SAVARKAR AND THE CRIMES IN WHICH HE WAS IMPLICATED

A revolutionary to the core

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was convicted for the murder of A.M.T. Jackson, Collector of Nashik district, and sent to the cellular jail in Andamans in 1911. This was the only murder he had conspired to commit for which he was punished.

He was implicated in the other three: Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie of the India Office on 1 July 1909; attempted murder of the Acting Governor of Bombay, Ernest Hotson, in 1931; and Gandhi’s on January 30, 1948. In each case, the trigger was pulled by an assassin associated with Savarkar.

Savarkar went to study Law in London in 1906. He published Mazzini Charitra in the same year, an adaptation of the Italian radical Mazzini’s works with a 25-page preface. The book was released in Maharashtra in June 1907, and the first 2,000 copies sold out in less than a month.

Giuseppe Mazzini (1805 – 1872), an Italian politician, journalist, and activist for the unification of Italy, led the Italian revolutionary movement. His efforts helped bring about an independent and unified Italy in place of the several separate states, many dominated by foreign powers, that existed until the 19th century. An Italian nationalist in the historical radical tradition, Mazzini helped define the modern European movement for popular democracy in a republican state.

Mazzini's thoughts had a very considerable influence on political leaders, among them American president Woodrow Wilson and British prime minister David Lloyd George as well as post-colonial leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Veer Savarkar, Golda Meir, David Ben-Gurion, Kwame Nkrumah, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sun Yat-sen.

Savarkar

After the book, Savarkar completely embraced Mazzini’s secret organizations and guerrilla warfare strategies. He distributed insurgent propaganda in London and sent frequent newsletters to his Indian comrades.

Savarkar and his brother Ganesh founded the secret revolutionary group Abhinav Baharat Society in 1904, and its modus operandi was revealed during the inquiry into the killing of AMT Jackson, Magistrate of Nashik. Savarkar was discovered to have sent twenty Browning handguns to India, including one used in Jackson’s assassination.

The assassination of AMT Jackson

Arthur Mason Tippetts Jackson (1866 – 1909), a British officer in the Indian Civil Services, was a learned Indologist and a historian, who was popularly known as Pandit Jackson. He was the Magistrate of Nashik when he was murdered by Anant Laxman Kanhere and the trial in the case led to the arrest and deportation of Savarkar.

Anant Kanhere, an 18-year-old student of Aurangabad, shot Jackson on 21 December 1909 at a theatre where a drama was to be staged in his honour on the eve of his transfer. Jackson was shot dead as he had committed Ganesh (Babarao) Savarkar, elder brother of V D Savarkar, to trial. He was also instrumental in Ganesh getting arrested.

The murder created a great deal of sensation in Nashik, Pune and Mumbai and it even created consternation in the ranks of Indian nationalists, as Jackson was known to be sympathetic to India. At the same time, Jackson was aware of activities carried out by the Abhinav Bharat Society which were "seditious", as defined by the British Indian government.

Jackson

The arrest of Babarao Savarkar for printing a 16-page book of songs of Kavi Govind and his prosecution was the last straw. A group headed by Krishnaji Karve decided to eliminate Jackson in the first month of 1910.

However, by the end of 1909, Jackson was promoted to the post of Commissioner of Mumbai. Krishnaji Karve, Vinayak Deshpande, and Anant Kanhere decided to eliminate Jackson before his transfer. People in Nashik arranged a farewell for Jackson at Vijayanand theatre and staged a drama, Sangeet Sharada, in his honour. Anant decided this was the time to execute their plan. He took responsibility for killing Jackson and decided to commit suicide by poison to avoid capture and save his partners.

The backup plan was that Vinayak was going to shoot Jackson if Anant's attempt failed. If both these failed, Karve was also carrying a weapon. On 21 December 1909, as Jackson came to see the play, Anant jumped in front of him and shot four bullets. Jackson was killed immediately. One of the Indian officers, Palshikar and former DSP Marutrao Toradmal, attacked Anant with a baton. Other people around caught Anant and he was not able to shoot himself or get the poison.

Kanhere was prosecuted in Bombay court and hanged in the Thane prison on 19 April 1910, a mere four months after Jackson was killed. Along with him, Karve and Deshpande were also hanged. The other accused in the case Shankar Ramchandra Soman, Waman alias Daji Narayan Joshi and Ganesh Balaji Vaidya were given Transportation of Life (Life imprisonment) punishment and Dattatraya Pandurang Joshi was sent to two years rigorous imprisonment.

Karve, Kanhare, Deshpande

None of the relatives of these three was present during the execution. Their bodies were burnt by the prison officers, and the ash left after the body is burnt was also not handed over to their relatives but was thrown in the sea near Thane.

The murder was an important event in the history of Nashik and the Indian revolutionary movement in Maharashtra. 

Kanhere was born on 7 January 1892 in Aayani (Anjani), a small village in Khed, Ratnagiri in a Brahmin family. He completed his primary education in Nizamabad which was then also called Indur, and his English education took place in Aurangabad. In 1908, Kanhere returned to Aurangabad where he met with Ganesh (Ganu) Balaji Vaidya, a member of Abhinav Bharat.

Jackson was aware of these activities. He started mixing with people, unlike other British officers. He told people that he was a Vedic-literate Brahmin in his previous life and that was why he felt affection towards the Indian people. He used to talk to people in Marathi and had knowledge of Sanskrit.

The assassination of Curzon Wyllie

Curzon Wyllie (1848 – 1909), a British Indian army officer, and later an official of the British Indian Government, was assassinated the same year, on 1 July 1909 in London by the Indian revolutionary Madan Lal Dhingra, who was a member of India House in London.

Over a career spanning three decades, Wyllie rose to be a Lieutenant Colonel in the British Indian Army and occupied several administrative and diplomatic posts. He was a British resident of Nepal and the Princely state of Rajputana, and later, the political aide-de-camp to the Secretary of State for India, Lord George Hamilton. 

Wyllie, born at Cheltenham to General William Wyllie (1802 – 1891) and his wife, Amelia (1806 – 1891), was the third and youngest son of five children. He was educated at Sandhurst before joining the army in October 1866, subsequently arriving in India in 1867. 

Arriving in India in February 1867, Wyllie was promoted to lieutenant in October 1868 and joined the Indian staff corps in 1869. He was posted to the 2nd Gurkha regiment for a year. In 1870, Wyllie was selected for civil and political employment and appointed to the Oudh commission.

Wyllie was promoted to captain in October 1878 and transferred to the foreign department in January 1879, serving as cantonment magistrate of Nasirabad, assistant commissioner in Ajmer-Merwara, and subsequently as the assistant to Sir Robert Groves Sandeman, the governor-general's agent in Baluchistan. 

Curzon Wyllie

He was part of Major-General Sir Robert Phayre's contingent in the Second Anglo-Afghan War when his actions earned him mentions in the Viceroy's dispatches. After the war, Wyllie was appointed the military secretary to the governor of Madras, William Patrick Adam (later also his brother-in-law) from December 1880 until Adam's death in the following May. On 29 December 1881, Wyllie married Katharine Georgiana Carmichael (1858 — 1931), the second daughter of David Fremantle Carmichael of the Indian Civil Service. He was promoted to Major in October 1886 and to Lieutenant Colonel in 1892.

Wyllie served as the private secretary to acting governor William Huddleston till November 1881, subsequently overseeing the affairs of Malhar Rao Gaekwar of Baroda before taking the post of assistant resident at Hyderabad from December 1881 to November 1882. Through the next 14 years, Wyllie served in political and government posts in several different places, mostly in Rajputana. 

During this time he oversaw relief for the famine of 1899-1900. Between 1893 and 1899, Wyllie was the officiating resident in Nepal when in February 1898 he was selected as the agent to the governor-general in central India. In May 1900 he was transferred in the same capacity to Rajputana, where he remained for the rest of his service in India.

In March 1901 Wyllie returned to Britain on being appointed the political aide-de-camp to Lord George Hamilton, the Secretary of State for India. He oversaw the arrangements for the Indian princes visiting for the coronation of King Edward VII in August 1902.

At this time, he was also involved in affairs relating to Indian students in Britain, as well as overseeing the Indian nationalist opinion that was finding a voice in Britain at the time. Wyllie was head of the Secret Police and collected a lot of information about Savarkar.

Richard James Popplewell (1995) in the book, Intelligence and imperial defence: British intelligence and the defence of the Indian Empire, 1904-1924, quotes The Indian Sociologist as describing Wyllie and Lee Warner "as early as October 1907" as "old unrepentant foes of India who have fattened on the misery of the Indian peasant every (sic) since they began their career".

This prompted Savarkar's group to eliminate him, and Wyllie was assassinated in by Dhingra at the Imperial Institute, South Kensington, where he and his wife attended an event organised by the National Indian Association. Dhingra fired at Wyllie with a revolver, killing him instantly, and mortally wounding Dr Cawas Lalcaca, a Parsi physician from Shanghai, who attempted to come to Wyllie's aid and stop Dhingra. Dhingra was sentenced to death in July 1909 and hanged at Pentonville Prison on 17 August 1909.

Dhingra (1889-1909) was an Indian student at the University of London who had close ties with the nationalist India House and The Indian Sociologist. Dhingra was born in an educated and affluent Hindu Punjabi Khatri family in Amritsar, India. His father, Dr Ditta Mal Dhingra, was a civil surgeon, and Madan Lal was one of eight children (seven sons and one daughter). All seven sons, including Dhingra, studied abroad.

At the Lahore Government College University, Dhingra was influenced by the incipient nationalist movement, which at that time was about seeking Home Rule rather than independence. Troubled by the poverty in India, Dhingra studied the causes of poverty and famines extensively and felt that the key issues in seeking solutions to these problems lay in Swaraj (self-government).

Dhingra embraced with particular fervour the Swadeshi movement, which aimed to increase India's self-sufficiency by encouraging Indian industry and entrepreneurship and boycotting British and other foreign goods. He found that the industrial and fiscal policies of the colonial government were designed to suppress local industry and favour the purchase of British imports, which he felt was a significant reason for the lack of economic development in India.

Dhingra

In 1904, as an MA student, Dhingra led a student protest against the principal's order to have the college blazer made of cloth imported from Britain, for which he was expelled from the college. His father, who held a high, well-paying position in government service and had a poor opinion of agitations, told him to apologise to the college management, not to participate in such activities again, and revoke the expulsion. 

Dhingra refused and chose not even to go home to discuss matters with his father, but to take a job and live as per his own wishes. Thus, following his expulsion, Dhingra took a job as a clerk at Kalka at the foot of the Shimla hills, in a firm that ran a Tanga carriage service to transport British families to Shimla for the summer months.

After being dismissed for insubordination, he worked as a factory labourer. Here, he attempted to organise a union but was sacked. He moved to Bombay and worked there for some time, again at low-level jobs. By now, his family was seriously worried about him, and his elder brother, Dr Bihari Lal, compelled him to go to Britain to continue his higher education. Dhingra finally agreed, and in 1906, he departed for Britain to enrol at University College, London, to study mechanical engineering.

Dhingra arrived in London a year after the foundation of Shyamji Krishna Varma's India House in 1905, a meeting place for Indian revolutionaries located in Highgate. He came into contact with Savarkar and Varma, who were impressed by his perseverance and intense patriotism. Savarkar inspired Dhingra. He joined and had a membership in the Abhinav Bharat Society. Dhingra was known to frequent a shooting range on Tottenham Court Road.

During this period, Savarkar, Dhingra, and other student activists were outraged by the 1905 Partition of Bengal. Dhingra was disowned for his political activities by his father, Ditta Mall, who was the Chief Medical Officer in Amritsar. His father went so far as to publish his decision in newspaper advertisements.

Several weeks before assassinating Wyllie, Dhingra had tried to kill George Curzon, Viceroy of India. He had also planned to assassinate the ex-Governor of Bengal, Bampfylde Fuller, but was late for a meeting the two were to attend, and so could not carry out his plan. Dhingra then decided to kill Wyllie.

On the evening of 1 July 1909, Dhingra, along with a large number of Indians and Englishmen had gathered to attend the annual 'At Home' function hosted by the Indian National Association at the Imperial Institute. When Wyllie was leaving the hall with his wife, Dhingra fired five shots right at his face, four of which hit their target. Dr Cawas Lalcaca died of Dhingra's sixth and seventh bullets, which he fired because Lalcaca had come between them. Dhingra was arrested on the spot.

Dhingra was tried in the Old Bailey on 23 July. He represented himself during his trial but did not recognize the court's legitimacy. He stated that his assassination was done in the name of Indian independence and that his actions were motivated by patriotism. He also stated that he had not intended to kill Cawas Lalcaca. He was sentenced to death.

While he was being removed from the court, he said to the Chief Justice – "Thank you, my Lord. I don't care. I am proud to have the honour of laying down my life for the cause of my motherland." (1)

At a public meeting held on 5 July 1909, several Indian political leaders condemned the murder of Wyllie. Still, Savarkar voted against the formal resolution to condemn Dhingra, arguing that proper voting procedure had not been followed at the meeting and that he wanted Dhingra to be "treated fairly before being condemned as a criminal". (2) After Dhingra's execution, the Abhinav Bharat Society printed a postcard portraying Dhingra as a revolutionary. Savarkar's comrade V. V. S. Aiyar described the murder as "a glorious act", and praised Savarkar for being "the real guru, the Avatar of Krishna, who had produced a man like Dhingra."

After Dhingra went to the gallows, The Times of London wrote an editorial on 24 July 1909, titled "Conviction of Dhingra". The editorial said, "The nonchalance displayed by the assassin was of a character which is happily unusual in such trials in this country. He asked no questions. He maintained a defiance of studied indifference. He walked smiling from the Dock."

The third case in which Savarkar got implicated related to the attempt on the life of Ernst Hotson, Home Member and Acting Governor of Bombay.

Attempt on Ernst Hotson

Ernest Hotson, on whom an assassination attempt was made by an associate of Savarkar, was saved by his bulletproof vest.

Sir John Ernest Buttery Hotson (1877 – 1944) was an administrator in India during the British Raj. Born in Glasgow, he joined the Indian Civil Service, being appointed Superintendent of Managed Estates in Kathiawar. His entire career was devoted to the administration of the Bombay Presidency, and his positions included Under-Secretary to the Government of Bombay (Political and Judicial Departments), 1907; Collector, 1920; Secretary of the Political Department, 1922; Chief Secretary to the Government, 1924; Member of the Executive Council (MEC) of Bombay, 1926–31. He rose to become a Home Member and Acting Governor of Bombay, in 1931, when an attempt was made on his life.

After the arrest of the national leaders Khurshed Nariman and Jamnalal Bajaj on 8 May 1930, mass demonstrations in the district of Sholapur led the Collector, Henry Knight, to seek advice from Hotson who was now in Bombay as the Home Member. The visit resulted in the imposition of martial law on 12 May. Martial law was lifted on 30 June, however, a year later, on 22 July 1931, as Acting Governor of Bombay in the period after the departure of Sir Frederick Sykes, Hotson was visiting the library of Ferguson College in Pune, when one of the students, Vasudeo Balwant Gogte (Gogate), attempted to assassinate him. The bullet was stopped by a metal stud on Hotson's clothes, and he escaped unharmed.

Hotson

When asked why he had shot at the Home Member, Gogte is reported to have said, "As a protest against your tyrannical administration".

Vasudev Gogte (1919-1949), born in Miraj, Satara, was a follower of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajaguru. He was an active member of the Hindu Maha Sabha and was deeply influenced by Savarkar’s philosophy.

While a Law student at Ferguson College, Pune, on 16 May 1936, he witnessed 16 innocent citizens being hanged due to violation of Martial law. As a result, he made an attempt on Governor Hoston, for ordering capital punishment. Gogte was imprisoned for seven years and released in 1937. During the trial, it was learnt that Hoston was protected from both the bullets that hit his chest because of the leather purse carried in the inner pocket of the coat.

Gogte, after graduating in Law started practising but was arrested in 1948 on charges of conspiracy for the assassination of Gandhi. He was also elected a member of Pune Municipality and later become its Chairman. Later he went on to become the leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra legislative council. It was due to his effort Vasudev Balwant Phadke's memorial was constructed. He died on 26 November 1949.

Gogte

Remarkably, Hotson did not merely agree to Gogate's early release from Jail, he sent him a cheque for Rs. 100 as a token of goodwill and the hope that it would enable the young man to establish himself in a profession.

Mercy petitions

A lot of hue and cry is seen and heard nowadays about Savarkar's apologies and mercy petitions to the British authorities. Any youngster of that day would have resorted to this strategy- N E Balaram, the Communist leader had apologised to the British government, and it is there in Madras archives. K C Mammen Mappillai, who built Malayala Manorama, had apologised to the Travancore government, to set him free, after he landed in jail after a Bank scam.

Savarkar was lodged in the Cellular Jail on July 4, 1911. Within six months, he submitted a petition for mercy. In October 1913, the Home Member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, Sir Reginald Craddock, visited the Jail and met Savarkar among others. His note of November 23, 1913, recorded Savarkar’s pleas for mercy. Savarkar submitted his second mercy petition on November 14, 1913.

On March 22, 1920, a Savarkar supporter, G.S. Khoparde, tabled questions in the Imperial Legislative Council, one of which read: “Is it not a fact that Mr Savarkar and his brother had once in 1915 and at another time in 1918 submitted petitions to Government stating that they would, during the continuance of the war, serve the Empire by enlisting in the Army, if released, and would, after the passing of the Reforms Bill, try to make the Act a success and would stand by law and order?” (3)

The Home Member Sir William Vincent replied: “Two petitions were received from Vinayak Damodar Savarkar - one in 1914 and another in 1917, through the Superintendent, Port Blair."

Vincent was not accurate-there was one in 1917 besides that of 1913.  There is also a document dated March 30, 1920. On that day, Savarkar begged for “the last chance to submit his case before it is too late”. Vincent disclosed that Savarkar had recovered from dysentery five months earlier. His life was not in danger.

Document on the rejection of Savarkar's mercy petition

In that mercy petition, Savarkar said: "So far from believing in the militant school of the type, I do not contribute even to the peaceful and philosophical anarchism of a Kuropatkin [sic.] or a Tolstoy (4). And as to my revolutionary tendencies in the past: it is not only now for the object of sharing the clemency but years before this have I informed of and written to the Government in my petitions (1918, 1914) about my firm intention to abide by the constitution and stand by it as soon as a beginning was made to frame it by Mr Montagu. Since that the Reforms and then the Proclamation have only confirmed me in my views and recently I have publicly avowed my faith in and readiness to stand by the side of orderly and constitutional development.”

Savarkar concluded: “I and my brother are perfectly willing to give a pledge of not participating in politics for a definite and reasonable period that the Government would indicate...This or any pledge, e.g., of remaining in a particular province or reporting our movements to the police for a definite period after our release - any such reasonable conditions meant genuinely to ensure the safety of the State would be gladly accepted by me and my brother.”

As I said, such petitions during the Raj, were normal for any Indian to get freed, and to be in the midst of the freedom movement. We should well remember that P C Joshi the Communist Party Secretary, was a British agent during the 1942 Quit India movement, and Savarkar was never a British spy.

______________________________

1. General Register Office, "England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837–2007

2. Vinayak Chaturvedi (2022), Hindutva and Violence: V. D. Savarkar and the Politics of History. Suny Press. pp. 80–81.

3. Quotes from A G Noorani's article, Savarkar's Mercy Petition, Frontline, April O8, 2005

4. Aleksey Nikolayevich Kuropatkin (1848 – 1925) served as the Russian Imperial Minister of War from January 1898 to February 1904 and as a field commander subsequently. Historians often hold him responsible for major Russian defeats in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 to 1905, most notably at the Battle of Mukden (1905) and at the Battle of Liaoyang (August-September 1904).

© Ramachandran 

NEHRU, SHEIKH ABDULLAH AND THE ACCESSION OF KASHMIR

Why did Nehru Support Abdullah?

On October 26, 1947, a meeting at Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s residence would eventually decide the future of Jammu and Kashmir. We get the full story of what happened that day, in Former Jammu and Kashmir Prime Minister Mehr Chand Mahajan's autobiography, Looking Back. 

“Give army, take accession and give whatever powers you want to give to the popular party (National Conference headed by Sheikh Abdullah), but the army must fly to Srinagar this evening, otherwise I will go and negotiate terms with Mr (Muhammad Ali) Jinnah (founder of Pakistan) as the city must be saved,” cautioned Mehr Chand Mahajan to Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

Nehru fumed at the J&K PM, “Mahajan, Go away.”

As Mahajan got up to leave, Patel detained him and murmured in his ear, “Of course, Mahajan, you are not going to Pakistan.”

As Mahajan’s threat to go to Lahore to sign a deal with Jinnah hung in the air,  a piece of paper was passed on to Nehru.

“Sheikh Abdullah, who was staying in the Prime Minister’s house, was overhearing the talks. Sensing a critical moment, he sent in a slip of paper to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister read it and said that what I (Mahajan) was saying was also the view of Sheikh Sahib,” recollects Mahajan. “His (Nehru’s) attitude changed completely.”

Abdullah, an avowed enemy of Jinnah, wanted to head the government in the state and opposed the idea of Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan.

Mahajan’s telling account of the accession of Kashmir to India comes from his autobiography which was first published in 1963.

Sheikh Abdullah with Nehru

A notable lawyer in pre-independence Punjab, Mahajan (1889-1967) was appointed a judge of the Punjab high court in 1943. He was the Indian National Congress nominee on the Radcliffe Commission, formed to demarcate the boundary between India and Pakistan following the partition and also of the Royal India Navy Mutiny Commission of 1948.

Most importantly, he played a key role in Kashmir's accession to India as J&K’s Prime Minister during Maharaja Hari Singh's reign between October 1947 and March 1948 when Sheikh Abdullah succeeded him. Later, Mahajan became a Supreme Court judge and retired as the third Chief Justice of India in 1954.

The most interesting fact is that Mahajan had become the PM only on 15 October 1947- he visited Kashmir at the invitation of the Maharani Tara Devi in September 1947 and was asked to be the Prime Minister. He served in that post until 5 March 1948. Tara Devi, mother of Dr Karan Singh, separated from Hari Singh in 1950.

“As per my understanding, Mahajan is the only one among the protagonists of the episode who has left us with the written account of the extremely crucial meeting and his integrity is unimpeachable,” said Karan Singh, son of  Hari Singh.

Mahajan records that by October 24, 1947, tribal raiders from Pakistan had reached the borders of Srinagar. 

By mid-October, small bands of armed mercenaries - now viewed as Pakistan's attempt to test whether Indian forces were rushing to rescue the King - had started guerrilla raids on bordering villages. Pakistan was now ready to invade the Kashmir Valley but it carried out its military mission masquerading as raids by tribal invaders. In truth, the whole operation - codenamed Operation Gulmarg - was placed under Pakistan Army's officers. This has been detailed in a  book, Raiders in Kashmir, by Pakistan Army's retired Major-General Akbar Khan, who was part of the military plan.

On October 22, thousands of tribal mercenaries and Pakistan Army regulars invaded the Kashmir Valley overrunning the outposts manned by the King's forces in Muzaffarabad and other places as they headed towards Srinagar, their ultimate target.

Records Akbar Khan: “On October 26 (1947), the Pakistani forces captured Baramulla where only 3,000 survived out of 14,000. The troops were now only 35 miles from Srinagar when the Maharaja (Hari Singh) sent his papers of accession to Delhi asking for help.”

According to Khan, at the beginning of September 1947, he was asked by Mian Iftikharuddin, then a leader in the Muslim League (the ruling political party) to prepare a plan to take over Kashmir.

“Ultimately, I wrote a plan under the title of “Armed Revolt inside Kashmir”. As open interference or aggression by Pakistan was obviously undesirable, it was proposed that our efforts should be concentrated upon strengthening the Kashmiris themselves internally -- and at the same time taking steps to prevent the arrival of armed civilians or military assistance from India into Kashmir,” Khan said.

Giving proof of top leadership’s role in the crisis, Khan Wrote, “I was called to Lahore for a conference with the prime minister of Pakistan Liaqat Ali Khan. On arrival there, I first had to attend a preliminary conference at the Provincial Government Secretariat in the office of Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan who was then a minister in the Punjab government. I saw copies of my proposed plan in the hands of some...”

“On October 22, the operation began with Pakistani forces crossing the border and attacking Muzaffarabad and Domel on October 24 from where the Dogra troops had to withdraw. The next day these troops moved forward on the Srinagar road and again took on the Dogras at Uri... On October 27, India intervened and sent troops to Kashmir,” Khan wrote.

In the summer of 1947, Hari Singh had toyed with the idea of remaining independent, a kind of Switzerland of Asia, but with Pakistan organising a raid on the state, the Dogra King was left with no option but to accede to India. He dispatched his deputy Prime Minister Ram Lal Batra to Delhi with the proposal of accession.

Hari Singh sent two personal letters to Nehru and his deputy PM Sardar Patel, seeking military help. Despite Batra reaching Delhi, there was no sign of Indian military help in Srinagar.

Meanwhile, Jinnah had decided to celebrate Eid at Srinagar. According to Mahajan, Jinnah ordered his British commander-in-chief Frank Walter Messervy, to march two brigades of the Pakistani army into J&K on October 27, one from Rawalpindi and the other from Sialkot.

The Sialkot brigade was to take Jammu and capture Hari Singh while the Rawalpindi brigade was to reach Srinagar. But Messervy refused to march the troops of one dominion to fight those of another dominion (of the UK) without consulting the supreme commander of both the dominions. Hence, Mahajan rushed to Delhi.

Hari Singh appealed to Lord Mountbatten, the Governor-General of India for Indian military aid. In his Accession Offer dated 26 October 1947 which accompanied The Instrument of Accession duly signed by him on 26 October 1947, Hari Singh wrote "I may also inform your Excellency's Government that it is my intention at once to set up an interim Government and ask Sheikh Abdullah to carry the responsibilities in this emergency with my Prime Minister."

The Supreme Commander Claude Auchinleck told Jinnah on October 26 that Kashmir had decided to accede to India, which therefore had the right to send troops at Maharaja’s request. Jinnah then cancelled his orders.

The next morning, the Indian army landed in Srinagar following the offer of accession as well as the Maharaja’s promise to consider handing over power to Sheikh Abdullah.

A few days later, as per the desire of Nehru, Sheikh Abdullah was sworn in as head of the emergency administration and as the Prime Minister of the state, from March 5, 1948.

He raised a force of local Kashmiri volunteers, dubbed as Dagan Brigade to patrol Srinagar and take control of administration after the flight of the Maharaja along with his family and Prime Minister Meher Chand Mahajan to Jammu even before the Indian troops had landed. This group of volunteers would serve as the nucleus for the subsequent formation of the Jammu and Kashmir Militia. This, Abdullah hoped, would take over the defence of Kashmir after the Indian army was withdrawn. 

This was articulated in his letter to Sardar Patel dated 7 October 1948 in which he wrote, "With the taking over of the State forces by the Indian Government, it was agreed that steps would be taken to reorganise and rebuild our army so that when the present emergency is over and the Indian forces are withdrawn the State will be left with a properly organised army of its own to fall back upon." Abdullah has alleged that most of the Muslim soldiers of the Militia were either discharged or imprisoned before his arrest in 1953.

The Rise of Abdullah

Abdullah was born on 5 December 1905 in Soura, a village on the outskirts of Srinagar, 11 days after the death of his father Sheikh Mohammed Ibrahim. As claimed by him in his autobiography Aatish-e-Chinar, his great-grandfather was a Hindu Brahmin, a Kashmiri Pandit of the Sapru clan, who converted to Islam after getting influenced by a Sufi preacher. His father had been a middle-class manufacturer and trader of Kashmiri shawls. Abdullah, the youngest of six siblings, had to walk the distance of ten miles to school and back on foot, but in his own words, the joy of being allowed to obtain a school education made it seem light work.

In 1930, Abdullah obtained an M.Sc in Chemistry from Aligarh Muslim University. There he came in contact with and was influenced by persons with liberal ideas. Abdullah and his colleagues were influenced by the lectures of a Kashmiri polymath and lawyer Molvi Abdullah. Molvi Abdullah's son, Molvi Abdul Rahim, Sheikh Abdullah and Ghulam Nabi Gilkar were the first three educated Kashmiri youths to be arrested during the public agitation of 1931.

Kashmir's first political party the Kashmir Muslim Conference with Sheikh Abdullah as President, Chaudhary Ghulam Abbas as general secretary, and Molvi Abdul Rahim as Secretary was formed on 16 October 1932, and subsequently, Abdullah became an undisputed leader of Kashmiri Muslims.

Mahajan

Abdullah was introduced to Jawaharlal Nehru in 1937. As a leader of the Indian National Congress, he too was demanding similar rights for the people of British India and had formed The All India States Peoples Conference for supporting the people of Princely States in their struggle for a representative government. Thus the two became friends and political allies.

On 27 April 1939, it was decided to rename Muslim Conference as All Jammu and Kashmir National Conference.

Suspicious of outsiders, National Conference leaders Abdullah, Abbas and Bazaz declared that it would be most harmful and dangerous to bring the Kashmir Freedom Movement under the influence of any outside organisation. It was decided that the organisation should keep aloof from the Indian National Congress as well as the Muslim League.

Chaudhri Ghulam Abbas, later President of POK, acknowledged Nehru’s influence in the renaming of the Muslim Conference, thus:

“Sheikh Abdullah was now out of our hands and had adopted Nehru as his Guru and probably also as his spiritual leader. In view of the political situation obtaining at the time and the policy pursued by the Maharaja and his Government with regard to Muslims, it was considered by us suicidal to cause disruption in Muslim ranks.”

Nehru, himself of Kashmiri ancestry, and opposed to Jinnah, read the situation politically. Abdullah and the Muslims in his fold entertained feelings of fear, and distrust towards Jinnah. Abdullah knew that he could never be equal in the Muslim League and a leader of Kashmir in an Independent Pakistan. But Nehru treated him as an equal and a brother. In their speeches, Nehru and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan paid generous tribute to Abdullah’s qualities of leadership at the first anniversary of the National Conference at Baramulla. When Nehru entered the pandal, Abdullah himself raised slogans of "Pandit Nehru Ki Jai". Both Nehru and Khan were taken in a boat procession in Srinagar.

On 7 August 1940 at a meeting held at Shitalnath (Srinagar), Nehru told the gathering of Kashmiri Pandit youths:

“If non-Musllms want to live In Kashmir, they should join the National Conference or bid goodbye to the country. The National Conference is the real national organisation and even if a single Hindu does not become its member, it will continue to be so. If Pandits do not join It, no safeguards and weightage will protect them.”

It is difficult to guess why Nehru gave this advice, but it should be read in the backdrop of the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley fifty years later, in 1990.

Nehru also defended Abdullah, during the Quit Kashmir agitation in 1947 leaving the crucial negotiations he was conducting with the Cabinet Mission. Nehru was accompanied by three eminent lawyers, Dewan Chaman Lal,  Asaf Ali and Baldev Sahai, ex-Advocate-General, Bihar, followed by hundreds of Congress workers. However, Nehru was not allowed to enter Kashmir.

On 29 July 1947, as part of track II diplomacy, Nehru and other Congress leaders persuaded Gandhi to go to Kashmir. In the first week of August 1947, Gandhi visited Kashmir for talks with Maharaja and Begum Abdullah (Sheikh was in jail at that time) for an assessment of the situation and to assure every key player of their honourable place in free India. 

Nehru is accused of delaying the acceptance of the Instrument of Accession till Abdullah gave his nod. Nehru is also accused of not liberating the POK in 1947, the part of Kashmir that is now with Pakistan. It is said that Nehru wanted Abdullah’s approval as only he could mobilise Kashmiris against Pakistani raiders. But no reference is found to Nehru’s understanding of the Poonch revolt by Sudhans led by Sardar Muhammad Ibrahim Khan against the Maharaja.

The Sudhan/Poonch rebellion

About 40,000 of the Sudhans had fought in WWII under the Britishers. Many of them joined the Indian National Army of Subhash Bose. Major General Mohammed Zaman Kiani, Chief of General Staff of the Indian National Army, was put in charge by Pakistan Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan to overthrow the Maharaja of J&K in September 1947. 

General Kiani established a General Headquarters, GHQ Azad, based in Gujrat, a city in the Punjab province of Pakistan. From there, Kiani’s forces organised raiding operations on the Kashmir border and directed the Kashmiri rebels in Poonch, eventually leading to the formation of the POK. Col. Habibur Rehman, from Bhimber in POK, served as his Chief of Staff. It was the same Colonel Habibur Rehman whom Nehru defended. 

After the World War, Lt. Col. Shahnawaz Khan, Col. Habibur Rahman Khan, Col. Prem Sehgal and Col. Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon of the INA were put to trial at the Red Fort in Delhi for “waging war against the King Emperor”, i.e., the British sovereign. The four were defended by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, Nehru, and Bhulabhai Desai. However, Kaini and Habibur Rehman were not Sudhans.

The popular politics of Kashmir and Kashmiri identity that was evolving to become inclusive of the entire state became fractured and started to be reduced back to the Valley. The leadership of the Muslim Conference from Jammu, particularly Sudhans, saw no role for themselves in the politics of the state in alliance with the National Conference.

Sudhans wanted to have their own hegemony or tribal supremacy of Jirgas in Afghanistan and North-West Pakistan. It became a subplot within a complex problem: the ambition of Sheikh Abdullah vs. an ethnic tribe led by Chaudhary Ibrahim Khan. 

Thus, Muhammad Ibrahim Khan, a Sudhan, became the first President of the POK. He held the post of President four times, till 1950.

Ibrahim Khan

Ibrahim was dismissed during his first term and retd Colonel Sher Ahmed Khan, a  scion of the Sudhan tribe and the senior most military officer from Poonch, was made a cabinet minister with responsibility for defence, education and health. Sher Ahmed Khan was forced to resign because his community, the Sudhans, were strongly opposed to his appointment in view of the dismissal of their Chief,  Ibrahim Khan. 

This led to violent demonstrations, particularly in the Rawalakot and Pallandri areas of Poonch and a showdown occurred between the Sudhans and the Pakistan Army contingents posted in the area. The Poonch situation became so bad that the POK Police could not control it. Members of the Punjab Constabulary of the Pakistani Army were brought in. The Pakistan Army’s 12th Division, with headquarters in Murree and with forces already deployed in POK, joined in the suppression, declaring martial law in Poonch. Some Sudhans captured 120 soldiers of the Punjab Constabulary, and their arms. Sudhan’s anti-government actions started in February 1955 with an assassination attempt in Poonch on the POK President Sher Ahmed Khan. It took one year to suppress the uprising in 1956.

A resistance movement seeking a more democratic state of POK has been active since September 1950. In 1951 a parallel government was formed in Poonch in retaliation to Pakistan’s dismissal of  Ibrahim Khan as head of state. The situation calmed down for some time because of Liaquat Ali Khan’s assassination.

When Ibrahim Khan was dismissed by Pakistan, a revolt erupted in Rawalakot and Palandri in the Poonch district. A military contingent of 120 personnel led by Major Osman (A Bengali officer who later led Mukti Bahani to establish Bangladesh in 1971 as Brigadier Osman) was sent in to crush the revolt and arrest its leaders. After an initial skirmish, Ibrahim’s forces were defeated and his tribe was disarmed under the guidance of Pakistan’s then Minister of Kashmir Affairs, Mushtaq Ahmed Gurmani.

Over the years, Sudhans lost control of power. They have realised that it is not possible to achieve independence through armed struggle. Mirpuris also seem to have the same goal but they are not a fighting race. They were hated by people from West Pakistan. They slowly started asserting their identity as far back as the Gandhar days. They refused to be known as Pakistani Muslims and successfully got an official status for their language Mirpuri or Pahari. 

Nehru was perhaps aware of the ambitions of the Sudhans and their revolt against Muslim Pakistan prevented him from liberating the present POK in 1948. The Sudhans revolted against Muslim Pakistan. If they had fought against India, it would have been more intense and a constant headache for India. Even then, Nehru's bonhomie with Sheikh Abdullah remains still a mystery.

Nehru's deal with Abdullah

Ironically, Abdullah was instrumental in the drafting of Article 370 in the Constituent Assembly (then Article 306A). He even got into intense arguments with Gopalaswami Ayyangar over the provisions of the article. He eventually also fiercely advocated Azadi (independent status) for Kashmir, which was shot down and subsequently also led to his imprisonment.

Nehru in Kashmir

In an interview on 14 April 1949 to The Scotsman, Abdullah said, “Yes, independence—guaranteed by the United Nations—may be the only solution. But why do you talk of partition? Now you are introducing communalism and applying the two-nation theory to Kashmir—that communalism which we are fighting here. I believe the Poonchis would welcome inclusion in an independent Kashmir; if however, after its establishment, they chose to secede and join Pakistan, I would raise no objection. we won’t submit to a communal solution. There has never been a religious problem in the Vale of Kashmir. Hindus and Moslems, are of the same racial origin, we have the same customs, wear the same clothes, and speak the same language. In the street, you cannot distinguish between Moslems and Brahman Pandits.”

After the Constituent Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir arrived at its main decisions, representatives of the Indian government and the State met to discuss their implications. Nehru gave in to Abdullah's demands, and this arrangement between Abdullah and Nehru agreed upon in July 1952 came to be known as the Delhi Agreement. Its main contents are:

1. The Government of India agreed that while the residuary powers of legislature vested in the Centre in respect of all States other than  Jammu and Kashmir, in the case of the latter they vested in the State itself.

2. It was agreed that persons domiciled in Jammu and Kashmir shall be regarded as citizens of India, but the State Legislature was empowered to make laws for conferring special rights and privileges on the State’s subjects.

3. As the President of India commands the same respect in the State as he does in other units of India, Articles 52 to 62 of the Constitution relating to him should be applicable to the State.

4. The Union Government agreed that the State should have its own flag in addition to the Union flag, but it was agreed by the State Government that the State flag would not be a rival of the Union flag.

5. The Sadar-i-Riyasat, equivalent to the Governor of other States, will be elected by the State Legislature itself instead of being nominated by the Union government and the President of India.

6. In view of the peculiar position in which the State was placed, in particular, Sheikh Abdullah’s land reforms programme, the Fundamental Rights enshrined in the Constitution could not be made applicable to the State. The question that remained to be determined was whether Fundamental Rights should form a part of the State Constitution or the Constitution of India.

7. With regard to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of India, it was accepted that for the time being, owing to the existence of the Board of Judicial Advisers in the State, the Supreme Court should have only appellate jurisdiction.

8. The Government of India insisted on the application of Article 352, empowering the President to proclaim a general Emergency in the State. The State government argued that the Union, in the exercise of its powers over Defence, would anyway have full authority to take steps and proclaim an Emergency. In order to meet the viewpoint of the State’s delegation, the Government of India agreed to the modification of Article 352 in its application to Kashmir by adding the words,  “but in regard to an internal disturbance at the request or with the concurrence of the Government of the State”, at the end of clause (1).

9. Both parties agreed that the application of Article 356, dealing with the suspension of the State Constitution, and Article 360, dealing with a financial emergency, was not necessary.

Nehru fells out with Abdullah

Despite being instrumental in drafting the provisions of Article 370, Abdullah kept persisting in his fight for the cause of Kashmir’s independence. Constitutional scholar AG Noorani has written that Sheikh Abdullah’s Kashmiri nationalism clashed with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s Indian nationalism. It was this very clash which led to his imprisonment in 1953 for 11 years on the charge of plotting accession to Pakistan and waging war against India.

On 8 August 1953, Abdullah was dismissed as Prime Minister by the then Sadr-i-Riyasat (Constitutional Head of State) Dr Karan Singh, son of Hari Singh, on the charge that he had lost the confidence of his cabinet (not the house). He was denied the opportunity to prove his majority on the floor of the house and his dissident cabinet minister Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed was appointed as Prime Minister. Abdullah was immediately arrested and later jailed for eleven years, accused of conspiracy against the State in the infamous "Kashmir Conspiracy Case".

According to Abdullah, his dismissal and arrest were engineered by Nehru. To support this view, he quoted B.N. Mullicks' statements in his book "My Years with Nehru".  According to A.G. Noorani, Nehru himself ordered the arrest. On 8 April 1964, the State Government dropped all charges in the so-called "Kashmir Conspiracy Case". Abdullah was released and returned to Srinagar where he was accorded an unprecedented welcome by the people of the valley."

After release, he was reconciled with Nehru. Nehru requested Abdullah to act as a bridge between India and Pakistan and make President Ayub agree to come to New Delhi for talks for a final solution to the Kashmir problem. Ayub Khan also sent telegrams to Nehru and Abdullah with the message that as Pakistan too was a party to the Kashmir dispute any resolution of the conflict without its participation would not be acceptable to Pakistan. This paved the way for  Abdullah's visit to Pakistan to help broker a solution to the Kashmir problem.

Abdullah went to Pakistan in the spring of 1964.  Ayub Khan held extensive talks with him to explore various avenues for solving the Kashmir problem and agreed to come to Delhi in mid-June for talks with Nehru as suggested by him. Even the date of his proposed visit was fixed and communicated to New Delhi. However, before Ayub Khan could make his visit, Nehru died on 27 May 1964. Abdullah was en route to Muzaffarabad in POK when he received the news. He addressed a public rally at Muzaffarabad and returned to Delhi.

© Ramachandran 

THAPPAN NAIR WAS WITH GANDHI AT DANDI

He died after Dharasana satyagraha, in 1933

The Salt March, also known as the Dandi March was an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in colonial India led by Gandhi. The twenty-four-day march lasted from 12 March to 6 April 1930 as a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly. 

Another reason for the march was that the Civil Disobedience Movement needed a strong opening that would inspire more people to follow Gandhi's example. Gandhi started this march with 78 of his trusted volunteers.

Among the 78, there were five from Kerala. The state of Kerala did not exist then, and in the list of 78, all five have been marked as belonging to Madras Presidency. The five on the list are Thevarthundiyil Titus, C Krishnan Nair, K Shankaran (Shankarji), N P Raghava Poduval and Tapan Nair. 

Thappan Nair

While details on four of them are available, the whereabouts of Tapan Nair remained a mystery. But now, Tom Jose, a teacher of History at Arakkulam St Maries' High School in the Idukki district of Kerala has cracked the mystery- He was not Tapan Nair, but Thappan Nair, and he belonged to the Vadavattath family at Ramassery, Palakkad. The hamlet Ramassery, incidentally, is known for its incredibly soft and fluffy idli, which is a bit flatter in shape than the regular idli. It was brought to Ramassery by a family that migrated from Kanjeepuram in Tamil Nadu.

Thappan Nair migrated to history at the age of 19, bidding farewell to his home and village, to be part of the freedom struggle and the non-violent army of Gandhi. Being not sure whether he will be able to return, he just told his family members that they will meet again, only if destiny deems so. Probably, he might have read about the Dandi march in the newspapers and would have felt the urge to join the march to history.

The Salt march spanned 385 kilometres from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, which was called Navsari at that time (now in the state of Gujarat). Growing numbers of Indians joined the march along the way, but 78 were there from beginning to end. 

The march was part of the struggle to attain self-rule. At midnight on 31 December 1929, the Indian National Congress raised the tricolour flag of India on the banks of the Ravi river at Lahore. Congress publicly issued the Declaration of sovereignty and self-rule, or Purna Swaraj, on 26 January 1930.

The Congress Working Committee gave Gandhi the responsibility for organising the first act of civil disobedience, with Congress itself ready to take charge after Gandhi's expected arrest. Gandhi's plan was to begin civil disobedience with a satyagraha aimed at the British salt tax. 

The 1882 Salt Act gave the British a monopoly on the collection and manufacture of salt, limiting its handling to government salt depots and levying a salt tax. Violation of the Salt Act was a criminal offence. Even though salt was freely available to those living on the coast, by evaporation of seawater, Indians were forced to buy it from the colonial government.

Initially, Gandhi's choice of the salt tax was met with incredulity by the Working Committee of Congress. Jawaharlal Nehru and Dibyalochan Sahoo were ambivalent; Sardar Patel suggested a land revenue boycott instead. The British colonial administration too was not disturbed by these plans of resistance against the salt tax. The Viceroy Lord Irwin did not take the threat of a salt protest seriously, writing to London, "At present, the prospect of a salt campaign does not keep me awake at night."(1)

However, Gandhi had sound reasons for his decision. An item of daily use could resonate more with all classes of citizens than an abstract demand for greater political rights. The salt tax represented 8.2% of the British Raj tax revenue and hurt the poorest Indians the most significantly. Explaining his choice, Gandhi said, "Next to air and water, salt is perhaps the greatest necessity of life." 

Gandhi felt that this protest would dramatise Purna Swaraj in a way that was meaningful to every Indian. He also reasoned that it would build unity between Hindus and Muslims by fighting an evil that touched them equally.

After the protest gathered steam, the leaders realised the power of salt as a symbol. Nehru remarked about the unprecedented popular response, "it seemed as though a spring had been suddenly released."(2)

Dandi March

Gandhi's first significant attempt in India at leading mass satyagraha was the non-cooperation movement from 1920 to 1922. Even though it succeeded in raising millions of Indians in protest against the British-created Rowlatt Act, violence broke out at Chauri Chaura, where a mob killed 22 unarmed policemen. Gandhi suspended the protest, against the opposition of other Congress members. He decided that Indians were not yet ready for successful nonviolent resistance. 

However, the Bardoli Satyagraha in 1928 succeeded in paralysing the British government and winning significant concessions. Due to extensive press coverage, it scored a propaganda victory out of all proportion to its size.

Gandhi claimed that success at Bardoli confirmed his belief in satyagraha and Swaraj: "It is only gradually that we shall come to know the importance of the victory gained at Bardoli ... Bardoli has shown the way and cleared it. Swaraj lies on that route, and that alone is the cure ..." (3)

Gandhi recruited activists from the Bardoli Satyagraha for the Dandi march, which passed through many of the same villages that took part in the Bardoli protests.

On 5 February 1930, newspapers reported that Gandhi would begin civil disobedience by defying the salt laws. The salt satyagraha would begin on 12 March and end in Dandi with Gandhi breaking the Salt Act on 6 April. Gandhi chose 6 April to launch the mass breaking of the salt laws for a symbolic reason—it was the first day of "National Week", begun in 1919 when Gandhi conceived of the national hartal (strike) against the Rowlatt Act.

Gandhi prepared the worldwide media for the march by issuing regular statements from Sabarmati, at his regular prayer meetings, and through direct contact with the press. Expectations were heightened by his repeated statements anticipating arrest, and his increasingly dramatic language as the hour approached: "We are entering upon a life and death struggle, a holy war; we are performing an all-embracing sacrifice in which we wish to offer ourselves as an oblation." (4)

For the march itself, Gandhi wanted the strictest discipline and adherence to satyagraha and ahimsa. For that reason, he recruited the marchers not from Congress Party members, but from the residents of his own ashram, who were trained in Gandhi's strict standards of discipline. The 24-day march would pass through 4 districts and 48 villages. The route of the march, along with each evening's stopping place, was planned based on recruitment potential, past contacts, and timing. Gandhi sent scouts to each village ahead of the march so he could plan his talks at each resting place, based on the needs of the local residents.

On 2 March 1930, Gandhi wrote to the Viceroy Lord Irwin, offering to stop the march if Irwin met eleven demands, including reduction of land revenue assessments, cutting military spending, imposing a tariff on foreign cloth, and abolishing the salt tax: (5)

If my letter makes no appeal to your heart, on the eleventh day of this month I shall proceed with such co-workers of the Ashram as I can take, to disregard the provisions of the Salt Laws. I regard this tax to be the most iniquitous of all from the poor man's standpoint. As the sovereignty and self-rule movement is essentially for the poorest in the land, the beginning will be made with this evil.

After Irwin ignored the letter and refused to meet with Gandhi, the march was set in motion. Gandhi remarked, "On bended knees, I asked for bread and I have received stone instead." (6)

On 12 March 1930, Gandhi and 78 satyagrahis, among whom were men belonging to almost every region, caste, creed, and religion of India, set out on foot for the coastal village of Dandi, Gujarat, 385 km from their starting point at Sabarmati Ashram. The Salt March was also called the White Flowing River because all the people were joining the procession wearing white Khadi.

According to The Statesman, the official government newspaper which usually played down the size of crowds at Gandhi's functions, 100,000 people crowded the road that separated Sabarmati from Ahmedabad. The first day's march of 21 km ended in the village of Aslali, where Gandhi spoke to a crowd of about 4,000. As they entered each village, crowds greeted the marchers, beating drums and cymbals. Gandhi gave speeches attacking the salt tax as inhuman, and the salt satyagraha as a "poor man's struggle". Each night they slept in the open. The only thing that was asked of the villagers was food and water to wash with.

Every day, more and more people joined the march until the procession of marchers became at least three km long. To keep up their spirits, the marchers used to sing the Hindu Bhajan Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram while walking. At Surat, they were greeted by 30,000 people. When they reached the railhead at Dandi, more than 50,000 were gathered. The march arrived at the seashore on 5 April.

The following morning, after a prayer, Gandhi raised a lump of salty mud and declared: "With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire." (7)

He then boiled it in seawater, producing illegal salt. He implored his thousands of followers to likewise begin making salt along the seashore, "wherever it is convenient" and to instruct villagers in making illegal, but necessary, salt.

Most of the marchers were between the ages of 20 and 30. They hailed from almost all parts of the country. Most of them simply dispersed after the march was over.

But, C Krishnan Nair (1902–1986), belonging to Thirumangalam in Neyyattinkara, became a Member of the First and Second Lok Sabha, representing Outer Delhi. Known as Delhi Gandhi or Nairji, he was nominated by Nehru as the first Chief Minister of Delhi in 1952. A true Gandhian, Nair politely refused and suggested instead, Choudhary Brahm Prakash, who was only 34 at the time.

Nair joined the Sabarmati Ashram in 1928, after studies at Jamia Milia, Aligarh and Delhi. After the Dandi March, he stayed at the Wardha ashram. In 1942, he participated in the Quit India movement. Since 1943, he served as the Vice-President and Chief Public Relations Officer of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) and as its President in 1952.

Shankar, Poduval, Krishnan Nair, Titus

Titus, born to Pathanamthitta Maramon Chirayirambil T K Titus and Eliyamma on 18 February 1905, served as governing secretary for Gandhi's Sabarmati Ashram milk project near Ahmedabad, after securing a diploma in Dairy development from the Allahabad Agricultural University. Gulzarilal Nanda, who later became the Prime Minister of India, was the secretary of another unit. Both of them were trusted friends of Gandhi. Gandhi used to call Titus, "Titusji." He died on 8 August 1980, at the Kasturba Hospital, Bhopal.

Raghava Poduval, born in Paruthipra, Shornur, had his education at Bhardwaj Ashtam and Santiniketan. After the Dandi march, he became a full-time khadi activist at Payyannur. He died on 20 December 1992.

K Shankarji, son of Raman Ezhuthachan and Lakshmikutty of Thiruvilvamala, belonged to Mayannur, Chelakkara, in Thrissur. He was only 16 (born in 1914) when he was marching to Dandi. He returned after the march and started a weaving centre. He died on 30 April 1986.

After the march, the wealthy Thappan Nair entered the list of most wanted criminals, and the Police conducted frequent searches of his home. But what happened to Thaappan Nair? 

Barrister A K Pillai, records in Congress and Kerala, that Thappan Nair got arrested at Dharasana, near Dandi and died in 1933, while he was active in the satyagraha movement. 

Fortunately, a framed photo of Thappan Nair adores the wall of the living room of the 250-year-old Bungalow, where he was born. He was the younger brother to four sisters. A Thappanji Memorial Lower Primary School exists at Ramassery, but no one in the school is aware of who Thaappan is. 

Thappan's relatives claim that his ancestors were the soldiers of the Zamorin army. A branch of the ancestral family migrated to Thrissur, and a few among them reached Ramassery.

The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi records a letter written by Gandhi to Thappan Nair, on 7 June 1931, and it has been sent not to his home address, but to the Congress camp at Palakkad. In the letter, after advising Nair to read Young India regularly, Gandhi asks him to return to the ashram, if he finds it difficult to stay in his native village. Gandhi also pointed out that many who were part of the march had come to the ashram as inmates.

The letter:

LETTER TO THAPPAN NAIR

AS AT SABARMATI, June 7, 1931

 

MY DEAR THAPPAN,

I have your letter. You should diligently follow the columns of Young India. They might help you. So far as your immediate question is concerned, if you feel that there is no work for you there, you are at liberty to return to the Ashram. Many have done so.

Yours sincerely, 

SYT. THAPPAN NAIR 

CONGRESS CAMP 

PALGHAT (MALABAR)  

(Collected Works, vol 52, page 303)

It is clear that Gandhi's letter was in reply to a query by Thappan Nair, who had returned home. Obviously, he went back to Gandhi.

British rampage at Dharasana

From Barrister Pillai's account it is evident that after Dandi, Thappan Nair took an active part in the Dharsana salt satyagraha. 

Dharasana Satyagraha was a protest against the British salt tax in colonial India in May 1930. Following the conclusion of the Salt March to Dandi, Gandhi chose a non-violent raid of the Dharasana Salt Works in Gujarat, 119 km from Dandi, as the next protest against British rule. Hundreds of satyagrahis were beaten by soldiers under British command at Dharasana.

After Dandi, on May 4, 1930, Gandhi wrote to Lord Irwin, explaining his intention to raid the Dharasana Salt Works. He was immediately arrested. The Indian National Congress decided to continue with the proposed plan of action. Many of the Congress leaders were arrested before the planned day, including Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

The march went ahead as planned, with Abbas Tyabji, a 76-year-old retired judge, leading the march with Gandhi's wife Kasturba at his side. Both were arrested before reaching Dharasana and sentenced to three months in prison.[2] After their arrests, the peaceful agitation continued under the leadership of Sarojini Naidu and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.

Hundreds of Indian National Congress volunteers started marching towards the site of the Dharasana Salt Works. Several times, Naidu and the satyagrahis approached the salt works, before being turned back by police. At one point they sat down and waited for twenty-eight hours. Hundreds more were arrested.

On May 21, the satyagrahis tried to pull away the barbed wire protecting the salt pans. The police charged and began clubbing them. American journalist Webb Miller was an eye-witness to the beating of satyagrahis with steel-tipped lathis. His report attracted international attention. Miller's first attempts at telegraphing the story to his publisher in England were censored by the British telegraph operators in India. Only after threatening to expose British censorship was his story allowed to pass. The story appeared in 1,350 newspapers throughout the world.

Miller wrote: (8)

Not one of the marchers even raised an arm to fend off the blows. They went down like ten pins. From where I stood I heard the sickening whacks of the clubs on unprotected skulls. The waiting crowd of watchers groaned and sucked in their breaths in sympathetic pain at every blow.

Those struck down fell sprawling, unconscious or writhing in pain with fractured skulls or broken shoulders. In two or three minutes the ground was quilted with bodies. Great patches of blood widened on their white clothes. ..

Bodies toppled over in threes and fours, bleeding from great gashes on their scalps. Group after group walked forward, sat down, and submitted to being beaten into insensibility without raising an arm to fend off the blows. Finally, the police became enraged by the non-resistance...They commenced savagely kicking the seated men in the abdomen and testicles. The injured men writhed and squealed in agony, which seemed to inflame the fury of the police...The police then began dragging the sitting men by the arms or feet, sometimes for a hundred yards, and throwing them into ditches.

Miller later wrote that he went to the hospital where the wounded were being treated, and "counted 320 injured, many still insensible with fractured skulls, others writhing in agony from kicks in the testicles and stomach...Scores of the injured had received no treatment for hours and two had died."

It is possible that Thappan Nair was beaten up at Dharasana and died later, due to the injuries.

Santosh Ambat, Thappan Nair's grandnephew remembers his father (Thappan Nair was his father's only maternal uncle) telling him that, when he was young,  whenever his uncle would come to vadavattath tharavad, they would reach into his bag which contained a lot of moustaches, beards and wigs etc, since he was being tracked by the British police. To move around India, Thappan Nair used them to disguise himself. The father of Santosh and his siblings would try these on themselves and enjoy them as kids do. One day, a telegram reached the tharavad saying 'Thappanji no more."

________________________

1. Letter to London on 20 February 1930, Ackerman, Peter; DuVall, Jack (2000). A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, p. 84

2. Gandhi, Gopalkrishna. "The Great Dandi March — eighty years after, The Hindu, 5 April 1930
3. Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi 41: 208–209
4. Gandhi, Mahatma; Dalton, Dennis (1996). Selected Political Writings Hackett Publishing, p. 108
5. Gandhi's letter to Irwin, Gandhi and Dalton, p. 78
6. Parliament Museum, New Delhi, India – Official website – Dandi March VR Video. Parliamentmuseum.org
7. Gandhi and Dalton, p. 72.

8. Miller, Webb (1936). I Found No Peace. Simon and Schuster, p. 193-199

I am indebted to the feature written by Raju Mathew in the Sunday magazine of Malayala Manorama, on 4 December 2022.

© Ramachandran