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| August15, 2021 Independence day.newslivetv.com |
Today we are celebrating India's independence (15 August 1947). India that had been under the British yoke for more than two centuries at last gained freedom from British colonists to whom India had been a milch cow since the middle of 18th century. In the late 1700s Robert Clive of the East India Company took control of the entire Bengal region through outright cheating. From the middle of 1700s till early 1940s, India had suffered a lot far beyond imagination racial discrimination, exploitation of lands and resources under a repressive rule. The great Bengal famine artificially created by none other than PM Winston Churchill, a Conservative party leader and a well-known India baiter.
Our independence day takes us back to those hardscrabble oppressive colonial rule both under the English company and under the British Crown (after 1858). Till the last days colonists looted India as much as they could and finally departed from our land leaving behind a divided India - Democratic India and Theocratic Pakistan On this day we must remember with gratitude those dedicated freedom fighters and patriots who fought for freedom with velour and vigor and laid down their lives so that the future generation would breathe fresh air of freedom and run the country effectively. The first PM of India Nehru on this day, in 1947, hoisted the national flag at the Lahori Gate of Red Fort in New Delhi.
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| .Quote from Swami Vivekananda,quotemaster.org |
Let us briefly look at the historical events that accelerated India's freedom struggle,
Champaran Movement and Staygrah; April 1917, Bihar:
Soon after his return to India from South Africa Gandhji on Balgangadar Tilak's advice, was trying hard to get acquainted with Indian natives' problem by way of touring across India. Later he became an active member of INC (Indian National Congress founded by such people as Octovian Hume, Dadabhai Nourooji, et al.. Having been quite satisfied with civil disobedience protest that he introduced in S. Africa, the Champaran village, Bihar became a testing ground for him.
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| Champaran Satyagraha, Bihar, Gandhiji initiated it.tmesofindia.indiatimes.com |
The Indigo farmers in Bihar had suffered untold miseries under white planters since the 19th century. By the time Gandhi arrived in Champaran in 1917, they were forced to cultivate indigo (which brought them extremely poor income) ,
On a hot April morning in 1917, Mahatma Gandhi arrived in Patna by train from Calcutta. and the purpose of his visit was to champion the cause of indigo farmers in Champaran and alleviate their sufferings. When a prominent Indigo agriculturist Rajkumar Shukla met Gandhiji earlier at the INC conference and sought his help Gandhiji had neither any idea about Indigo cultivation, nor was he familiar with the geographical position of Champaran.
According to an ICS British officer “not a chest of indigo reached England without being stained with human blood.” When Gandhiji was there for the first time the indigo farmers were in the grip of fear because of unfriendly tinkathia system being followed there. It meant they had to set aside three out of 20 parts of their land to the cultivation of indigo and it was done under force.
No sooner had he arrived there than Gandhiji began to mobilize the farmers after understanding the root cause and their predicament. In Champaran, he came up with a forceful political ideology for the first time, it was that of non-cooperation with the government agencies. He also demonstrated that he was going to use this political weapon in his future plans to deal with the British government in regard to India's freedom. Being action-oriented and charismatic he showed to the world that he had an innate ability to mobilize millions of people for a common cause, not thru violence, but through silent protest.
Offering passive resistance or civil disobedience to an unjust order was novel and Gandhiji expounded this political weapon of organized non-violent public protest to deal with the British Raj; great leaders like Tilak agreed with him and obliged. Gandhiji took up the cause of Indigo farmers and successfully handled it despite set back like arrest, imprisonment, etc. Thus Champaran became an experimental ground for him to test the impact of civil disobedience, later called ''Satyagraha''. In the words of his biographer DG Tendulkar, the fact that Gandhi “forged a weapon by which India could be made free''.
Gaandhiji's new avatar in Madurai, Tamil Nadu 1921:
Just like Champaran that gave birth to Stayagraha movement to solve government related social issues, the city of Madurai gave Gandhiji a spiritual dimension to his personality and attitude. Gandhiji likeed Madurai city very much and one particular visit to Madurai in 1921 assumed much importance because on this visit he emerged with a new, but different attire - his famous loin cloth after discarding his traditional Gujarati attire. No doubt that Madurai played a crucial role in Gandhiji's tirade against the oppressive British rule and change of his persona - more subdued than ever before. Gandhiji said about his new dress, “All the alterations I have made in my course of life have been affected by momentous occasions, and they have been made after such a deep deliberation that I have hardly had to regret them''.
On 22 September 1921 Mohan Das K. Gandhi came out of the house where he stayed at Madurai wearing loin cloth in order to be identified with the Indian poor mass. This avatar made Gandhiji more spiritually rejuvenated with better and more focused vision to carry on his struggle to free India from the British yoke. This simple dress grabbed the attention of the international media as well. The loin cloth nationally became a symbol of India's common man and personally his spiritual prowess
His Chamapran (Bihar) visit made him develop a soft corner for the farmers who formed the backbone of India. So his simple attire is symbolic of their poverty and helplessness. This attire made Churchill call him ''a half-naked fakir'' when he attended the second Round table conference (September -December 1931) being the sole representative of Indian National Congress ''to champion the cause of people rendered poor by the British''..
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Jalianwalla Bagh Massacre, Amritsar, Punjab
13 April 1919
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| Gen. Reginald Dyer. Butcher of Jallianwalla bagh massacre. Hindustan Times |
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| Jallianwalla Bagh massacre, Punjab. SlideShare |
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| Amritsar massacre. bullet holes on the walls. todayinhistoryblog.WordPress.com |
The day the mass murder was committed by Dyer and his cronies, it was a religious holiday for The Sikhs and others were celebrating - Baisakhi Day at a park surrounded by building with a few gates called Jallianwall Bagh in Amritsar city. There were about more than 10,000 innocent people, unharmed. It was a religious meeting, not a political one. the people had no idea about 144 that was in force at that time. Around 5 pm a powerful automatic rifle was placed near the only exit gate. In a jiff, the entire ground looked like a battle ground with piles of dead and seriously injured people fighting for their lives.
The premeditated firing lasted for just 10 minutes till the army ran out of ammunition (1650 rounds had been fired at the people). Brig. Gen Reginald Dyer's men on his order used powerful .303 Lee–Enfield rifles and committed the massacre. without any mercy.
Countless panic-stricken people died due to stampede near the exit gate and equally a large number of people inside the park faced death by jumping into the wells there. As bullets were raining on them they faced enormous mental stress and in the melee did not know what they were doing. Despite trampling they moved to the gate and faced the flying bullets. Their wailing and cry vented the air with no one around to help them. No first aid was available to the injured people, not even ambulance services. Relatives of the victims were not allowed to enter the bagh.
To add more insults to the natives Brig. gen Dyer gave a "Crawling Order" an act of vigilantism and wanted the Indian to crawl. He did it with a view to revenging the Indians who assaulted a Christian worker a few days prior to this incident. From 19 April until 25 a curfew was in force in a particular place /street where Ms. Marcella was assaulted. Dyer also had day-time pickets placed on either side of the street.
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Salt March to Dandi to collect salt. March-April 1930;
Gujarat and Tamil Nadu (Vedaranyam):
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| Salt march by Gandhiji. thequint.com |
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| Freedom struggle. Salt march by Gandhiji. thequint.com |
The Salt Satyagraha Memorial has come up in the coastal place at Dandi, Gujarat where Mahatma Gandhi concluded the historical salt march in April 1930 in protest against the British Raj which vehemently introduced tax on cooking salt as if they were not content with centuries of exploitation of Indians and their natural resources.
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| Gandhiji collecting salt at Dandi shore, Gujarat.en.wikipedia.org |
Above image: Gandhi picked up grains of salt at the end of his march. Behind him is his second son Manilal Gandhi and Mithuben Petit.
The salt padayatra/March was an arduous one, as it happened in the hot summer time - a long stretch of 241 mile journey from Ahmedabad through semi- arid terrain to the coastal town of Dandi. On March 12, 1930, Gandhi set out along with 80 satyagrahis, unmindful of button-wielding police force who wanted to stop them. Being defiant as he was, Gandhiji concluded the 24-day March in Dandi village, and on April 6, picked up a handful of salt, thus breaking the salt law. The simple act became a sensational news across the world and the foundation of the empire had developed more cracks, by then. The British realized that India's freedom was not far off.
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| Apr.13, 1930 Vedaranyam Salt march, Rajaji & others..mindstick.com |
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| Vedaranyam salt march memorial, TN.en.wikipedia.org |
In Southern India C. Rajagoplachari (Rajaji; later he became the first Gov. General of India and CM of Madras state) repeated the same act and undertook padayatra toward the end of April 1930 from Tiruchirapalli city to coastal village of Vedaranyam in Tamil Nadu. He collected a handful of salts along with great leaders like Kamaraj Nadar, Kakkan, Sardar Vedaratnam pillai and others. The British collector of Tanjore (Thanjavur) announced severe punishment to those who would provide the marchers with food, etc. The salt march was a great success because the natives refused to cooperate with the British. The patriots got food and water secretly (hidden in selected location on their path). Janitor refused to clean the toilet and laundrymen refused to wash the white men's clothing, etc. The Englishmen were in the soup.
The Bengal famine of 1943 orchestrated by Churchill:
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| Churchill www.coventry |
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| globalresearch.ca/winston-churchill-indian-holocaust |
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| Bengal famine 1943 and PM Churchill, you tube.com |
