Dadabhai Naoroji

Dadabhai Naoroji helped lay the foundation of India's contemporary freedom struggle. At a time when the East India Company had systematically dismantled the nationalistic co- operation between the princely states of India, rose to prominence Dadabhai Naoroji, a peerless patriot who defined the modern Indian freedom struggle
Dadabhai was born on September 4th, 1825 to a poor Parsi family in Bombay. His father, Naoroji Palanji Dordi, died when Dadabhai was only 4 years old. Dadabhai was brought up by his illiterate mother Maneckbai who gave Dadabhai the best English education possible.
As a student, Dadabhai had a knack for mental mathematics and went on to distinguish himself in Mathematics and English at the Elphinstone Institution (now College) in Bombay. So impressed were his peers that one professor called him the "promise of India." Another offered to pay half the expenses for Dadabhai to study abroad. His Parsi elders refused to pay the other half of the expenses out of fear that Dadabhai would convert to Christianity and marry an Englishwoman.
On completion of his education, Dadabhai was appointed the Head Native Assistant Master at the Elphinstone Institution and went on to become the first Indian Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy.
Dadabhai entered the political fray in 1852. The East India Company acquired a 20 year lease to "manage" India from the British Government in 1833. The Company applied for renewal of the lease in 1853. Dadabhai strongly opposed the renewal of the lease and organized large meetings and sent petitions to the British Government in England to deny the Company a renewal. Even though the British Government did renew the Company's lease, his petitions dispelled a lot ignorance regarding India.
Dadabhai felt that the British misrule of India was because of ignorance of the way of life and needs on the Indian people. To remedy this he felt that he must educate the Indian masses of their rights. Dadabhai began free literacy classes for girls in Marathi and Gujarati. He set up the Dnyan Prasarak Mandali (Society for Promotion of Knowledge) for the education of adult menfolk. Topics of general awareness were discussed before large gatherings. Then he believed that the British bureaucracy in India must be made aware of the problems of India. He wrote several petitions to Governors and Viceroys regarding India's problems. Finally he felt that the British people and the British Parliament must be made aware of India's plight. He yearned to go to England to put forward India's case there. Dadabhai got this opportunity when the rich Cama family invited him to join in a business venture in England. Dadabhai did not think twice, he set sail for England on June 27th, 1855.
Dadabhai wanted to win friends and sympathizers for India. He joined several learned societies, delivered many speeches and wrote articles on the plight of India. He founded the East Indian Association on December 1st, 1866. The association was comprised of high ranking officers from India and people who had access to Members of the British Parliament. Dadabhai had become the unofficial ambassador of India.
Dadabhai was elected to the British Parliament in 1892 from Central Finsbury as the Liberal party candidate. This made it possible for Dadabhai to work for India from within! He got a resolution passed for holding preliminary examinations for the I.C.S. in India and England simultaneously and also got the Wiley Commission, the royal commission on India expenditure, to acknowledge the need for even distribution of administrative and military expenditure between India and England.

Chandrasekhar Azad

Chandrasekhar Azad was born on July 23,1906 in Badarka(Unnao).Earlier he was Chandrasekhar Tiwari,but after a court incident he became famous as Azad.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. He was an ardent follower of Hanuman and disguised himself as a priest in a hanuman temple to escape the dragnet of British in pre-independence India. 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. Finding no other alternative, except surrender, Azad shot himself in the temple On the 27th of February, 1931 Chandrashekhar Azad met two of his comrades, the names of whom are highly disputed. However, most people belive that they were a Veer Bhadra and a Prithvi Raj Azad. Prithvi Raj claims that he was there along with Veer Bhadra for a briefing on his mission to Russia. The Revolutionaries of the HSRA or the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association were planning a revolution in India with the help of the Communists of Russia. He further states that Veer Bhadra excused himself saying he had an appointment and left. He had been behaving highly suspiciously for a few days. A few minutes later a brigade of policemen suddenly fired a shot and had the park surrounded. Azad asked Prithvi Raj to flee and said that he would continue the fight. He was injured in his leg. The superintendent asked him to raise his hands and come out. Next moment he fell to the ground in agony as a bullet ripped through his arm. The brigade opened merciless fire in the course of which Azad was badly injured. He himself had already shot at least three policemen dead and many more were injured. At Alfred Park, behind an ancient tree, Azad made his last stand, one which would characterise the Indian independence movement. Till his last breath the soldiers were terrified of his sharp shooting skills. And this was to be the final stage of a this movement, the final scene in his life as well as the end of the revolutionaries of the HSRA. Seeing no way out Azad loaded his last bullet into his Mauser pistol, it would be the last bullet he ever fired; he would be the last man he ever killed in the struggle for Indian Independence. Chandrashekhar Azad put the gun to his temple and shot himself. He had vowed to remain Azad, meaning free in Urdu, all his life. He said that as long as he had his bumtulbukara or his pistol no one would ever catch him alive. He said that he would never be taken to the gallows tied up the way monkeys are, and made to dance by the British. His favourite couplet and only known composition is as follows: "Dushman ki goliyon ka hum samna karenge Azad hee rahein hain, azad hee raheinge!" Years of man hunt, terror, raids, assassinations and demonstrations had at last ended for the British Raj. With him all the revolutionaries were finished. The next time the British would face so grave a problem and so fierce an enemy would be 10 years later in 1941. There would be a much more developed and well organised army then lead by none other than the Netaji - Subhash Chandra Bose, an ardent supporter and sympathizer of Chandrashekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh.

Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Bal Gangadhar Tilak, born July 22, 1856, was universally recognized as the Father of Indian Unrest. He was one of the prime architects of modern India and heralded Asian nationalism. His philosophy could not survive after his death as India came under sway of Mahatma Gandhi.
Tilak was a brilliant politician as well as a profound scholar who believed that independence is the foremost necessity for the well being of a nation and that to win it through extreme measures should not be dispensed with. He was the first intellectual leader to understand the importance of mass support and subsequently became the first mass leader of India. He realized that the constitutional agitation in itself was futile against the British and that, moreover, India was ill prepared for an armed revolt.

As a result, although he was helpful to revolutionaries such as Savarkar, Aurobindo Ghosh and Chaphekar, he did not venture into it himself. Instead, he martialled the extremist wing of Indian National Congress. His movement was based on the principles of Swadeshi (Indigenous), Boycott and Education. It was he who, through his own example, gave prestige to imprisonment in freedom struggle. It is a tragedy that his work is not given the recognition due to it.
Tilak is often misinterpreted. Perhaps it is so because of his style of operation which raised bitter controversies and still more bitter opponenents even outside the beurocracy. Violent arguements characterized his relationship with social reformists such as Agarkar, Ranade and moderates like Ferozshah Mehta. Many blame him for opposing the Age of Consent Bill which raised the age limit for marriage of girls to 12 (from 10). But is fact that at the same time he had signed a counter-proposal where in one of the clauses was that the girls (boys) should not be married until they are 16 (20). He educated all of his daughters and did not marry them till they were over 16. There are instances when he privately paid for the education of women. Still it remains true that he was a reactionary and did not use his considerable influence to give a much-needed support to the social reformists. Probably, he did not want to offend the prevalent rigid system - he, himself, having been brought up in the culturally narrow surroundings of Pune. It seems as if his canvas presented him no room for active social reforms.
He had several discussions with Shankaracharya of Sankeshwar and asserted that like Swami Vivekananda, the modern Shankaracharya must be educated on modern lines. Tilak received Bachelor of Arts degree from The Deccan College, Pune in 1879 and L.L.B. from the Elphinston College, Mumbai in 1882. He was among the founders of the New English School, Pune (1881) of which Prof Chiplunkar became the Principal. He had a genius for organisation and with Agarkar, the then foremost social reformist, started the newspapers 'Kesari' and 'The Maratha' in 1881 and in 1890's started the annual celebration of 'ShivajiFestival' and 'Ganapati Festival' which served a platform for people to join in the nationalist movement against the British. Soon he came to be regarded as the undisputed leader of Maharashtra and was honored with the title 'Lokamanya' in 1893 which became synonymous with him in the 1900. As the nation fumed over the partition of Bengal (1905), Tilak assumed the national leadership with his extremist attitude and stated his position unequivocally as "Swarajya (self rule) is my birth right and I shall have it."
The next three years saw meteoric rise in his stature and the British power which had long since considered him their chief concern and had sent him to prison twice already, decided on a firmer measure. Much has been said of his trial of 1908. He utilized his time in prison in scholarly pursuits and wrote "GitaRahasya", a commentary on the Gita. He returned to Indian political scene in 1915. The political situation was fast changing under the shadow of World War I. Mahatma Gandhi's star was on rise with Satyagraha at Sabarmati in 1914.
The British charged Tilak in 1918. He fought those charges both in India and England, and was judged guilty. Amidst rumors of yet another sentence, he headed the Home-Rule commission in England to debate India's constitutional demands. By that time, Gandhi had made preparations of the first nation wide non-cooperation movement and, perhaps, it was to make way for Gandhi that Tilak left for England. Tilak was, probably, the only leader who could have put brakes on Gandhi. Both had conflicting approaches. Gandhi had the courage to address and solve the issue of untouchability once and forever. He, unlike Tilak, was a fluent speaker in Hindi and could thus reach the masses more easily. It is no secret that he had little respect for Tilak's real politick and Tilak hated adopting means which killed self pride of the masses. Whereas Gandhi preached, "Overcome hatred with love", Tilak pooh poohed moderates saying, "There is no empire lost by a free grant of concession by the rulers to the ruled." In both world wars, Gandhi encouraged Indians to fight for the British Empire unconditionally whereas Tilak held that if Indians were to remain slaves then it mattered little whether they joined army or not. The Mahatma was modern with novel methods. His was a welcome arrival both for the Moderates who needed an answer to the Extremists and Tilak, in particular, and the British who would rather acknowledge and have a saint as the foremost adversary.
In the 20's many of Tilak's followers, Dadasaheb Khaparde and N.C. Kelkar being the most prominent among them, supported Gandhi but none could have his say in the new order. Aurobindo Ghosh had retired to an ascetic life and Savarkar was serving two life sentences in Andaman. The Lokamanya had no worthy successor. Tilak's health continued to deteriorate rapidly at end of July 1920 and he went delirious and was unconscious for 3 days. His last words in the final momentary recovery were, "This happened in 1818 (End of Peshwai) and this in 1918. A hundred years' history - what a life of servitude...Unless Swaraj is obtained, India shall not prosper. It is necessary for our very own existence."
At 00:40 hrs (IST) on Aug 1, 1920, he was declared dead. It is said that the British made an extraordinary request that his brain be handed over to them so that it could be studied, preserved and exhibited. It was not complied with.