colonial overtones of land and mine legislation - ghadar colonial overtones of land and mine...

Vol. IX, No. 1 & 2, Jan-Jun 2015

Ghadar Jari HaiContribution Rs 25/-For private circulation only

The Revolt Continues

Land and Mine Legislation

Colonial Overtones of

All opinions expressed in this issue are those of the authours(s) and do not necessarily represent the views held by the publisher. Any part of this issue may be translated or reprinted with due acknowledgement to Ghadar Jari Hai.

Address all your editorial correspondence to S Raghavan Email: [email protected]

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Editor:S Raghavan

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Cover:Rabindra

Our Website:www.ghadar.in

Editorial PolicyGhadar Jari Hai is a platform for discussing Indian solutions to problems facing India. It is focussed on understanding Indian history, philosophy and economic, political and other fields of knowledge, without the jaundiced eye of Eurocentrism.

All serious views, of whatever hue, are welcome as long as the authour substantiates his/her argument and does not indulge in labelling, name-calling and ridicule. We are particularly interested in unravelling pre-British India and the changes brought about through British rule, since the colonial legacy continues to bear great significance for present-day Indian society. We believe that no shade of opinion has a monopoly over the truth and that if we all collaborate in this endeavour, we are quite capable of arriving at insights and solutions to our problems, much as our ancestors did. We seek to publish well-researched articles in various fields, which are communicative and at the same time, do not indulge in excessive technical jargon.

1Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. IX No. 1 & 2, 2015

Contents

Editorial 3

Letters to the Editor 2

Cover Story

Colonial overtones of land and mine legislation By Raghavan Srinivasan 5

Perspectives

Fighting an Alien War By Nirmala Mathew 10 The ‘historic’ storm at the Mumbai Science Congress 12

Book Appreciation

A Revolutionary's Autobiography Prakash Rao 18

Pages of History

The Ghadar of 1915 and its Imprint By Itihaas Gawa 15

Resonances 21

2 Ghadar Jari Hai, Vol. IX No. 1 & 2, 2015

Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor,

The cover article in the Decolonising Math and Science Education, was very interesting to say the least. Those who are not concerned about the state of education in the country should be. The article brings really well with examples the ways in which we undermine methods of teaching that are more ethnic to our union of lands. We copycat like the author says “In the spirit of teaching toblindly ape the “superior” West,that is how we have been teachinggeometry in our school texts sinceabout the 1970’s!” this is also true of other subjects. Only if one is interested in learning more and beyond the norms set in our schools, which are more anglicised than interested in teaching and approaching subjects in the true spirit of scientific enquiry, does one learn so much more and learn to engage with the world in a more scientific and conscious manner.

I would like to thank the editorial team for publishing this piece and hope that more such pieces are presented to the readers in the future. We need to learn from our past and go further with the conviction that can only come with scientific thought and the thirst for finding the truth and not creating it.

Yours sincerely,Sagrika SinghMumbai, India

Dear Editor,

The article on Siddhars of Tamil Nadu was a treat to read and also the peoms which were presented in the issue being by Shivavakkiayar, one of the well-known Siddhars, is a 10th-century Tamil devotional poet and mystic. His poem ‘Melt with the heart inside’ is one of the more famous ones. I would like to thank you and your team for locating gems from our past and sharing with all. Hope to see more regions of our country covered in the coming issues, as our past is a truly glorious one.

Yours truly,Gautham, Chennai


Editorial

We had written earlier (GJH Vol 2, Issue 1) on colonialism and its policy towards land that belonged to people of India. We visit the topic

again in this issue as new Land Ordinance and Land Legislation that claims to ovehaul the colonial land acquisition has become a matter of contention between farmers who are opposing forced acquisition and Indian and foreign businessmen who are keen to do so with the help of the state machinery armed with a new law. The cover story reviews the evolution of rights of the tiller and the state over land in pre-colonial India and how the British colonial state not only introduced new private land ownership rights to Zamindars and also declared for itself the Power of Eminent Domain to acquire any piece of land, forest mines, etc. It also analyses the phrase "for public purpose" which has been introduced as a reasonable palliative in the discussion but is subject to widely differing interpretations.

A young contributor Nirmala Mathew has brought out the horrors of the WW I where lakhs of young Indian men were sacrificed in foreign lands for the aggressive greed of British colonialists. They died in the far lands of Mesopotamia, Turkey, Belgium, North and East Africa, Egypt, Palestine and France. India was forced to contribute large sums of money and material too. Unfortunately, except for the Ghadar Party which opposed this war the other Indian orgnaisations like

Congress and Muslim League fully supported this rapacity of British with the lame reasoning that it would help them gain power from Britain after the war.

The article on Ghadar Party by "Itihas Gawah" brings out the sterling history of this revolutionary party which used the WW I to organise a revolutionary uprising in various parts of India and continued on its uncompromising path in direct contrast to the Congress and Muslim League.

We have also reproduced the Guest Editorial written by Prof Roddam Narasimha in Current Science journal on the genuine achievements of Ancient Indian Science and Technology. Prof Roddam is India's most distinguished aerospace scientist who has been honoured by Fellowships of Royal Society of London as well as National Academy of Science and National Academy of Engineering of the US. He has also written extensively on achievements of Ancient Indian Science including an Encyclopedia on the subject.

Sachindranath Sanyal was one of our foremost revolutionaries of the 20th century. Prakash Rao has written an appreciation of Sanyal's autobiography "Bandi Jeevan" (Hindi) which remains one of the classics in the genre covering roughly the tumultuous years 1915-25 of our freedom struggle n

The problem of quality articles still besets us and leads to irregularity in the production of the magazine as the editorial board awaits a well-researched cover story to build an issue around. Our website (www.ghadar.in) is however constantly being updated with news and views and has a steady stream of visitors from all over the world.

Source: firstpost and Indiaresists


Cover Story

Colonial Overtones of Land and Mine Legislation

By Raghavan Srinivasan

Legend has it that when their uncle, King Dhritarashtra, offered the Pandavas the

ruined land of Khandavprastha as their capital, to bring peace between them and the Kauravas, the former accepted the offer. Khandavprastha, surrounded by the Khandav forest, was cursed by Lord Indra. The Pandavas nevertheless decided to build their capital Indraprastha on this very land, believed to be the location of present day Delhi, by burning away the entire forest and with it all its inhabitants – the Asuras, Nagas, Rakshasas and all wild animals which lived there. The city that was built even exceeded the glitter of the original Indraprastha, the capital city of Lord Indra himself. Little did the builders know that the glittering city would soon be washed with the blood flowing from the epic battle of Kurukshetra and that the ghosts of the Khandav forest would be haunting the glittering city.

The land acquisition and coal mining legislations which are at the centre of a raging debate today gives impunity to destroy forests and forcibly evict dwellers - to present-day builders, corporates, consortiums planning to set up special economic zones, road and rail corridors and smart cities and mines and mineral conglomerates who wish to set up massive power plants, steel plants and ores smelters. This

impunity is backed by the power of the State machinery. Will history repeat itself? Will the ghosts of the destroyed forests, slums and villages come back to haunt? Will the blood of land acquisition battles wash the glittering cities of Delhi, Mumbai and others?

Today governments and corporates justify forcible acquisition of land and forests, and for that matter wastelands and grazing fields, as a commitment to “public purpose”. Just as the Khandav forest was destroyed by the Pandavas to build a city overtaking the grandeur of Hastinapura, the capital of their rivals, the Kauravas, Indian corporates are evicting and displacing traditional dwellers and farmers to build SEZs and megacities rivalling those of super powers. In the process, the Asuras, Nagas and Rakshasas of today’s world – the tribal depending on forest produce, the street vendor going around with his redi filled with wares, the farmers whose fate hangs on timely monsoons every year, the house maids, factory workers, home-based craftsmen - are losing their livelihood and getting eventually decimated.

In one of her informative articles on the present debate on land acquisition legislation1, the well-known activist Usha Ramanathan raises the question: What is the

Today governments and corporates justify forcible

acquisition of land and forests, and for that matter wastelands

and grazing fields, as a commitment to “public purpose”.

Just as the Khandav forest was destroyed by the Pandavas

to build a city overtaking the grandeur of Hastinapura,

the capital of their rivals, the Kauravas, Indian corporates are evicting and displacing

traditional dwellers and farmers to build SEZs and megacities

rivalling those of super powers. In the process, the Asuras, Nagas and Rakshasas of today’s world – the tribal depending on forest produce, the street vendor going around with his redi filled with wares, the farmers whose fate

hangs on timely monsoons every year, the house maids, factory

workers, home-based craftsmen - are losing their livelihood and getting eventually decimated.

1 https://in.news.yahoo.com/the-questions-we-should-be-asking-frequently-about-the-land-acquisition-act-060820434.html


Cover Story

State’s relationship to land and its citizens? She points out that it is time that this key question be answered. “Is the State a landlord? Is it a trustee? Is it a super-landlord? Is it an owner? A super-owner? Is it above the law?”

Serious study by scholars has revealed a lot of facts about property relations in ancient times, about rights and duties in the relation between raja and praja, and certain non-negotiables in relation to land use.

There is a vast body of documentation on the fact that common property in land was a common feature of the Indian economy and that the use and distribution of land was regulated in the interests of the people, up to the advent of British rule. For centuries before the British colonial conquest, the traditional Indian village society was characterised by common ownership of land, the blending of agriculture and handicrafts and a certain division of labour. Within this broad characterisation, there seems to have existed different arrangements, such as the periodic redistribution of the land by lot to groups of cultivators. It is somewhat simplistic to state that this cooperative life and the general absence of private property in village communities were mere survivals of the tribal system.

There are instances when during war times, invading armies set fire to crops, displaced people and burnt down villages. But, in general, rules governing use and ownership of forest land, grazing land and watersheds existed. Villages had bye-laws, which varied from region to region, to regulate the common

use of pasture land and watersheds. These bye-laws ensured peaceful co-existence between communities. Those kings who violated accepted principles were condemned as unjust and adharmic while those who upheld and acted on the basis of principles were revered and celebrated.

Devastation caused by colonial “experiments” in land rights

This separation of duties and rights started during the colonial period. Completely overturning the rich heritage of common property rights, the British put an end to the common ownership of agricultural land through the Permanent Settlement of Bengal. This was concluded by the East India Company under Cornwallis in 1793. Earlier to this, the zamindars merely had the right to collect taxes on behalf of the Mughal Empire. The Permanent Settlement conferred ownership rights to these zamindars. The land revenue was set at a high unchangeable rate, so the zamindar had to be merciless in collecting taxes. Any defaults could lead to confiscation of their estates. The zamindari system was imposed on the area spanning Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and coastal Andhra. In the bulk of UP and upper Narmada Basin in MP and part of Haryana, a different system called the “Mahalwari” system was imposed, where revenue was levied collectively on smaller circles called mahals. The settlements were not permanent.2

The Ryotwari system was introduced in the Madras Presidency. In this system, land revenue was fixed permanently on each field, based on an estimate of the produce from the land.

All this prompted Marx to write, “If it is any nation’s history, then it is the history of the English management of India which is a string of unsuccessful and really absurd (and in practice, infamous) experiments in economics. In Bengal, they created a caricature of English-landed property on a large scale; in

Communities maintained

harmony with nature, constantly

striving to humanise it for

their benefit. Both the raja and the

praja were bound by the dyad of

rights and dutiesThus communities maintained

harmony with nature, constantly striving to humanise it for their benefit. Both the raja and the praja were bound by the dyad of rights and duties. The raja had the right to collect revenue from land as well as the duty to invest a part of the revenue in augmenting irrigation and water works. Peasants had the duty to pay taxes as well as the right to their livelihood. This dyad of rights and duties is sadly absent today. The rich and the powerful have the right to forcibly acquire land and the poor and meek are expected to dutifully give in, in the interest of “public good”.

2 Tamilnadu Economy: Performance and Issues, MIDS


Cover Story

the south-east India a caricature of small allotment of property; in the north-west, they transformed to the utmost of their ability the Indian commune with common ownership of the soil into a caricature of itself”.3 These “experiments” caused immense havoc to the land system and the lives of the peasantry.

The British destroyed the traditional basis of Indian agriculture by introducing private property in land, in the place of common property. Sir John Strachey in his book, India: Its Administration and Progress, explains the necessity for the privatisation of land for the colonisers: “…Our policy has been to encourage the growth of private property in land… Former governments hardly recognised the existence of such property.” He goes on to add, “It can be hardly doubted that their (peasants) indebtedness is greater now than it was before the establishment of our government because the right of private property in land has been virtually almost created by ourselves. When there was practically no such right, there was comparatively no credit; there was no adequate security that a landlord desirous of borrowing could offer, and there was therefore, less indebtedness.” And finally, “If he (landlord) does not pay at the district treasury on the appointed date, no questions are asked… The estate is put to public auction.” How matter of factly does Strachey explain the necessity for the colonisers to introduce private property in land in order to expand the land and credit market and justify the principle of Eminent Domain.

The use of land became unrestricted and the landlords

forced their tenants to shift their cultivation from food crops to cash crops with disastrous results. The zamindars became absentee landlords negating the right of the tiller to land. Around this period, the zamindari system accounted for about 57 percent of agricultural land, and the Ryotwari system accounted for about 38 percent. The Mahalwari system accounted for the rest. Taxes were as high as 83 percent of gross revenue. In Punjab,

the productivity of the land and the ability of the peasant to pay tax.

Transfers of land were first institutionalised with the British land settlements. Legislation introduced in Ryotwari and Mahalwari areas during the 1850s enabled money-lenders to recover debts on loans secured on land holdings. Since revenue assessments were so high (particularly in Ryotwari areas), indebtedness grew, and dispossession of land led to rapidly rising tenancy. As a result, rural society in Ryotwari and Mahalwari areas was polarised into landlords versus tenants and agricultural labourers, and the distribution of land became highly unequal. It is estimated that by the time of formal independence, some 40 percent of the total rural population of India were landless agricultural labourers.

These land “reforms” led to peasant resistance and uprisings all over India. A significant one started in what are today's West Bengal 24 Paraganas, Nadia districts and spread to other districts in East Bengal. It was led by Titu Mir and Dudu Mian. They advocated that according to Shariat, the land belonged to God and the tilling peasants were the owners who only had to pay a just tax and not ad hoc taxes. When the zamindars and East India Company refused to listen to their demands, Titu Mir and Dudu Mian rejected their intermediary and rapacious role and declared rebellion, a jihad against British rule. They built an army which threatened the power of the zamindars and the British, and finally fell in combat. The peasantry declared them shaheed and celebrated their bravery in

Transfers of land were first

institutionalised with the British

land settlements. Legislation

introduced in Ryotwari and

Mahalwari areas during the 1850s enabled money-

lenders to recover debts on loans

secured on land holdings

where the Mahalwari system prevailed, the taxes were about 50 percent. As compared to this, the rate of agricultural tax in ancient India varied from one-twelfth (8%) to one-sixth (16%) depending on

3 Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Karl Marx, Vol.III


Cover Story

many ballads. (See http://jibrailer-dana.blogspot.in/2009/01/titu-mir.html for example). It is to be noted that Titu Mir and Dudu Mian were vilified as extremist Islamists, Jihadis and Wahhabis by the British Raj and many historians, where as they used religious principles in favour of peasants and against zamindars and Colonial British East India Company and not against other religious communities.

Thus, the changes that the British brought on land ownership and land relations in India resulted in a traumatic change in the Indian way of life. Nothing of this sort had

ever been attempted before. The relations of private property that the British introduced radically ruptured the very soul of rural India - it turned peasants into paupers, created unprecedented famines and indebtedness, changed land use drastically in favour of commercial crops and exporters, and upset the fine harmony between man and nature that earlier generations in India preserved and cherished.

To exploit India’s huge forests, the Imperial Forest Department was created in 1864 under colonial rule. The first Forest Act was enacted in 1865 mainly to facilitate

the acquisition of forest areas that could supply timber to the railways being built by the colonialists. The Act severely curtailed the rights of the forest dwellers and converted their right over forest produce to a privilege.

Power of Eminent DomainThe Land Acquisition Act of

1894, the predecessor to the current Bill being discussed in Parliament, was passed by the colonial government to take over public and private land for “public” purposes such as the construction of highways and railways and paved the way for

4 Changing Eco-system Social System Links Affecting Rural Livelihood in Fragile Environments* Narpat S. Jodha Sr. Associate Scientist ICIMOD, Kathmandu, http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/funded/programmes/espa/final-report-india-hkh-annexa-discussionpaper.pdf

Source: Indiaresists


Cover Story

rapid growth of private profiteers and the land mafia.

Prior to the colonial period, wastelands formed a part of the village commons, managed and utilised by the village communities along with other Common Property Resources (CPRs). Wasteland as a category in the land revenue records in India has its roots in the colonial system of land classification, where any land not contributing to government revenue through crop cultivation was designated as wasteland4. Till date, the callous approach of the state to this category of land is rooted in the very nomenclature, which not only disregards both economic and ecological contributions of these lands but also ignores the diversity of their potential and limitations, which local communities know better than the state apparatus. By alienating the administration of this land from the village communities, the colonial authority brought about massive destruction and devastation in the agricultural economy and environment.

The Permanent Settlement Act and various other Acts that were referred to earlier and the privatisation of land, forests, rivers and minerals -- gifts of nature -- were based on the British concept of the Power of Eminent Domain. This concept has its origins in feudal England of the 11th century, when William the Conqueror seized virtually all lands of England and gave fiefs of land to Norman and Anglo-Saxon vassals who were loyal to him and who would regularly collect taxes from the people and pay the King.

The 1935 Government of India Act drawn up by the British colonialists in consultation with their Indian loyalists, and the

present Indian Constitution which largely emerged from it, sanctify this colonial concept of the Power of Eminent Domain. Private property in land and the right to sell and buy land and change its use, which were

matter minerals) is often polarised into "for" and "anti" development camps. There is no denying the fact that factories and houses have to be built, more minerals mined, agricultural productivity enhanced, road and railway corridors built, and rivers and rain water have to be harnessed. Is it appropriate to see industrialisation and displacement as a win-loss situation? The issue is that if industrialisation is part of a larger social plan that takes into account ecology and other considerations (as ancient Indians did), and not left to profit-driven self-aggrandising corporations, then perhaps the debate can lead to a solution. Ways can be found so that displacement and ecological destruction need not be corollaries of industrialisation.

Can this be done by mere amendments, modifications and additional regulatory frameworks? It does not appear so. Several amendments to colonial laws and enactment of new laws, which do not break with colonial conceptual foundations, have been made. But they have not been able to stem the tide of discontent that is sweeping the entire length and breadth of the country on this issue.

It is essential that a new jurisprudential framework be built by breaking away from the European conception of Eminent Domain, and by modernising our ancient wisdom about the ownership and deployment of land, minerals and natural resources in consonance with the needs and aspirations of present day society.

Raghavan Srinivasan is the editor of Ghadar Jari Hai. He has a deep interest in India's cultural, economic and social past, present and future. n

Unfortunately the debate on

land ownership and land use (and

for that matter minerals) is often polarised as “anti-development” or

“pro-polarisation”

codified in various colonial Acts such as the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, the Forest Act of 1878 and others were based on these western concepts alien to Indian traditional thought and custom.

ConclusionThus, in 1947, a colonial

legacy was left behind by the British colonisers, which haunts us even today. Coming back to the questions raised earlier, we can probably reframe them as “Where should sovereignty over land and natural resources lie?” and “What should be the principles that govern their equitable use and distribution?”. These questions can be resolved only by getting the existing jurisprudential framework on ownership of land and natural resources rid of their colonial prejudices.

Unfortunately the debate on land ownership and land use (and for that


Perspectives

The First World War was fought between the Allies (UK, France and the Russian Empire) and

the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary). As commonly shown in popular culture today through films and stories, every war is supposedly fought between a good force and an evil one. In the 20th century however, warcraft was most often used by two imperialist powers to expand their respective regimes. World War I was just such a war. The two sides sent countrymen from the colonies they were ruling over as cannon fodder to further their ends and fight for them. It was as if the brutal sport of gladiator fighting had been renewed in the twentieth century. Even though the side of the Allies is conveniently portrayed as being the “good side”, the history of India under British colonial rule betrays this heinous lie.

The British used their colonial techniques to siphon resources from India to fuel their reserves in the war. The greatest number of fighting soldiers from British colonies came from India (encompassing present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma and Sri Lanka)1 – 1.6 million men (soldiers, labourers, porters, bhistis (water carriers), mule drivers and cooks).2 They

Fighting an Alien WarBy Nirmala Mathew

also obtained 70 million rounds of ammunition, 1,500 miles of rails, 3 lakh tons of steel, 86,000 horses, 65,000 mules and ponies and more than 5,000 livestock.3 Monetary aid was also torn from Indian coffers, wealth which had been accumulated through the exploitation of Indian peasants and workers, to fund the British war machine. In 1917, £100 million was given by the Indian government (current value - £8 billion) even though the income of India was much less in that year, thus pushing India deeper into bankruptcy and debt. Indian landholders and the urban elite contributed £28 million (current value - £628 million). This was not their own, hard-earned money but gained through the exploitation of Indian peasants and workers.

While the UK now acknowledges (albeit gratuitously and as if it was expected of us) the lions’ contribution of the Indian soldiers in World War I, they seek to paint the war as one that was fought for noble values in which all nations voluntarily sent forces. In the words of the UK Communities Minister, “The First World War was a truly global war, one which pulled in people from every corner of the earth. People from every background united

in their shared values, fighting for liberty.” He further added, “The stone that we will lay in the National Memorial Arboretum for Sepoy Singh (Chatta Singh from Kanpur) is a small token of our gratitude and a recognition of all of our shared history. I hope that for many years to come, it will remind us of the gallantry of the brave men who fought for Britain and their role in the history of the First World War.”4 This is a blatant attempt to whitewash the real reason which was the greed of empires to conquer more markets for goods and capital and sources of raw materials and not any shared notion of liberty (if they valued liberty so much they would not have set up colonies in the first place).

Instead of condemning the forcible recruitment of Indians to fight in a war of empires that would not help the Indian independence struggle, Indian National Congress (INC) and the Indian Muslim League supported the British and assuaged the sentiments of the Indian people by saying that India’s contribution to the British cause in this war would help India move closer to independence from the British.

Indian soldiers fought for the Allies across multiple

1 http://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/the-indian-sepoy-in-the-first-world-war2 http://forbesindia.com/article/think/the-forgotten-indian-heroes-of-world-war-i/39537/13 http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/books/black-pepper-red-pepper/4 http://www.asianage.com/international/uk-honour-indian-soldiers-wwi-event-616


Perspectives

5 http://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/the-indian-sepoy-in-the-first-world-war6 http://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/makingbritain/content/first-world-war-1914-19187 http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/a-european-war-fought-by-india/article6281135.ece8 http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/21/found-translation-indias-first-world-war9 http://www.global.ucsb.edu/punjab/journal/v20_1_2/10-Sasha%2020.pdf. Excerpt from the article: “From 1897 to 1918, the plague erupted with varied

intensity in twenty-six districts, and had a mortality rate which was approximately four times the all India average. In mortality and dreadfulness, the plague surpassed all other epidemics in the Punjab.”

10 http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/books/black-pepper-red-pepper/2/

battlegrounds since their arrival in Europe in September 1914. They fought in the first battle of Ypres (Belgium), Gallipoli (Turkey), North and East Africa, France, Mesopotamia (comprising modern-day Iraq, Kuwait, portions of Syria, Turkey and Iran), Egypt (including the Sinai peninsula), Palestine5, Singapore and China. Indian troops formed half of the fighting offensive in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in March 1915.6 About 60 Percent of all Indian troops fought in Mesopotamia and 10 Percent in Egypt and Palestine.7 They fought in brutal conditions, with inadequate protection from the harsh European winters and with no previous training in warfare. They were sent to Europe by ship which violated the right to conscience of many of them since travelling across the kala pani was forbidden in some cultures. Most Indian soldiers were peasants from north and north-western India, separated from their families and many of them never returned. One wounded Sikh soldier wrote in a letter to his father “If I die here, who will remember me?” While the death toll is contested with conflicting figures from various sources, more than 70,000 Indian soldiers were killed which is more than the combined number of

Indian soldiers killed in all wars fought after Independence. Indian soldiers bled for the colonisers during the War. One Indian soldier wrote home thus, “There is no telling whether the War will be over in two years or in three, for in one hour 10,000 men are killed. What more can I write?” Another wrote, “No man can return to the Punjab whole. Only the broken-limbed can go back.” Another letter poignantly described the violence that soldiers witnessed every day “Poisonous gases, bombs, machine guns which fire 700 bullets per minute, large and small cannon throwing cannon balls that are 30 Bengali maunds in weight, zeppelins, large and small flying machines which throw bombs from the air … liquid fire

that causes the body to ignite.”8

Moreover, they had to contend with bad news from home as the plague was on the rise in Punjab and many soldiers had families in the infected districts.9

In spite of their selfless service, Indian soldiers were not allowed to rise in the ranks of the British army to become officers by being granted the “King’s Commission”. The Commander of the Indian Corps in France said that “There is in fact no solution: the European and Indian are built on different lines, the one to command men, the other to wait for guidance before he issues his command.”10

The story of India’s people under colonialism is a story of oppression and exploitation by the British and of resilience, bravery and martyrdom by our ancestors. Our story also wove its way through the battlegrounds of World War I which was a battle for money and a battle of greed in which Indian soldiers perished for the cause of their oppressors. The courage of our ancestors should be remembered even as we note the similarities between the unjust wars fought in the twentieth century and those being fought today between imperialist powers for a greater share of the world’s resources.

Nirmala Mathew is a working Professional. n

The story of India’s people under

colonialism is a story of oppression and exploitation by the British and of

resilience, bravery and martyrdom by

our ancestors


The 102nd Indian Science Congress meeting at Mumbai during 3–7 January 2015, was

dominated by loud national debate about the history of science in India, a subject that does not normally figure on the Congress programme. The dust raised by the storm has just begun to settle down; so it is time to look back on it and attempt to analyse the roots of the debate.

The centre of the controversy was a symposium on ‘Ancient science through Sanskrit’, organised for the Congress essentially by a group of Sanskrit scholars and academics. Surely it is appropriate for the Congress to debate the subject, especially as there are such polarised views on it. To over-simplify matters somewhat, the opinions that are commonly heard in public discourse come from two distinct camps. One claims that our ancients knew all about many branches of modern science and technology, ranging from relativity and quantum mechanics to stem cell biology and aerospace technology. The other camp sarcastically dismisses any claim about past achievements as dubious, if not absurd. These debates are often tied to a related philosophical issue as well: do Indians have (or have they ever had) what Jawaharlal Nehru liked to call a scientific temper? I believe both camps have gone too far. This is surprising because there

Perspectives

The ‘historic’ storm at the Mumbai Science Congress

has recently been an increasing number of more authentic accounts of classical Indic science published in India and abroad.

Now the debates surrounding the Congress generated three specific controversies. The first concerned ancient Indian aviation technology. A presentation made on the subject, based on Bruhat Vimana Sastra attributed to Maharshi Bharadwaj and Vaimanika Sastra (VS) by G. R. Josyer, described four types of ‘vimanas’ from these ‘ancient’ books. One of these vimanas was supposed to fly at around Mach 10, another had a base exceeding 300 m in diameter; but curiously there is not a word on the crucial question of weights. These designs have been shown to be scientifically unsound in a critical analysis of VS (Scientific Opinion, 1974) by a group of reputed scientists in the Departments of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru (H. S. Mukunda, S. M. Deshpande, A. Prabhu, H. Nagendra and S. P. Govindaraju, all of them by the way-genuine lovers of Sanskrit). For example, the designs violated Newton’s laws, and even got the sign wrong for the thrust of their engines. The work seems traceable to an original dictated by a self-taught, impoverished but serious Sanskrit scholar in Karnataka sometime during 1900–1922, and could not have been Vedic by any criterion.

This effort at creating a false history of Indic science is a spectacularly bad example of the absurd lengths to which attempts at glorification of our past can go.

But the other two controversies were of the opposite kind. One concerned the ‘Theorem of Pythagoras’ (5th century BCE), although there is no record of even a statement of the theorem by Pythagoras. The Egyptians and the Babylonians used several ‘Pythagorean’ integer triplets as early as the 2nd millennium BCE, but they stated no general proposition. An explicit statement of the theorem does however appear in Baudhayana’s Sulva Sutra (a manual of the ritual geometry needed in the construction of Vedic fire altars), asserting the equivalent theorem that the square of the diagonal of a rectangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the two sides. The date of the work lies roughly between the 5th and 8th century BCE. Thus Baudhayana’s assertion of one of the hoary results in geometry is the earliest available record in the world, and predates Pythagoras.

The third controversy concerns plastic surgery, which seems to have been driven in several parts of the world by the need to repair broken noses (apparently an ancient and common punishment worldwide), cleft lips, etc. The first records go back to Egypt in 3000–2500 BCE.

Reproduced from Guest Editorial, CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 108, NO. 4, 25 FEBRUARY 2015 471


Perspectives

In the 6th century BCE, Suśruta consolidated Indic Ayurvedic knowledge in an encyclopaedic and foundational text called the Suśruta Samhita. This included the practice of plastic surgery, in which India clearly remained well ahead of the rest of the world. Thus the first major rhinoplasty in modern West was performed as late as 1815 by a British surgeon who had served in India for 20 years, and was triggered by British press reports about how Maratha soldiers who had lost their noses in the Anglo-Mysore wars were surgically set right in Pune. There was no European competition to so-called ‘Indian Nose’, so Indic claims on plastic surgery seem to be on solid ground.

Regarding the scientific temper issue, even a cursory examination of classical Indic philosophy and scientific thinking shows that a strong rationalistic streak has been present, side by side with mythology of some kind, for almost as many millennia as our civilization has flourished. A striking example here is the ancient Samkhya school of philosophy, mentioned already in the Upanishads and boasting a distinguished 20th century admirer in J. B. S. Haldane. The Nirisvara (non-theist) branch of this school went so far as to say that there was no evidence (no pramana) for the concept of Isvara or god. Samkhyas believed in conservation of matter, saying ‘nothing material can be realised from the non-material’, na-avastuna vastu-siddhih; and so would have summarily dismissed any claims to produce matter out of nothing. According to Samkhya, nature experiences evolution due solely to its own internal dynamics; so there was no room for creationism. Inanimate nature could

nevertheless be beneficial to human-kind – as with rain for example; so they attributed the apparent design that often characterised nature to pure accident. These views have survived for thousands of years in India, despite the scathing criticism of great acharyas like Samkara. Is it not astonishing that the rationalist movement in India never takes the Samkhya views of the world as starting points?

Samkhya philosophy has had a strong influence on classical

and purana in Sanskrit – are often mixed even today, but the debate between them has a long history in India. In such debates the arguments have varied from the rather sensible view that the puranas are for salvation and the siddhantas are for worldly affairs (vyavahara), so their domains were different, to the pauranic criticism that siddhantic calculations cannot be accepted as proofs of reality. An interesting case of famous adversaries involves Āryabhata (5th century CE) for whom eclipses were a matter of shadows, but Brahmagupta (7th century CE), brilliant mathematician as he was, upheld the pauranic Rahu–Ketu story even as he predicted eclipses by the shadow theory. Nilakantha, a versatile Kerala astronomer–mathematician–philosopher (1444–1545), said that his work was rooted in yukti (skill, reasoning), not in the sacred scriptures. Contrast this with how Francis Bacon (1561–1626), just a little later, invoked God and Bible quite often, and another century later Newton secretly wrote much more about theology than he did about science. So we cannot accuse Indic classical science of being unduly irrational.

Finally, a few words about Indic mathematics, which I consider has not yet gained the global or domestic recognition it deserves. Apart from the well-known numeral system, and the algorithmic/computational revolution it sparked, the number of advances made in India, long before they were (re-) discovered in Europe, keeps increasing as we learn more of our own history. Look at these examples: a large part of algebra, first solutions to linear and quadratic indeterminate equations (Aryabhata, Brahmagupta);

In public Sanskritic discourse, science

and mythology – siddhanta and

purana in Sanskrit – are often mixed

even today, but the debate between them has a long history in India

Indic scientific thinking. Charaka (~1st century CE?) describes how Agnivesa, the founding father of Ayurveda, engages in a discussion ‘surrounded by Samkhya philosophers’. Bhaskara (12th century) begins his famous treatise on algebra, the Bija-ganita, with an invocation that is a clever punning stanza that can be interpreted as praising either number or the Samkhyas.

In public Sanskritic discourse, science and mythology – siddhanta


the binomial theorem, the combinatorial formula and Pascal’s triangle (Pingala 3rd century); secondorder interpolation formulas and the Newton–Raphson method (Brahmagupta), the Fibonacci numbers (Virahanka 700 CE, Hemachandra ~1150 CE); the basics of differentials, maxima of functions, mean value theorem, etc. (Bhaskara ~12th century, Munjala ~ 800 CE); infinite series, and a precursor of what later came to be known as calculus and analysis (Madhava 14th century): so the list goes on. These contributions are not just ‘little’ mathematics, and the ‘big picture’ of their collective influence on the world was succinctly and accurately summarised by Hermann Weyl when he wrote (Preface to The Theory of Groups and Quantum Mechanics, 1928):

‘Occidental mathematics has in past centuries broken away from the Greek view and followed a course which seems to have originated in India and which has been transmitted, with additions, to us by the Arabs; in it the concept of number appears as logically prior to the concepts of geometry.’

This extraordinary tribute is a striking recognition of the slow, silent but inexorable diffusion of Indic mathematical ideas to Europe through creative Islamic volunteers, culminating four centuries ago in a redefinition of what mathematics was, and the profound revolution that we call modern science. With a legacy like this we do not need

to invent unlikely stories about the past; we just need to work hard in the present.

It is high time we learnt once again to distinguish science from mythology (either can be fun, but they are best when not mixed), evidence-based reasoning from unthinking acceptance of authority or speculation, and the rational from the superstitious (realizing

that a full life may not be purely rational: consider Ramanujan, for example). To make that happen is a responsibility that scientists here must accept, working in close collaboration with friendly outsiders. Our youth are hungry for a sensible knowledge of our past, but are denied an opportunity to acquire it by a marvellous educational system that shuns history in science curricula, and by the paucity of attractive but reliable accounts of the fascinating history of Indic ideas. Our academies, universities, museums and other institutions need to make such a project a national mission. Anything less would be irrational blindness to a unique legacy.

Prof Roddam Narasimha, FRS, is a leading aeronautical scientist and one of the first few engineers to be inducted into the foreign fellowship of Royal Society, UK; US National Academy of Sciences as well as US National Academy of Engineering. He has contributed enormously to the development of aeronautical science and space science in India. He is currently at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore. One of his current areas of research is the study of cloud formation, an area of great importance to India but neglected in global atmospheric sciences. He has written several papers and articles on ancient Indian achievements in science. n

Perspectives

‘Occidental mathematics has in past centuries

broken away from the Greek view and followed a course

which seems to have originated

in India and which has been

transmitted, with additions, to us by the Arabs; in it the concept of number appears as logically prior to the concepts of

geometry


Pages of History

The twenty first day of February this year marked the 100th anniversary, or centenary, of

a revolutionary uprising involving workers, peasants, students and many brave soldiers of the British Indian Army stationed in various continents of the world. It was an act that struck terror in the ruling camp of the British Empire, bringing back memories of the Great Ghadar of 1857.

The uprising was organised and led by Hindustan Ghadar Party, the first Indian political party committed to the goal of a social revolution.

The Indian National Congress was formed in 1885 by titled Indians with European bourgeois values, aimed at integrating themselves within the colonial system. In stark contrast, Hindustan Ghadar Party was formed in 1913 by emigrant peasant-turned-workers, along with some students and professors, aimed at the revolutionary overthrow of British colonialism and its institutions and “rule of law”.

Peasants who mortgaged land and migrated to the US ended up as farm workers in California. Some of the migrants found jobs in timber and steel factories in the states of Oregon and Washington; and in the saw mills of British Columbia in Canada. In the words of Sohan

The Ghadar of 1915 and its Imprint By Itihaas Gawa

Singh Bhakna, founder President of Hindustan Ghadar Party, “The Indian peasant from Punjab was transformed into a worker on arrival in America … Back home in Punjab, his mental make-up was of a proud land-owner. He thought of himself as a Sardar and landless workers were considered lowly by him. And now when he was at the receiving end from the capitalists and ranch owners of California, he realised that his condition was far removed from that of a Sardar. He was a virtual slave.”1

Indian immigrants faced racial discrimination and super-exploitation at the hands of the US and Canadian capitalists and their respective governments. The British Indian government would not lift a finger to defend them.

They had travelled across the world hoping to escape colonial subjugation and plunder back at home. They could not tolerate being treated as less than human beings in the most advanced democracies of North America.

Indian immigrants established Gurudwaras and started regularly meeting there, to share their woes and discuss what was to be done. They realised that they could not enjoy any freedom until and unless India was freed from colonial rule. The most courageous and pure-

1 Sohan Singh Bhakna, Notes on the History of the Ghadar Party, in the Ghadar Movement, edited by Dr. P.R. Kalia, Progressive People’s Foundation of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 2013

hearted among them took the initiative to organise themselves as a political party in 1913, committed to end the subjugation and plunder of Hindustan. They drew inspiration from the First War of Indian Independence, the Ghadar of 1857, and decided to call themselves Hindustan Ghadar Party.

The First World War broke out in 1914, a war between two rival blocs of aggressive imperialist states, to re-divide the world among themselves. Indian soldiers were being mobilised to fight on behalf of the British rulers, against Germans, Austrians and others.

At a time when Indian soldiers were being called upon to die for the sake of defending and expanding the British Empire, Hindustan Ghadar Party propagated the radical opposite. It spread the message that Indian soldiers must fight for what is just, namely, to free India from British colonial rule. They must turn their weapons against their colonels and generals.

One of the poetic verses published in its weekly called Ghadar said: “Karo Paltan Nun Khabardar Jaakey; Sutey Payey Kiyon Teg Chalaan Valley?” (Go and arouse the army; why are those who wield the sword asleep?)

According to British government records, 2312 Ghadaris had entered


Pages of History

India between 13th October, 1914, and 25th February, 1915. Their influx continued until 1916, when their number increased to more than 8000 according to official British records. But alas, many of the early entrants were arrested at the ports of entry.

British intelligence was extremely strong and well-organised within India, as compared to countries outside the British Empire. Ghadar Party had built a relatively strong base of support abroad, including among the British Indian troops stationed in numerous Asian countries. It had as yet only set foot in Indian soil and hence had a relatively narrow base of support within the country. As a result, the Ghadaris made important advances against the British rulers in countries to the East and West of Hindustan; but their plans were foiled within India.

The party executive decided to start the rebellion on 21st February. The plan was to simultaneously attack and capture Mian Mir and Firozpur cantonments. The 128th Pioneer and 12th Cavalry were to capture the Meerut Cantonment and then proceed to Delhi. Soldiers in numerous cantonments in northern India were expected to join the rebellion.

When the leadership of Ghadar Party learnt that information had leaked about the day of the uprising, it advanced the date to 19th February. Alas, this information also reached the British through their informer, one Kirpal Singh. The police raided the party headquarters at four different places in Lahore. All cantonments were alerted and the Indian troops were disarmed. Arrests of Ghadaris took place all over Punjab.

Meanwhile, 850 Indian soldiers belonging to the 5th Native Light Infantry, posted in Singapore, turned their guns against their British officers on 15th February, 1915. Led by Dunde Khan, Christi Khan and Ali Khan, they laid siege to the bungalow of the British commanding officer, and effectively blocked the route into the city of

in that country but also in Iran and Baluchistan. A government-in-exile of Free Hindustan was established in Kabul, Afghanistan, in December 1915.

Ghadar troops defeated the British forces in Sistan and chased them into the Karamshir area of Baluchistan. They then advanced towards Karachi and took over the coastal towns of Gawdor and Dawar. The Baluch chief of Bampur declared his independence from British rule and joined the Ghadar forces.

When Turkey was defeated and Baghdad came under British control, it cut off the supply lines for the Ghadar army, forcing it to retreat and regroup in Shiraz. Reinforced by their victory in Turkey and Iraq, the British attacked Shiraz. The Ghadar army fought very bravely but was defeated. After that, the surviving Ghadaris carried on guerrilla warfare along with the Iranian partisans. When the Iranian patriots were defeated, the Ghadaris had to leave that country in 1919.Concluding Thoughts

Why is it that the vast majority of Indians are ignorant about this major uprising that posed the most serious threat to British colonial rule after 1857? Why is it that this story and its lessons are not taught in our schools?

The British rulers carried out systematic distortion of Indian history. They carried out ideological and cultural genocide, aimed at wiping out all traces of revolutionary actions and the thoughts they engendered in the minds of their Indian subjects. Such inhuman conduct was understandable, though not acceptable, from an alien

The British rulers carried out systematic distortion of

Indian history. They carried out ideological and

cultural genocide, aimed at wiping out all traces of revolutionary

actions and the thoughts they engendered in

the minds of their Indian subjects.

Singapore. The mutiny lasted nearly seven days before it was quelled by reinforced British troops along with naval detachments of France, Russia and Japan.

On the western front, Ghadar fighters in Turkey turned their guns against the British not only


Pages of History

power whose goal was conquest and maximum plunder of our land and labour. What is not understandable and not at all acceptable is that the leaders of independent India should perpetuate the same distortion of our history.

Jawaharlal Nehru considered the Ghadar of 1857 as a “feudal reaction” to the allegedly modern democratic institutions that the British were building in India. This reveals the completely Euro-centric thinking of this first Prime Minister of independent India. Such an outlook permeates the brains of the anglicised stratum of Indian intelligentsia to this day. It is the outlook of looking westward for scientific knowledge and enlightenment, while looking down on everything we Indians have inherited over thousands of years.

In spite of official attempts at disinformation, in spite of the perpetuation of the colonial legacy and domination of ideological space by the anglicised section of the intelligentsia, the imprint of the Ghadar of 1915 has remained alive over the past 100 years. It has been invoked by Indian revolutionaries repeatedly, not only during the anti-colonial struggle, but also in post-colonial India.

When Indian emigrants in Canada, US and Britain were faced with racist propaganda and state-organised racist attacks in the 1960s, revolutionaries among them invoked the name and work of Hindustan Ghadar Party. They established, in 1970, Hindustan Ghadar Party (Organisation of Indian Marxist-Leninists Abroad), and began to work as the external wing of Communist Party of India

(Marxist-Leninist). Those revolutionary communists

who got together in Delhi in December 1980 to reconstitute the vanguard party of Indian revolution after CPI (ML) had broken into numerous factions, decided to call it Communist Ghadar Party of India. It is to be noted that the centenary of the 1915 Revolutionary Uprising was marked by this party on 21st February 2015 (reported in www.cgpi.org).

The Indian rulers did not mark this centenary. No TV channel, no English daily newspaper, no representative of the ruling or major opposition parties in Parliament made any mention of it.

It is clear that the struggle continues, for a truly liberated India whose leaders will dare to speak the truth and correct the distorted presentation of our history. n

The public executions of convicted mutineers of 5th Light Infantry at Outram Road, Singapore, circa March 1915. (Source: Wikipedia)

Sikh Temple Stockton, California, 1912, one of the centres of Gadar ac-tivities (Source: www.thestart.com.my)


Book Appreciation

A Revolutionary's AutobiographyBook Appreciation by Prakash Rao

BANDI JEEVAN- Ek Mahan Krantikari Ki Bahucharchit Atmkatha by Sachindra Nath Sanyal

I immensely enjoyed reading "Bandi Jeewan". While that was more than a year ago, its

content remains incandescent and etched in one's mind.

Sachindra Nath Sanyal was one of the great revolutionaries of our anti colonial struggle of the first decades of the twentieth century. Bandi Jeewan is the story of those tumultuous times captured by a revolutionary who devoted his entire life to ending colonial slavery and opening the path to progress for our people.

Sanyal, like many other youth of his times, joined the revolutionary movement in his teens. He worked closely with Rash Behari Bose in the period 1910 to 1915. Following the failure of the Ghadar uprising of 1915, Bose left India and went to Japan. From the time Sachin was first imprisoned and sent to Kala Pani in 1915, at the young age of 22, till his death in Gorakhpur Jail in 1942, at the age of 48, Sanyal was out of jail for less than 5 years, between 1920 to 1925. He has the rare distinction of being one of only two Indian revolutionaries who spent two terms in Kala Pani, the dreaded cellular jail in the Andamans. But nothing could break his spirit. In the brief time he was out of jail, he plunged once again into revolutionary activity. Cover of the book by Sachindra Sanyal


Bandi Jeewan is not a story of his life in the Andaman Cellular jail, as one would imagine. The life in the jail is dealt with in a few pages, to bring out the pressure on revolutionaries in solitary confinement, far away from their homeland and how some of those who were considered as heroes and leaders of revolution, capitulated in those conditions. Bandi Jeewan is the story of the Indian people enslaved by colonialism and the struggle to get out of the bondage . After reading this work, I understood why many of our revolutionary heroes regarded it as a holy book of revolution.

Sanyal was a deeply religious man, and devoted to his widowed mother. He was the eldest of four brothers, all committed to the cause of liberating India from colonial rule. Sanyal writes that he knew he would be released, because his mother had told him his horoscope showed he would be married and raise a family!

There is a moving episode where in Sanyal knows he has to go underground again, in the mid twenties, as the colonial intelligence agencies were hounding the revolutionaries. Along with his wife and mother, he visits a sadhu in Benaras and asks the sage to tell his family why his decision is right. The sadhu tells his mother that you have four sons, giving your eldest to the cause of revolution is the proper thing to do. However, Sachin has married. He cannot abandon his family without the permission of his beloved wife. The sage asks his beloved wife — are you willing to let go of your husband? When, with tears in her

eyes, she nods, then and only then does Sachin leave his mother, his brothers, his wife and two sons, for the final time, in 1924, at the age of 31.

Revolutionaries will see, in these pages, a mirror to their own experiences. They will see that just like today, in those times too, revolutionaries kept asking themselves the question— why are the people not rising in revolution? What is different in our people from people of other countries where revolutions have taken place? The book is in three parts.

The first part deals with the tumultuous period preceding and immediately following the failed Ghadar uprising of February 1915. At this time, Sanyal was the close Lieutenant of Rash Bihari Bose. They worked from the Varanasi centre. Varanasi was Sanyal's initial karma bhoomi. From here, these revolutionaries organised from all over the country — Delhi, Punjab, Bengal, and the United Provinces. We get, through the pages of this engrossing book, the problems encountered in mobilising people for the cause, how the revolutionaries evaded the police networks, and how they left no stone unturned to mobilise all sections of the people, including numerous religious - sects in Delhi and other regions for the cause of revolution. We read that there was this sage who was living in a gufa in Bengal. He was supposed to come out and declare that the revolution would take place on such and such date. He came out and went back without uttering a word. This is written so beautifully, without a trace of cynicism….

Through the pages of the first part of this book, one gets the first hand feel of the Ghadar uprising of 1915. Sanyal and Bose were active participants in this uprising. In Benaras, Sanyal tried to organise the regiments posted there. They saw great hope in the Ghadaris returning from US, Canada and other lands. Kartar Singh Sarabha met them in Benaras, and together they travelled to the Punjab, to set up the bases in that state. We read about another Ghadari, Vishnu Ganesh Pingle from Maharashtra who joined the Varanasi centre at that time.

The book vividly describes the hopes as well as travails of the revolutionaries, following the failed uprising. The Varanasi centre was smashed. It is at this time that Sanyal decided to sum up the experience of the Ghadar Revolution, so that the next round of revolutions would be more successful. Bose managed to escape to Japan. Sanyal was incarcerated in the Andamans in 1915.

The second part of the book describes the heroic deeds of Ghadaris in Burma (Myanmar), Singapore, and other parts of the world. It deals with the experience in the Andamans. It is an attempt to sum up the lessons of the failed Ghadar, in order to take the revolution forward to the next stage. The second part of the book deals with the period 1915-1920, when Sanyal was in Kala Pani.

The third part of the book deals with the period 1920-1925, when Sanyal was released from Andamans for the first time and resumed his revolutionary activities. Sanyal points out that

Book Appreciation


what Indian revolutionaries lacked was a theory and ideology to counter the line of the enemies that they were terrorists.

The main proponent of the theories opposed to revolutionary violence was MK Gandhi. Sanyal says that Gandhi's theories had to be countered by Indian revolutionaries with the theory of their own. This theory must draw from the teachings of our rishis, as well as the theory guiding the Russian revolution which was taking place in front of his eyes. Sanyal, through the pages of this absorbing book, develops further the Indian theory of revolution, and the Indian philiosophy to bring it on par with the need of revolution. He discusses the real meaning of Maya, as well as the two approaches to Brahma. Sanyal took upon himself this task — the establishing of the theory of the Indian revolution. This book reveals his advances in this direction in conditions of jail and ceaseless revolutionary activity.

This theory of the revolution is presented most beautifully and simply in the manifesto of the revolutionary party, which was written by Sachindra Nath, Shaheed Ram Prasad Bismill, Shaheed Asfhaqullah, and other comrades who founded the Hindustani Republican Association. It openly advocates that Indian revolutionaries would learn both from the teachings of the sages of the past, and of the October Revolution in Russia, whose breath taking achievements were unfolding in front of their eyes and inspired genuine Indian revolutionaries, no matter what their ideology was.

The theoretical platform of the Hindustani Republican Association

was inspired by both the Ghadar Party's programme, and the Russian Revolution, as well as the changing conditions of India with the workers and peasants coming into motion.

In the third part of the book, the reader gets a first hand view of the main political actors of that period. This was the time when the Indian National Congress was being radicalised with young leaders like Pandit Ram Prasad Bismill and Ashfaqualla Khan emerging in the forefront and challenging the leadership of Gandhi and Moti Lal Nehru and others. The situation came to such a pass that

Gandhi and Moti Lal Nehru left the Congress Party and formed another party, a "moderate party". This was also the time, after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, when Punjab was being revolutionised. In addition to the old Ghadaris, who had taken up Marxism, the Akali Party was also becoming committed to armed overthrow of the British rule.

Through the eyes of Sanyal, one gets a firsthand feel of the leaders of the Indian National Congress, each of whom Sanyal tried to mobilise for the cause of revolution. His experience with Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, Subhash Chandra Bose, Madan Mohan Malaviya and other "giants" of the freedom struggle, is something no one should miss reading.

So too is his experience with the nascent communist movement in our country at that time, and its leaders.

Through the pages of the third part of the book, one sees the attempts to build a new revolutionary party based on a revolutionary theory, philosophy and programme. We also see the glimpses of heroes like Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekar Azad, and many other revolutionaries of that time from Bengal to Punjab.

Those who want to have an understanding of the stormy period of Indian anti colonial revolution from the eyes of an active participant in this glorious struggle must read this work.

Prakash Rao is athe all India Convenor of Lok Raj Sangathan and a well known activist in the people's movement. n

Book Appreciation

The theoretical platform of the

Hindustani Republican Association

was inspired by both the Ghadar Party's program, and the Russian

Revolution, as well as the changing

conditions of India with the workers

and peasants coming into

motion


Ghadar files in Urdu wait to be explored in Japan

Source url: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/Ghadar-files-in-Urdu-wait-to-be-explored-in-Japan/articleshow/46427080.cms

PATIALA: A Japanese scholar from University of Tokyo has claimed that around a century-old file containing Urdu manuscripts of Ghadar activists is lying unexplored in Japan and could reveal a lot about the activities of Ghadarites from 1909 to 1930s.

Based on her research, Kaori Mizukamib has presented a research paper titled "Staying in Japan, Working Beyond Japan: Perspectives from Japanese Sources on the Ghadar Movement" at a three-day Punjab History Congress, which concluded in Patiala on Sunday.

She said that besides letters written Ghadar activits, the files also include observations by then Japanese police authorities and correspondence between the British Embassy in Tokyo and the Japanese authorities regarding Ghadar activists staying in Japan.

Kaori Mizukami, research scholar at Division of Asian Studies, School of Humanities and Sociology, University of Tokyo, was here to attend the 47th Punjab History Congress. She said that the files, which are in possession of the Diplomatic Archives of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan government, are yet to be explored by researchers, especially Indian historians, to dig out facts regarding Ghadar activists, stay in Japan.

"In the early twentieth century, some active Indian revolutionaries such as Maulvi Barkatullah, Bhagwan

Resonances

Singh, Rash Behari Bose and Tarak Nath Das came to Japan. Since they were kept under observation by Japanese authorities, the records on these Indian revolutionaries have remained in the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan," Kaori added.

Titled 'Collection of Miscellaneous Articles on the Internal Affairs of Each Country, British India, Regarding Revolutionary Party (including Exiles)', the file mainly comprises records of observations by Japanese police and correspondence between the British Embassy in Tokyo and the Japanese authorities, she added.

Kaori added that the files have so far largely been consulted by a few Japanese scholars, who were interested in life of Bengali Ghadar activist Rash Bihari Bose, who was accused of hatching a conspiracy to kill Lord John Harding in 1912. Bose fled to Japan in 1915 and stayed here till his death in 1945.

"The information available in these files about Ghadar activists' stay in Japan has not been fully exploited yet. If some Indian authours explore these documents and manuscripts, especially the letters written by Ghadar activists in Urdu, new facets could be revealed," she added.

Decide on plea to issue stamp on Ghadar martyrs: HC to Union ministry

Source url: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/Decide-on-plea-to-issue-stamp-on-Ghadar-martyrs-HC-to-Union-ministry/articleshow/46437213.cms

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday asked the Union Ministry of

communications to take a decision on representations demanding issuance of commemorative postal stamp to mark the centenary celebrations of martyrdom of 11 Ghadar movement martyrs, including Kartar Singh Sarabha.

A division bench headed by Justice S.K Mittal passed these directions while hearing a petition filed by advocate H.C Arora who had submitted a representation to the communications ministry for the issuance of postal stamp in public interest.

In his representation submitted on December 25, 2014, Arora had requested the Centre that a commemorative postage stamp be issued during 2015 in the honour of 11 martyrs of Ghadar, including the tallest amongst them - Kartar Singh Sarabha - who sacrificed their lives for securing Independence of the country.

However, Arora received a letter from Assistant Director General (Philately), Department of Posts (Philately section) asking him to send a proposal for which he has to undertake to purchase at least one lakh commemorative postage stamps and send a proposal two years in advance for his request.

Arora sent another representation on February 18th to the Communications Ministry, requesting that the proposal submitted by him be considered in public interest as martyrs belong to the entire nation and to relax all pre-conditions of purchasing one lakh postal commemorative stamps or submitting proposal two years in advance. After receiving no response from the ministry, Arora had moved the HC. n

Printed and Published by: K Madhusudhan on behalf of Lok Awaz Publishers and Distributors., Printed at: New Print Cottage, B-74, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-2, New Delhi - 110020, Published at: E-392, Sanjay Colony, Okhla Phase-II, New Delhi - 110020, Editor: S Raghavan

Farid-ud-din Masud Ganjshakar (1173–1266) is commonly known as Baba Sheikh Farid or Baba Farid. He was a 12th-century Sufi preacher and saint of the Chishti Order of South Asia. He was born at Kothiwal village, 10 km from Multan (Pakistan). He is generally recognised as the first major poet of the Punjabi language and is considered one of the great saints of the Punjab.

Courtesy: http://www.chishti.ru/poem-hazrat-farid.htmhttp://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/F/FaridBabaShe/Youmustfatho/index.html

Baba Farid's Poems

Far thinner than the breadth of a hair

Is the bridge to Paradise.

Noiseless fall the footsteps on it

Ears vainly strain to hear.

Farid! But surely I hear a voice:

‘From greed's snare, beware, beware!'

Farid! The door of dervishes is so hard to enter!

Fain would I have walked past it with worldly masses,

But for a bundle of pretence,

Where, o where to dump it.

Says Farid,

I thought I was alone who suffered.

I went on top of the house,

And found every house on fire.

Underrate not dust, Farid!

Like of it is none.

While you live, it licks your feet

And when you die it covers your head.

Says Farid, you must fathom the ocean which contains what you want

Why do you soil your hand searching the petty ponds;

Says Farid, the Creator is in the creation and the creation in the Creator

Whom shall we blame when He is everywhere?

colonial overtones of land and mine legislation - ghadar colonial overtones of land and mine...

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