Happy Independence Day!
Happy Independence Day, India!!!
Vandemataram!
Sujalam, Suphalam, Malayaja Sheetalam!
Sasyasyamalam, Mataram!
Vandemataram!
I am listening to the perfect song for the occasion on my IPOD right now (“Ee Jenda” from the telugu movie, Bobby - the name means “This Flag”) - a pretty cool song and one of my favorite non-AR Rehman patriotic songs. I will probably link up the MP3 here once I get home this evening. Here is something else to watch - From You Tube. Have a safe and fun Independence Day :)
Happy Republic Day, India :)
Talking of Republic Day evokes memories of going to school, marching in front of the flag, getting candies and then rushing back home to watch the Republic Day parade on TV :) That was such an inseparable part of the celebration of the day.
Pssst…it is really on Jan 26th, but this is intended to be for the Indian audience who will celebrate it this evening.
Happy Independence Day, India!!!
Vandemataram!
Sujalam, Suphalam, Malayaja Sheetalam!
Sasyasyamalam, Mataram!
Vandemataram!
Hello all and welcome to the special patriotic edition of the 25th Bharateeya Blog Mela. In this, we are going to present to you some musings on Independence from the Indian bloggers. For the regular Blog Mela, please check out JK’s Varnam Blog. Since we have our Independence graphic above, we will keep the Mela graphic-less, the posts we present will make it up for you. Let’s go then!
Kingsley Jegan has this beautiful post with “Vandemataram”, the original and a translation for the Sanskrit-challenged. Should help the “convent-educated” of us who don’t remember the words of the national song anymore (yes, Kalyan - I am talking to you :)).
Ashwyn tells us a bit about how they celebrated the Independence over in Britain.
Gaurav and Ferzana celebrate Swarajya with poetry.
Anya’s Dreamscapes recounts a story of hope, which is what Independence means to her.
JK and Quizman provide some inspiring thoughts to peruse.
Jivha has a pretty impressive list of all the things India has achieved and not in the short of period of 56 years since her freedom.
P@L has a few things to say to everybody on this happy occasion :)
That was all I could find, friends, readers and fellow Indians! Have fun and have a great Independence Day!
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Lord Acton
Vande Mataram! Jai Hind!
Since it is almost the 15th in India and tomorrow is the Mela day, I am concluding my Independence series with this post today. This is about how I typically spent my August 15ths and I would love to hear what you guys did on that day.
My earliest memories of the Independence Day involved waking up early in the morning, washing my hair, wearing new clothes, the usual. Then we did one of the things that I loved as a child, we bought a little fabric Indian flag and pinned to my dress - I cannot express how much I liked it. They sold those flags only around this time of the year and they cost just 5 paise, but they made me so proud, sometimes I you’d find me with about 10 of them pinned all over my dress :)
After that, we would have really early breakfast and leave to go to the military barracks in the city with my dad (we means me and my sister). We would stand outside the wire fence and watch along side hundreds of watchers such as us, proud soldiers march past the flag. Sometimes it would get so crowded, my dad would have to put me and my sister on his shoulders, so we could see everything. I had an uncle and a cousin in the marching band of soldiers - we would always try to pick them out when they marched by.
As we grew up, things changed - we moved far enough that our ritual trip to the barracks proved too much. Instead, we attended ceremonies in the school, ate the handfuls of candy passed out there and then came back home to watch the celebrations in Delhi on our boxy Black & White TV. Well, in time, the TV became a color TV and we moved on to switching channels between DD for the Delhi celebrations to the various other channels celebrating the Independence MTV-style or with a deluge of patriotic songs. Now of course, my Independence celebrations are a flurry of e-cards to my parents and friends and some pretty pixels on my website :) That has been my journey …
To move on to a sort of facetious but not completely inconsequential role headdresses played in the freedom struggle as expressions of defiance, protest and peace - here is a pretty interesting article.
The Headdress HeritagePugree, with its multi-dimensional social ethos, was a political symbol in India during her freedom struggle. It played a very important role during India’s struggle for independence. It was the symbol of Indian pride. When the British were trying hard to penetrate the Indian socio-political field, the Indians were nurturing anti-European feelings. Once Gandhiji remarked, “People these days dislike anything that has a European flavour.” Boycott and a bonfire of European clothes gained currency in the early 19th century and it kindled a new spirit, a new hope of pan-Indianness. As a reaction to the Western cultural onslaught people started giving symbolic importance to Indian headgears. It became a symbol of protest against the British subjugation. Indian freedom struggle is a live example of the tens of thousands of martyrs who sported their own specific pugree or cap to demonstrate their pride for their motherland. In the context of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre one can find a picture of the notorious “Crawling Lane” where a Punjabi man is forced to crawl under the threat of the bayonet but even then his traditional headdress is held high in silent symbolic protest.
According to the website below, “Hul is a Santali term. It means a movement for liberation.” The story of the butchery recounted below was one I had never heard before. Going by the sheer numbers alone, it should rank with atrocities like the Jalianwallah Bagh massacre. It is a story of bravery, courage and the determination to liberate themselves.
Freedom StruggleSantal Hul was one of the fiercest battles in the history of Indian freedom struggles causing greatest number of loss of lives in any battles during that time. The number of causalities of Santal Hul was 20,000 according to Hunter who wrote it in annals of Rural Bengal. The Santal Hul of 1855-57 was master minded by four brothers Sidhu, Kahnu, Chand and Bhairav; a heroic episode in India’s prolonged struggle for freedom. It was, in all probability, the fiercest liberation movement in India next to Great Sepoy Mutiny in 1857.
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The courage, chivalry and sacrifice of the Santals were countered by the rulers with veritable butchery. Out of 50,000 Santal rebels, 15,000 20,000 were killed by the British Indian Army. The Company was finally able to suppress the rebellion in 1856, though some outbreaks continued till 1857.
The Santals showed great bravery and incredible courage in the struggle against the military. As long as their national drums continued beating, the whole party would stand and allow themselves to be shot down. There was no sign of yielding. Once forty Santals refused to surrender and took shelter inside a mud house. The troops surrounded the mud house and fired at them but Santals replied with their arrows. Then Soldiers made big hole through muddy wall, and the Captain ordered them surrender but they again shot a volley of arrows through the hole and Captain again asked them to surrender but they continued shooting arrows. Some of the soldiers were wounded. At last when the discharge of arrows from the door slackened, the Captain went inside the room with soldiers. He found only one old man grievously wounded, standing erect among the dead bodies. The soldier asked him to throw away arms, but instead he rushed on him and killed him with his battle axe.
The Khilafat Movement, Muslim League and Mohammed Ali Jinna were probably at the root of the million-dead and millions displaced during the Partition of India into India and Pakistan. Here is a very interesting perspective on the Khilafat Movement from a Muslim man - Hamza Alavi. It helps us keep our perspective cleaner and tells us again not all Muslims think alike and thus shouldn’t be lumped together with the extremists and fundamentalists.
Ironies of History:Contradictions of The Khilafat MovementThe ‘Khilafat’ Movement of 1919-24, is probably quite unique inasmuch as it has been glorified with one voice by Islamic ideologists, Indian nationalists and communists alike and along with them by Western scholars, as an anti-colonial movement of Muslims of India, premised on the hostility of the British to the Turkish Sultan, their venerated Caliph.1 Little attempt has been made to examine the premises on which the movement was founded, the rhetoric of its leaders being taken at face value. On closer examination we find extra-ordinary paradoxes and contradictions behind that rhetoric.As for the ‘achievements’ of that Movement, its lasting legacy is the legitimised place that it gave the Muslim clergy at the centre of the modern political arena, armed with a political organisation in the form of the Jamiat-e-Ulama-e-Hind (and its successors after the Partition) which the clergy have used to intervene actively in both the political as well as the ideological sphere. Never before in Indian Muslim history was the clergy ever accorded such a place in political life.
The Khilafat Movement also introduced the religious idiom in the politics of Indian Muslims. Contrary to some misconceptions (and misrepresentations) it was not the Muslim League, the bearer of Muslim Nationalism in India, that introduced religious ideology in the politics of Indian Muslims. Muslim Nationalism was a movement of Muslims and not a movement of Islam. It was an ethnic movement of disaffected Muslim professionals and the government-job-seeking educated Indian Muslim middle class, mainly those of UP and Bihar and urban Punjab. Their objectives were modest, for they demanded not much more than fair quotas in jobs for Muslims and certain safeguards for their interests. Muslim Nationalism in India was a secular rather than a religious movement. Nor was it, in its origins, a Hindu hating movement as is sometimes made out. To the contrary, by virtue of the Lucknow Pact of 1916 it had already moved decisively towards a common platform with the broader Indian National Movement and unity with the Congress Party. The Khilafat Movement intervened in that context in a way that decisively killed the politics of the Lucknow Pact. The intervention of the Khilafat Movement in Indian Muslim politics has had a considerable retrogressive ideological influence on the modern Indian Muslim mind that reverberates still in Muslim thinking and their politics in present day India and Pakistan. For that alone, it deserves to be reviewed and re-evaluated.
India has for a long time produced almost as many feckless female leaders as she did male ones. Unlike in most other civilizations and contrary to popular belief, Indian women played politically and socially important roles since times unknown. Here is a look at a few such forgotten women heroes of the Indian freedom struggle.
india women, women india freedom fighters, freedom struggle of womensWoman’s participation in India’s freedom struggle began as early as 1817 when Bhima Bai Holkar fought bravely against the British colonel Malcolm and defeated him in guerilla warfare. In 1824 Rani Channama of Kittur resisted ate armed might of the East Indian Company.The role played by women in the Great Revolt of 1857 invited the admiration even leaders of the Revolt Rani of Ramgarh, Rani Jindan Kaur, Rani Tace Bai, Baiza Bai, Chauhan Rani, Tapasvini Maharani daringly led their troops into the battlefield.
The greatest however was Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi whose heroism and superb leadership laid an outstanding example for all future generations of women freedom fighters. Married to Gangadhar Rao head of the state of Jhansi. She was not allowed to adopt a successor after his death by the British, and Jhansi was annexed.
I have found it more a rule than an exception that every time I think I am doing something unique, someone else has already done it way before me and in a much better way. Here is a comprehensive list of all the revolts against the British Empire - the famous and the unsung.
Unsung Heroes of the Freedom StruggleWhile much has been written on the Indian Freedom Movement as led by the Congress and Gandhi, little is known of the numerous uprisings by peasants, tribal communities, princely states and other isolated revolutionary acts of resistance against the British. Heroic acts of resistance against the British during 1763 to 1857 are particularly unknown. The following is a listing of armed revolts that were brutally suppressed by the British as the East India Company consolidated it’s rule in the century preceding the 1857 revolt:-
Tanguturi Prakasam or as he is widely known in Andhra Pradesh - Tanguturi Prakasam Pantulu - was as well-known for his adherence to Gandhian principles as for his feckless courage in the face of real danger. He was also called “Andhra Kesari” (Andhra’s lion). Here are two brief historical accounts of his life -
Tanguturi PrakasamThe Hindu : Courage was his watchwordIn the days when the entire nation was in a political upheaval, the freedom movement of Andhra found a great champion in T.Prakasam who was a rare combination of a great lawyer, journalist, nationalist and a politician. It is no wonder that his lifelong exertion in such diverse fields in the service of nation has earned hum the honour of Andhra Kesari conferred on him by the people of Andhra Pradesh. Tangutri Prakasam was born on August 23, 1872 at Kanuparthi village in Ongole Distt. in Andhra Pradesh.
The year 1927 was a watershed in the annals of the freedom struggle, when the Simon Commission was deputed to discuss with leaders of the Indian National Congress the reforms and amendments to the existing statute pertaining to British India. When the commission came to Madras it faced a hostile crowd of processionists shouting full-throated: ‘Go back Simon Commission’. The police opened indiscriminate fire at the protesters in Parry’s Corner, the busy centre of the city, and a young volunteer died on the spot. The procession leaders asked the police officer to allow them to identify the victim. Training his rifle at the processionists, he threatened them with dire consequences, and none dared to approach the body. But one leader among them bravely unbuttoned his coat showing his chest before the rifleman and shouted: ”Shoot me”. Fearing fatal consequences, the police officer withdrew the revolver, whereupon a plethora of voices came from the crowd shouting loudly `Andhra Kesari ki Jai’. That was Tanguturi Prakasam Pantulu, who from then onwards came to be reverentially called ‘Andhra Kesari’.
This is an interesting bit of history that I had no idea of - the role of Muslims in the struggle for liberation of Hyderabad and the integration with the Indian Union.
Hyderabad Liberation - 1“I will not declare holiday in this school, because Mr.Rizwi is dead. We will not mourn the death of this Anti-national and terrorist leader and rather rejoice that our days of being with India is near. ” To say this before a voilent mob of Razaakars and Nizam police, who had assembled before Gosha Mahal School in Hyderabad, was only possible to one person, that is Mr.Sarfraz Ali - an eminent scholar, nationalist and a person of strong conviction and courage !!
This article was particularly interesting, since the “forgotten regiments” mentioned in the article below happen to be Muslim regiments who fought valiantly beside everyone else in the freedom struggle of India. The article is written by a Pakistani, lamenting the fact that most Pakistanis have forgotten these heroes, while honoring British loyalist-Indians(or currently Pakistanis) and rewarding them with Pakistan’s first Prime Ministership and Presidency. A look at our shared heritage and history.
No guard of honour is mounted on the grave of Ahmad Khan Kharral the only Punjab notable who challenged the British in 1857 but there are roads in Lahore named in the honour of some who were the most trusted British stooges. There is no monument at Gugera or in Murree for the Kharals or Dhunds (Abbasis) of 1857 but one at Taxila in the memory of the Punjab movable column sent to Delhi in 1857! There are regiments on the other hand who are proud of their march from Marinade to Delhi or for services rendered at Lucknow against the rebels, but hardly anyone in today’s Pakistan knows about regiments which challenged the British Empire at a time when it was said that the sun never set for the British Empire. The First Afghan War is a familiar war of Indo British history. However, hardly anyone in today’s Pakistan knows about the 2nd Bengal Light Cavalry. This unit was sent to Afghanistan in 1839. Unlike the English East India Company’s Bengal Army infantry which was three fourth Hindu the vast bulk of the Bengal Army Cavalry was Muslim; comprising Hindustani Pathan and Ranghar/Kaimkhani/Lalkhani Muslims from modern UP and Hariana Provinces of India. The 2nd Bengal Cavalry disobeyed its officers orders to charge a body of Afghan Horsemen at Perwan on 2nd November 1840! Sir Fortescue the official historian of the British Army found the regiment’s behaviour inexplicable describing it as an incident “which after endless explanations remain always mysterious”. Fortescue was surprised because the 2nd Light Cavalry was an excellent unit in terms of war performance till 2nd November 1840. The unit was disbanded for misconduct. There is one aspect of this unit’s history which was overlooked by British historians. As per Major General Shahid Hamid the unit was raised from Afghans of Kandhari origin settled in Lucknow in 1788 by the Nawab Vizier of Oudh. It was renumbered as the 2nd Bengal Native Cavalry in 1796 and taken over by the East India Company’s Bengal Army .It is possible that the peculiar Afghan origin of the units manpower may have played a part in their reluctance to charge their fellow Muslim Afghans at Perwan!
Here is a good summary of the way in which various nation-wide struggles were followed in the state of Andhra Pradesh - FREEDOM MOVEMENT IN ANDHRA PRADESH - here is another, with focus again on the contributions of Telugu people to the freedom struggle of India. The second link has the interesting story of how Hyderabad broke from the Nizam rule and joined the Indian Union.
Another great man, who brought the freedom struggle to the masses, by enlightening them and educating them using Andhra folk-arts like the “Burrakatha”, drama and songs. Another man, who passed away before he could see the realization of his dream of a free and independent India - another forgotten hero.
Andhra Ratna, Gopalakrishnayya Duggirala
Gopalakrishnayya Duggirala was one of the famous leaders in the non-violent Indian Freedom Movement. He attracted millions of Andhra Indians to the movement through his poetry and speeches. He was born in Penuganchiprolu village in Krishna district. His father was Kodandaraamaiah and mother was Seetamma. He studied in high schools in Gunturu and Bapatla cities. Even at that young age, he founded “Jaateeya Naatyamandali (National Dance Group)” to help develop arts such as drama and music.
