A MESSIAH OF THE SUPPRESSED AND THE OPPRESSED – II

V.SUNDARAM I.A.S.

As a fearless crusader for proclaiming and establishing the human and humanitarian rights of the Dalits of India, Dr. Ambedkar was savagely critical of all the mainstream political parties in India.

DR. AMBEDKAR WAS SAGE-LIKE AND PROPHETIC IN HIS VIEW THAT THE POLITICAL PARTIES WERE ONLY INTERESTED IN PERPETUATING THE EVILS OF THE CASTE SYSTEM AND NOT IN ITS ELIMINATION OR ERADICATION. He was the only leader who was able to clearly foresee the ‘CASTE AND COMMUNAL AND ESSENTIALLY ANTI-HINDU DASTARDLY ELECTORAL POLITICAL GAME’ played by the Congress Party first under Mahatma Gandhi in British India and later under Jawaharlal Nehru and his successors in post-Independent India.

Even when the Non-Cooperation and Civil Disobedience Movements were at their peak in the 1920s and 1930s, Dr. Ambedkar did not hesitate to politically attack the Indian National Congress and its unchallenged leader Mahatma Gandhi, whom he accused of deliberately reducing the untouchable community to a figure of wretched pity and pathos.

Dr Ambedkar was also completely disillusioned and dissatisfied with the failure of British rule and therefore boldly advocated a political identity for untouchables quite separate from both the Congress and the British.

At a Depressed Classes Conference on 8 August, 1930, Dr Ambedkar outlined his political vision, insisting that the safety of the Depressed Classes hinged on their being independent of both the Government and the Congress Party. His words on that occasion are worthy of recall:

`We must shape our course ourselves and by ourselves... Political power cannot be a panacea for the ills of the Depressed Classes. Their salvation lies in their social elevation. They must cleanse their evil habits. They must improve their bad ways of living.... They must be educated.... There is a great necessity to disturb their pathetic contentment and to instill in them that divine discontent which is the spring of all elevation.'

In this speech, Dr Ambedkar criticised the Salt Satyagraha launched by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress. His criticisms and political work had made him very unpopular with orthodox Hindus, as well as with many Congress politicians who had earlier condemned untouchability and worked against discrimination across India. This was largely because these `liberal' politicians usually stopped short of advocating full equality for untouchables.

Despite the underground machinations of the Congress party and its High Command, Dr. Ambedkar's prominence and popular support amongst the untouchable community had increased to Himalayan heights and he was invited to attend the Second Round Table Conference in London in 1931 as a Representative of the Untouchables of India.

At that historic conference, Dr Ambedkar sparred verbally with Mahatma Gandhi on the question of awarding separate electorate to untouchables.

A fierce opponent of a separate electorate on religious and sectarian lines, Mahatma Gandhi feared that separate electorate for untouchables would divide Hindu society for future generations.

When the British agreed with Dr Ambedkar and announced the awarding of separate communal electorate, Mahatma Gandhi began a fast-unto-death while imprisoned in the Yeravada Central Jail of Pune in 1932.

Exhorting orthodox Hindu society to eliminate discrimination and untouchability, Gandhi asked for the political and social unity of Hindus. Gandhi's fast provoked great public support across India, and orthodox Hindu leaders, Congress politicians and activists such as Madan Mohan Malaviya and Pawlankar Baloo organised joint meetings with Ambedkar and his supporters at Yeravada.

Fearing a communal reprisal and killings of untouchables in the event of Gandhi's death on account of his fast-unto-death, Dr. Ambedkar agreed under massive coercion from the supporters of Gandhi to drop the demand for separate electorate, and settled for a reservation of seats. Dr. Ambedkar was later to criticise this fast of Gandhi as a gimmick to deny political rights to the untouchables on the one hand and to coerce him to give up his legitimate demand for a separate electorate. I cannot help saying that Mahatma Gandhi was absolutely right in his ruthless opposition to Dr. Ambedkar’s political demand for separate electorates for the Depressed Classes on the solid ground that such separate electorates for untouchables would only have the disastrous effect of dividing the Hindu society for countless generations in the future.

What Mahatma Gandhi feared with such clairvoyant vision in 1932 has become a stark reality in post-Independent India with Reservations in Government Service, and Higher Education for the Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. With a Firangi Memsahib from mafia-ruled Italy ruling the roost today, the treasonable Sonia Congress Party is the staunchest advocate for conducting a CASTE-BASED CENSUS OF INDIA. For this most corrupt lady, the survival of her known, unknown and undetected Swiss Bank accounts running to Billions of Dollars is more important than the very survival of the Indian Nation.

At the same time, taking the Congress rascally record of double-dealing and prevarication and procrastination, it was perhaps a historic necessity that Dr. Ambedkar should have raised the provocative and untenable issue of separate electorates for the Depressed Classes as early as in 1932.

Now to revert again to the mainstream of the inspiring story of Dr. Ambedkar’s life. In 1932, Dr. Ambedkar was appointed as a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Indian Constitutional Reform. In 1935, Dr Ambedkar was appointed as Principal of Government Law College in Mumbai. He was also appointed as Perry Professor of Jurisprudence, a position he held for two years.

Settling in Bombay, Dr Ambedkar oversaw the construction of a large house called `Rajagraha' in Dadar and stocked his personal library there with more than 50,000 books.

Ramabai Ambedkar (1896-1935)

His wife Ramabai died after a long illness in the same year. It had been her long-standing wish to go on a pilgrimage to Pandharpur, but Ambedkar had refused to let her go, telling her that he would create a new Pandharpur for her instead of Hinduism's Pandharpur which treated them as untouchables. His own views and attitudes had hardened against orthodox Hindus, despite a significant increase in momentum across India that had taken place in 1930s for the fight against untouchability. Consequently, he also invited the wrath of orthodox of Hindu activists.

Dr.Ambedkar giving his Presidential address at the historic Yeola Conversion Conference on October 13, 1935.

Dr Ambedkar presided over the Yeola Conversion Conference, Nasik, on 13 October, 1935. Dr Ambedkar exhorted the Depressed Classes to leave Hinduism and embrace another religion. He would repeat his message at numerous public meetings across India. He also declared at this conference: `I was born as a Hindu but I will not die as a Hindu.'

In December 1935, Dr Ambedkar was invited by the Jat Pat Todak Mandal of Lahore to preside over the Conference of Scheduled Caste and other Castes. Dr Ambedkar prepared a historic speech titled `The Annihilation of Caste.' The Conference was cancelled in the last minute by the Jat Pat Todak Mandal on the ground that Dr Ambedkar's thoughts were revolutionary. Finally, Dr Ambedkar also reacted strongly by refusing to preside over that meeting and published his speech in book form in 1937.

In 1936, Dr. Ambedkar founded the Independent Labour Party. The First general elections were held in 1937 under the Government of India Act of 1935. Dr Ambedkar's Independent Labour Party won 17 seats in elections to the Central Legislative Assembly. Dr. Ambedkar was elected Member of Bombay Legislative Assembly in 1937.

In 1937, he published his book The Annihilation of Caste, a remarkable book in the field of Indian sociology, based on the thesis he had written earlier in New York. This book became very popular.

In this book, Dr. Ambedkar strongly criticised Hindu religious leaders and the caste system in general. He protested against the Congress decision to call the untouchable community Harijans (Children of God), a name coined by Mahatma Gandhi.

When the World War II started in September 1939, Dr Ambedkar strongly pleaded for the recruitment of Mahars in the Indian Army. As a result, today, there is a Mahar Regiment an Infantry Regiment of the Indian Army. Dr Ambedkar was appointed as a member of the Defence Advisory Committee of the government of India in July 1941.

In April 1942, he founded the All India Scheduled Caste Federation in Nagpur. Between 1940 and 1945, Dr Ambedkar published a large number of highly controversial books and pamphlets. In December 1940, Dr Ambedkar published his Thoughts on Pakistan IN WHICH HE CRITICISED THE MUSLIM LEAGUE'S DEMAND FOR A SEPARATE MUSLIM STATE OF PAKISTAN. The second edition of this book with the revised title Pakistan or Partition of India was issued in February 1945. A third impression of the same book was again published in 1946 under a new title India's Political What's What: Pakistan or Partition of India.

COVER PAGE OF THE BOOK

Unlike Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and many other Islam-embracing and Hindu-baiting leaders of the Congress party at that time, Dr Ambedkar was able to see clearly through the vicious and crooked political game of Mohammed Ali Jinnah for Islamisation of India through a series of `Planned Partitions of India'. Let us hear the thundering words of Dr Ambedkar:

“Past experience shows that they (Hinduism and Islam) are too irreconcilable and too incompatible to permit Hindus and Muslims ever forming one single Nation or even two harmonious parts of one whole. Those differences have the sure effect not only of keeping them at war, the differences are permanent and the Hindu-Muslim problem bids fair to be eternal. To attempt to solve it on the footing that Hindus and Muslims are one or if they are not one now, they will be one hereafter is bound to be a barren occupation (as barren as it has come to be proved later in the case of Czeckoslovakia).”

“On the contrary, time has come when certain facts must be admitted as beyond dispute, however unpleasant such admission may be... In the first place, it should be admitted that every possible attempt to bring about union between Hindus and Muslims has been made and all of them have failed.... There seems to be an inherent antagonism between the two which centuries have not been able to dissolve. It (the antagonism) also prohibits inter-marriage between Muslims and Hindus. With these social laws, there can be no social assimilation and consequently no socialization of ways, modes and outlooks, no blunting of the edges and no modulation of age-old angularities.... Islam is a close corporation and the distinction it makes between Muslims and Non-Muslims is a very real, very positive and very alienating distinction. The brotherhood of Islam is not the Universal Brotherhood of Man. It is Brotherhood of Muslims for Muslims only.”

The shameless anti-Hindu Sonia Congress Government headed by a politically vicious woman like Sonia Gandhi, duly assisted by a soul-less Prime Minister like Dr Manmohan Singh, an unscrupulously corrupt mercenary like Pa(kistani!) Chidambaram and a corrupt rootless wonder like Pranab Mukherjee are all engaged in the noble task of erecting a magnificent ill-fated edifice of ‘Hindu-Muslim’ Unity which is destined from the beginning to damnation, doom and destruction. Dr Ambedkar, in Heaven, has had the last laugh on the subject of Hindu-Muslim Unity with the denial of Visa to General Musharraf in the first week of December 2010.

With What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables, Dr Ambedkar intensified his attacks on Gandhi and the Congress, charging them with hypocrisy. Right from Gandhi’s days, the political philosophy of the Congress Party has been based on the dictum that the genuine humanity is truly communal and reactionary whereas sham hypocrisy is patently secular and titillatingly cosmopolitan! 

In his work Who Were the Shudras?, Dr Ambedkar attempted to explain the formation of the Shudras i.e. the lowest caste in hierarchy of Hindu caste system. He also emphasised how Shudras are separate from untouchables. Dr Ambedkar oversaw the transformation of his political party into the All India Scheduled Castes Federation, although it performed poorly in the elections held in 1946 for the Constituent Assembly of India.

In writing a sequel to Who Were the Shudras? In 1948, Dr Ambedkar lambasted Hinduism in “The Untouchables: A Thesis on the Origins of Untouchability' The Hindu Civilisation.... is a diabolical contrivance to suppress and enslave humanity. Its proper name would be infamy. What else can be said of a civilisation which has produced a mass of people... who are treated as an entity beyond human intercourse and whose mere touch is enough to cause pollution?”

A MESSIAH OF THE SUPPRESSED AND THE OPPRESSED - I

V.SUNDARAM I.A.S.

`For a successful total revolution, it is not enough that there is discontent. What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice, necessity and importance of political and social rights.' — Dr B R Ambedkar

The 54^th 'Mahaparinirwan Diwas' of Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956), popularly known as Babasaheb, is being celebrated in a grand manner today (6 th December 2010) in all parts of India and in several parts of the world. An acknowledged Field Marshall of the Dalits of India in their struggle for emancipation and freedom from the cruelties and disabilities of age old caste oppression, a world renowned architect of the Constitution of India and above all, a great leader of men, endowed with the qualities of courage, wisdom, judgment, integrity and vision, he is one of the makers of Modern India.

Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born on 14 April, 1891 in a poor untouchable family in the British-founded town and military Cantonment of Mhow in the Central Provinces (now in Madhya Pradesh).[1] He was the 14th and last child of Ramji Maloji Sakpal and Bhimabai Murbadkar. His family was of Marathi background from the town of Ambavade in the Ratnagiri District of modern-day Maharashtra. They belonged to the Hindu Mahar caste and were treated as untouchables and subjected to intense socio-economic discrimination. Ambedkar's ancestors had for long been in the employment of the army of the British East India Company, and his father served in the Indian Army at the Mhow cantonment, rising to the rank of Subedar. He had received a degree of formal education in Marathi and English, and encouraged his children to learn and work hard at school.

Belonging to the Kabir Panth, Ramji Sakpal encouraged his children to read the Hindu classics, especially the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. He cleverly used his position in the army to lobby for his children to study at the government school, as they faced resistance owing to their caste. Although able to attend school, Ambedkar and other untouchable children were segregated and given no attention or assistance from the teachers. They were not allowed to sit inside the class. Even if they needed to drink water somebody from a higher caste would have to pour that water from a height as they were not allowed to touch either the water or the vessel that contained it. This task was usually performed for the young Ambedkar by the school peon, and if he could not be found Ambedkar went without water. Ramji Sakpal retired in 1894 and the family moved to Satara two years later. Shortly after their move, Ambedkar's mother died. The children were cared for by their paternal aunt, and lived in difficult circumstances. Only three sons — Balaram, Anandrao and Bhimrao — and two daughters — Manjula and Tulasa — of the Ambedkars would go on to survive them. Of his brothers and sisters, only Ambedkar succeeded in passing his examinations and graduating to a bigger school. His native village name was `Ambavade' in Ratnagiri District so he changed his name from `Sakpal' to `Ambedkar' with the recommendation and faith of a Brahmin teacher who believed in him.

Overcoming numerous social and financial obstacles, Ambedkar became one of the first `untouchables' to obtain a college education in India. He went on to pursue higher studies in Columbia University, New York, United States and England, where he earned law degrees and multiple doctorates for his study and research in law, economics and political science. Returning home a famous scholar, Ambedkar practiced law for a few years before he began publishing journals advocating political rights and social freedom for India's untouchables.

Ramji Sakpal encouraged his children to read the Hindu classics, especially the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. He used his position in the army to lobby for his children to study at the government school, as they faced resistance owing to their untouchable caste. Although able to attend school, Ambedkar and other Untouchable children were segregated and given no attention or assistance from the teachers. As Ambedkar himself has recorded `We were not allowed to sit inside the class. Even if we needed to drink water, somebody from a higher caste had to pour that water from a height as we were not allowed to touch either the water or the vessel that contained it. This task was usually performed for us by the school peon, and if he could not be found, we were condemned to go without water.'

Ambedkar's father Ramji Sakpal retired in 1894 and the family moved to Satara two years later. Shortly after this, Ambedkar's mother died. She left behind her three sons — Balaram, Anandrao and Bhimrao — and two daughters — Manjula and Tulasa. Of his brothers and sisters, only Ambedkar succeeded in passing his examinations and qualifying himself for University education.

In 1898, Ramji Sakpal remarried and the family moved to Mumbai (then Bombay), where Ambedkar became the first untouchable student at the Government High School on Elphinstone Road in Mumbai. Although he excelled in studies, yet Ambedkar was increasingly disturbed by the atmosphere of segregation and discrimination that he had to face in School. In 1907, Ambedkar passed his Matriculation Examination and entered the University of Bombay, becoming one of the first persons from the community of untouchables to enter a college in India. This spectacular success was marked by wide-spread celebrations in his community. After a grand public ceremony, Ambedkar was presented with a biography of the Buddha by his teacher Krishnaji Arjun Keluskar also known as Dada Keluskar, a Maratha caste Hindu scholar. In the same year, according to Hindu custom, he married Ramabai, a nine-year old girl from Dapoli.

In 1908, he entered Elphinstone College and obtained his Graduate Degree in 1912. He was fortunate to win a scholarship of twenty five rupees a month from the Gaikwad ruler of Baroda for completing his college education in Mumbai. His father Ramji Sakpal passed away in 1912.

In 1912, Ambedkar was selected by the Gaikwad ruler to travel to the United States and enroll at Columbia University. He was awarded a scholarship of $11.5 per month. Arriving in New York City in 1912, Ambedkar was admitted to the graduate studies programme at the Political Science Department of Columbia University. In 1916, Ambedkar was awarded a Ph.D Degree by Columbia University for his thesis on Provincial Finance in British India which he eventually published in book form as The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India.

Ambedkar’s first published work, however, was a paper titled Castes in, India: Their Mechanism Genesis and Development. Winning his Post-graduate Degree and Doctorate, he travelled to London and enrolled at Gray's Inn and the London School of Economics, studying law and preparing a doctoral thesis in economics. The expiration of his scholarship the following year forced him to temporarily abandon his studies and return to India amidst the storm of World War I.

He returned to work for Baroda state. Ambedkar was distressed by the sudden reappearance of discrimination in his day-to-day life, and therefore left his Government job to work as a private tutor and accountant. He even started his own consultancy business that failed owing to his social untouchability status. Fortunately, with the help of his English friend, Lord Sydenham, a former Governor of Bombay, he took up the post of Professor of Political Economy at the Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics in Mumbai.

Again Ambedkar was lucky. He was able to return to England in 1920 with the financial support of the Maharaja of Kolhapur. By 1923, he completed a thesis on “The Problem of the Rupee.” He was awarded a D.Sc. by the University of London, and on finishing his law studies, he was simultaneously admitted to the British Bar as a barrister. On his way back to India, Ambedkar spent three months in Germany, where he conducted further studies in economics at the University of Bonn.

Ambedkar's saga of struggle against the cruel practice of untouchability began sometime before the Jallian Wala Bagh massacre in April 1919. As a leading Indian scholar, Ambedkar had been invited to testify before the Southborough Committee, which was preparing the Government of India Act 1919. At this hearing, Ambedkar argued for creating separate electorates and reservations for Dalits and other religious communities.

In 1920, he began the publication of the weekly Mooknayak (Leader of the Silent) in Bombay. This Journal became very popular and Ambedkar used this journal to criticize the orthodox Hindu politicians. Through the columns of this journal, Ambedkar launched a frontal attack against the reluctance of the Indian political community at that time to fight against the evil of caste discrimination. His speech at a Depressed Classes Conference in Kolhapur in 1920 impressed the local state ruler Shahu IV, who shocked orthodox society by dining with Ambekdar.

Apart from establishing a successful legal practice, he also organised the Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha to promote the cause of education and socio-economic uplift of the Depressed Classes. In 1926, he became a nominated Member of the Bombay Legislative Council.

From 1927, Dr. Ambedkar decided to launch active political and social movements against untouchability. He began with public movements and marches to open up and share public drinking water resources. He also started a struggle to uphold the public right to enter Hindu temples. He led a satyagraha in Mahad to fight for the right of the untouchable community to draw water from the main water tank of the town.

On January 1, 1927 Dr. Ambedkar organised a ceremony at the Koregaon Victory Memorial which had been set up to commemorate the Indian soldiers who had died at the Battle of Koregaon in the Second Anglo-Maratha War, in the first quarter of the 19th century. Here Ambedkar inscribed the names of the soldiers from the Mahar community on a marble tablet.

A little later in 1927, he began his second journal, Bahiskrit Bharat (Excluded India), later rechristened Janata (The People). He was appointed to the Bombay Presidency Committee to work with the all-European Simon Commission in 1928. This Commission had sparked great protests across India, and while its report was ignored by most Indians, Dr. Ambedkar himself wrote a separate set of recommendations for future constitutional reforms. By now Dr. Ambedkar had become one of the most prominent untouchable political figures of the time.

WARRIOR-DURGA, RANI LAXMI BAI

OF JHANSI

V. SUNDARAM I.A.S

RANI LAKSHMIBAI OF JHANSI (1835-1858)

According to the Hindu Calendar, today, the 4^th of December 2010 (Saturday) is the 175^nd Jayanthi of Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi. To quote the inspiring words of Sri Rajiv K. Saxena:

“The story of Laxmi Bai, (born Nov.19, 1835) the Queen of Jhansi is unparalleled in the history of India. She was only 18 years old when her husband Gangadhar Rao, the King of Jhansi died. As the first born male child of Rani had died, the couple was childless. They adopted a child whom the English East India Company Government under Lord Dalhousie refused to accept as the legal heir to the throne of Jhansi. Instead the English offered her a pension of Rs. 60,000 per year and ordered her to leave the fort of Jhansi. Rani however refused and decided to fight for her rights. She raised a volunteer army where both men and women were recruited. In March 1858, English army laid siege to the fort of Jhansi and took Jhansi after fighting for two weeks. Rani escaped in the guise of a man with a few of her supporters, riding a horse with her son tied behind her back and a sword in her hand. She regrouped her forces in Kalpi, about 100 miles from Jhansi and advanced into Gwalior. Three weeks later on June 18, 1858 she was martyred by bullets of the English army in a combat battle. Super human courage, convictions and valour displayed by such a young girl in nineteenth century India who came forward to take on the English army in armed combat and to lay down her life fighting for her rights, became a source of inspiration for generations of Indians in their fight for independence.”

Lakshmi bai, The Rani (Queen) of Jhansi was one of the leading figures in the First War for Indian Independence and a radiant symbol of resistance to British rule in India. She has gone down in Indian history as a legendary figure, the firebrand who started the Indian armed revolution against British Colonialism and inaugurated the glorious struggle Indian independence.

Originally named Manikarnika at birth (nicknamed Manu), she was born on 19 November 1835 at Kashi (Varanasi) to a Maharashtrian brahmin family Moropant Tambe and Bhagirathibai Tambe. She lost her mother at the age of four. She was educated at home. Her father Moropant Tambe worked at the court of Peshwa at Bithur and then travelled to the court of Raja Bal Gangadhar Rao Newalkar, the Maharaja of Jhansi, when Manu was thirteen years old. She was married to Gangadhar Rao, the Raja of Jhansi, at the age of fourteen and was given the new name 'Lakshmi Bai'. Because of her father's influence at court, Rani Lakshmi Bai had more independence than most women, who were normally restricted to the zenana. She studied self-defense, horsemanship, archery, and even formed her own private army out of her female friends at court.

Rani Lakshmi Bai gave birth to a son in 1851. However this infant died when he was about four months old. After the death of their son, the Raja and Rani of Jhansi adopted Damodar Rao. However, it is said that her husband the Raja never recovered from his son's death, and the Raja of Jhansi died on 21 November 1853 of a broken heart. Since Anand Rao was an adopted son and not biologically related to the Raja, the East India Company, under Governor-General Lord Dalhousie, was able to impose the Doctrine of Lapse, rejecting Damodar Rao’s claim to the throne. Lord Dalhousie then annexed Jhansi, saying that the throne had become "lapsed" and thus put Jhansi under his “protection”. In March 1854, the Rani was given a pension of 60,000 rupees and ordered to leave the palace at the Jhansi fort.

"The Fort, Jhansi," a gelatin silver photo, c.1900; *"Mutiny Memorial, Jhansi"*

When the First War of Indian Independence broke out in 1857, Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi seized the opportunity to rise in rebellion against British colonial and imperial rule. When the British troops arrived under Sir Hugh Rose and laid siege to Jhansi on 23 March 1858, Rani Laxmibai with her faithful warriors decided not to surrender. The fighting continued for about two weeks. Shelling on Jhansi was very fierce. In the Jhansi army women were also carrying ammunition and were supplying food to the soldiers. The Rani rallied her troops around her and fought fiercely against the British. Meanwhile an army of 20,000, headed by the nationalist leader Tatya Tope, came to relieve Jhansi and to take Lakshmi Bai to freedom. However, the British, though numbering only 1,540 in the field were better trained and disciplined than the “raw recruits,” of Tatya Tope and these inexperienced soldiers turned back and fled shortly after the British began to attack on the 31st March 1858. Rani Lakshmi Bai’s forces could not hold out and three days later the British were able to breach the city walls and capture the city. Yet Lakshmi Bai escaped over the wall at night and fled from her city, surrounded by her guards, many of whom were from her female military corps.

Along with the young Damodar Rao, the Rani decamped to Kalpi, near Gwalior, along with her forces where she joined the other nationalist forces, including those of Tatya Tope. The combined nationalist forces of Rani and Tatya Tope occupied the strategic fort at Gwalior. The Rani donned warrior's clothes and rode into battle to save Gwalior Fort However on the second day of fighting in Kotah-Ki-Serai near Phool Bagh area of Gwalior against the English colonial forces (8th Hussars) led by Sir Hugh Rose on 17 June 1858, the Rani of Jhansi succumbed to her wounds. The British captured Gwalior three days later.

The Rani of Jhansi had taken care to see that her trusted bodyguards took planned advance action to cremate her dead body even before the English colonial troops had reached the scene of her death. Thus she prevented the English colonial troops from getting possession of her body and thus saw to it that Sir Hugh Rose, the English General and his colonial forces, were denied the political opportunity of defiling, desecrating and later hanging her body in public with the sole intention of humiliating her family and her beloved subjects.

Her father, Moropant Tambey, was captured and hanged a few days after the fall of Jhansi. Her adopted son, Damodar Rao, was given a pension of Rs 200 a month by the British Raj and cared for, although he never received his royal inheritance. This little boy who had been adopted as the future Ruler of Jhansi and who had escaped from the city with Rani Lakshmibai on horseback, lived on until 1936. He died without his title and with few possessions.

General Hugh Rose

In his Final Report of the Battle for Gwalior, General Hugh Rose (was known as Sir Hugh Rose) commented that the Rani “remarkable for her beauty, cleverness and perseverance and had been the most dangerous of all the rebel leaders”.

THE STORMING OF JHANSI

LIEUTENANT BONUS, SUPPORTED BY ONLY ONE MAN, MOUNTED A DOUBLE LADDER OF BAMBOO, AND FOR SOME TIME WAS HACKING, THRUSTING, AND PARRYING BLOWS, UNTIL A REBEL WITH HIS CLUBBED RIFLE HURLED HIM TO THE GROUND. ALTHOUGH HE HAD A REVOLVER IN HIS LEFT HAND HE WAS SO BUSILY ENGAGED THAT HE FORGOT TO USE IT.

In a prophetic statement in the 1878 book ‘The History of the Indian Mutiny’, Colonel Malleson said “...her countrymen will always believe that she was driven by ill-treatment into rebellion; that her cause was a righteous cause; ..... To them she will always be a heroine.”

Rani Lakshmi Bai became a national heroine and was seen as the epitome of female bravery in India. When Subhas Chandra Bose formed the Indian National Army and created the first female batallion, he named it after the Rani of Jhansi. THE RANI WAS MEMORIALIZED IN BRONZE STATUES AT BOTH JHANSI AND GWALIOR, BOTH OF WHICH PORTRAY HER ON HORSEBACK.

BRONZE STATUE OF RANI OF JHANSI AT JHANSI

Indian poetess Subhadra Kumari Chauhan wrote an inspiring great poem on Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi in the Veer Ras style. This is an emotionally charged poem describing the life of Rani Lakshmi Bai. The poem is one of the most recited and sung poems in Hindi literature. Today it is a part of the school curriculum in several parts of India and every child studying Hindi has to chant this inspiring poem.

POSTAGE STAMP OF SUBHADRA KUMARI CHAUHAN

I am quoting below a few stanzas from the great poem of Subhadra Kumari Chauhan.

I am giving below the English Transliteration of the above Hindi verses, together with their meanings in English.

16 English Transliteration of Verse 16 of the Poem

To bhi Rani maar kaat kar chalti bani sainya key paar,

kintu saamney naala aaya, tha woh sankat visham apaar,
ghoda adaa, naya ghoda tha, itney mein aa gaye avaar,
Rani ek, shatru bahuterey, honey lagey vaar-par-var


Ghayal hokar giri Sinhni, isey veer gati paani thi,
Bundeley Harbolon key munh hamney suni kahani thi,
Khoob ladi mardani woh to Jhansi wali Rani thi.

16    Meaning of Verse 16 of the Poem

Though Rani was deeply wounded,

still she was fighting and had managed to get through the British army,
But she got stuck because a sewerage canal was there on the other end
and she was in deep trouble,
Her horse got stuck there - the horse was untrained,
in the mean time, the British soldiers, riding on their horses reached there.
Rani was all alone while enemies were numerous
who were attacking her with their sword from all sides,
Rani, who was fighting like a lioness, succumbed to the wounds and fell down. She had to achieve a glorious death in war (Martyrdom).
From the mouths of the Bandelas and the Harbolas (Religious singers of Bandelkhand), we heard the tale of the courage of the Queen of Jhansi relating how gallantly she fought like a man against the British intruders: such was the Queen of Jhansi.

17 English Transliteration of Verse 17 of the Poem

Rani gayee sidhaar chita ab uski divya sawaari thi,
mila tej se tej, tej ki woh sachchi adhikaari thi,
abhi umr kul teis ki thi, manuj nahin avtaari thi,
humko jeevit karney aayee ban Swatantrata-naree thi,


dikha gayee path, sikha gayee humko jo seekh sikhani thi,
Bundeley Harbolon key munh hamney suni kahani thi,
Khoob ladi mardani woh to Jhansi wali Rani thi.


17 Meaning of Verse 17 of the Poem

Rani was martyred in the battlefield.
Her departed soul was then riding a divine vehicle,
moving towards heavens
the Light of her divine soul met with the divine light in the heavens,
she was the real heir of divinity,
She was only thirty years of age.
She was not a human; rather she was divine spirit (a holy being),
Who did come, in the gesture of a female freedom fighter,
to give us a respectable life of light and freedom ,
She showed us the path of freedom, and taught us the lesson of courage,
she taught us what we might have learned.
From the mouths of the Bandelas and the Harbolas (Religious singers of Bandelkhand),
we heard the tale of the courage of the Queen of Jhansi relating how gallantly she fought like a man against the British intruders: such was the Queen of Jhansi.

18     English Transliteration of Verse 18 of the Poem

Jao Rani yaad Rakhengey yeh krutagna Bharatwasi,

yeh tera balidaan jagavega Swatantrata avinasi,
hovey chup itihaas, lagey sachchai ko chahey phansi,
ho madmaati vijay, mitaa dey golon sey chahey Jhansi.

Tera Smarak tu hi hogi, tu khud amit nishaani thi,

Bundeley Harbolon key munh hamney suni kahani thi,
Khoob ladi mardani woh to Jhansi wali Rani thi.


18    Meaning of Verse 18 of the Poem

The people of India will remember this debt of yours (O! Rani Laxmaibai), may you be blessed, dear Rani,

Your this life sacrifice will awake an indestructible soul of freedom in the people,
History may be made silent or if truth is hanged or killed,
or if the drinkers become victorious or if they destroy jhansi with cannonballs,
You, by yourself be the memorial of Rani (queen of Jhansi)
because you had been an eternal token of courage.
From the mouths of the Bandelas and the Harbolas (Religious singers of Bandelkhand), we heard the tale of the courage of the Queen of Jhansi relating how gallantly she fought like a man against the British intruders: such was the Queen of Jhansi.

The above poem by Subhadra Kumari Chauhan on the Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi is a fitting tribute to a young and extremely brave queen, one of India's many heroines. I learnt the following bracing refrain from the above poem in Hindi when I was studying in the 5^th Standard in the Harcourt Butler Higher Secondary School in Shimla, 59 years ago in 1951.

Budele harbolon ke munh hamney suni kahani thi

Khoob ladi mardani woh to Jhansi wali rani thi

“From the mouths of the Bundelas and the Harbolas we have heard the story. Bravely she fought as a man, she was the Queen of Jhansi”

The brave saga of war waged by Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi against the English East India Company in 1858 brings to my mind the heroic battle fought by Queen Boadecia against the colonizing Romans in England in AD 60.

EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF QUEEN BOADICEA IN ENGLAND

Boadicea was born into a royal family around 26 A.D. She married Prasutagus, king of the Iceni, a tribe located in what is now Norfolk, England. Prasutagus was a client-king, meaning he ruled under the auspices of the Romans, who had probably put him on the throne in return for his assistance when they invaded England in 43 AD.

Upon Prasutagus's death around the year 59 AD, the kingdom passed into the hands of the Romans. The king had hoped the Romans would allow his two teenage daughters to keep half of his property, but instead the Romans took over completely. When Boadicea complained, she was publicly flogged and forced to watch as her daughters were raped.

Infuriated, Queen Boadicea became the leader of a violent uprising against Roman rule. But the Romans quickly put down the rebellion by defeating the undisciplined Britons in a ferocious battle (the exact site of which is uncertain). According to one account, Boadicea then killed herself with poison so she would not fall into Roman hands. Boadicea's name means "victorious," or Victoria. During the Victorian Age she came to be viewed as a heroic symbol of Britain.

Very much like the poem by Subhadra Kumari Chauhan on Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, the English poet William Cowper (1731-1800) composed an Ode dedicated to Queen Boadicea. It was published in 1782. I am presenting below this Ode:

BOADICEA: AN ODE

WHEN the British warrior queen,

Bleeding from the Roman rods,

Sought, with an indignant mien,

Counsel of her country's gods,

Sage beneath a spreading oak

Sat the Druid, hoary chief;

Ev'ry burning word he spoke

Full of rage, and full of grief.

Princess! if our aged eyes

Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,

'Tis because resentment ties

All the terrors of our tongues.

"Rome shall perish—write that word

In the blood that she has spilt;

Perish, hopeless and abhorr'd,

Deep in ruin as in guilt.

Rome, for empire far renown'd,

Tramples on a thousand states;

Soon her pride shall kiss the ground—

Hark! the Gaul is at her gates!

Other Romans shall arise,

Heedless of a soldier's name;

Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize—

Harmony the path to fame.

Then the progeny that springs

From the forests of our land,

Arm'd with thunder, clad with wings,

Shall a wider world command.

Regions Cæsar never knew

Thy posterity shall sway,

Where his eagles never flew,

None invincible as they.

Such the bard's prophetic words,

Pregnant with celestial fire,

Bending, as he swept the chords

Of his sweet but awful lyre.

She, with all a monarch's pride,

Felt them in her bosom glow;

Rush'd to battle, fought, and died;

Dying, hurl'd them at the foe.

Ruffians, pitiless as proud,

Heav'n awards the vengeance due;

Empire is on us bestow'd,

Shame and ruin wait for you.

When William Cowper paid his tribute to Queen Boadicea in 1782, the Roman Empire had been extinct for nearly one thousand five hundred years. When Subhadra Kumari Chauhan participated in India’s Freedom Movement in the 1920’s, she composed her poem on Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi. The following verses inspired many freedom fighters in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, Bihar and the Central Provinces to brave the brutal Police lathi charges in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s.

सिंहासन हिल उठे राजवंशों ने भृकुटी तानी थी,

बूढ़े भारत में आई फिर से नयी जवानी थी,

गुमी हुई आज़ादी की कीमत सबने पहचानी थी,

दूर फिरंगी को करने की सबने मन में ठानी थी।

चमक उठी सन सत्तावन में, वह तलवार पुरानी थी,

बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,

खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

The English translation of the above verses is given below:

The thrones shook and royalties scowled
Old India was re-invigorated with new youth
People realised the value of lost freedom
Everybody was determined to throw the foreigners out
The old sword glistened again in 1857
This story we heard from the mouths of Bundel bards
Like a man she fought, she was the Queen of Jhansi.

Just as the Roman Empire came to an end in 476 AD, the British Empire in India ended within 89 years of the martyrdom of Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi.

JAMES SHIRLEY

When I read about the unabashed arrogance of the Roman Emperors and the British Colonial Rulers in India between 1757 and 1947, I cannot help quoting the following timeless lines from the poem of James Shirley (1596-1666) titled ‘Death the Leveller’.

DEATH THE LEVELLER

The glories of our blood and state

Are shadows, not substantial things;

There is no armour against Fate;

Death lays his icy hand on kings:

Sceptre and Crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made

With the poor crookèd scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,

And plant fresh laurels where they kill:

But their strong nerves at last must yield;

They tame but one another still:

Early or late

They stoop to fate,

And must give up their murmuring breath

When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow,

Then boast no more your mighty deeds!

Upon Death's purple altar now

See where the victor-victim bleeds.

Your heads must come

To the cold tomb:

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.

POSTSCRIPT

Letters of Rani of Jhansi 

After I had finished writing the above article on Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, one of friends invited my attention to the following two historic letters written in Hindi by Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi.

The first letter was written in 1857 from Jhansi. I am presenting below the facsimile copy of this rare letter.

The second letter was written in 1858 from Kalpi. I am presenting below the facsimile copy of this letter.

(Reference: Source: "Bundelkhand Ka Vismrat vaibhav: Banpur" by Kailash Madavaiya, Pub. Manish Prakashan (author), 1978. The author has stated about one of these letters: " .. Even though the paper has become extremely fragile and in a few places the letters have dropped off, yet the descendants of Raja Mardan Singh of Banpur have trusted me to have it.")

I have also come across reference to a very rare letter in Persian sent by Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi to Lord Dalhousie on 21^st November 1853, 4 years before the First War of Indian Independence in 1857. It was on that day her husband Gangadhar Rao, the Raja of Jhansi had died.

Alastair Lawson has written an interesting story about how this letter was discovered recently in the BBC News. I am presenting below the full text of Alistair Lawson’s article which speaks for itself.

Indian heroine's letter unearthed
By Alastair Lawson
BBC News

A previously undiscovered letter written by one of India's best known female rebels against British colonial rule has been found by academics.



The letter was written by Lakshmibai, Rani of Jhansi, shortly before the Indian mutiny - or first war of independence - in 1857.

It has been found in London in the archives of the British Library.
The Rani of Jhansi has often been called the "Joan of Arc" of the Indian independence struggle.
Academics say the discovery of the letter is hugely significant, because so little historical evidence from the Rani of Jhansi's lifetime exists.

Fateful events.

"The letter is part of a collection of documents known as the Bowring Collection," said Deepika Ahlawat, research curator for the Victoria and Albert Museum's Maharaja exhibition currently being staged in London.

"The collection is named after Lewin Bentham Bowring, a civil servant working in India who gathered a remarkable collection of documents, photographs and ephemera relating to the maharajas."

The above letter is one of the few remaining artefacts from the Rani of Jhansi's life

The letter is written by the Rani of Jhansi to the Governor-General of the East India Company (EIC), Lord Dalhousie.



In it she describes the fateful events on the night her husband died.


"But under the Doctrine of Lapse then being imposed by the EIC, any Indian kingdom whose ruler died without an heir, or who was guilty of misrule - was subsumed into Company territory," explained Ms Ahlawat.


Fearing this doctrine, the Rani said that her husband adopted a suitable heir before his death by performing all the necessary rites for her adopted son, Damodar Rao Gangdhar, to be accepted as the next Raja of Jhansi. Lord Lord Dalhousie did not recognise the adoption and threatened to annex Jhansi, now in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

In 1857 the Rani joined the rebellion against the British and personally led her troops in battle. At one point she was captured by EIC troops but subsequently made a daring escape from a fort.



"All this made her the stuff of legend," said Ms Ahlawat. "According to some stories she died riding into battle against the British - another story says that she was shot while holding the ramparts of Gwalior Fort.


"Whatever the truth, the story of a female leader battling for her kingdom against the might of the EIC fired the nationalistic imagination when the contested history of 1857 came to be written.


"This letter written by an iconic talisman for the nationalist narrative in India, and her equestrian statue can be found in town squares all over the country."


The most important Equestrian Statues of Maharani Lakshmibai of Jhansi have been installed at Jhansi, Gwalior, Agra, Ghaziabad, Ahmedabad and Pune.

Equestrian statue of Jhansi Ki Rani (the Rani of Jhansi) in Chitralekha Park, Ahmedabad, India

The Rani of Jhansi, who died fighting the British in 1858; a modern statue in Jhansi

Swarna Jayanti Park, at Neeti Khand, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad.

Equestrian statue of Jhansi Ki Rani (the Rani of Jhansi) in Phul Bagh, Gwalior

 

Statue of Rani of Jhansi at Pune

 

STATUE OF RANI OF JHANSI AT AGRA

STAMP ISSUED ON RANI OF JHANSI

Issued in 1957 to mark the Centenary of Indian Mutiny

Conclusion: Lord Bacon wrote: “ Out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books and the like, we do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time.” Animated by this spirit, I have presented the above story of Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi---the Mahishasuramardhini of India.

There is nothing that solidifies and strengthens a nation like reading the nation’s history, whether that history is recorded in books, or embodied in customs, institutions, and monuments. God is in the facts of history as truly as HE is in the march of the seasons, the revolutions of the planets, or the architecture of the worlds. All history is but a romance, unless it is studied as an example. The impartiality of history is not that of the mirror, which merely reflects objects but of the judge who sees, listens and decides.