Top 10 Freedom Fighters
in India is a article to describe top most personalities of our Indian freedom
struggle. In India, freedom struggle happened almost for a centuries. Our
Indian men & women faced a lot of problems by British Government & Dutch
people. After a united struggle of our freedom fighters only now we can enjoy
our freedom living in India. We should remember each one sacrifice their lives
for our current free life. Salute to them! Here is some of the major freedom
fighters in India did a major contribute to our nation.
1. SUBHASH CHANDRA
BOSE
Date of Birth : Jan 23, 1897
Date of Death : Aug 18, 1945
Place of Birth : Orissa
Subhash Chandra Bose
(January 23, 1897 – August 18, 1945), also known as Netaji, was one of the most
prominent leaders of the Indian Independence Movement against the British Raj.
Subhas Chandra Bose was born to an affluent family in Cuttack, Orissa. His
father, Janakinath Bose, was a public prosecutor who believed in orthodox
nationalism, and later became a member of the Bengal Legislative Council. His
mother was Prabhavati Bose, a remarkable example of Indian womanhood. Bose was educated
at Cambridge University. In 1920, Bose took the Indian Civil Service entrance
examination and was placed second. However, he resigned from the prestigious
Indian Civil Service in April 1921 despite his high ranking in the merit list,
and went on to become an active member of India’s independence movement.
He joined the Indian
National Congress, and was particularly active in its youth wing. Subhas
Chandra Bose felt that young militant groups could be molded into a military
arm of the freedom movement and used to further the cause. Gandhiji opposed
this ideology because it directly conflicted with his policy of ahimsa
(non-violence). The British Government in India perceived Subhas as a potential
source of danger and had him arrested without any charge on October 25, 1924.
He was sent to Alipore Jail, Calcutta and in January 25, 1925 transferred to
Mandalay, Burma. He was released from Mandalay in May, 1927 due to his ill
health. Upon return to Calcutta, Subhas was elected President of the Bengal Congress
Committee on October 27, 1927.
Subhas was one of the
few politicians who sought and worked towards Hindu-Muslim unity on the basis
of respect of each community’s rights. Subhas, being a man of ideals, believed
in independence from the social evil of religious discord. In January 1930
Subhas was arrested while leading a procession condemning imprisonment of
revolutionaries. He was offered bail on condition that he signs a bond to
refrain from all political activities, which he refused. As a result he was
sentenced to a year’s imprisonment. On his release from jail, Subhas was sworn
in as Mayor of the Calcutta Corporation. In 1931 the split between Gandhiji and
Subhas crystallized. Although the two never saw eye to eye on their view of
freedom and the movement itself, Subhas felt that Gandhiji had done a great
disservice to the movement by agreeing to take part in the Second Round Table
Conference. Subhas viewed freedom as an absolute necessity, unlike the freedom
which Gandhiji was “negotiating” with the British. Subhas was arrested again
while returning from Bombay to Calcutta, and imprisoned in several jails
outside West Bengal in fear of an uprising. His health once again deteriorated
and the medical facilities diagnosed him with tuberculosis. It was recommended
that he be sent to Switzerland for treatment. Realizing that his avenues abroad
were greater with the restrictions of the British, Subhas set sail for Europe
on February 23, 1933. Subhas stayed in various parts of Europe from March 1993
to March 1936 making contacts with Indian revolutionaries and European
socialists supporting India’s Struggle for Independence. Subhas met Mussolini
in Italy and made Vienna his headquarters. Subhas was opposed to the racial
theory of Nazism but appreciated its organizational strength and discipline. On
March 27, 1936 he sailed for Bombay and but was escorted to jail immediately
after disembarking. After lying low for a year, he was able to work actively.
He attended the All India Congress Committee Session in Calcutta, the first one
he attended after a lapse of nearly six years. Time had healed the tensions
between Subhas and Gandhiji, and Gandhiji supported Subhas in his efforts to
become the President of the next Congress session, 1938. He went to England for
a month in 1938 and rallied for the Indian freedom cause amongst Indian
students and British labor leaders sympathetic toward India’s cause. It was a
bold move since he was constantly under British surveillance. Upon his return
to India in February 1938, Subhas was elected President of the Indian National
Congress. An excerpt from his Presidential address read, “I have no doubt in my
mind that our chief national problems relating to the eradication of poverty,
illiteracy and disease and the scientific production and distribution can be
tackled only along socialistic lines… .” Subhas emphasized that political
freedom alone would not be sufficient, as the ills of the British reign would
continue to haunt post-Independent India. He stressed the need to solve linguistic
and religious prejudices and to achieve a high literacy rate amongst Indians.
Gandhiji found Subhas’s ideologies far too leftist and strongly disagreed with
Subhas’s criticism of village industries and stress on competing with the rest
of the world in the Industrial age. Opposition from Sardar Vallabhai Patel,
lack of support from Gandhiji and Nehru’s indecision marked Subhas’s year as
the President of the Congress. One of Subhas’ major contributions was setting
up of a National Planning Committee, for the development of an economic program
running parallel to the national movement. Differences between Gandhiji and
Subhas led to a crisis when Gandhiji opposed Subhas’ idea that the Bengal
Government (a coalition between the Krishak Praja Party & Muslim League) be
ousted and the Congress take charge in coalition with the Krishak party. The
idea was criticized by Gandhiji and Nehru, which resulted in the strengthening
of the Muslim League in Bengal and ultimately partition of India. It is obvious
today that had Subhas been able to carry out his plans, Bengal would be a
different entity on the atlas. Despite opposition from the Congress brass,
Subhas was a favorite amongst the majority as he was re-elected for a second
term in March 1939. Gandhiji considered Subhas’s victory as his personal defeat
and went on a fast to rally the members of the Working Committee to resign.
Subhas resigned and Dr. Rajendra Prasad assumed the Presidency of the Congress.
In May 1939, Subhas formed the Forward Bloc within the Congress as an umbrella
organization of the left forces within the Congress. Gandhiji and his
supporters accused Subhas of breach of Congress party discipline and drafted a
resolution removing Subhas from the Congress Working Committee and restrained
him from holding any office for three years. On September 3, 1939 Subhas was
informed that war had broken out between Britain and Germany. Subhas discussed
the idea of an underground struggle against the British with members of the
Forward Bloc. Subhas pressurized the Congress leaders to get a Declaration of
War Aims from the Viceroy; he declined. Subhas was elected President of the
West Bengal Provincial Congress. In December the Congress Working Committee
subverted the Provincial Committee’s authority and appointed its own ad hoc
committee. The Forward Bloc progressively became militant and by April 1940
most of its senior members were arrested. Subhas was convinced that the only
way he could bring about India’s Independence was by leaving the country and
fighting from foreign territories. He had made contact with radical Punjab and
Pathan activists who had contacts in Afghanistan and Russia to organize a
militia. Subhas knew that Britain was in a vulnerable position following the
surrender of France in June 1940. He announced the launch of Siraj-ud-daula Day
on July 3, in memory of the last king of Bengal who was defeated by Clive. His
plan was to hold a procession and to unify Hindu and Muslim nationalists. The
Government interceded and imprisoned Subhas on July 2, 1940 in Presidency Jail,
Calcutta. Netaji believed that foreign assistance was a must to free India from
British rule. In 1939, when the Second World War broke out, Subhas sought
assistance from Germany, Italy, and Japan as they were enemies of Britain and thus
would be natural allies. In 1941, he evaded a house-arrest in Calcutta by
disguising himself as a Maulavi and going to Kabul, Afghanistan. Later, he
procured an Italian passport and fled to Berlin, Germany. There he met Hitler
and discussed his plans and sought his assistance to free India. He also sought
assistance from Mussolini. From time to time, he aired his speeches on the Azad
Hind Radio from Berlin to communicate his intentions to fellow Indians and to
prove that he was still alive. After the defeat of Germany, Netaji realized
that he could not continue his struggle from Germany anymore. Ultimately,
Netaji reached Japan in June, 1943. He established the Indian National Army
(INA) with some 30,000 Indian soldiers. He also set up a radio network in South
East Asia in order to appeal to the people, both in India and outside, for
support. The INA declared war against Britain and America. However, the INA had
to retreat from the Indo-Burmese border after a heavy defeat of the Japanese
troops there. The British defense was impenetrable. Though the “Delhi Chalo”
mission failed, Netaji proved to the world that his determination was strong
and his attitude was positive in his dream to free India from the clutches of
the British.
On August 16, 1945
Netaji boarded a plane from Singapore to Bangkok. Netaji was scheduled to fly
in a Type 97-2 bomber ‘Sally’ from Bangkok to Saigon. The plane made a stopover
in Taipei and crashed within minutes of take-off from Taipei. Netaji’s body was
cremated in Taipei on August 20, 1945 and his ashes were flown to Tokyo on
September 5, 1945 where they rest in the Renkoji Temple. To this day, many
believe that Netaji escaped from the air crash and went into hiding.
Netaji wanted
unconditional and complete freedom. He dreamed of a classless society with no
caste barriers, social inequalities or religious intolerance. He believed in
equal distribution of wealth and destruction of communalism. His slogan “Jai
Hind” still acts as a great binding force today.
2.MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI
Date of Birth : Oct 2, 1869
Date of Death : Jan 30, 1948
Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi) was born into a Hindu Modh family in Porbandar, Gujarat, India
in 1869. He was the son of Karamchand Gandhi, the diwan (Chief Minister) of
Porbandar, and Putlibai, Karamchand’s fourth wife (his previous three wives had
died in childbirth), a Hindu of the Pranami Vaishnava order. Growing up with a
devout mother and surrounded by the Jain influences of Gujarat, Gandhi learned
from an early age the tenets of non-injury to living beings, vegetarianism,
fasting for self-purification, and mutual tolerance between members of various
creeds and sects. He was born into the vaishya, or business, caste.
In May 1883, at the age
of 13, Gandhi was married through his parents’ arrangement to Kasturba Makhanji
(also spelled “Kasturbai” or known as “Ba”), who was the same age as he. They
had four sons: Harilal Gandhi, born in 1888; Manilal Gandhi, born in 1892;
Ramdas Gandhi, born in 1897; and Devdas Gandhi, born in 1900. Gandhi was a
mediocre student in his youth at Porbandar and later Rajkot. He barely passed
the matriculation exam for the University of Bombay in 1887, where he joined
Samaldas College. He was also unhappy at the college, because his family wanted
him to become a barrister. He leapt at the opportunity to study in England,
which he viewed as “a land of philosophers and poets, the very centre of
civilization.” Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a major political and spiritual
leader of India, and the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer and
perfector of Satyagraha – the resistance of tyranny through mass civil
disobedience strongly founded upon ahimsa (total non-violence) – which led
India to independence, and has inspired movements for civil rights and freedom
across the world.
Gandhi is commonly known
and addressed in India and across the world as Mahatma Gandhi and as Bapu.
Though his elders objected, Gandhi could not be prevented from leaving; and it
is said that his mother, a devout woman, made him promise that he would keep
away from wine, women, and meat during his stay abroad. Gandhi left behind his
son Harilal, then a few months old. In London, Gandhi encountered theosophists,
vegetarians, and others who were disenchanted not only with industrialism, but
with the legacy of Enlightenment thought. They themselves represented the
fringe elements of English society. Gandhi was powerfully attracted to them, as
he was to the texts of the major religious traditions; and ironically it is in
London that he was introduced to the Bhagavad Gita. Here, too, Gandhi showed
determination and single-minded pursuit of his purpose, and accomplished his
objective of finishing his degree from the Inner Temple.
He was called to the bar
in 1891, and even enrolled in the High Court of London; but later that year he
left for India. After one year of a none too successful law practice, Gandhi
decided to accept an offer from an Indian businessman in South Africa, Dada
Abdulla, to join him as a legal adviser. Unbeknown to him, this was to become
an exceedingly lengthy stay, and altogether Gandhi was to stay in South Africa
for over twenty years. The Indians who had been living in South Africa were
without political rights, and were generally known by the derogatory name of
‘coolies’. Gandhi himself came to an awareness of the frightening force and
fury of European racism, and how far Indians were from being considered full
human beings, when he thrown out of a first-class railway compartment car,
though he held a first-class ticket, at Pietermaritzburg. From this political
awakening Gandhi was to emerge as the leader of the Indian community, and it is
in South Africa that he first coined the term satyagraha to signify his theory
and practice of non-violent resistance. Gandhi was to describe himself
preeminently as a votary or seeker of satya (truth), which could not be
attained other than through ahimsa (non-violence, love) and brahmacharya
(celibacy, striving towards God). Gandhi conceived of his own life as a series
of experiments to forge the use of satyagraha in such a manner as to make the
oppressor and the oppressed alike recognize their common bonding and humanity:
as he recognized, freedom is only freedom when it is indivisible. In his book
‘Satyagraha in South Africa’ he was to detail the struggles of the Indians to
claim their rights, and their resistance to oppressive legislation and
executive measures, such as the imposition of a poll tax on them, or the
declaration by the government that all non-Christian marriages were to be
construed as invalid. In 1909, on a trip back to India, Gandhi authored a short
treatise entitled ‘Hind Swaraj’ or Indian Home Rule, where he all but initiated
the critique, not only of industrial civilization, but of modernity in all its
aspects.
Gandhi returned to India
in early 1915, and was never to leave the country again except for a short trip
that took him to Europe in 1931. Though he was not completely unknown in India,
Gandhi followed the advice of his political mentor, Gokhale, and took it upon
himself to acquire a familiarity with Indian conditions. He traveled widely for
one year. Over the next few years, he was to become involved in numerous local
struggles, such as at Champaran in Bihar, where workers on indigo plantations
complained of oppressive working conditions, and at Ahmedabad, where a dispute
had broken out between management and workers at textile mills. His
interventions earned Gandhi a considerable reputation, and his rapid ascendancy
to the helm of nationalist politics is signified by his leadership of the
opposition to repressive legislation (known as the “Rowlatt Acts”) in 1919.
His saintliness was not
uncommon, except in someone like him who immersed himself in politics, and by
this time he had earned from no less a person than Rabindranath Tagore, India’s
most well-known writer, the title of Mahatma, or ‘Great Soul’. When
‘disturbances’ broke out in the Punjab, leading to the massacre of a large
crowd of unarmed Indians at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar and other
atrocities, Gandhi wrote the report of the Punjab Congress Inquiry Committee.
Over the next two years, Gandhi initiated the non-cooperation movement, which
called upon Indians to withdraw from British institutions, to return honors
conferred by the British, and to learn the art of self-reliance; though the
British administration was at places paralyzed, the movement was suspended in
February 1922 when a score of Indian policemen were brutally killed by a large
crowd at Chauri Chaura, a small market town in the United Provinces.
Gandhi himself was arrested shortly thereafter, tried on charges
of sedition, and sentenced to imprisonment for six years. At The Great Trial,
as it is known to his biographers, Gandhi delivered a masterful indictment of
British rule. Owing to his poor health, Gandhi was released from prison in
1925. Over the following years, he worked hard to preserve Hindu-Muslim
relations, and in 1924 he observed, from his prison cell, a 21-day fast when
Hindu-Muslim riots broke out at Kohat, a military barracks on the Northwest
Frontier. This was to be of his many major public fasts, and in 1932 he was to
commence the so-called Epic Fast unto death, since he thought of “separate
electorates” for the oppressed class of what were then called untouchables (or
Harijans in Gandhi’s vocabulary, and dalits in today’s language) as a
retrograde measure meant to produce permanent divisions within Hindu society.
Gandhi earned the hostility of Ambedkar, the leader of the untouchables, but
few doubted that Gandhi was genuinely interested in removing the serious
disabilities from which they suffered, just as no one doubt that Gandhi never
accepted the argument that Hindus and Muslims constituted two separate elements
in Indian society.
These were some of the
concerns most prominent in Gandhi’s mind, but he was also to initiate a
constructive programme for social reform. Gandhi had ideas — mostly sound — on
every subject, from hygiene and nutrition to education and labor, and he
relentlessly pursued his ideas in one of the many newspapers which he founded.
Indeed, were Gandhi known for nothing else in India, he would still be
remembered as one of the principal figures in the history of Indian journalism.
In early 1930, as the nationalist movement was revived, the Indian National
Congress, the preeminent body of nationalist opinion, declared that it would
now be satisfied with nothing short of complete independence (purna swaraj).
Once the clarion call had been issued, it was perforce necessary to launch a
movement of resistance against British rule. On March 2, Gandhi addressed a
letter to the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, informing him that unless Indian demands
were met, he would be compelled to break the “salt laws”.
Predictably, his letter
was received with bewildered amusement, and accordingly Gandhi set off, on the
early morning of March 12, with a small group of followers towards Dandi on the
sea. They arrived there on April 5th: Gandhi picked up a small lump of natural
salt, and so gave the signal to hundreds of thousands of people to similarly
defy the law, since the British exercised a monopoly on the production and sale
of salt. This was the beginning of the civil disobedience movement: Gandhi
himself was arrested, and thousands of others were also hauled into jail. It is
to break this deadlock that Irwin agreed to hold talks with Gandhi, and
subsequently the British agreed to hold a Round Table Conference in London to
negotiate the possible terms of Indian independence. Gandhi went to London in
1931 and met some of his admirers in Europe, but the negotiations proved
inconclusive. On his return to India, he was once again arrested. For the next
few years, Gandhi would be engaged mainly in the constructive reform of Indian
society.
He had vowed upon
undertaking the salt march that he would not return to Sabarmati Ashram in
Ahmedabad, where he had made his home, if India did not attain its
independence, and in the mid-1930s he established himself in a remote village,
in the dead center of India, by the name of Segaon (known as Sevagram). It is
to this obscure village, which was without electricity or running water, that
India’s political leaders made their way to engage in discussions with Gandhi
about the future of the independence movement, and it is here that he received
visitors such as Margaret Sanger, the well-known American proponent of
birth-control. Gandhi also continued to travel throughout the country, taking
him wherever his services were required. One such visit was to the Northwest Frontier,
where he had in the imposing Pathan, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (known by the
endearing term of “Frontier Gandhi”, and at other times as Badshah Khan), a
fervent disciple. At the outset of World War II, Gandhi and the Congress
leadership assumed a position of neutrality: while clearly critical of fascism,
they could not find it in themselves to support British imperialism. Gandhi was
opposed by Subhas Chandra Bose, who had served as President of the Congress,
and who took to the view that Britain’s moment of weakness was India’s moment
of opportunity. When Bose ran for President of the Congress against Gandhi’s
wishes and triumphed against Gandhi’s own candidate, he found that Gandhi still
exercised influence over the Congress Working Committee, and that it was near
impossible to run the Congress if the cooperation of Gandhi and his followers
could not be procured. Bose tendered his resignation, and shortly thereafter
was to make a dramatic escape from India to find support among the Japanese and
the Nazis for his plans to liberate India. In 1942, Gandhi issued the last call
for independence from British rule. On the grounds of what is now known as
August Kranti Maidan, he delivered a stirring speech, asking every Indian to
lay down their life, if necessary, in the cause of freedom.
He gave them this
mantra: “Do or Die”; at the same time, he asked the British to ‘Quit India’.
The response of the British government was to place Gandhi under arrest, and
virtually the entire Congress leadership was to find itself behind bars, not to
be released until after the conclusion of the war. A few months after Gandhi
and Kasturba had been placed in confinement in the Aga Khan’s Palace in Pune,
Kasturba passed away: this was a terrible blow to Gandhi, following closely on
the heels of the death of his private secretary of many years, the gifted
Mahadev Desai. In the period from 1942 to 1945, the Muslim League, which
represented the interest of certain Muslims and by now advocated the creation
of a separate homeland for Muslims, increasingly gained the attention of the
British, and supported them in their war effort. The new government that came
to power in Britain under Clement Atlee was committed to the independence of
India, and negotiations for India’s future began in earnest. Sensing that the
political leaders were now craving for power, Gandhi largely distanced himself
from the negotiations. He declared his opposition to the vivisection of India.
It is generally
conceded, even by his detractors, that the last years of his life were in some
respects his finest. He walked from village to village in riot-torn Noakhali,
where Hindus were being killed in retaliation for the killing of Muslims in
Bihar, and nursed the wounded and consoled the widowed; and in Calcutta he came
to constitute, in the famous words of the last viceroy, Mountbatten, a “one-man
boundary force” between Hindus and Muslims. The ferocious fighting in Calcutta
came to a halt, almost entirely on account of Gandhi’s efforts, and even his
critics were wont to speak of the Gandhi’s ‘miracle of Calcutta’. When the
moment of freedom came, on 15 August 1947, Gandhi was nowhere to be seen in the
capital, though Nehru and the entire Constituent Assembly were to salute him as
the architect of Indian independence, as the ‘father of the nation’. The last
few months of Gandhi’s life were to be spent mainly in the capital city of
Delhi. There he divided his time between the ‘Bhangi colony’, where the
sweepers and the lowest of the low stayed, and Birla House, the residence of
one of the wealthiest men in India and one of the benefactors of Gandhi’s
ashrams. Hindu and Sikh refugees had streamed into the capital from what had
become Pakistan, and there was much resentment, which easily translated into
violence, against Muslims. It was partly in an attempt to put an end to the
killings in Delhi, and more generally to the bloodshed following the partition,
which may have taken the lives of as many as 1 million people, besides causing
the dislocation of no fewer than 11 million, that Gandhi was to commence the
last fast unto death of his life. The fast was terminated when representatives
of all the communities signed a statement that they were prepared to live in
“perfect amity”, and that the lives, property, and faith of the Muslims would
be safeguarded.
A few days later, a bomb
exploded in Birla House where Gandhi was holding his evening prayers, but it
caused no injuries. However, his assassin, a Marathi Chitpavan Brahmin by the
name of Nathuram Godse, was not so easily deterred. Gandhi, quite
characteristically, refused additional security, and no one could defy his wish
to be allowed to move around unhindered. In the early evening hours of 30
January 1948, Gandhi met with India’s Deputy Prime Minister and his close
associate in the freedom struggle, Vallabhai Patel, and then proceeded to his
prayers. That evening, as Gandhi’s time-piece, which hung from one of the folds
of his dhoti (loin-cloth), was to reveal to him, he was uncharacteristically
late to his prayers, and he fretted about his inability to be punctual. At 10
minutes past 5 o’clock, with one hand each on the shoulders of Abha and Manu,
who were known as his ‘walking sticks’, Gandhi commenced his walk towards the
garden where the prayer meeting was held. As he was about to mount the steps of
the podium, Gandhi folded his hands and greeted his audience with a namaskar;
at that moment, a young man came up to him and roughly pushed aside Manu.
Nathuram Godse bent down in the gesture of an obeisance, took a revolver out of
his pocket, and shot Gandhi three times in his chest. Bloodstains appeared over
Gandhi’s white woolen shawl; his hands still folded in a greeting, Gandhi
blessed his assassin: He Ram! He Ram! As Gandhi fell, his faithful time-piece
struck the ground, and the hands of the watch came to a standstill. They
showed, as they had done before, the precise time: 5:12 P.M.
3. BHAGAT SINGH
Date of Birth : Sep 27,
1907 Date of Death : Mar 23, 1931 Place of Birth : Jalandhar
When the British
government promulgated the two bills “Trade Union Dispute Bill” and “Public
Safety Bill” which Bhagat Singh and his party thought were Black Laws aimed at
curbing citizens’ freedom and civil liberties, they decided to oppose these
bills by throwing a bomb in the Central Assembly Hall (which is now Lok Sabha).
However, things changed, and the Britishers arrested Bhagat Singh and his friends
on April 8, 1929. He and his friends wanted to be shot dead, since they were
termed as prisoners of war. Their request was not fulfilled, and on March 23,
1931, Bhagat Singh, Shivram Rajguru, and Sukhdev were hanged to death. This
man’s only mission in life was to see his country free from British rule. He
did his best and when he was being led to the gallows, he was satisfied that he
had lived up to his principles, irrespective of the consequences. The only
thing that made him sad was that he couldn’t do more for his country.
4. DR. RAJENDRA PRASAD
Date of Birth : Dec 3, 1884 Date of Death : Feb 28, 1963 Place
of Birth : Zeradei, Bihar Tenure Order : 1st President Took Office : Jan 26,
1950 Left Office : May 13, 1962 Successor : Dr.S Radhakrishnan
Dr. Rajendra Prasad was
the first President of India. Rajendra Prasad was a great freedom-fighter, and
the architect of the Indian Constitution, having served as President of the
Constituent Assembly that drafted the Constitution of the Republic from 1948 to
1950. He had also served as a Cabinet Minister briefly in the first Government
of Independent India. He was a crucial leader of the Indian Independence
Movement. Prasad was born in Jiradei, in the Siwan district of Bihar. His
father, Mahadev Sahay, was a Persian and Sanskrit language scholar; his mother,
Kamleshwari Devi, was a devout lady who would tell stories from the Ramayana to
her son. At the age of 5, the young Rajendra Prasad was sent to a Maulavi for
learning Persian. After that he was sent to Chapra Zilla School for further
primary studies.
He was married at the
age of 12 to Rajvanshi Devi. He then went on to study at R.K. Ghosh’s Academy
in Patna to be with his older brother Mahendra Prasad. Soon afterward, however,
he rejoined the Chapra Zilla School, and it was from there that he passed the
entrance examination of Calcutta University, at the age of 18. He stood first
in the first division of that examination. He then joined the Presidency
College, Calcutta. He was initially a student of science and his teachers
included J.C.Bose and Prafulla Chandra Roy. Later he decided to switch his
focus to the arts. Acharya Prafulla Chandra Roy, who was impressed by his
intellect and dedication asked him on the occasion “Why have you deserted your
class?.” Prasad lived with his brother in the Eden Hindu Hostel. A plaque still
commemorates his stay in that room. He had been initiated into the Swadeshi
movement by his brother. He then joined the Dawn Society run by Satish Chandra
Mukherjee, and Sister Nivedita. In 1911, he joined the A.I.C.C. However, his
family estate was in bad condition. He was looked upon as the provider. But he
sought permission from his brother in a letter to join the Indian freedom
movement. He wrote, “Ambitions I have none, except to be of some service to the
Motherland”. The shock of his brother, however, held him to the family. In
1916, Rajendra Prasad joined the High Court of Bihar, and Orissa. Such was his
intellect and his integrity, that often when his adversary failed to cite a
precedent, the judges asked Rajendra Prasad to cite a precedent against
himself. After meeting Mahatma Gandhi, he quit as a Senator of the University,
much to the regret of the British Vice-Chancellor.He also responded to the call
by the Mahatma to boycott Western education by asking his son Mrityunjaya
Prasad, a brilliant student to drop out of the University and enroll himself in
Bihar Vidyapeeth, an institution he had along with his colleagues founded on
the traditional Indian model. He wrote articles for Searchlight and the Desh
and collected funds for these papers. He toured a lot, explaining, lecturing
and exhorting. When the earthquake of Bihar occurred on January 15, 1934,
Rajendra Prasad was in jail. He was released two days later. He set himself for
the task of raising funds. The Viceroy had also raised a fund. However, while
Rajendra Prasad’s fund collected over 38 Lakhs (Rs. 3,800,000), the Viceroy
could only manage one-third of that amount. The way relief was organized left
nothing to be desired. Nationalist India expressed its admiration by electing
him to the President of the Bombay session of the Indian National Congress.
After India became
independent he was elected the President of India. As President, he used his
moderating influence so silently and unobtrusively that he neither reigned nor
ruled. His sister Bhagwati Devi died on the night of 25 January 1960. She doted
on her dearly-loved younger brother. It must have taken Rajendra Prasad all his
will power to have taken the Republic Day salute as usual, on the following
day. It was only on return from the parade that he set about the task of
cremation. In 1962, after 12 years as President, he announced his decision to
retire. He was subsequently awarded the Bharat Ratna, the nation’s highest
civilian award. Within months of his retirement, early in September 1962, his
wife Rajvanshi Devi passed away. In a letter written a month before his death
to one devoted to him, he said, “I have a feeling that the end is near, end of
the energy to do, end of my very existence”. He died on 28 February 1963 with
‘Ram Ram Ram’ on his lips. Because of the enormous public adulation he enjoyed,
he was referred to as Desh Ratna or the Jewel of the country. His legacy is
being ably carried forward by his great grandson Ashoka Jahnavi-Prasad, a
psychiatrist and a scientist of international repute who introduced sodium
valproate as a safer alternative to lithium salts in the treatment of bipolar
disorders.
5.LAL BAHADUR SHASTRI
Date of Birth : Oct 2, 1904 Date of Death : Jan 11, 1966 Place
of Birth : Uttar Pradesh
Lal Bahadur Shastri was
the second Prime Minister of independent India and a significant figure in the
struggle for independence. Shashtriji was born in Mughalsarai, in Uttar
Pradesh. To take part in the non-cooperation movement of Mahatma Gandhi in
1921, he began studying at the nationalist, Kashi Vidyapeeth in Kashi, and upon
completion, he was given the title Shastri, or Scholar, Doctor at Kashi
Vidyapeeth in 1926. He spent almost nine years in jail in total, mostly after
the start of the Satyagraha movement in 1940, he was imprisoned until 1946.
Following India’s independence, he was Home Minister under Chief Minister
Govind Ballabh Pant of Uttar Pradesh. In 1951, he was appointed General
Secretary of the Lok Sabha before re-gaining a ministerial post as Railways
Minister. He resigned as Minister following a rail disaster near Ariyalur,
Tamil Nadu. He returned to the Cabinet following the General Elections, first
as Minister for Transport, in 1961, he became Home Minister. After Jawaharlal
Nehru’s death in May 27, 1964, he became the prime minister. Shastri worked by
his natural characteristics to obtain compromises between opposing viewpoints,
but in his short tenure was ineffectual in dealing with the economic crisis and
food shortage in the nation.
However, he commanded a
great deal of respect in the Indian populace, and he used it to advantage in
pushing the Green Revolution in India; which directly led to India becoming a
food-surplus nation, although he did not live to see it. His administration
began on a rocky turf. In 1965 Pakistan attacked India on the Kashmiri front
and Lal Bahadur Shastri responded in kind by punching toward Lahore. In 1966 a
cease-fire was issued as a result of international pressure. Lal Bahadur
Shastri went to Tashkent to hold talks with Ayub Khan and an agreement was soon
signed. Lal Bahadur passed away in Tashkent before returning home. All his
lifetime, he was known for his honesty and humility. He was the first person to
be posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna and a memorial “Vijay Ghat” was built
for him in Delhi. The slogan ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’ is attributed to Shastri.
‘If one person gives up one meal in a day, some other person gets his only meal
of the day.’: made during the food crisis to encourage people to evenly
distribute food.
6. CHANDRASHEKHAR
AZAD
Date of Birth : Jul 23, 1906
Date of Death : Feb 27, 1931
Place of Birth : India
Date of Death : Feb 27, 1931
Place of Birth : India
Chandrasekhar Azad was a
great Indian freedom fighter and revolutionary thinker. Revered for his
audacious deeds and fierce patriotism, he was the mentor of Bhagat Singh, the
famous Indian martyr. Chandrasekhar Azad is considered one of the greatest
Indian freedom fighter along with Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru, Ram Prasad
Bismil, and Ashfaqulla Khan. Chandrasekhar Azad’s parents were Pandit Sita Ram
Tiwari and Jagrani Devi. He received his early schooling in Bhavra District
Jhabua (Madhya Pradesh). For higher studies he went to the Sanskrit Pathashala
at Varanasi. Young Azad was one of the young generation of Indians when Mahatma
Gandhi launched the Non-Cooperation Movement. But many were disillusioned with
the suspension of the struggle in 1922 owing to the Chauri Chaura massacre of
22 policemen. Although Gandhi was appalled by the brutal violence, Azad did not
feel that violence was unacceptable in the struggle, especially in view of the
Amritsar Massacre of 1919, where Army units killed hundreds of unarmed
civilians and wounded thousands in Amritsar. Young Azad and contemporaries like
Bhagat Singh were deeply and emotionally influenced by that tragedy. As a
revolutionary, he adopted the lastname ‘Azad’, which means “Free” in Urdu.There
is an interesting story that while he adopted the name “Azad” he made a pledge
that the Police will never capture him alive. Azad and others had committed
themselves to absolute independence by any means. He was most famous for The
Kakori Rail Dacoity in 1925 and the assassination of the assistant
superintendent of Police John Poyantz Saunders in 1928.
Azad and his compatriots
would target British officials known for their oppressive actions against
ordinary people, or for beating and torturing arrested freedom fighters. Azad
was also a believer in socialism as the basis for a future India, free of
social and economic oppression and adversity. Bhagat Singh joined Azad
following the death of Lala Lajpat Rai, an Indian leader who was beaten to
death by police officials. Azad trained Singh and others in covert activities,
and the latter grew close to him after witnessing his resolve, patriotism and
courage. Along with fellow patriots like Rajguru and Sukhdev, Azad and Singh formed
the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, committed to complete Indian
independence and socialist principles of for India’s future progress. Betrayed
by an informer on 27 February 1931 Azad was encircled by British troops in the
Alfred park, Allahabad. He kept on fighting till the last bullet. Azad is a
hero to many Indians today. Alfred Park was renamed Chandrasekhar Azad park, as
have been scores of schools, colleges, roads and other public institutions
across India.
7. SARDAR
VALLABHBHAI PATEL
Date of Birth : Oct 31, 1875
Date of Death : Dec 15, 1950
Place of Birth : Gujarat
Date of Death : Dec 15, 1950
Place of Birth : Gujarat
Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai
Patel was born at his maternal uncle’s house in Nadiad, Gujarat. His actual
date of birth was never officially recorded – Patel entered October 31st as his
date of birth on his matriculation examination papers. He was the fourth son of
Jhaverbhai and Ladba Patel, and lived in the village of Karamsad, in the Kheda
district. Somabhai, Narsibhai and Vithalbhai Patel (also a future political
leader) were his elder brothers. He had a younger brother, Kashibhai, and a
sister, Dahiba. Patel helped his father in the fields, and bimonthly kept a
day-long fast, abstaining from food and water – a cultural observance that
enabled him to develop physical tougheness. He entered school late – parental
attention was focused on the eldest brothers, thus leading to a degree of
neglect of Patel’s education. Patel travelled to attend schools in Nadiad,
Petlad and Borsad, living self-sufficiently with other boys. He took his
matriculation at the late age of 22; at this point, he was generally regarded
by his elder relatives as an unambitious man destined for a commonplace job.
But Patel himself harbored a plan – he would pass the Pleader’s examination and
become a lawyer. He would then set aside funds, travel to England, then train
to become a barrister.
During the many years it
took him to save money, Vallabhbhai – now a pleader – earned a reputation as a
fierce and skilled lawyer. He had also cultivated a stoic character – he lanced
a painful boil without hesitation, even as the barber supposed to do it
trembled. Patel spent years away from his family, pursuing his goals
assiduously. Later, Patel fetched Jhaverba from her parent’s home – Patel was
married to Jhaverba at a young age. As per Indian custom at the time, the girl
would remain at her mother’s house until her husband began earning – and set up
his household. His wife bore him a daughter, Manibehn, in 1904, and later a
son, Dahyabhai, in 1906. Patel also cared for a personal friend suffering from
Bubonic plague when it swept the state. After Patel himself came down with the
disease, he immediately sent away his family to safety, left his home, and
moved into an isolated house in Nadiad (by other accounts, Patel spent this
time in a dilapidated temple); there, he recovered slowly. Patel took on the
financial burdens of his homestead in Karamsad even while saving for England
and supporting a young family. He made way for his brother Vithalbhai Patel to
travel to England in place of him, on his own saved money and opportunity. The
episode occurred as the tickets and pass Patel had applied for arrived in the
name of “V. J. Patel,” and arrived at Vithalbhai’s home, who bore the same
initials. Patel did not hesitate to make way for his elder brother’s ambition
before his own, and funded his trip as well. In 1909, Patel’s wife Jhaverba was
hospitalized in Bombay to undergo a major surgical operation for cancer. Her
health suddenly worsened, and despite successful emergency surgery, she died. Patel
was given a note informing him of his wife’s demise as he was cross-examining a
witness in court. As per others who witnessed, Patel read the note, pocketed it
and continued to intensely cross-examine the witness, and won the case. He
broke the news to others only after the proceedings had ended. Patel himself
decided against marrying again. He raised his children with the help of his
family, and sent them to English-medium schools in Mumbai (then Bombay). At the
age of 36, he journeyed to England and enrolled at the Middle Temple Inn in
London. Finishing a 36-month course in 30 months, Patel topped his class
despite having no previous college background. Patel settled in the city of
Ahmedabad, and became one of the city’s most successful barristers. Wearing
European-style clothes and urbane mannerisms, he also became a skilled bridge
player at the Gujarat Club. His close friends would include his neighbours Dr.
Balwantray and Nandubehn Kanuga, who would remain dear to him, and a young
lawyer, Ganesh Vasudev Mavlankar. He had also made a pact with his brother
Vithalbhai to support his entry into politics in Bombay, while Patel himself
would remain in Ahmedabad and provide for the family. According to some of
Patel’s friends, he nurtured ambitions to expand his practise and accumulate
great wealth, and to provide his children with modern education.
Vallabhbhai Patel was a
major political and social leader of India and its struggle for independence,
and is credited for achieving the political integration of independent India.
In India and across the world, he is known as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, where
Sardar stands for Chief in many languages of India. Patel organized the
peasants of Kheda, Borsad, and Bardoli in Gujarat in non-violent civil
disobedience against the oppressive policies imposed by the British Raj –
becoming one of the most influential leaders in Gujarat. He rose to the
leadership of the Indian National Congress and at the forefront of rebellions
and political events – organizing the party for elections in 1934 and 1937, and
leading Indians into the Quit India movement. He was imprisoned by the British
government on numerous occasions, especially from 1931 to 1934, and from 1942
to 1945. Becoming the first Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of India,
Patel organized relief and rehabilitation efforts in the riot-struck Punjab and
Delhi, and led efforts to restore security. Patel took charge of the task to
forge a united India from a plethora of semi-independent princely states,
colonial provinces and possessions. Patel employed an iron fist in a velvet
glove diplomacy – frank political negotiations backed with the option (and the
use) of military action to weld a nation that could emancipate its people
without the prospect of divisions or civil conflict. His leadership obtained
the peaceful and swift integration of all 565 princely states into the Republic
of India. Patel’s initiatives spread democracy extensively across India, and
re-organized the states to help transform India into a modern federal republic.
His admirers call him the Iron Man of India. He is also remembered as the
“patron saint” of India’s civil servants for his defence of them against
political attack, and for being one of the earliest and key defenders of
property rights and free enterprise in independent India.
On 29 March 1949, a
plane carrying Patel and the Maharaja of Patiala lost radio contact, and
Patel’s life was feared for all over the nation. The plane had made an
emergency landing in the desert of Rajasthan upon an engine failure, and Patel
and all passengers were safe, and traced by nearby villagers. When Patel
returned to Delhi, members of Parliament and thousands of Congressmen gave him
a raucous welcome. In Parliament, MPs gave a thunderous ovation to Patel – stopping
proceedings for half an hour. Till his last few days, he was constantly at work
in Delhi. Patel’s health worsened after 2 November 1950, and he was flown to
Bombay to recuperate. After suffering a massive heart attack – his second – he
died in Bombay on December 15th, 1950. In an unprecedented gesture, more than
1,500 officers of India’s civil and police services congregated at Patel’s
residence in Delhi on the day after his death to mourn him – they pledged
“complete loyalty and unremmitting zeal” in India’s service. His cremation in
Sonapur, Bombay, was attended by large crowds, Nehru, Rajagopalachari,
President Prasad and many Congressmen and freedom fighters.
8. BAL GANGADHAR
TILAK
Date of Birth : Jul 23, 1856
Date of Death : 1920
Place of Birth : Maharashtra
Bal Gangadhar Tilak, was
an Indian nationalist, social reformer and freedom fighter who was the first
popular leader of the Indian Independence Movement. Tilak sparked the fire for
complete independence in Indian consciousness, and is considered the father of
Hindu nationalism as well. Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it! This
famous quote of his is very popular and well-remembered in India even today.
Reverently addressed as
Lokmanya (meaning “Beloved of the people” or “Revered by the world”), Tilak was
a scholar of Indian history, Sanskrit, Hinduism, mathematics and astronomy. He
was born on July 23, 1856, in a village near Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, into a
middle class Chitpavan Brahmin family. Tilak was an avid student with a special
aptitude for mathematics. He was among India’s first generation of youth to
receive a modern, college education. After graduation, Tilak began teaching
mathematics in a private school in Pune and later became a journalist. He
became a strong critic of the Western education system, feeling it demeaning to
Indian students and disrespectful to India’s heritage. He organized the Deccan
Education Society to improve the quality of education for India’s youth. Tilak
founded the Marathi daily Kesari (The Lion) which fast became a popular reading
for the common people of India. Tilak strongly criticized the government for
its brutalism in suppression of free expression, especially in face of protests
against the division of Bengal in 1905, and for denigrating India’s culture,
its people and heritage. He demanded the British immediately give the right to
self-government to India’s people. Tilak joined the Indian National Congress in
the 1890s, but soon fell into opposition of its liberal-moderate attitude
towards the fight for self-government. Tilak opposed the moderate views of
Gopal Krishna Gokhale, and was supported by fellow Indian nationalists Bipin
Chandra Pal in Bengal and Lala Lajpat Rai in Punjab. In 1907, the Congress
Party split into the Garam Dal (literally, “Hot Faction”), led by Tilak, Pal
and Lajpat Rai, and the Naram Dal (literally, “Soft Faction”) led by Gokhale
during its convention at Surat in Gujarat. When arrested on charges of sedition
in 1906, Tilak asked a young Mohammad Ali Jinnah to represent him. But the
British judge convicted him and he was imprisoned from 1908 to 1914 in
Mandalay, Burma. Upon his release, Tilak re-united with his fellow nationalists
and re-united the Indian National Congress in 1916. He also helped found the
All India Home Rule League in 1916-18 with Annie Besant and Mohammad Ali
Jinnah. Tilak proposed various social reforms, such as a minimum age for
marriage, and was especially keen to see a prohibition placed on the sale of
alcohol. His thoughts on education and Indian political life have remained
highly influential – he was the first Congress leader to suggest that Hindi,
written in the devanagari script, should be accepted as the sole national
language of India, a policy that was later strongly endorsed by Mahatma Gandhi.
However, English, which Tilak wished to remove completely from the Indian mind,
remains an important means of communication in India. But the usage of Hindi
(and other Indian languages) has been reinforced and widely encouraged since
the days of the British Raj, and Tilak’s legacy is often credited with this
resurgence. Another of the major contributions relates to the propagation of
Sarvajanik (public) Ganesh festival, over 10-11 days from Bhadrapada Shukla
(Ganesh) Chaturthi to (Anant) Chaturdashi (in Aug/Sept span), which contributed
for people to get together and celebrate the festival and provided a good
platform for leaders to inspire masses. His call for boycott of foreign goods
also served to inspire patriotism among Indian masses. Tilak was a critic of
Mahatma Gandhi’s strategy of non-violent, civil disobedience. Although once
considered an extremist revolutionary, in his later years Tilak had
considerably mellowed. He favored political dialogue and discussions as a more
effective way to obtain political freedom for India, and did not support
leaving the British Empire. However, Tilak is considered in many ways to have
created the nationalist movement in India, by expanding the struggle for
political freedoms and self-government to the common people of India. His
writings on Indian culture, history and Hinduism spread a sense of heritage and
pride amongst millions of Indians for India’s ancient civilization and glory as
a nation.
Tilak was considered the
political and spiritual leader of India by many, and Gandhi is considered his
successor. When Tilak died in 1920, Gandhi paid his respects at his cremation
in Bombay, along with 200,000 people. Gandhi called Tilak “The Maker of Modern
India”.
Tilak is also today
considered the father of Hindu Nationalism. He was the idol of Indian
revolutionary Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who penned the political doctrine of
Hindutva.
9. GOPAL KRISHNA GOKHALE
Date of Birth : May 9, 1866 Date of Death : 1915 Place of Birth
: Maharashtra
Gopal Krishna Gokhale
was born on May 9, 1866, in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, and he became one of the
most learned men in India, a leader of social and political reformists and one
of the earliest, founding leaders of the Indian Independence Movement. Gokhale
was a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and the Servants of India
Society. The latter was committed to only social reform, but the Congress Party
in Gokhale’s time was the main vehicle for Indian political representation.
Gokhale was a great, early Indian champion for public education. Being one of
the first generations of Indians to receive college education, Gokhale was
respected widely in the nascent Indian intellecutal community and acoss India,
whose people looked up to him as the least elitist of educated Indians. Coming
from a background of poverty, Gokhale was a real man of the people, a hero to
young Indians discovering the new age and the prospects of the coming 20th
century; he worked amongst common Indians to encourage education, sanitation
and public development. He actively spoke against ignorance, casteism and untouchability
in Indian society. Gokhale was also reputed for working for trust and
friendship between Hindu and Muslim communities. It should be remembered that
Gokhale was a pioneer in this work, never done before in Indian history by
Indians. Along with distinguished colleagues like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Dadabhai
Naoroji, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai and Annie Besant, Gokhale fought
for decades to obtain greater political representation and power over public
affairs for common Indians. He was moderate in his views and attitudes, and
sought to petition the British authorities, cultivate a process of dialogue and
discussion which would yield greater British respect for Indian rights. In
1906, he and Tilak were the respective leaders of the moderates and extremists
(now known by the more politically correct term,’aggressive nationalists’) in
the Congress. Tilak advocated civil agitation and direct revolution to
overthrow the British Empire, and the Congress Party split into two wings. The
two sides would patch up in 1916. Gokhale did not support explicit Indian
independence, for such an idea was not even understood or expressed until after
the World War I.
Gopal Krishna Gokhale’s
biggest contribution to India was as a teacher, nurturer of a whole new generation
of leaders conscious to their responsibilities to a wider nation. Gokhale was
famously a mentor to a young barrister who had been blooded in the work of
revolution in South Africa a few years earlier. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
received great warmth and hospitality from Gokhale, including personal
guidance, knowledge and understanding of India, the issues of common Indians
and Indian politics. By 1920, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi would become known as
Mahatma Gandhi, and ad the leader of nationalist Indians and the largest
non-violent revolution in the history of the world. However, Gokhale himself
died in 1915. In his autobiography, Gandhi calls Gokhale his mentor and guide,
while Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the future founder of Pakistan, in 1912 wanted to become
the “Muslim Gokhale,” “Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity.”
10. Mangal Pandey
Mangal Pandey was the first freedom fighters of India history who ignited the spark of freedom which led to the revolt of 1857. He was born on July 19, 1827 in the Nagwa village in Uttar Pradesh. Mangal Pandey was a soldier in the East India Company in the 34th regiment of Bengal Native Infantry. During 1853 there was rumor that the cartridges of the guns were greased with Lard and Tallow, both of which was against the Hindu as well as Muslim religion. At that time British army had 96% Indians and all Hindus and Muslim soldiers refused to accept the cartridges which turned into a revolt. Later Mangal tried to commit suicide to spark the light of patriotism but failed. He was then captured and then sentenced to death on April 8, 1857 at Barrackpore.
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