In the series ‘Icons of India’ , we take a look at the iconic objects that collectively defined the Indian experience over the past 68 years. From things that brought the world to our living rooms to tasty treats, take a nostalgic journey down memory lane!

My late grandfather was a simple man. He grew up in Rajasthan and helped his elder brother farm.

Upon realising that the older sibling was taking advantage of him—minimal rations for food, some scraps for cloth and no money—the elders intervened, and my grandfather moved to Hyderabad to eke out a living for his wife, and their five children.

With help from family, he set up a small business, selling edible oil. It did well enough to meet their basic needs—“mota khana, mota pehnna, mast rehna,”—my grandmother often says, recalling the times.

It simply meant that coarse cloth and wholesome food was all they needed for a good life.

The lady of the house made do with a handful of sarees, while younger kids used books passed down from the older ones. Cloth bought from the wholesale market sufficed for all their clothing needs.

As the years went by, the business took off, and the family’s fortunes turned. This began to reflect in Bapu’s style as well—well-oiled hair, jutis and a safari suit.

Come hail, storm, or the 500 days of Hyderabad’s summer, if my Bapu stepped out of home, this was his attire. (While Bapu means ‘father’, I used it for my grandfather.)

At approximately Rs 40 per metre, the safari cloth was a luxury. Along with the tailoring cost of Rs 45-50, this safari suit, once made, would last years.

You would be lucky if you could get basic tailoring mends done at that rate today, forget getting a fully-stitched safari suit for an adult man.

While it appealed to the masses, it certainly wasn’t an affordable piece of clothing.

The appeal of the safari suit

It was the cultural elite of the society—the educated middle or upper-middle class—whose acceptance of the outfit adorned it with qualities not necessarily intended.

Many of them still entertained a hangover of its colonial past, so those who held positions of power—like businessmen and bureaucrats—were considered by themselves and others—to be a class apart.

When a sarkari babu (government officer) or baniya (Marwari businessman) stepped out of his home in a safari suit, the sheen of the outfit accorded him a sense of respectability and sincerity.

Geeta Khanna agrees. She says, “Post-independence, the British ‘hangover’ has unfortunately lingered on way too long, and the safari suit was an acceptable formal/official outfit for the ‘summer’ of India. It also spelled prosperity and an anglicised mindset that was considered superior.”

She is the principal director of the Hirumchi Styling Company, which provides creative and design solutions in India and abroad.

From the African bushes to Indian bureaucracy—the long journey of the safari suit

Ted Lapidus and Yves St Laurent, designers from the style heaven, France, are credited with designing the two-piece safari suit.

Initially intended for safari tours in Africa, variations of the suit can also be traced to the uniforms of the British Army stationed in South Africa during the Second Boer War.

The soldiers needed light and breathable clothing to be active in the heat. For this, their uniforms had to be made of cotton to keep them cool. The button-down shirt would have four large pockets on the chest and waist areas so that they could carry bullets, weapons, and binoculars, perhaps a bottle of water. The shirt had a large collar and a belt at the waist, which kept everything together; and the pants too would come with pockets.

In the book Fashion and Masculinities in Popular Culture, Adam Geczy and Vicky Karaminas explore how popular culture aided the general acceptance of the outfit.

The tailored suit gained popularity during the 1930s and continued to be fashionable attire for men up until the seventies when the unisex safari suit became du jour. While the tailored suit is associated with the ‘Establishment,’ the safari suit made popular by Yves St Laurent, represented adventure and freedom from life’s constraints (like that offered by the hunt) and worn later by Roger Moore as James Bond. As Sarah Gillian suggests, the suit initially signified ‘sobriety, simplicity, conformity and restraint’, the man’s tailored suit functions to construct an image of an idealized male body.’

The 007 fandom in the western world and that of the ‘angry young man’ in Indian cinema caused people to imitate their styles. Young employees of corporate organisations and bureaucrats wore them to the workplace as Little Master Sunil Gavaskar modelled them in advertisements, while actors Rajesh Khanna and Vinod Khanna wore them on the screen in dazzling colours.

Politician and bureaucrat Kunwar Natwar Singh was commonly seen in the outfit. As a young diplomat in Indira Gandhi’s secretariat in 1966, he was part of a group of six, of varied ages, from different backgrounds and mother tongues. But they all shared a similarity.

“Seven out of seven of us wore safari suits,” said Mr Singh. “That’s how common they were.”

Another politician, SMI Asseer, told the India Today magazine that he had as many as 25 safari suits in his wardrobe. Similarly, renowned industrialist Rahul Bajaj seemingly had an inexhaustible wardrobe of the suits.

They seemed to be everywhere—synced with people’s aspirations and their fashion sensibilities.

Rishabh Khandelwal feels that the shirt-like comfort, combined with the suit-like “sophistication” made the safari suit a popular choice for people, ideal for Indian weather.

He is the co-founder and managing director of Hangrr, a custom clothing brand for men. He points out how the “unlined, unstructured” safari suit jackets are similar to military uniforms in style and design.

Rishabh says, “It became easier and inexpensive to produce. Considering the socio-economic landscape of the time, it found the perfect fodder to reach mass popularity.”

Raymond, Vimal and DCM Textiles became some of the foremost suppliers in the country. However, around the same time, the 80s, he notes how the outfit began to lose its relevance in the west.

“With a slimmer silhouette governing the world of fashion, the safari suit started losing its dominance.”

The relic of a bygone era

The liberalisation of the 90s opened up India’s economy to a host of western products. It also marked a shift in the country’s geopolitical landscape at the turn of the century. We could bid adieu to the pains of colonialism and move away from the uncertainty of post-colonialism, and finally herald a new kind of modernity.

One such change was in the representation of ideals through clothing.

Khadi, for instance, was a symbol of nationalism during the struggle for Indian independence, when one was not simply accepting a piece of cloth made from a particular yarn—the crucial point was the rejection of foreign fabric.

When viewed in the “objective” light of the present, far from the yoke of colonialism, khadi was losing its sheen.

Dipesh Chakrabarty explains this change in his paper Clothing the political man: A reading of the use of khadi/white in Indian public life.

Khadi, once described by Nehru as ‘the livery of freedom’ and by Susan Bean (to whom I owe this quote from Nehru) as the ‘fabric of Indian independence’, now stands unambiguously for the reverse of its nationalist definition.

I have therefore read it as the site of the desire for alternative modernity, a desire made possible by the contingencies of British colonial rule, now impossible under the conditions of capitalism and yet circulating insistently within an everyday object of Indian public life, the (male) politician’s uniform. I do not think that khadi convinces anybody any longer of the Gandhian convictions of the wearer but if my reading of it has any point to it, then its disappearance, were it to happen, would signify the demise of a deeper structure of desire and would signal India’s complete integration into the circuits of global capital.

Although khadi and the safari suit are less common today, they have not yet been rendered irrelevant. Whether for the sake of nostalgia or as experiments of retro fashion, these icons have been etched in the patchwork of Indianness.

Rishabh notes that there has been an increased demand for safari suits over the past few years, with the attempts to “bridge the gap between the old and the new, and provide safari suits with a modern fit and cut”.

He tells me about designing clothes for a recent beach wedding, where the party was dressed in light blue and beige safari suits, which were “structured, sweat-resistant and wrinkle-free fabrics”.

He adds, “They were slim-cut like modern suits and remained airy for a perfect beach wedding.”

Apart from his team at Hangrr, he tells me that designers across the world are incorporating similar designs into their clothing lines. Some examples are four-buttoned military jackets with shorts and safari-style shirts and jackets.

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He concludes, “The traditional colours, patterns, cuts and designs might no longer be relevant, but innovation and modern techniques will keep safari suits trendy for quite some time. And, like everything else, personalisation plays a great role in getting it right—we must make the safari suit relevant to the person’s style, taste and need. This has helped us keep this timeless outfit relevant and desirable, not only in India but across the world.”

(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)

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For A Lalitha, the responsibility of raising her four-month-old daughter was heavy. Married at the age of 15, Lalitha had given birth to a healthy, beautiful baby in the September of 1937. Just four months later, the teenage-mother lost her husband.

Baby Syamala was now the responsibility of a single mother.

Heads shaved, a strictly restricted life and banishment from society, the life of a widow was a prolonged trauma that they had no choice but to endure. Although the practice of Sati was less prevalent in Madras (now Chennai) where Lalitha had lived, societal standards still prescribed an austere life of isolation and perpetual sorrow to the young widow.

Instead, the forward-thinking and courageous Lalitha decided to overthrow all existing, outdated norms and pursue engineering. A male-dominated field then, Lalitha had made a decision that would make her India’s first female engineer!

Lalitha, fifth in the line of seven siblings was born on 27th August 1919. Her family was a typical middle-class Telugu family where the brothers had gone ahead to become engineers and the sisters were restricted to basic education. As was prevalent in those times, Lalitha was married off at the age of 15. Her father, however, insisted that a marital life should not interfere with her education and ensured that his daughter studied till class 10.

A mother’s instincts that made history:

Lalitha’s story is just half a narrative if we don’t follow the journey of her daughter, Syamala Chenulu. Now settled in the USA, Syamala has fond memories of how her mother, an icon in the field of engineering, faced her challenges while raising her. Speaking to The Better India (TBI), Syamala says, “When my father passed away, mom had to suffer more than she should have. Her mother-in-law had lost her 16th child and took out that frustration on the young widow. It was a coping mechanism and today, I understand what she was going through. However, my mother decided not to succumb to societal pressures. She would educate herself and earn a respectable job.”

Medicine was quite a popular field for women in those times. However, medicine requires the professionals to be available round the clock and Lalitha did not want to fall into a profession that would require her to leave her baby in the middle of the night. She needed a typical 9 to 5 job that allowed the young mother to spend time with her beloved daughter.

Like her father, Pappu Subba Rao and her brothers, Lalitha chose to become an engineer.

Rao, a professor of Electrical Engineering at the College of Engineering, Guindy (CEG), University of Madras, spoke to KC Chacko, the Principal of the college and to the Director of Public Instruction, RM Statham. Both the officials were supportive of admitting a woman—a first in CEG’s history.

“Contrary to what people might think, the students at amma’s college were extremely supportive. She was the only girl in a college with hundreds of boys but no one ever made her feel uncomfortable and we need to give credit to this. The authorities arranged for a separate hostel for her too. I used to live with my uncle while amma was completing college and she would visit me every weekend,” Syamala tells us.

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A few months after Lalitha started her studies in 1940, she conveyed that though she was fine in the college, she was lonely in the hostel. Rao believed this was an opportunity to invite more women to follow his daughter’s path and advertised open admissions in CEG for women. Leelamma George and PK Thresia soon joined albeit for the civil engineering course.

“Both of them were juniors to my mother by a year. However, all three of them graduated together because the second world war was at its peak in 1944 and the university decided to cut down the engineering course by a few months,” Syamala explains.

A trailblazing engineer:

For a brief period after graduating from CEG, Lalitha worked with the Central Standard Organisation in Shimla as well as with her father in Chennai.

Fun fact: CEG had to remove the word ‘He’ from their printed certificates and replace it with ‘She’ for Lalitha, Thresia and Leelamma when they graduated.

Rao invented Jelectromonium (an electrical musical instrument) as well as an electric flame producer and smokeless ovens. Lalitha had assisted him in these innovations. But within nine months of joining her father’s workshop, Lalitha started looking for other avenues and settled for a job in the Associated Electrical Industries in Kolkata.

Syamala explains, “My uncle lived in Kolkata and he had a son about my age. We were very close and so, amma used to go to work leaving me with my cousin and aunt. That’s how I grew up. Although, today, I can understand how important my mother is in the history of women’s education in India as well as in the history of engineering, back then, all I knew was that my mom is an engineer—just another engineer.”

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In the years to come, Lalitha’s achievements were to be recognised at international platforms too. In 1964, for instance, she was invited to the first International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists (ICWES) in New York. It was during this conference that her mother’s importance as a professional really dawned upon Syamala.

“But what I take from her life is her extreme patience towards people and the quality of doing instead of just talking. She never remarried and never made me feel the absence of a father in my life. She believed that people come into your life for a reason and leave when the purpose is over. I never asked her why she never got married again. But when my husband asked her, she had replied, “To take care of an old man again? No, thank you!”

Throughout her career as an engineer, Lalitha had made sure of two important things—that her daughter is raised by loving people and that her being a woman in a male-dominated world would never be an obstacle. While attending the New York conference, she had very famously said, “150 years ago, I would have been burned at the funeral pyre with my husband’s body.”

Fortunately for women in India, she went on to become a trailblazing electrical engineer, lighting up the way for others to follow.

Lalitha passed away at a young age of 55 years due to a brain aneurysm but the legacy she has left behind is a gift for generations to come.

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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For cinema buffs in India and around the world, the name Merchant Ivory Productions holds a very special place. Over the course of their remarkable 44-year partnership, the producer-director team of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory gave us high-quality period dramas made on low budgets that pushed the boundaries of independent cinema both in the United States and India, particularly in the 1960s and 70s.

Although the initial objective of the production house was “to make English-language films in India aimed at the international market”, they went onto do a lot more with their nearly 50 movies, earning 31 Academy Award nominations and winning 6 Oscars.

One half of this partnership was Ismail Noor Muhammad Abdul Rahman (Merchant), who was born on December 25, 1936, in Mumbai, to a middle-class family. His father Noor Mohammad Rehman was a textile trader. Learning Gujarati and Urdu at home, he had also learnt English and Arabic in school. Like many of his era, Ismail was too deeply affected by the events of the Partition, which happened when he was only nine.

Unlike many Muslim households at the time, Merchant’s father refused to leave India. However, the legendary producer did carry the memory of ‘butchery and riots’ he witnessed into his adulthood. His life, however, changed for the better when he established a close friendship with an actress of yesteryears, Nimmi, who introduced him to the film studios in Mumbai.

He was only 13 at the time, but their interaction inspired him to reach for the stars. Nonetheless, it was when he enrolled into St Xavier’s College, that he really developed a passion for movies. When his venture into production first began, Merchant was in college, staging plays and finding innovative ways of raising money to produce them.

Following college, he went to New York University for his MBA and gave up the family name (Abdul Rehman) for Merchant, which he thought sounded more cosmopolitan at the time. During his time in New York, he discovered the works of legendary Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray, who would later go on to mentor him, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini and Vittorio de Sica. Graduating from the university in 1960, he made his first short film called ‘The Creation of Woman’.

“With trademark chutzpah, he sent fake press releases to media outlets announcing that a famous Indian producer was coming to Hollywood. Then, since a film must be shown for three days to be considered for an Academy Award, he persuaded an art cinema to show his short alongside a Bergman film. The upshot? ‘The Creation of Woman’ was nominated for an Oscar and sent to the Cannes Film Festival as the official U.S. entry that year,” says this obituary in Newsweek.

On his way to Cannes, he saw James Ivory’s documentary ‘The Sword and the Flute’. Mesmerised by how Ivory had captured India, Merchant later went on to claim that it was “something I’ve never encountered in an American before or since.”

He offered Ivory the chance at a partnership whereby they would make films set in India for an international audience. The partnership entailed Ivory directing these films, and Merchant raising funds, hiring actors, handling production on set and distribution.

Merchant Ivory Productions opened for business in 1961.

Next, the partners enrolled Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, a German-born Jew married to an India, asking her to convert her book ‘The Householder’ into a screenplay. Although none of the three had any experience making a full-length feature film, it didn’t stop them from going ahead, primarily driven by Merchant’s passion and optimism.

Starring Shashi Kapoor and Leela Naidu, The Householder was a major hit with both audiences and critics. Unlike legendary Hollywood hits like Ben Hur, which was made on a budget of $15 million, The Householder was released for just $125,000. Herein lay Merchant’s magic as a financier who could not only raise money effectively but also develop sets that look opulent on picture but in his words would cost “peanuts” compared to other films of that era.

The Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala partnership would go onto work for nearly two dozen films. “It is a strange marriage we have at Merchant Ivory . . . I am an Indian Muslim, Ruth is a German Jew, and Jim is a Protestant American. Someone once described us as a three-headed god. Maybe they should have called us a three-headed monster,” said Merchant once, when asked about the collaboration between the three.

However, Merchant Ivory Productions arrived on the international stage with Shakespeare Wallah, starring Shashi Kapoor and Madhur Jaffrey with Satyajit Ray composing the music. The film’s plotline revolves around a troupe of British actors who perform in different towns in post-Independence India.

There were other classics like Bombay Talkie (1970) and Heat and Dust (1983), but it was the Ivory-directed A Room With A View (1985), which earned the production house its first Oscar. Once again, the movie was produced by Merchant and written by Jhabvala based on EM Forster’s novel of the same name. Eight years later, the same team delivered Howards End starring Hollywood luminaries like Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter. The movie won three Oscars for Best Screenplay (Jhabvala), Best Actress (Emma Thompson) and Best Art Direction.

A personal favourite is The Remains Of The Day (1993), starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, which was based on the Booker Prize-winning 1989 novel by legendary author Kazuo Ishiguro about a butler and housekeeper in post-war Britain. Once again, it was the same dream team of Merchant, Ivory and Jhabvala at work.

The movie was nominated for eight Academy Awards.

Despite going international, Merchant’s love for India remained true till the very end, and that reflected in the many movies the production house made. In 2002, the Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan, the nation’s third highest civilian honour.

Meanwhile, two other fascinating facets of Merchant’s life deserve a mention—his romantic relationship with Ivory and famed culinary skills.

Ivory and Merchant’s relationship began in the early 1960s when they first met. Staying true to each other for decades, the partners sadly had to part on May 25, 2005, when Merchant died during surgery at the age of 68. While many suspected of a relationship between the two, any references to “their personal life together were only ever made discreetly and euphemistically by the press, if at all,” says The Guardian.

Following the release of Ivory’s gay coming of age film Call Me By Your Name in 2017, which won him the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (the oldest ever to win it at the age of 89), he spoke The Guardian at length about his relationship with Merchant.

“That is not something that an Indian Muslim would ever say publicly or in print. Ever! You have to remember that Ismail was an Indian citizen living in Bombay, with a deeply conservative Muslim family there. It’s not the sort of thing he was going to broadcast. Since we were so close and lived most of our lives together, I wasn’t about to undermine him,” said Ivory.

It is indeed tragic that Merchant was not alive for the historic Supreme Court decision last year decriminalising homosexuality.

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Another interesting facet was Merchant’s culinary skills. According to this obituary in The Economist: “His own gifts lay elsewhere—a combination, perhaps unique in modern cinema, of taste, discipline and financial acumen. He also made possibly the best curry ever served up by a producer, and would cook it for the whole cast and crew on a shoot, every Friday, as if they were one big family.”

Once, British actor Hugh Grant told the press that they worked at Merchant Ivory Productions, not for the money, but “for the curry”.

What Merchant leaves behind is not merely a stunning Filmography, but a phenomenal risk-taking entrepreneurial spirit who dared to take India to the world.

What a remarkable man!

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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Namaste Maharashtra! Today’s Radio Jhankaar will start with updates on the war followed by S A Dange’s essay on A few scenarios in a British labourer’s life,” says Venu Chitale to Marathi speakers from war-torn England.

A news presenter with the BBC, the dynamic Venu was confined to England when the second world war broke out. Calling citizens to arms, Britain put Venu in a difficult position—she had to speak to Indians from a country whose imperial rule they were fighting.

But she took up the job with such ease that Marathi speaking Indians would remember her voice, delivery, and content dearly.

A war as all-engulfing and exploiting as WW2 demanded everyone’s participation—active or passive. Only a handful of professions had the luxury of choosing between their black and white, whereas common people, like Venu, had to take up jobs and tasks that tread the grey areas of war duties.

Venu, always a bright, determined student, had taken a ship to England in 1934 when she realised that marriage was not going to be on her cards for some time.

Jyotsna Damle, Venu’s daughter, told BBC Marathi that this decision was taken after an astrologer predicted that her nuptials would bring ill luck to her sister.

Venu was practically raised by her siblings in Kolhapur and was extremely close to her family. She had lost her parents when she was still a little girl. Sixth, in the line of seven siblings, she was raised by her brothers—a young family who was progressive and yet, set in old traditions. They had found a balance between the modern and the conservative. Just take the case of Venu’s marriage. While they still had faith in the predictions of an astrologer, the family decided that young Venu could instead pursue higher education.

Venu too did not want to risk her sister’s life. It is in the unknown that causes people to believe in superstition and pseudo-science. One can hardly blame them for decisions that they believe will ensure their family’s well-being.

At the time of the prediction, Venu was a student boarder at Mumbai’s Wilson College. Her love for theatre and her talent in the field had impressed Johanna Adrianna Quinta Du Preez—a teacher at the college. This student-mentor relationship would only grow fonder after Venu decided to postpone marriage indefinitely and look for career options.

Du Preez suggested that she move to England and pursue higher education there. Her family was only too supportive of her decision.

And so, she set on a cruise with Du Preez and took up a course in Montessori methods of education at University College, London.

In the following years, both teacher and student studied at Oxford. While Du Preez pursued journalism, Venu was an external student.

“I was young and impressionable, full of enthusiasm about English literature, and actually lapped up books as a cat laps up cream,” she wrote several years later, reminiscing about her 14 long years in England. “I spent my holidays in the most cultured English homes in [the] company of men, women, and children who regarded life as something very beautiful, but full of duties and responsibilities.”

In 1939, war broke out. A dedicated interest in literature, a flair for writing and presenting news, had given Venu the wonderful opportunity to work with the likes of George Orwell and T S Elliot.

Along with literary professionals Mulk Raj Anand, she took to the British Broadcasting Company to deliver important messages to the Indian masses. By the following year, the BBC had expanded its Indian broadcasts from Hindi to regional languages like Bengali, Tamil, and Marathi.

Venu took to the microphone and delivered news to Indians, striking a balance between supporting Britain’s fight against fascism while also opposing imperialism on India.

From England, she could see how the soldiers and civilians were suffering under the diminishing supplies. Apart from updating listeners about the progress of the war, she also started programmes to share Indian vegetarian recipes in a country where meat was getting rarer and more expensive by the day.

“I have been over here now for several years, and have kept myself as fit and fed as in my own country without meat or fish,” she wrote, adding, “As far as my diet is concerned, I have hardly felt the war at all.”

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Sharing recipes and writing plays in which Orwell participated, Venu certainly made a name for herself at the BBC. She even joined V K Krishna Menon’s India League in London.

It was only in December 1947, a few months after independence that she returned to India. Once here, she wrote two novels, In Transit (1950) and Incognito (1993).

At 39, she married professor Ganesh Khare and changed her name to Leela. Two years after releasing her second novel, in 1995, Venu, aka Leela, passed away. The voice that shared news updates and crucial information during the traumatic years of World War II was silenced in 1995.

(Edited by Shruti Singhal)

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You walk through the winding turns and twists of the narrow lanes of North Kolkata. You cross ornate buildings with red-oxide stone floors and green French windows, some persevering while others breathing their last.

And then, as the roads give way to narrow labyrinthine streets covered in sticky mud, your momentary inconvenience dissolves in awe at the sight of numerous lifelike (sometimes larger-than-life) clay sculptures. Rows of heads and arms carved into perfection lie out in the sun to dry, as the artists prepare the skeleton for the rest of the body of what they believe would soon become gods and goddesses.

Amid the buzz of the street hawkers, rickshaw pullers and the incessant camera clicks of enthusiastic tourists, the kumbhars maintain their calm, meditatively working day and night to perfect the form of the human body in pursuit of creating an image of the divine.

Kneading the clay and painstakingly carving intricate details of curves and creases, these are the kumbhars of Kolkata, who, decades ago, found their home on the banks of Hooghly river, in a settlement known as  Kumortuli or Coomartolly.

There are more than 450 workshops owned by several families of master sculptors who, for generations, have been creating idols and models for museums and galleries. However, it is the festival of Durga Puja that demands most of the hard work, as orders for idols demand new heights of challenges and creativity every year. It is estimated that each year, the kumbhars create more than 4,000 sets of Durga idols with her entire family members, and many of them are shipped abroad as well.

Origin of Potters’ Abode

Knee-deep in history and traditions, Kumortuli was born when a group of Patuas (potters) from the banks of Ganges migrated to the area which was then a small hamlet. The migration was a result of several socio-political events of the time.

The beginning came with the end of the Battle of Plassey in 1757, after which the British began to build Fort William in the erstwhile village of Govindapur. This decision eventually forced the population to move north to an area called Sutanuti, whereby, the rich decided to set up houses in nearby neighbourhoods of Jorasanko and Sutanuti Hatkhola. While these areas emerged as home to the local rich, including the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore in his home, Jorasanko Thakurbari, several surrounding areas developed to give rise to the metropolis of Calcutta (Kolkata).

It was during this time that JZ Holwell, an employee of the East India Company, was ordered to allot separate areas as per the occupation of the communities. The residents of these settlements were to provide their services to the Company, as and when needed.

Thus, among others like Suriparah (settlement of wine sellers), Colootolla (settlement of oil merchants), Chuttarparah (quarters for carpenters), and Ahiritolla (settlement of milkmen), Kumortuli came into existence as the abode of the potters, the patuas.

According to a popular lore, in the early years of idol sculpting, Kumortuli potters did not know how to sculpt a lion (Durga’s pet), as they had never seen one before. All they knew were tigers and horses, and based on this knowledge were inspired to sculpt a horse-like creature with a stout mouth, large teeth and a ferocious look.

That early rendition of a lion is still replicated for one of the oldest Durga pujas of the region performed at the residence of Raja Nabakrishna Deb. The tradition has been in practice for the past 300 years.

Hence, from simple potters who fashioned the river-side clay into earthen pots and utensils, they gradually evolved into master sculptors, creating magnificent idols that often towered over 10 ft in height.

The art of creating gods

A 130-year old colony spread across 5-acres of land is now populated with hundreds of homes with  linear rectangular rooms with entrances facing the road. The houses have dark, high-ceilinged, tin-roofed temporary rooms, crammed with rows humongous idols of Durga and her family, on either side, that serves as the workshop of the kumbhars or karigars of Kumortuli.

However, the art involves a number of rituals prior to the actual carving.

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It begins in mid-April after a ritualistic worship of Ganesha and Lakshmi on the day of Rathayatra, known as Kathamo puja. This is followed by the worship of the wooden or bamboo frames on which the idols will eventually be cast. These frames that serve as the skeleton of the figures are created based on the style of the idol, for instance ‘ek-chala’ or ‘do-chala’, whereby the idols are set against one or two backdrops, respectively.

The style and frame of the idols vary according to the number of backgrounds, as they are then wrapped with straw and hay to create the muscles and curves similar to a human form. Once the rituals are in place, the tedious job begins.

First, the clay dug out from the riverbed of the Ganges River is kneaded and pounded until the right consistency is achieved. This ‘etel maati’ or sticky clay is then mixed with rice husk and applied all over the straw frame. This procedure is known as the ‘ek mete’, and is followed by thorough sun-drying.

Once dried, the idols begin to show cracks, only to be smoothed by strips of cloth and more layers of soft clay. This step is continued until the artist successfully creates a smooth base.

The next step is known as ‘do mete’, whereby another layer of fine-grained clay, known as ‘bele maati’ is carefully applied to give a smooth and rounded structure to the idol.

More intricate parts like fingers and faces of the idols are cast separately and attached later to the frames using the same sticky mud. The figure then is once again left out to dry.

The completion of the drying procedure then gives way to colouring which begins with a base coat of white water-soluble paint mixed with a thick sticky layer of tamarind seed paste. Several other steps of body colouring using vibrant shades of yellow, pearl, pink, red, etc. follow. The act of drawing the eye is one of the most crucial tasks in the process, and so the most experienced artist usually does that in the workshop.

To make the idols more lifelike, nylon hair, eye-lashes, clothes, ornaments and embellishments are meticulously attached breathing life into the clay sculptures.

Over the years, with the rise in the grandeur of Durga Puja, the art has also evolved. From shabeki idols carved in the image of a traditional Bengali bride to adhunik abstract influences that cater to themed-pujas, the art has come a long way.

Under the flickering light of a bulb, the work of these karigars goes beyond the ambit of artistic expression. While the world stands gaping at the beauty of their creation, for them the art is tradition—a matter of familial pride and survival, which nevertheless is dwindling with time.

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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International trade, some dark chapters in history and the booming fashion industry were all instrumental in taking the humble striped pattern of fabric from the ancient fishing town of Madrasapattinam (Madras, which is now Chennai) to world-renowned fashion shows. The Madras check has played many roles in its journey from being the dailywear of fishermen and paddy farmers to the preferred attire of the vacationing, affluent Americans and finally, the icons of high-end clothing brands.

Believed to be one of the first signs of colonisation, the Madras checks were typical of the South Indian field-worker before the 1200s. The hand-woven fabric was made from the “tip-skin” of native Tamil trees and the pattern used was not what you see today.

In the hot, and humid coastal areas of and around Chennai, a fine muslin cloth was cut into 36-inch squares and printed on with wooden blocks and vegetable dyes to add a pop of colour. These squares were then tied around the waist and worn as lungis.

Jaya Jaitly, the founder of Dastkari Haat Samiti, an organisation that deals with local crafts, told the DNA that it was mostly labourers, toddy tappers and farmers who wore the plaid lungis.

Since they were handwoven and vegetable-dyed, the checkered lungis were easy to make, and those engaged in physical labour wore it daily.

Of course, it was not with a sense of fashion or style that the plaids were designed, but in the coming centuries, after travelling to the Middle-East and Africa, the Madras plaid would make its presence felt in the global fashion trends!

By the early 13th century, the plaid lungi had travelled to the Middle-East and Africa, where it went from being bottom wear to becoming a headscarf. But it was the colonising Dutch who would begin the export and mass production of the Madras checks which became the catalyst for its spread across the globe. When the Dutch reached the shores of Madrasapattinam in 1612, they started trading the calico cloth (named after the cotton acquired from Calicut).

Barely 14 years later, the British followed.

Francis Day, who was leading the Tamil Nadu expedition of the East India Company discovered this muslin cloth printed in vegetable dye. He saw an opportunity to trade it overseas and obtained a license permitting the trade of the Madras checks on the 22 August, 1639 which was then taken to African countries like Nigeria where Madras lungis became ‘Injiri’- real India. Although the imposition of British trade was exploitative of its colonies, Injiri became the Nigerians’ ‘connection’ to their ancestors, the spirit world and ‘their commitment to a life well-lived.’

Soon, Injiri became their ceremonial dress, the gift they gave to newborns and the cloth that decorated the room of deceased relatives.

Another account also says that it was the Scottish, the ‘peacemakers’ between Indians and the colonisers, who influenced the Madras checks. However, the pattern had been typical of the South Indian fisherman centuries before the British arrived with several accounts disproving the theory.

As the tide of imperialism turned, the colonisers left their colonies but small and big stories remained of the travels of the Madras checks. In 1958, for example, William Jacobson, an American textile importer, had travelled to India in search of this fabric. By then, the cloth had lost its suffix and was known around the globe simply as ‘Madras’.

Jacobson found Leela Lace Holdings Pvt Ltd, a firm that produced a vivid version of the pattern that smelled exceptionally of the vegetable dyes and sesame oil it was made from. Impressed by the ‘exotic’ feel of the cloth, he sold it to the renowned Brooks Brothers. The founder of Leela Lace had warned Jacobson that the machine washing habit of the Americans would not work on Madras and that the dyes will bleed. Jacobson ignored this warning until Brook Brothers had to complain to his agent about the bleeding 10,000 yards that were sold across the USA.

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“Instead of fighting each other, they came up with [a] solution that was sheer marketing genius! One of the attorneys arranged an interview for Mr Nair with the editor of Seventeen Magazine in which he created a story about this miracle Madras —fabric from India that was exclusively made for Brooks Brothers in New York. In the following issue, the editor ran a seven-page article about fabric titled “Bleeding Madras — the miracle handwoven fabric from India.”

“And since pictures say more than 1,000 words, they added beautiful photographs with the caption “guaranteed to bleed,” wrote Sven Raphael Schneider, the Editor-in-chief of the Gentleman’s Gazette.

This exotic and novel concept had appealed to the rich and affluent American much like Jacobson. And the bright colours, typical of the Madras, became the preferred choice for their vacations. Through the late 1900s and the early 2000s, the Madras made its appearance on ramp walks, on men’s and women’s fashion magazines and in the wardrobes of influencers. Of course, it has gone through changes over the centuries, from a handmade, vegetable-dyed lungi to a machine-produced suit, but the essence remains true of the Indian field worker.

Some argue that we were just waiting for ‘white acceptance’ to appreciate the pattern but a cloth that has travelled across the seas and oceans cannot be reduced to a mere fashion statement. Its history is as rich as the fabric in terms of travel, trade, fashion and culture.

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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Though 12-year-old Aswatha Biju is like every other preteen whose world revolved around school, friends and favourite hobbies, this young girl from Chennai is India’s youngest paleontologist, with a collection of 74 fossil specimens that makes her home nothing less than a mini museum.

Also, she conducts seminars for not just school or college students, but also for researchers at geology and paleontology institutes. Pretty amazing, right!

Speaking to The Better India, Aswatha, who had just returned home after conducting a seminar at Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), shares that her interest in fossils first sprung from the encyclopedia at home when she was barely two or three years old.

Her mother, KT Vijayarani, corroborates this fact with pride as she talks about the young prodigy.

“Right from the time she was two or three years old, she was fascinated with shells and would often collect these. She also loved reading books and her favourite was the encyclopedia. Even though, she wouldn’t understand much, she’d always flip through the pages. It was one of those times when she came across an ammonite and told me that she wanted that ‘shell’. After telling her that it was a fossil, I told her that it wasn’t possible to own them as they are under the government protection. But I didn’t want to break her heart and took her to the Egmore Museum,” she says.

That’s how it all began. The five-year-old Aswatha was so fascinated by the ammonite, she requested her mother to take her to the museum some 10-12 times after the first visit, just to see that one fossil. Slowly, she started gathering more knowledge on fossils and began travelling to nearby places with her in search of fossils.

“She had collected many, which she recognised purely based on self research. Unlike the museum specimens, these weren’t millions of years old. Perhaps, a 100 or 200 years,” Vijayarani explains.

When she was in class 5, Aswatha ended up calling the HOD of Marine Sciences of Bharathidasan University in Trichy. “Because of her age, the HOD couldn’t believe the extent of knowledge she had, all from just reading and researching. She told him that she has few fossils that she’ll bring to the university to know more about their origins. Amused and slightly dubious, the professor asked her to come,” Vijayarani says.

The very next day, the mother-daughter duo headed to the university after travelling for seven hours, only to find that the HOD wasn’t there.

“She was a little disappointed, but the twist in our lives was just going to happen. We ran into Dr Ramkumar from Periyar University, who was there for some work. Upon seeing a little girl carrying so many fossils, he was intrigued and spent the next three hours giving a lecture to Aswatha. At the end of it, he was absolutely delighted with her ability to not just listen but also grasp everything rather quickly. He was the one who called her a prodigy,” she remembers.

After giving her blessings and guidance, Dr Ramkumar parted but not before giving Aswatha a route map to Ariyalur bed, a paleontological site where one can find fossils that are millions of years old and asking her to collect whatever specimens she would come across there.

“Both my husband and I have negligible knowledge in the area, let alone fossils. But it beats us to see how she has all this knowledge. When we came to Ariyalur, she already knew about the specimens that she was collecting in the field. She managed to collect roughly about 26 specimens and identified them all correctly. Now, she has 79 specimens,” Vijayarani adds.

Later on, she came in touch with Dr Nagendra, Geology head at Anna University, who had mentored her further. It was during this time that she realised how underexplored paleontology as a field was in India and she wanted to raise awareness about fossils at school and college levels.

A rather motivated Aswatha wrote to the headmistress of a nearby local school requesting to hold a session of fossils for students last year and upon seeing her enthusiasm, the latter agreed.

And thus, her foray into conducting seminars on fossils started and till date, has taken 15 such sessions. She has even visited renowned research institutes, where her audience included doctorate holders as well.

“She told me that while these people were researching in the field, their knowledge on fossils in India is rather limited. It gives her immense happiness that every person she has held a seminar for, can easily differentiate between a normal rock and a fossil,” she laughs.

Both her parents are extremely proud of their daughter and go to any extent to fulfil her wishes. “As much as she is passionate about paleontology, she is equally brilliant in studies and has won many awards in science and maths olympiads. Because she is so passionate about fossils, we feel that as parents, if we don’t support her dreams then who will. That is why we ungrudgingly take her to every fossil site or institutes for seminars, no matter how far it is,” Vijayarani happily adds.

Her exceptional contribution to the field of paleontology was recently honoured at FICCI FLO event, where she received a special mention award by none other than the state governor.

As of her future plans, Aswatha hopes to pursue paleontology in India itself. “But the field is not really well-established here. So, if that doesn’t work, I’d like to pursue youth science or become an IFS officer,” the class 7 student shares.

You may also like: Check Out India’s Jurassic Village, Where ASI is Preserving 2.6 Million-Year-Old Fossils!

We wish the young prodigy best and are positive that one day, she’ll become one of India’s renowned experts in the field of paleontology.

You can follow Aswatha’s work on fossils on Facebook here.

All photo courtesy: KT Vijayarani.

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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Far from Goa’s din, nestled amidst two picturesque hills in the Western Ghats, was a beautiful hamlet called Kurdi. Every morning, the idyllic village would wake up to the gurgling stream of Salaulim river that ran through it after breaking away from Goa’s largest river, Zuari.

But, all that is in the past, because for the last few decades, the village has been pulling off a disappearing act, every single year!

In other words, this village in Goa becomes visible for just one month a year, while the rest of the 11 months, it dives back into its underwater abode, thus disappearing from common sight, as BBC reports.

A woeful tale of awe

Kurdi was once a thriving village with fertile lands where almost 3,000 residents grew paddy, and lived a life of simple joys.

An example of secularism, people of various religions like Christianity, Hinduism and Islam, all lived together in the village which housed a number of temples, a chapel and a mosque.

All seemed well until things began to radically change in 1961 after the liberation of Goa from the Portuguese. It’s strategic position inspired Dayanand Bandodkar, the first chief minister of Goa to consider the spot for building the state’s first dam. The construction was to benefit people all across south Goa.

Also Read: A Lost, Ancient Civilisation? Archaeologists Uncover Mysterious Ruins in Odisha

But the plan meant a disastrous fate for the people of Kurdi. The need for water for Goa’s growing population was to be satiated by submerging Kurdi, as the dam was to be built across Salaulim. As per the plan which included the construction of a reservoir as well, it was proposed to provide almost 400 million litres of water for drinking, irrigation and industrial purposes.

As a result, in 1986, heavy monsoons arrived pouring over the newly made dam called Salaulim Irrigation Project and the village was completely submerged, pushing its reluctant residents to move- lock, stock, and barrel.

As many as 634 families were displaced from their land, and were compensated with agricultural and residential land 15 kilometres away in Vaddem and Valkinim.

“He (Dayanand) said it will drown our village, but our sacrifice will be for the greater good,” recalls 75-year-old Gajanan Kurdikar to BBC. He was only 10 years old when his family had to leave their ancestral home. “I faintly remember my parents hurriedly putting everything in a pick-up truck. I was also packed up in the truck, along with my brother and grandmother. My parents followed us on their moped,” he adds.

Long displaced from their motherland, the residents however, get one month to look back into the past.

With the arrival of May every year, the water recedes to reveal a wrinkled and cracked earth adorned with the remains of tree stumps and ruins of houses and religious structures. A quick stroll around sometimes reveals broken remains of household goods, broken water canals and large stretches of barren ground.

Although they lost their homes, what was worse was that the greater cause was never really met. The water from the dam never reached the nearby villages to where Kurdi’s former residents were rehabilitated.

“The tap system did not come through to all villages of south Goa as promised so we do not get our drinking water from the dam,” Gajanan adds. Many displaced families have to rely on government tankers during the dry months of April and May.

However, despite the problems, the month of May continues to hold happy memories for the residents as this is the time for homecoming. It is a time for celebration.

While the Christian community gathers for an annual Chapel feast, the Hindus hold a temple feast during this month.

Speaking to Indian Express, Venisha Fernandes says, “Kurdi is the Mohenjo Daro of Goa . . . the Egypt of Goa. People’s memory has played a crucial role in keeping Kurdi alive”. She is an assistant professor of sociology who in 2009 has worked on a dissertation which talked about the archived oral history from Kurdi’s natives. This dissertation is soon to be a part of a book called the ‘Life in Goan villages’.

What had been alive, just in the memories of its erstwhile residents, now is at the verge of more recognition, as historians, film-makers and academicians delve deeper in efforts of immortalising Kurdi, at last.

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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From the likes of late Prithviraj Kapoor, the pioneer of Indian theatre and Hindi film industry, to the King of Kashmir His Highness Hari Singh, a colonial area joint has ruled the hearts of Mumbaikars and visitors from all walks of life.

But it wasn’t just them in the last eight decades.

When Haji Mastan was still a youngster and not the notorious smuggler India knew, he frequented a no-frills joint at Girgaum Chowpatty in Mumbai.

Even at the peak of his reign as one of the most influential mafia dons of his time, the visits did not stop.

Known for his eccentric lifestyle, pristine white clothes and shoes, a Mercedes to match, and the look replete with a gold watch, he would sit on the bonnet of the car devouring the fruit juice. Legend has it that when he was imprisoned during the Indian Emergency, regular parcels of juices were sent to his cell from this very eatery.

Once known as Brahmachari’s, Bachelorr’s, the snack joint, was established by Late Omprakash Agarwal back in 1932.

The long-standing bachelor behind Bachelorr’s

Hailing from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, Omprakash ran away from his home as a teenager to colonial Bombay (now Mumbai) with almost no money. From working at a construction site near Chowpatty to selling items on a train, he juggled odd jobs until he saved enough to start a fruit stall by the beach.

Some customers often asked for the fruits to be cut and served in a dish. So the idea of selling what would come to be known as ‘fruit platters’ struck him. It was perhaps the first time that the concept began in the coastal city.

Little did he know that the business would pick up. It found patrons from British officers to locals alike. Omprakash soon bought a storage space and transformed it into a fruit juice shop in 1935.

Today, it is 80 years old and has come a long way from the six offerings written on a blackboard to serving more than 200 dishes! Its proprietors also claim that the place has pioneered green-chilli and ginger ice-cream in India!

The Better India got in touch with the third generation of the family taking the legacy of the iconic eatery forward.

Why Bachelorr’s

Because he was single for a long time, Omprakash was lovingly called ‘Brahmachari’ (meaning Bachelor in Sanskrit). Funnily enough, he christened the shop with the nickname. It wasn’t until 1940 that the shop was called Bachelor Juice House.

In 1980, Arun, Omprakash’s son, registered the shop as Bachelorr’s.

Arun introduced an array of ice cream flavours and fruit-based milkshakes. He worked long hours whipping and experimenting with unique in-house syrups for ice creams, chutneys, and sauces, the recipes of which continue to be close-guarded secrets followed at the restaurant.

To add a western touch, Omprakash invested in an oven and added pizza to the menu. He also added the iconic Mumbai snack pav bhaji alongside sandwiches and other popular snacks to cater to diverse taste buds.

Now, Aditya and his brother Himanshu, are the third generation duo who have taken over the reins of the venture. They took over the operations in 2017 after their father, Arun, passed away.

Speaking to The Better India, Aditya recalls:

“My grandfather was friends with Late Prithviraj Kapoor. The two would bask in each other’s company at Bachelorr’s, then known as Brahmachari Fruits and Juices. My grandfather would also narrate stories of superstar Jitendra casually sipping his glass of mosambi juice, sitting at the shop counter, and players of the Indian cricket team enjoying their glasses of Chocolate milkshake at Bachelorr’s. From royals, leaders and politicians, veteran Bollywood celebs, sportspersons, notorious gangsters to common Mumbaikars like college and office goers, Bachelorr’s was the place to be. And fortunately, continues to be today.”

When asked about their interest in the business, Aditya adds, “Since childhood, my brother and I visited Bachelorr’s and sat by the cash counter, taking orders. The joy of interacting with customers was unmatched. We fancied seeing celebrities, big industrialists and socialites, and serving their favourite snacks. Also, we saw our father (Arun) work endlessly to create what the people of Mumbai enjoyed. It gave us inspiration and motivation to join in.”

After Arun passed, Aditya and Himanshu took over the family business. Today, Bachelorr’s has three outlets and even cater for events pan-India. Their staff changes seasonally, but Aditya maintains that 20 odd staffers help the smooth running of the venture.

Then and now

Aditya shares, “We have incorporated our hand-made style into machinery that meets our needs without any change in product or taste. We are big on social media and take part in expos and food festivals to showcase our creations to a new generation of potential customers. We have more than 45 types of ice-creams and many other exclusive creations.”

Their USP, the entrepreneur adds, are ice-creams, milkshakes and fruit creams. “We make our own ice-cream. Our range of premium ice-creams and their flavours are carefully curated and kept exclusive.”

Though traditionally known for fresh fruits, juices, and sandwiches, additions such as milkshakes, fusion juices, falooda, fruit and cream, pizzas and rolls are crowd-pullers.

The love for Bachelorr’s can be seen in how visitors pass the tradition of visiting the eatery to their kids and grandkids.

“A 90-year old gentleman came with his 10-year-old grandson and told me how he came to Bachelorr’s as a child with his grandfather and met my grandfather. Nothing can express the essence of these experiences we aim to create for our customers.”

The young Agarwals are keen to evolve with changing times and trends while maintaining the brand’s top-notch quality and plan to expand their reach geographically.

Also Read: 5 Puris & 6 Generations: How a Stall Grew Into Mumbai’s Iconic Pancham Puriwala

We wish them the very best!

To know more about the iconic eatery, visit their website here. For any additional queries, contact +917021740413.

(Edited by Shruti Singhal)

Images courtesy: bachelorrs.india.official/Instagram

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She was just another girl born in a middle-class family in pre-independence India. With time, her life unfolded to become an extraordinary saga of struggle and accomplishments. A freedom fighter and a doctor, who not only took care of Mahatma Gandhi, she was one of the few who set the country on a path of modern medicine devoid of superstitions.

Finding one’s calling

Born into a family of Gandhians, on 26 December 1914 in Kunjah (Gujarat), which is now in Pakistan, Sushila was an image of fearlessness and dedication.

Sister of Mahatma Gandhi’s secretary, Pyarelal, she would often visit her brother in the ashram. In 1936, when Gandhi left Sabarmati to come to Sevagram ashram in Wardha, Maharashtra, Pyarelal followed, and after two years, so did Sushila.

A young medical graduate from Lady Hardinge Medical College then, Sushila was highly influenced by Gandhi’s philosophy. The ashram not only provided her with spiritual and nationalistic perspectives, but also allowed her to witness community medicine in the village.

It was during this time that cholera broke out in Sevagram. Owing to her knowledge, she soon found herself fighting the disease and helping people single-handedly. This became one of the many experiences that contributed to chisel her into a messiah of public health in India.

She was convinced of her life’s purpose and soon became Kasturba and Gandhi’s physician, after returning with an MD in medicine, in 1942.

However, the larger goal was to provide proper healthcare to economically backward individuals. So, in 1944, she started a small dispensary in the ashram. Its growing popularity allowed her to move out into a small clinic donated by G D Birla. This clinic was to become a seed of a hospital, and in 1945, her dream came true with the establishment of the Kasturba Hospital (now the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences).

With just 15 beds, the hospital began as a child and maternity hospital, which functioned under the ashram’s care from 1948 to 1954. In the next few years, the hospital developed into Kasturba Health Society, thanks to her incessant efforts to take medicine to all.

While working in the hospital with Dr R V Wardekar, the father of Leprosy control in India, she came across a sea of leprosy patients, since Wardah district had a high prevalence of the disease at the time. Years of close involvement with the patients made a lasting impact, paving the way for various social and medical reforms for patients in the future.

Improving Public Health

As a doctor, she always nurtured a vision to improve public health in India, and at the time, leprosy was a prominent medical concern. Sushila too was invested in the treatment of leprosy, being one the few to come to the aid of the patients.

Once such instance was the compulsory sterilisation bill proposed in Sindh. In 1946, a newspaper cutting mentioning the bill had arrived at the ashram. The article said that the bill put forth by the Sindh Assembly was pushing for the compulsory sterilisation of leprosy patients.

Disturbed by the news, Gandhi sought Sushila’s expert opinion, which made it clear that the step was ‘unjust and unfair’. Without any room for doubt, she shared her opinion that there was no medical ground confirming compulsory sterilisation for the patients as it is neither congenital or hereditary.

To strengthen the statement, she consulted Sr B C Roy from Kolkata, Dr M D D Guilder from Bombay, and Dr C G Pandit from New Delhi, among others.

Because of her efforts, Gandhi wrote to the chief whip of the Congress Legislative Party, Sindh Assembly, Prof Malkani, to make sure that the Congress MLAs voted against it and had it thrown out of existence!

A freedom fighter and a political figure

A gritty individual, Sushila was among the many strong women who stood up to fearlessly fight for the country during the freedom struggle. From participating in the Quit India Movement to getting imprisoned in the Aga Khan Palace jail for her pro-independence ideologies, she had quite the footing to influence India’s political future as well.

Post Gandhi’s assassination, she joined Johns Hopkins University, USA, to receive a degree in Dr PH (Doctor of Public Health), returning to India in 1950. Upon her arrival, she set up a tuberculosis sanitarium in Faridabad, becoming the head of the Gandhi Memorial Leprosy Foundation.

Eventually in 1952, when the first election took place in India, she entered politics and was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Delhi. Following the path of India’s first health minister, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Sushila became the first female health minister of Delhi state in Nehru’s cabinet and served until 1955.

This was followed by a tenure as the speaker of Delhi Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha member from Jhansi constituency in 1957. Later in 1962, she became the Union Health Minister again, serving until 1967.

During this time, she realised the lack of qualified doctors in rural areas. While primary health centres were set up in remote locations, the lack of good medical consult made public health less accessible. It was this realisation, along with the support of Lal Bahadur Shastri, that she started medical colleges in rural areas.

Also Read: The Princess Who Built AIIMS: Remembering India’s First Health Minister, Amrit Kaur

Hence in 1969, with the first batch of 60 students, the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences was founded in Sevagram. It was India’s first attempt to steer rural health in a new direction. With her inspiring charisma and mounting ambition, she was a beacon of feminism at a time when gender roles for women were confined to marriage and motherhood!

(Edited by Shruti Singhal)

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More than a century ago, India was engulfed by a unifying force that helped her break away from the chains of colonisation. It was the year of the First War of Independence, 1857, echoes of which reverberated through the decades, eventually making freedom a reality for us.

But, this is a story you and I have read, heard, and been told over and over again, in history textbooks and movies. We know all about the movement, the discontent that spread through the sepoys, pushing them to take a stand for their country and the national awakening that followed. Yet we know little about the people who made it possible.

Battles such as this are not won by the few leading figures standing on a pedestal, but by the scores who decide to put the cause above their well-being. Their stories are usually lost or hidden between the wrinkled pages of history.

For some, they are even erased.

The brave ‘Tawaifs’ or courtesans of India are among those fighters, whose stories of self-sacrifice have had a few listeners and even little physical record.

And yet, the story of Azeezunbai’s bravery continues to inspire, even though only in hushed tones.

The Cawnpore siege

The tension was on the rise as Indian soldiers all across the country were rising against the British officials. One such incident was in June 1857, when the Indian soldiers surrounded the East India Company’s British soldiers while they were laying siege to Cawnpore (now known as Kanpur). At the time, a courtesan was said to be with the soldiers, fighting alongside the Indian soldiers.

This courtesan was Azeezunbai, who was spotted on horseback in male attire, adorned with medals and armed with a brace of pistols.

An intriguing story as this has no mention in textbooks, although parts of it live in local legends, archives, historical reports and niche research papers. A case in point is the paper by Lata Singh, associate professor at the Centre for Women’s Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

“While going through these sources, what has been intriguing is that despite the attempts made in mainstream history-writing to invisibilise such women, Azizun’s name figures in most colonial accounts. She also figures in the nationalist writings of V D Savarkar, and even in the work of nationalist historians like S B Chaudhury. In these writings, she is praised for her role in the Rebellion, especially for her fight for the ‘freedom of the country’. In fact, she seems to have joined in procession the day the flag was raised in Kanpur to celebrate the initial victory of Nana Sahib. In Kanpur, Azizun’s name is alive in people’s memory,” Singh writes

A spy, messenger, and fighter, Azeezubai was born in Lucknow to another courtesan. She later moved to the Lurkee Mahil in Oomrao Begum’s house in Kanpur.

Singh suggests that her migration from the cultural centre of Lucknow to the military cantonment of Kanpur could have been because of her passion for independence. In the paper, Azeezunbai is said to have been very close to the sepoys of the British Indian Army, particularly Shamsuddin Khan from the 2nd cavalry, who played a prominent role in the war of independence.

“Azizun’s house was also the meeting point of sepoys. She had formed a group of women who went around fearlessly, cheering the men in arms, attended to their wounds and distributed arms and ammunition. Azizun made one of the gun batteries her headquarters. This was the battery located to the north of Wheeler’s entrenchment, between the racket court and the chapel of Ease. It fired shots and shells into the entrenchment almost from the first day of the siege. During the entire period of the siege of Wheeler’s entrenchment, she was amidst soldiers. One of the eyewitnesses mentions that it was always possible to see her armed with pistols – in spite of the heavy firing – amongst her friends, who were the cavalrymen of the 2nd regiment,” adds Singh.

She was among the many courtesans who bravely fought for India’s independence, some behind the veil, some without!

The forgotten sheores

In addition to Azeezunbai, Singh points out another name, Hossaini, as one of the key conspirators of the infamous Bibighar massacre which saw the death of over 100 captive British women and children.

Another such individual was the celebrated courtesan, Gauhar Jaan, who actively contributed to the Swaraj Fund to support the freedom movement. On Gandhi’s request, she had organised a fund-raising concert on the condition that he would attend the event. Although Gandhi failed to meet the condition, she sent half of the earnings to the movement, as mentioned in Vikram Sampath’s My Name is Gauhar Jaan.

But apart from these two, Singh writes, “there are bound to be hundreds of stories about the role of women like Azizun in the Rebellion, but most of these seem to have gone unrecorded. In Lucknow, their role is documented as ‘covert’ and ‘generous financiers’ of the Rebellion.”

She refers to the accounts of women coming out into the streets to battle against the British soldiers. Behind the veil, many worked as informers or financiers as well. Begum Hazrat Mahal, wife of Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of Awadh, was one such individual.

According to several accounts, she was a courtesan before marriage, and during the rebellion, she stepped up to fill the shoes of her exiled husband and led the Indian soldiers to seize control over Lucknow, although briefly.

Owing to their active involvement, the Tawaifs had to bear the consequences. By the 1900s, their social and financial status had lost its initial lustrous glory.

But, that still didn’t stop them.

Accounts of their contribution show their unflinching support to the nationalist cause.

Even during the non-cooperation movement, from 1920-1922, a group of courtesans from Varanasi extended their support to the independence struggle by forming a Tawaif Sabha. Singh writes that Husna Bai chaired the said sabha, encouraging the members to boycott foreign goods and wear iron shackles instead of ornaments in solidarity.

And despite all this, the world chose to forget them and their role towards freeing India.

“We never thought that tawaifs were important enough to document. But [the stories] are very well known in the oral narrative,” says Manjari Chaturvedi, whose initiative, The Courtesan Project, is trying to bring their stories to the forefront.

Also Read: Warrior Begum of Awadh: The Untold Story of Hazrat Mahal’s War on the British

They have many names—tawaifs in the North, devadasis in the South, naikins in Goa, baijis in Bengal, and nautch girls for the Britishers—and yet, all of them, today, are used to incite a sense of obscenity. These were strong and independent women with the agency of life as well as sexuality. Their intellectual and cultural contribution, which was at its peak, slowly faded into a distorted image likened to prostitution since the late 19th century, feeding to their social ostracisation and exclusion from the glorious pages of history.

Eventually, a lack of the knowledge of such inspiring stories clouded in false judgement, is indeed our loss.

(Edited by Shruti Singhal)

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The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has deservedly garnered plaudits for its remarkable contributions to the country.

However, without taking anything away from the genius minds who have made these ISRO missions possible, one must note the contributions of entities from outside the organisation as well.

One such establishment is the relatively unknown Walchandnagar Industries Ltd (WIL), a Maharashtra-based heavy industries giant which has since 1973, delivered critical components to various space missions.

From India’s maiden mission to the moon with Chandrayaan 1 launched on 22 October 2008, to the proposed Chandrayaan 2 rocket ‘Bahubali,’ which has been rescheduled for launch today, WIL has quietly fueled the country’s ambitious space programme.

There is even speculation surrounding the role it will play in the Gaganyaan, India’s first manned space mission in 2022.

However, there would be no WIL without its visionary founder and entrepreneur Walchand Hirachand Doshi, who is known as the ‘father of modern Indian transportation’.

Born on 23 November 1882, in Sholapur, Maharashtra, to a Gujarati Jain businessman, Walchand began his career by joining the family’s banking and cotton trades before setting off on his own to establish WIL in 1908.

Soon after, he made deep forays into the construction business as well, building railway tunnels piercing through the Bhor Ghats for the Mumbai-Pune route and laying down the pipes that would bring water from the Tansa lake in Thane district to Mumbai.

Following the end of World War I in 1919, he purchased the SS Loyalty steamer ship from the Scindias of Gwalior alongside his friends Narottam Morarjee and Kilachand Devchand.

On 5 April 1919, the ship undertook its maiden international voyage from Mumbai to London—a day celebrated in India as National Maritime Day. This unique voyage marked a crucial step for India’s shipping history when sea routes were controlled by the British.

Walchand saw a lot of scope in the shipping business, particularly after the end of World War I. Despite facing stiff competition from British companies and barely surviving as a consequence of the fare wars, he remained steadfast in his desire to make this venture, which he called the Scindia Steam Navigation Company Ltd work.

“The company was recognised as the first Swadeshi shipping company in the true sense of the term and was referred to widely in Mahatma Gandhi’s columns in Young India and Harijan on the Swadeshi movement, the boycott of foreign goods and the non-cooperation movement,” according to this Wikipedia description.

He held the chairman’s position from 1929 to 1950, when he eventually retired on health grounds. However, three years later, the company had captured 21% of Indian coastal traffic.

Walchand had managed to survive and thrive. Subsequently, he would establish Scindia Shipyard (name changed to Hindustan Shipyard Limited after it was nationalised) at Visakhapatnam in 1940, which would go on to construct the first ship in India post-Independence in 1948 called the Jal Usha.

In 1919 Seth Walchand Hirachand With Norattom Morajee Founded Scindia Steam Navigation Company to Challenge Domination of British Navigation Firms

On 5th April 1919 It’s First Ship SS Loyalty Sailed to England Hence 5th April Is Celebrated as India’s National Maritime Day pic.twitter.com/d3XAk3Ou0U

— indianhistorypics (@IndiaHistorypic) November 23, 2018

The wily businessman also started Hindustan Aircraft (now called Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) in Bengaluru the same year, and five years later would establish Premier Automobiles in Mumbai, the first indigenous automobile manufacturing company which produced the legendary Premier Padmini sedans from 1949.

1941 :: India’s First Harlow Trainer Aircraft Manufactured by Hindustan Aircraft Company of Visionary Industrialist Seth Walchand Hirachand pic.twitter.com/ozVsDAhmWT

— indianhistorypics (@IndiaHistorypic) November 22, 2018

Even though he was a businessman engaged in construction and infrastructure building, Walchand was deeply involved with the freedom struggle.

He was one of the early supporters of the Congress, funding its anti-colonial activities like sponsoring the Free Press of India founded in 1927, alongside Annie Besant and MR Jayakar. He also petitioned for the release of Mahatma Gandhi in 1931.

Also Read: Scientists Build Ramanujam Machine In Honour of the Indian Genius. But What Does It Do?

However, due to the nature of the profession, he also had to maintain good relations with British officials and was mostly successful in doing so.

After suffering a stroke in 1950, he retired from his various ventures. He passed away in the town of Siddhpur in Gujarat on 8 April, 1953.

“Every entrepreneur who has braved the odds in his career is an heir to Seth Walchand Hirachand. Known for flexibility and innovative spirit, he was never afraid to take up challenges. His entrepreneurship in shipping, aviation and automobiles earned him the title ‘Father of transportation in India,'” says this India Today profile.

Such was the contribution of Walchand to some of India’s biggest nation building projects that a village in western Maharashtra was named after him. Today, Walchandnagar village is home to WIL, which according to the Economic Times, “has a turnover of Rs 400 crore with around 1,400 employees in Walchandnagar’s population of around 15,000”.

However, it’s former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh, who probably best captured his legacy. “Walchand Hirachand was a dreamer, a visionary, a great builder and a great leader of the industry. Above all, he was a patriot, and in his own way, he was an inspiring leader of our struggle for freedom. I salute his memory. The lesson I draw is that the ultimate spur to growth and development is individual creativity and enterprise.”

(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)

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Most might know this math genius as the father of modern computing and artificial intelligence.

Some others might know him for his contribution during World War II by breaking open the Nazi Enigma code system which was considered to be virtually ‘unsolvable.’ This feat was one of the few contributing factors to the victory of the Allied powers against Adolf Hitler.

A legend, many even remember him in sorrow—a brilliant man shrouded in a tragic tale of persecution and social ostracisation for his sexuality.

From the point where I started to type this story to the point you read, it is all an incarnation of the genius machine created by Alan Turing.

And yet, despite the vast breadth of information now floating about him, we barely know about his past that finds a direct connection to India.

Yes, you read that right.

Turing’s Indian Connect

Like many prominent individuals of the time, Alan was born to parents who spent a large chunk of their lives working in colonial India, in 1912. His father, Julius Turing was an Indian Civil Service (ICS) officer posted in Chatrapur, a town under the Madras Presidency, and now, in present-day Odisha.

Fluent in Tamil and Telugu, the British ICS officer had worked in various remote areas like Anantpur, Srikakulam and Kurnool, and was finally promoted as the secretary in-charge of Agriculture and Commerce in 1921.

However, Julius was not the only or the first Turing to reach the Indian shores. Instead, before him, since the 1700s, many Turings have lived in India, especially Major John Turing, who fought the Siege of Srirangapatna (1792).

Even his mother, Sarah Turing (Stoney) was born in Podanur, Tamil Nadu and was the daughter of Edward Waller Stoney, the Chief Engineer of the Madras and South Mahratta Railway,

Stoney was the man behind the Tungabhadra Bridge and the ‘Stoney’s Patent Silent Punkah-wheel,’ an ingenious non-creaking punkah or fan designed to ensure better sleep.

Interestingly, she grew up in a house in Coonoor, which is now owned and occupied by Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of the Silicon Valley giant, Infosys.

It was Julius’ work that brought the family to colonial India, where his grandfather had served as the general in the Bengal Army.

Despite this prominent Indian background, Alan hardly lived in India.

Although many biographers argue that he was born in India, most settle that he was born in Maida Vale, London. They believe that his mother Sarah had travelled back to England to deliver him to avoid any social stigma against the ‘country-born.’

As per the plan, Sarah was to bring her son back to India after the delivery but had to leave him with guardians in Sussex due to health complications. This way, Alan never really returned to live with his parents in India, and instead, Julius and Sarah would frequently travel between Hastings in the UK and India.

Alan, meanwhile completed his education in premier institutes in the UK (Cambridge) and the USA (Princeton’s Institute of Advanced Study) and was later recruited as one the code-breakers at Bletchley Park, when the War broke.

When Britain’s pride lost amid prejudice

Alan rose to fame due to his groundbreaking work in ushering modern-day computer science. His paper, ‘On Computable Numbers’ published at the age of 24, in 1936 led to the Colossus computer which was created to break the Enigma code.

Even after the War, Turing continued to work on developing some of the world’s first functioning computers and formed the base for the concept of artificial intelligence. Remnants of his work continue to echo in modern technology from computers to smart devices.

However, despite being the pride of Britain, he was subjected to barbaric treatment by the British government as he was a homosexual, which was an offence at the time. He was arrested in 1952 on the grounds of ‘gross indecency’ and was given two choices as a penalty—imprisonment or chemical castration. He chose the latter.

Also Read: Erased by History, These ‘Tawaifs’ Were Unsung Heroines of India’s Freedom Struggle

Ostracized from the society, Turing was 42 when he breathed his last. He died from cyanide poisoning. With a half-eaten poisoned apple left by his bedside, some investigators it to be a suicide, while others argue it to be much more than that.

“He also knew too much in the sense that he was perceived by the British government in the years after World War II as a security risk because of the quantity of classified information that he had in his possession. And, therefore, he was really hounded by the British police who were concerned that because he was gay, he would—he could be easily blackmailed or seduced into going over to the East,” biographer Davin Leavitt (The Man Who Knew Too Much) says in an interview to NPR.

Turing believes machines think

Turing lies with men

Therefore machines do not think

Yours in distress,

Alan

This syllogism written by Alan in one of his last letters is an immortal remnant of his tumultuous yet interesting past that eventually rolled into an end clouded in mystery.

While biographers and historians continue to sift through it to find the truth, it’s essential that we pause and honour Turing’s life and achievements to remember what a man, what a gift he indeed was to the world!

(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)

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As the nation approaches its 73rd Independence Day, we bring you stories of #ForgottenHeroes of #IndianIndependence that were lost among the pages of history.

Through the course of India’s freedom struggle, women have played a critical role. Without the efforts and sacrifices of freedom fighters like Aruna Asaf Ali, Lakshmi Sahgal, Sucheta Kripalani, Tara Rani Srivastava, and Kanaklata Barua, among thousands of others, India would not have had its tryst with destiny.

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Aside from driving radical reforms against social evils like gender inequality, like the men, they also marched on the streets, took bullets and beatings at the hands of colonial authorities, suffered brutal imprisonment and sacrificed their lives for a greater cause.

Women’s entry into male dominated spaces dispelled British stereotypes about Indian women as subordinate, weak, and docile. Women were also aware that by endangering their womanhood on the streets and putting their bodies under risk of attack, they proved that they could share common experiences with their fellow men in the public sphere,” writes Suruchi Thapar-Bjorkert of the London School of Economics in a paper.

A forgotten figure of the freedom movement who wasn’t afraid to mix it up in spheres dominated by men was Gulab Kaur, a woman who left her husband to fight for the country’s independence.

Born in circa 1890 in Bakshiwala village, Sangrur district, Punjab, very little has been documented about her life. However, what we do know is that she was married to a certain Mann Singh, following which, the couple left for the Philippines with the ultimate objective of migrating to the United States of America to escape economic hardships back home.

During their journey, they came across members of the famous Ghadar Party, an Indian revolutionary organisation, primarily founded by Punjabi Sikh immigrants determined to kick the British out of India.

Although some accounts state that the couple intended to return home and fight the British, Mann Singh eventually decided to leave for America. Gulab Kaur, meanwhile, decided to leave her husband to join the Ghadar movement to never look back.

Alongside 50 other Ghadarites, Gulab Kaur sailed for India from the Philippines on the SS Korea, before changing up to the Tosha Maru.

On reaching India, she became an active comrade in places like Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur, and Jalandhar, mobilising masses for armed revolution.

One of the things she did closely was distribute literature linked to the freedom movement, maintaining a tight vigil on their revolutionary printing press.

Besides engaging with anti-British public sentiment, she also distributed arms and ammunition to members of the Ghadar Party, fronting as a journalist, besides encouraging scores of others to join the Ghadar Party.

Unfortunately, the British authorities caught up with her and arrested her under sedition charges. She was imprisoned for two years at Lahore’s Shahi Qila, where she underwent serious abuse and torture. She eventually passed away sometime in 1931.

Also Read: Erased by History, These ‘Tawaifs’ Were Unsung Heroines of India’s Freedom Struggle

There isn’t a lot of scholarship on Gulab Kaur. A Punjabi book titled Gadhar di dhee-Gulab Kaur (Gadar’s Daughter-Gulab Kaur) written by S Kesar Singh exists, but not much beyond that. For the most part, she remains forgotten, but as fellow Indians, we must acknowledge her sacrifice to the cause.

(Edited by Shruti Singhal)

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In 1922 when flash floods swept Northern Bengal rendering millions of people homeless and hungry, a retired Indian chemist, educationist, and philanthropist became a ray of hope for many. Mobilising the Bengal Relief Committee, he collected over 2.5 million rupees in cash and kind and distributed to affected areas bringing relief.

Planning your next trip? Visit the scenic Koraput Valley in Odisha. Know more here

The man in question was none other than the Bengali nationalist who established India’s first research school in chemistry and is regarded as the father of chemical science in India.

August 2, marks his birth anniversary.

This is the story of Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray.

Apart from his many contributions to the field of chemistry including the 107 papers he published, Ray is known for being a visionary whose entrepreneurial and philanthropic spirit touched the lives of many in Bengal.

Born in 1861, in the village of Raruli-Kathipara, Jessore District (now Khulna District) in erstwhile Bengal Presidency of British India (now in present-day Bangladesh), Ray was the third of seven children of Harish Chandra Raychowdhury, a wealthy zamindar, and his wife Bhubanmohini Devi.

Ray began his education in the village school run by his father and moved to Calcutta at the age of ten. Studying in the Hare School, Ray suffered a severe case of dysentery in class four that forced him to return to his ancestral home.

Though disappointed at first, Ray later realised this break was a blessing in disguise. It opened up a world of inspirational biographies, articles on science, history, geography, Bengali literature, and languages such as Greek, Latin, French, and Sanskrit.

In 1876, Ray returned to Calcutta where he studied at the Albert School. Passing the school’s Entrance Examination (matriculation exams) with a first division, he continued his education as an FA (First Arts) student in the Metropolitan Institution (later Vidyasagar College).

A student who focussed more on language and literature, you may wonder what sparked Ray’s interest in chemistry.

His earliest influence in the field came from Alexander Pedler—an inspiring lecturer and experimentalist. One of the earliest research chemists in India, Ray was inspired by Pedler’s physics and chemistry lectures at the Presidency College where he was an external student.

Such was the influence that Ray even set up a miniature chemistry laboratory at a classmate’s lodgings to replicate Pedler’s experiments, one of which resulted in a close shave with death when a faulty apparatus exploded.

After obtaining his FA diploma from the University of Calcutta, he proceeded to the University of Edinburgh, in August 1882 at the age of 21, on a Gilchrist Scholarship where he completed his B.Sc. and D.Sc. degrees.

At a time when research in organic chemistry was making waves, Ray’s interests were conspicuous. He wanted to explore inorganic chemistry and thus delved into understanding the specific nature of structural affinities in double salts and metal double sulfates which was the subject of his thesis. He published several articles recognised across the world on mercurous nitrite and its derivatives.

Ray could have had a comfortable life had he settled abroad and continued to work with premier institutes, but in 1888, he made a conscious choice of returning to India. For close to a year, he worked with his friend, the legendary Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose.

In 1889, Ray was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry in the Presidency College, Kolkata. Here, Ray was instrumental in developing the right scientific attitude and bringing the wonders of chemistry to some of the best minds in the country like Meghnad Saha and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar.

Ray was a visionary and believed that industrialisation was a step toward India’s progress. He set up what came to be known as the first chemical factory or pharma company in India.

In 1901, the humble beginnings of Bengal Chemical & Pharmaceutical Works Ltd were within the four walls of a home Ray had rented at 91 Upper Circular Road, Calcutta.

Set up at a meager capital of Rs 700, Ray started the company to foster a spirit of entrepreneurship among Bengali youth to ensure they need not chase jobs from the foreign rulers.

It created history as the first Indian company of its kind to manufacture quality chemicals, drugs, pharmaceuticals, and home products, employing indigenous technology, skill, and raw materials. Some of these products included fire extinguishers, surgical instruments, talcum powder, toothpaste, glycerin soap, carbolic soap, etc. popular during that period.

When Ray turned 60, he donated, in advance, all his salary for the rest of his service in the University to the development of the Department of Chemistry and the creation of two research fellowships. He represented many Indian universities at international seminars and congresses. He was elected the Indian Science Congress President in 1920.

The company grew under the leadership of Ray and found patrons in eminent personalities such as Dr R G Kar, Dr N R Sarkar, Dr S P Sarbadhikari, Dr Amulya Charan Bose and created employment opportunities for Bengali youth.

Ray who remained a bachelor throughout, eventually retired as a professor emeritus in 1936 aged 75. He died on 16 June 1944 at the age of 82.

In 2011, the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) honoured Ray with the first-ever Chemical Landmark Plaque outside Europe. “This is just a small selection of his achievements and I am delighted to announce this award — our first outside Europe to such an eminent scientist,” said RSC’s chief Robert Parker as quoted by The Times of India.

Also Read: Sun-Powered ATMs to India’s 1st Floating Solar Plant: Meet Kolkata’s ‘Solar Man’

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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As the nation approaches its 73rd Independence Day, we bring you stories of #ForgottenHeroes of #IndianIndependence that were lost among the pages of history.

Pandurang Mahadev Bapat, popularly known as ‘Senapati Bapat,’ remains a fascinating figure of the Indian Independence movement whose revolutionary zeal was not only informed by Hinduism, Bolshevism and Gandhian philosophy, but also a profoundly independent streak.

Bapat was called ‘senapati’ or ‘commander’ for his leadership during the Mulshi satyagraha in 1921 leading to what social scientist Ghanshyam Shah called the “first recorded organised struggle against the [forced] displacement” of farmers.

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Back then, the Tata Company, backed by the colonial administration, sought to construct a dam.

Born on 12 November 1980, Bapat was raised in a lower-middle-class Chitwpawan Brahmin family in the Parner town of Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra.

Enrolling in the Deccan College in Pune was a turning point in his life because this is where he came across Damodar Balwant Bhide, a member of the revolutionary Chapekar Club, and Professor Francis William Bain, a Britisher who harboured Indian nationalist feelings amongst his fellow students.

There were events like the atrocities committed by the British administrators during the plague in Pune, the assassination of British official Charles Rand and politicisation of festivals like the Shiva Jayanti and Ganesh Chaturthi to further nationalist sentiments also played a critical role in shaping his politics.

In 1904, after passing out of college, he earned a scholarship and left for England to study at Heriot-Watt College in Edinburgh.

Among other works, it was Dadabhai Naoroji’s treatise ‘Poverty in India’, which helped him understand the exploitative nature of British rule on the Indian economy. It was here when he developed links with prominent British socialists of the time and met several Russian revolutionaries who introduced him to Bolshevism.

However, his public speeches against British rule in India, which were deeply critical and provocative, and his association with the India House in London, a hub for anti-colonial political activism, resulted in him losing his scholarship in 1907.

Fortunately, Bapat found accommodation here, and that’s where he met with VD Savarkar, on whose advice he went to Paris to acquire the technique of making explosives with his Russian associates.

After learning how to make bombs, he came back to India in 1908 with a ‘bomb-manual’, which was secretly distributed to revolutionaries across the country, and two revolvers.

However, his vision for a coordinated nationwide armed revolt against the British never took off and instead what came of it were individual acts of terrorism which the British crushed rather quickly; the proof of which is the famous Alipore Bomb Trial.

Fearing for his safety following the arrest of revolutionaries who made a failed attempt at assassinating the Mayor of Chandnagar in Bengal, Bapat went underground for a couple of years but was eventually arrested by the police in 1912.

However, he was released in 1915 when the police couldn’t find sufficient evidence to link him to these attacks.

According to historian Richard Cashman, Bapat had become a “seasoned revolutionary” by then, but more importantly switched from agnosticism to a deeper understanding of his Hindu faith, which made the subsequent transition to Gandhian philosophy easier.

Following his release from prison, he joined Bal Gangadhar Tilak in his attempts to strengthen local support in the Poona area for the cause of Indian Independence.

By 1920, he had bought into Gandhi’s vision of ‘swaraj.’ However, it’s the following year, when he really came into prominence, leading the Mulshi satyagraha, the world’s first anti-dam movement.

“At first, the company (Tatas) moved on to the farmers’ lands and dug their test trenches without any legal formality. But Mulshi was very close to Pune (Poona), then the epicentre of the Indian freedom movement. So, when a peasant objected a trench being dug in his field and a British engineer threatened him with a pistol, there were strong protests in Pune,” writes ecologist Madhav Gadgil and historian Ramachandra Guha in ‘Ecology and Equity: The Use and Abuse of Nature in Contemporary India.’

“The ensuring opposition to the damn was led by a young congressman, Senapati Bapat. Bapat and his followers succeeded in halting construction of the dam for a year. The Bombay government then promulgated an ordinance whereby the Tatas could acquire land on payment of compensation. Now the resistance to the dam was split into two factions. Whereas the Brahman landlords of Pune, who owned much of the land in the Mulshi valley, were eager to accept compensations, the tenants and their leader, Senapati Bapat, were totally opposed to the dam project,” they add.

The protest lasted for three years and was for the most part non-violent, but eventually, Bapat was arrested for vandalising the construction project. He turned himself in.

The damn was eventually constructed, but what it did was spur the development of a political philosophy which borrowed ideas like satyagraha from Gandhi, but re-worked it to formulate his version of ‘shuddha satyagraha.’

Despite closely participating in the freedom struggle, he also grew critical of Gandhi and mainstream Congress leaders.

“Shuddha satyagraha neither insists on absolute non-violence nor on absolute-violence. It allows the use of violence when the desired goal proves to be of supreme significance as compared with the value of non-violence in itself,” says this document.

Another facet of his political thought is ‘prana-yadnya‘ (self-killing) as an act of protest like the self-immolations in Tibet against Chinese occupation. Unlike other revolutionaries, he saw the fissures between Hindus and Muslims as a product of colonial rule, and instead of resorting to communalism the answers he believed lay in religious tolerance.

Following his arrest for the Mulshi satyagraha, he remained in prison for nearly seven years and released only in 1931.

He subsequently served a third jail sentence for attending a public gathering organised by Subhash Chandra Bose in Mumbai. The road along which these gatherings were held was later renamed Senapati Bapat Road.

On 15 August 1947, Bapat had the honour of raising the Indian national flag over Pune for the first time.

Also Read: An Ode to Frontier Gandhi, The Man of Peace Who Fought For a United India

Bapat eventually passed away on 28 November 1967 at the age of 87. However, his memory would come alive post freedom in one issue of the Amar Chitra Katha comic book series in 1964. In 1977, the Government of India issued a postage stamp in his honour.

Bapat was a maverick in his own right not beholden to any party or personality.

“Thus his joining of the Hyderabad satyagraha, his acceptance of the Presidentship of the Maharashtra branch of the Forward Bloc (Bose’s party) in 1939, his participation in the liberation movement of Goa and the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement confirmed the same independent spirit of Bapat which he showed from time to time,” says this document.

(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)

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As the nation approaches its 73rd Independence Day, we bring you stories of #ForgottenHeroes of #IndianIndependence that were lost among the pages of history.

“India would have attained Independence long back, if only it had a few stalwarts like him,” once remarked Mahatma Gandhi for the legendary freedom fighter Potti Sriramulu who sacrificed his life for the creation of Andhra Pradesh.

Born on 16 March 1901, in Madras (Chennai), Sriramulu spent his formative years in the city his family had made home after moving from their native Guntur district. After completing his diploma in Sanitary Engineering from the Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute in Bombay (Mumbai), he worked in the Great Indian Peninsular Railway for a salary of Rs 250 per month.

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Despite a relatively comfortable life, Sriramulu was deeply immersed in the freedom struggle, but a series of personal tragedies drove him to leave behind material pursuits. In 1928, his wife died during childbirth, and a few days later, so did his child. Following the passing of his mother, Sriramulu gave up his government job in 1930 to join Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha for which he was imprisoned. He would go onto play an active role in the Quit India Movement in 1942 and was jailed alongside Gandhi.

An ardent follower of Gandhi, Sriramulu took his call to serve India’s villages where most of the country lived and to that end, he joined the Gandhi Ashram set up by Yerneni Subrahmanyam near Komaravolu village in Krishna district.

In a hagiographic study on Sriramulu published by the “Committee for History of Andhra Movement”, this was written on his relationship with Gandhi:

“Sriramulu’s stay at Sabarmati was epoch-making. For here was a seeker full of love and humility, all service and all sacrifice for his fellow-humanity; and here also was a guru, the world-teacher, equally full of affection, truth, ahimsa and kinship with Daridra Narayana or the suffering poor. While at Sabarmati, Sreeramulu … did his tasks with cheer and devotion, and won the affection of the inmates and the approbation of the Kulapati (Gandhi).”

However, Sriramulu was his own man as well. Besides fighting for India’s freedom, he also took up the cause for greater social and economic emancipation of the Dalit community. While other Congressmen were focussed on breaking free from the British, Sriramulu undertook a fast unto death demanding that all temples in the Madras Province be open to the Dalit community. He continued the fast until Gandhi persuaded him to break it.

“His first fast, in March of 1946, had been to demand entry for Dalits into the Sri Venugopala Swamy Temple in Nellore and lasted only ten days. The second, in December of the same year, lasted nineteen days and demanded the opening of all the temples in Nellore to Dalits. The third and fourth, in 1948 and 1949, both demanded the declaration of a monthly ‘day of service’ to benefit the social uplift of Dalits,” writes Lisa Mitchell in ‘Language, Emotion and Politics in India. He did secure entry for Dalits into the Sri Venugopala Swamy Temple.

Following Gandhi’s death, however, Sriramulu took up the cause for a separate state for Telugu-speaking areas. Although the movement for a separate Telugu-speaking state goes way back to the early 1910s, it was on 15 August 1951 when Congressman Swami Sitaram launched a fast-unto-death for the creation of a separate Andhra state. For 35 days, the Central government did nothing until Acharya Vinoba Bhave warned Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru of the potential consequences, if these demands were not met. Both leaders eventually met Sitaram and promised the creation of Andhra Pradesh. Unfortunately, this promise never materialised because Nehru was strongly against the idea of creating states along linguistic lines.

Another figure opposed to the idea was Chief Minister of the erstwhile Madras Province, C Rajagopalachari. Moreover, both leaders clearly stated that if a state was indeed created the city of Madras (Chennai) will never become a part of it.

On 22 May 1952, Nehru told the Parliament: “Personally, I would look upon anything that did not help this process of consolidation as undesirable. Even though the formation of linguistic provinces may be desirable in some cases, this would obviously be the wrong time. When the right time comes, let us have them by all means.”

However, as Professor KV Narayana Rao once wrote, “This attitude of Nehru appeared too vague and evasive to the Andhras. Nobody knew what the right time was and when it would come.” Unsatisfied by the Centre’s response, Sriramulu began his fast-unto-death for a separate Andhra state on 19 October 1952.

For the first six weeks of his fast, both Nehru and Rajaji were unconcerned by the fast. However, the law and order situation began to deteriorate with hartals in many towns and angry mobs destroying public property. Nehru eventually ceded to their demands and wrote to Rajaji on 12 December, asking him to accept the demand for a different state. However, there was a delay in issuing the formal announcement, leaving Sriramulu to fast for a few more days till he tragically passed away on 15 December 1952. He had fasted for an astounding 58 days.

His death caused a furore.

“The news spread like wildfire and created an uproar among the people in far off places like Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Eluru, Guntur, Tenali, Ongole and Nellore. Seven people were killed in police firing in Anakapalle and Vijayawada. The popular agitation continued for three to four days disrupting normal life in Madras and Andhra regions. On 19 December 1952, Nehru agreed to grant statehood to Andhras,” says The Hindu.

After his death, the Telugu-speaking area of Andhra State was carved out of Madras State on 1 October 1953 with Kurnool as its capital city. More than three years later, on 1 November 1956, Andhra Pradesh came into existence with Hyderabad as its capital.

Historian Ramachandra Guha best describes Sriramulu’s legacy which, in many ways, shaped modern India: “Sadly, outside Andhra, he is a forgotten figure now. This is a pity, for Sriramulu had a more-than-minor impact on history, as well as geography of our country. For his fast and its aftermath were to spark off a wholesale redrawing of the map of India according to linguistic lines. The Andhras might even claim that Potti Sriramulu was the Mercator of India.”

Also Read: Senapati Bapat, The Unsung Compatriot of Gandhi & Bose Who Forged His Own Path

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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To honour this nation’s Independence Day, we bring you the fascinating stories of #ForgottenHeroes of #IndianIndependence that were lost among the pages of history.

Back in December 2017, the Chief Minister of Odisha had announced the launch of the Rs 7,600 ‘Parbati Giri Mega Lift Irrigation Scheme.’

But, who was Parbati Giri?

Parbati was Gandhian freedom fighter and social reformer, who quit school at the tender age of 11 to battle the British. Following Independence, she took up the path of non-violence and self-reliance and dedicated her life to remarkable social work.

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Born on 19 January 1926, into a family of freedom fighters —her uncle was noted Congress leader Ramachandra Giri—Parbati grew up in Samlaipadar village in the present-day Bargarh district of Odisha.

By the time she was born, the spirit of freedom had found its way into the hinterlands of the state, and she was often witness to many meetings, discussions and debates about the freedom movement.

This naturally piqued her interest, and she dropped out of school. When she was 11, senior Congress leaders at a meeting in Samlaipadar requested her father to permit her to campaign for the Congress against the British, and he agreed.

Travelling to various Ashrams, she learnt traditional handicrafts and the Gandhian philosophy of non-violence and self-reliance, among other valuable lessons.

Soon, she began training villagers across the state not only in spinning and weaving khadi but also raising awareness about the freedom struggle.

Her moment, however, came during the Quit India Movement in 1942, for which she campaigned extensively. Despite enduring multiple detentions by the British India authorities, she was often released because of her status as a minor.

Unwilling to stop her fight against the British, she and a group of boys barged into a courtroom in Bargarh, raising anti-government slogans.

“In another incident, Parbati, along with three boys, barged into the Magistrate’s room in his absence. She occupied the Magistrate’s chair, while one of the boys acted as a peon and the other a lawyer. Parbati ordered her aides to bind the Magistrate in ropes and present him before her. The police arrested her immediately, and the fearless freedom fighter was sentenced to two years of imprisonment,” says this profile in INUTH.

Following Independence, she redirected her entire focus towards extensive social work, starting with an ashram for women and orphans called the Kasturba Gandhi Matruniketan at Nrusinghanath and another home for the destitute called Dr Santra Bal Niketan at Birasingh Gar.

Alongside fellow freedom fighter Ramadevi Choudhury, Parbati went from one village to another offering relief to those suffering from the famine in Koraput in 1951.

Going further, she also worked extensively to eradicate leprosy and improve the conditions of jails in rural Odisha.

There is a reason why, even today, leaders in Odisha call her the ‘Mother Teresa’ of Western Odisha. Her dedication to the cause was best expressed by the rejection of a ticket both for Assembly elections and a Rajya Sabha Seat.

For her, life was all about the upliftment of the poor and destitute, and that’s what she did until she breathed her last on 17 August 1995.

What a remarkable life!

Also Read: Potti Sriramulu: Freedom Fighter Who Sacrificed His Life for Andhra!

(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)

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As the nation approaches its 73rd Independence Day, we bring you stories of #ForgottenHeroes of #IndianIndependence that were lost among the pages of history.

The British had to raise Special Malabar Force trained in guerilla tactics to catch this elusive rebel. The clueless foreigners even attempted to incite or incentivise locals to turn against him and his band of rebels, but nothing pierced the loyalty he incited in them.

Such was the might of Alluri Sitaram Raju, a revolutionary hell-bent on eliminating the British threat.

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A fierce Gandhi follower, he encouraged people to wear khadi and abstain from drinking, the only Gandhian canon he did not follow was non-violence!

Instead Raju adopted guerilla warfare to bring about a full-scale violent rebellion against the colonial police and army. Raju was a non-tribal who led a tribal rebellion against the British in the forest areas of the East Godavari and Visakhapatnam regions of the Madras Presidency in present-day Andhra Pradesh.

He most famously led the Rampa Rebellion (1922-24) against the British for their imposition of the 1882 Madras Forest Act, which restricted the local tribal community, particularly the Koya tribe, access to the forests to practice their traditional podu agricultural system, a form of shifting cultivation using slash and burn methods.

Instead, the British sought to exploit the forest for its wood. Leading raids on police station, collecting stolen arms and ammunition, and killing British police officers, Sitarama soon earned the moniker ‘Manyam Veerudu’ (‘Hero of the Jungle’).

There is a lack of clarity on Raju’s early life, but the growing consensus is that he was born in Pandrangi village in the present-day Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh on 4 July 1897. Reports of the time indicate that he wasn’t a very good student in school, but what we do know is that by the age of 18 he had renounced worldly and materialistic pursuits and became a sannyasi (ascetic).

He roamed the hills and forests of the Godavari Agency (before it was split into East and West Godavari districts), where he developed a reputation of a mystic with messianic powers among the local tribal community looking for a way out of their humiliating existence. Of course, there were myths which he created around himself to bolster his reputation, and riding on his growing status and the anti-colonial sentiment, he began leading the charge.

Initially, Raju was keen on adopting Gandhian methods of non-cooperation, asking members of these hill tribes to boycott colonial courts and seek adjudication of justice in local panchayat courts. Although the larger movement died out in 1922, Raju used the momentum of the Non-Cooperation Movement to spread consciousness about the struggle for freedom and desire for change among the tribal community.

Recruiting more locals and earning the sympathy of villages in the area, he grew from strength to strength killing policemen of the colonial regime at ease. ambushing police parties out to hunt this rebel don. By February 1922, Raju appeared on the surveillance radar of the British colonialists. However, they had no idea what was in store for them. The British couldn’t deal with his guerilla style of fighting since they didn’t know how to navigate the terrain as well.

“The first of such attacks was made on Chintapalli police station in the Visakhapatnam Agency area on August 22, 1922, with over 300 revolutionaries under the leadership of Raju taking part in it. Subsequently, similar attacks were made on the Krishnadevi Peta and Raja Ommangi police stations. They snatched weapons and armoury in all such attacks.

A large contingent of Reserve Police personnel from Visakhapatnam, Rajahmundry, Parvatipuram and Koraput were rushed to these areas led by British officers. Two of the officers – Scot and Heiter were killed in battles with revolutionaries on September 24, 1922, and several others wounded,” writes KV Kurmanath, for the the Press Information Bureau.

Unfortunately, in May 1924 the police trapped him in the forests of Chintapalle. On 7 May 1924, he was tied to a tree in Koyyuru village and shot to death by a firing squad. His tomb currently resides in Krishna Devi Peta village, Visakhapatnam district. As per recent reports, the Centre has given its nod to build a statue of this famed hero of the freedom struggle in the precincts of Parliament. His birthday is celebrated as an annual state festival, and a popular Telugu movie was made on his life.

“Raju won the grudging admiration of the British as a formidable guerrilla tactician. That the Government had to spend over Rs 40 lakhs in those days to defeat the rebellion speaks volumes about the success of the Rampa rebellion,” adds KV Kurmanath.

But how many outside Andhra Pradesh know about him?

Very few, I suppose, and that’s why it’s imperative to correct this wrong and ensure that a larger audience across the country is made aware of this legend.

Also Read: Senapati Bapat, The Unsung Compatriot of Gandhi & Bose Who Forged His Own Path

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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As the nation approaches its 73rd Independence Day, we bring you stories of #ForgottenHeroes of #IndianIndependence that were lost among the pages of history.

Type ‘Rajkumari Gupta’ or ‘Raj Kumari Gupta’ on the internet or social media platforms, and you’ll find the odd tribute article.

A photo? Unlikely.

What about a mention in any standard textbook about the freedom struggle? Forget about it.

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It is only thanks to works like ‘In Search Of Freedom: Journeys Through India and South-East Asia’ by Sagari Chhabra, who for more than 20 years documented the forgotten heroes of our freedom movement that we even know about the Rajkumari Gupta’s contributions.

Another notable work which mentions her contribution to the freedom struggle is ‘Women in the Indian National Movement: Unseen Faces and Unheard Voices, 1930-42’ by Suruchi Thapar-Bjorkert.

Born in 1902 in the Banda Zilla of Kanpur district, Gupta’s father was a grocer. She married Madan Mohan Gupta, an active member of the Congress party at the age of 13. Drawing inspiration from the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi, the couple joined the Independence movement.

However, as the years progressed, she was drawn to the revolutionaries who believed that only an armed struggle against the British would get rid of colonial rule particularly after the Non-Cooperation Movement came to a premature end.

Having established close links with the revolutionaries, particularly Chandrashekhar Azad, she began delivering secret messages and materials to his fellow comrades in the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HRA) without the knowledge of her husband and in-laws.

With time, she found her way into Azad’s inner circle, in Allahabad.

The highlight of her participation in the freedom struggle came with the famous Kakori Conspiracy, where revolutionaries of the HRA robbed a Lucknow-bound train carrying money collected from railway stations en route. This was a robbery organised to obtain funds for the HRA’s armed struggle against the British.

Gupta’s task was to deliver firearms to the revolutionaries, which she carried out with success. In fact, she famously once said, “Hum upar se Gandhivaadi the, neeche se krantivaadi the” (We were Gandhians from above; underneath we were revolutionaries).”

“Raj Kumari, who was given the charge of supplying revolvers to those involved in the Kakori operation, apparently hid the firearms in her undergarment and set out in khadi clothes to deliver them, with her three-year-old son in tow. On being arrested, she was disowned by her husband’s family and thrown out of her marital home,” says this column in The Hindu.

Such was the disdain of her in-laws that an article was published in a local daily Vir Bhagat, which claimed, among other things that the family held no relationship with her. Serving multiple jail terms for her role in the freedom struggle, Gupta played her part.

Evidently, she held no regrets and remained full of pride at her role in the freedom struggle. Speaking to Chhabra, she was once said:

“Humko jo karna tha, kiya” (What I had to do, I did).

Also Read: Potti Sriramulu: Little-Known Freedom Fighter Who Sacrificed His Life for Andhra!

“When I realised that these [sort] of heroic stories had gone unrecorded, it seemed to me to be a moral duty to record them. For this is not only our history but the treasures of India. If nothing is done, there will be a time when people will completely forget about these things,” said Chabbra, in an interview with the Sunday Guardian.

(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)

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