of the freedom struggle.

After his release in 1934, he joined hands with Jayaprakash Narayan, Asok Mehta, Narendra Dev, Achyut Patwadhan, Minoo Masani and others to found the Congress Socialist Party. The organisation hoped to transcend communal divisions through class solidarity and bring about economic empowerment through decentralized socialism (i.e farmer co-operatives and trade unions).

In 1938, Meherally led the Indian delegation to the World Youth Congress in New York before attending the World Cultural Conference taking place in Mexico. Here, he was struck by the lack of literature on contemporary issues in India when compared to the West. Determined to fill this gap, he authored a series of books titled ‘Leaders of India‘ that focused on current topics and translated them to Gujarati, Hindi and Urdu.

Here is an excerpt from the foreword he wrote:

“The rise of the pamphlet and the booklet as a powerful weapon for the spread of ideas has been truly remarkable. During my visits to these continents (US and Europe) I was greatly impressed by the part that such brochures play in moulding public opinion. In Europe and America there exists a wealth of topical literature that is in striking contrast to its scantiness in India.

The Current Topics Series of Padma Publications is an attempt to meet this need. The idea is to publish every few months a booklet on a subject of topical or special interest having regard to present-day controversies and their bearing on the future. The series will not be restricted to political questions only. Every title will be published in a pleasing format, at a price within the reach of all.”

In the next few years, Meherally was arrested several times for defying prohibitory orders and participating in Individual Satyagraha (launched by Gandhi to affirm one’s right of speech and oppose the British decision to involve India in World War II without the consent of its people).

In 1942, he was still in Lahore Jail when he was nominated by INC for the election to Bombay Mayoralty.This nomination was personally backed by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel who knew that Meherally belonged to that rare breed of leaders for whom personal gratification meant ensuring the well-being of fellow countrymen.

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Released from prison to participate in the elections, Meherally won comfortably, becoming the youngest Mayor in the history of Bombay’s municipal corporation. During his tenure, he became immensely popular among the public due to his dedication towards ensuring effective civic service.

One of Meherally’s first steps as a mayor was to introduce a quick dispatch system for files and deal with slacking officials with an iron hand. Other than personally attending to citizens’ complaints on civic issues, he took the unprecedented decision of refusing to pay municipal money for the British Government’s Air Raid Precautions (ARP) scheme.

The ARP scheme was a programme initiated for the protection of civilians from the danger of air raids. It included the organisation of ARP wardens, messengers, ambulance drivers and rescue parties who would liaison with police and fire brigades in case of an air raid.

Earlier, Bombay’s municipal corporation used to pay Rs 24 lakh to the British government for the ARP scheme but an adamant Meherally argued that the defense of the city should be in the hands of those who would remain on the scene no matter what and not the British who would probably withdraw in case of an attack (just like they had done in Malaya and Burma).

This led to the organisation of the People’s Volunteer Brigade in Bombay and the city became the only one in India where the municipal corporation was allowed to run the ARP scheme.

Indian women training for air raid precautions (ARP) duties in Bombay, 1942. IND 1492 Part of WAR OFFICE SECOND WORLD WAR OFFICIAL COLLECTION No 9 Army Film & Photographic Unit
Indian women training for air raid precautions (ARP) duties in Bombay, 1942.
IND 1492
Part of
WAR OFFICE SECOND WORLD WAR OFFICIAL COLLECTION
No 9 Army Film & Photographic Unit

All this while, he continued being involved in the country’s fight for freedom. On July 14, 1942, INC’s working committee had met at Wardha and demanded complete independence, failing which a massive civil disobedience movement would be launched.

Soon after, at a meeting in Bombay, Gandhi conferred with his closest associates on the best slogan for the movement. C Rajagopalachari suggested ‘Retreat’ or ‘Withdraw’ but it didn’t find much favour with the leader. It was Meherally who then came up with the succinct phrase — ‘Quit India’ — that got Gandhi’s approval.

In preparation for the nationwide movement, Meherally published a booklet titled Quit India (that sold out in a matter of weeks) and got over a thousand ‘Quit India’ badges printed to popularise the slogan. On August 8, 1942, Gandhi delivered his powerful Quit India speech at Mumbai’s Gowalia Tank Maidan. The next day, he was arrested along with practically the entire INC leadership.

Realising that these arrests had created a vacuum in the communication between the leadership and the masses, Meherally immediately mobilized his socialist colleagues –  Aruna Asaf Ali, Ram Manohar Lohia and Achyut Patwardhan – to take charge of the Quit India movement while hiding underground, just before he himself was caught and put in prison.

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It was during this last tenure in prison that Meherally suffered a debilitating heart attack. The prison authorities offered to shift him to St George Hospital for special treatment but the principled man demanded that two other ailing freedom fighters should also get the same facilities. When the authorities refused, he chose to remain in prison.

Over the following few months, freedom fighters across India responded with waves of civic rebellion despite the violent backlash from the British authorities. While the Quit India Movement did not result in immediate attainment of freedom, it did indeed create the massive pressure that resulted in India bidding farewell to the British just three years later.

By the time he was released in 1943, Meherally’s health had deteriorated sharply but he continued to contribute to the cause of Indian independence. The selfless leader was over the moon when his beloved motherland finally unshackled the chains of colonialism and awoke to freedom on August 15, 1947.

Independence day of India, August 15, 1947
Independence day of India, August 15, 1947

However, the years of struggle had taken its toll, rendering him weak and bed-ridden, though only physically and not in spirit. Even from his hospital bed, he continued to work to highlight India’s vibrant diversity and rich heritage.

In October 1949, Meherally organised a one-of-its-kind exhibition that displayed more than 200 pictures and paintings that traced the evolution of India’s freedom struggle since 1857. He also organised several cultural and literary events at Bombay’s famed Kala Ghoda, inviting Indian personalities who were legends in their respective fields.

On July 2, 1950, Yusuf Meherally passed away at the age of 47, his death rousing the same passion in the public as his slogans. Shocked at the loss of their beloved leader, all of Bombay was in collective mourning. The next day, as the clock struck noon, buses, trams and trains across the city stopped for a few minutes.

Almost all schools, colleges, shops, factories and mills remained shut. The Bombay Stock Exchange, an iconic symbol of the city’s financial strength, witnessed no trading though officially open for business. The city that never stopped, Bombay stood still in the memory of the man who had literally given his lifeblood for the city’s well-being and the country’s cause.

source: http://www.thebetterindia.com / The Better India / Home> Freedom Fighter> History> Lede / by Sanchari Pai / September 28th, 2017

Remembering Fathema Ismail’s battle against polio

Amazing Feats, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Freedom Fighters (under research project), Leaders, Science & Technology, World Opinion, , , , , , ,

Bombay (Mumbai), MAHARASHTRA :

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IN 1942, a daughter was born to Fathema Ismail, the sister of cotton king and Congress financier Umar Sobhani, and Mohammad Hasham Ismail, a government of India trade commissioner posted in Mombasa. She was fondly named Usha – after the Goddess of dawn – in the expectation of a new dawn as the city and the country was immersed in the Quit India movement. Fathema Ismail was closely involved with Kulsum Sayani (the mother of Ameen Sayani) in women’s education and the establishment of All India Village Industries Association. When Usha turned three the family discovered that she had polio.

“Amma was dejected with the news, but at the same time she was determined to get the best treatment for me,” recalls Usha Cunningham who is now based in New York. She recalls the turbulent years where India fought and finally achieved freedom from the British, which ran parallel to her own fight with polio. Patel Manzil at Nepean Sea Road, where Usha grew up was a safe haven for underground activists. “Aruna khaala (Aruna Asaf Ali) and other leaders would live under assumed names in our house. My mother’s nationalist leanings were well-known but as my father was a trade commissioner, we escaped scrutiny.”

In her search for a doctor, Fathema was referred to Dr M G Kini, an orthopaedic surgeon based in Madras. “Dr Kini was a crusty, old man who first declined to accept my case. Amma would literally sit outside his residence and accost him in the morning, afternoon and evening when he would travel between his house and clinic. He ultimately agreed and we stayed in Madras for around eight months,” recalls Cunningham. Under Dr Kini’s guidance Usha showed tremendous improvement.

The Madras visit also marked the beginning of Fathema’s discovery about the lack of facilities for children afflicted with polio. Soon her husband Mohammad was transferred to Iran from Mombasa, but she stayed in India. After Madras, the next stop was Pune, where, Fathema had gathered, there were some facilities for rehabilitating injured soldiers at the British Army Hospital. “There were three British physiotherapists who would treat the injured soldiers with the help of a few trained Indian assistants. Amma requested similar training and after some reluctance was allowed access,” remembers Cunningham.

What worked in her favour was the fact that Fathema had gone to Vienna to study medicine in 1920 after finishing her schooling, but had to return due to a financial crisis in the family. For three years she had stayed alone in Vienna absorbed in her studies. Decades later, those three years of study helped facilitate a better understanding of the process of rehabilitation. More than two years of treatment and therapy changed Cunningham’s life. From “totally paralysed”, she regained remarkable mobility in her right leg. Little did she know that she would soon become an exemplar of how patients with polio need not be confined within the walls of their house – ignored and neglected.

Fathema was now determined to start a facility for the countless poliostricken children and their parents. Her experience and observation in Madras and Pune gave her the confidence to start a clinic in Bombay (as it was known then). But finding a suitable space amidst a financial crunch plus low awareness of the disease were formidable hurdles. She also had to ensure she had enough medical equipment to attend to the children. The war had ended and the imminent departure of the British meant that the Army hospital in Pune faced an uncertain future.

In 1946 she had established the Society for the Rehabilitation of Crippled Children (SRCC) but despite her pleadings, the hospital was not willing to share or sell the equipment. She then convinced two of the Indian assistants to get the various equipment and kits transferred to Bombay while the hospital was winding up. “She promised them jobs and convinced them of the immense good this would do for the poor patients,” recalls Cunningham, the excitement in her voice palpable as she recounted her mother’s exploits.” Not many people know that six truckloads of machinery were taken out from Pune,” she says.

These surreptitiously transported kits formed the base for a polio clinic that was opened in May 1947 in the empty Chowpatti premises offered by Dr A V Baliga, who was going to the United States on a study tour. After few months the Bombay government gave space in the empty barracks at Marine Drive as the clinic’s immense popularity led to a waiting list. In the wake of Independence, Bombay and India, had woken up to the need of rehabilitating the differentlyabled. Medical journals and international aid organisations took note of Fathema Ismail’s enterprise.

Fathema Ismail and Jawaharlal Nehru at the opening of her clinic in the military barrack at Marine Drive in 1947
Fathema Ismail and Jawaharlal Nehru at the opening of her clinic in the military barrack at Marine Drive in 1947

In 1951, she visited the United States on the state department’s invitation for a four-month tour of various hospitals, and the same year went to Europe to attend international conferences. She was now determined to open a full-fledged hospital. “She caused quite a headache to Prime Minister Nehru as she demanded a plot near the race course at Haji Ali. It was a prime location and Nehru would say ‘Fati, why only that plot? I can request the Bombay government to give some other place’. But Amma was insistent. The racecourse was frequented by the rich and the famous and one of the reasons for the request was that she wanted larger society to be fully aware and responsive to the problem of polio.”

The result was a children’s orthopaedic hospital, which opened in 1952 and was inaugurated by Nehru, which continues to operate to this day. After roughly 30 surgeries and years of therapy, Cunningham who is now 75 years old, has no regrets. “I have climbed mountains, ran a business in Delhi, shifted to America, got married, have a caring husband and daughter. This is what Amma wanted. Similarly she convinced several industrialists to offer training for the handicapped at her centres so that they could get employment.” In 2011, India announced that it had eradicated polio but the foundation stone for this incredible campaign was laid by a lady who had the grit and determination to envision a polio-free society over 70 years ago.

source: http://www.ahmedabadmirror.indiatimes.com / Ahmedabad Mirror / Home> Others> Sunday Read / by Danish Khan, Ahmedabad Mirror / August 20th, 2017