Savarkar

by Vikram Sampath

  But beyond the patient petitions and representations of the liberal reformers and the grandiose and extremist nationalists, a quiet third category of political thought also grew. This latter group was aligned to the concept of violent armed rebellion to overthrow British power. They had their roots in the suppressed armed struggle of 1857 and strongly believed that an uprising in the British Indian Army was the only way to liberate the country. One of the fathers of Indian armed revolution who exploded on the political scene in Maharashtra during this time was Wasudev Balwant Phadke (1845–83). A Chitpawan Brahmin like Ranade, Gokhale and Tilak, W.B. Phadke had secured enough English education to get himself a government job. Starting off as a clerk in the audit office at the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, he was soon promoted to the military finance office under the controller of military accounts and served there for over fifteen years. Being in Poona, he was initially an ardent follower of Ranade and an activist of the Sarvajanik Sabha, propagating swadeshi. From starting the first non-governmental school in Poona in 1874 to organizing youth camps for unity and undertaking relief measures in far-flung famine-struck areas, the spirit of nationalism burnt strongly in Phadke. A masterful orator, his fiery speeches inspired people in Poona to come out in large numbers to listen to his views.

  But the devastating famine of 1876–77, the subsequent inaction of the British dispensation to address this calamity and a pusillanimous response from the Indian nationalists in pushing the government enough on the issue, disillusioned him from the political activities that he had hitherto participated in enthusiastically. The turning point, however, came in the form of a personal trigger with his officer denying him permission to visit his village, Shirdon, when news of his dying mother reached him. Defying the lack of permission, he left for his hometown. But by the time he got there, his mother had sadly passed away. Of what use was his loyalty, service and conscientiousness when he could not meet the person he loved the most during her dying moments?, he wondered. With no effective redressal of his grouse and his immense guilt of letting his mother down, Phadke decided to break ranks and form a secret revolutionary group. A junior member of this secret group, Gangadhar Vishnu Joshi, described the modus operandi of the organization:

  The organization consisted of four groups. The first organized meetings of schoolboys without the knowledge of inquisitive teachers at secret places outside the school. The message of independence was conveyed by the spokesman of the organization at these meetings. The second group took out processions, which went about singing patriotic songs that chiefly included the prayers of saints such as Ramadas and Tukaram. During the later part of the day, the preachers belonging to the third group sang satirical songs describing the pathetic plight of India under alien rule. People often invited these singers to their houses for singing the songs. The fourth group consisted of active members engaged in revolutionary activities. The members of this secret organization had to take an oath of secrecy and to say that ‘I shall respond to the call of my nation, sacrificing everything of mine at the alter of my motherland’. In the desolate thicket beyond the temple of Narsimha in Pune city sixty to seventy youth daily gathered for training in sword exercise given by Wasudev. They included students, teachers, government servants and public workers. Wasudev’s second wife Bai Saheb Phadke was also a member of this group and even Bal Gangadhar Tilak, then in his teens, is reported to have frequented this secret group. 20

  The members collected arms and ammunitions and to test their capabilities, organized mock battles on the hill near Fergusson College in Poona. Shivaji Maharaj was their eternal inspiration, both in his vision of a free nation and the guerrilla tactics of attacking the enemy. Phadke soon organized several backward communities—the Ramoshees, Kolis, and Dhangars—in Maharashtra, committing several political robberies to collect money for his mission. The targets were always the rich merchants or banias, although women would be spared. In May 1879, Phadke undertook the Konkan expedition, looting Nere, Chikhli and Palaspe, and the booty was more than Rs 150,000. But while returning from Konkan, Major Daniel caught the revolutionaries in the Tulshi Valley of the Mawal province and confiscated the loot after a tough fight. Daulatrao Naik, the leader of the troop, had to sacrifice his life. Notices of bounty were put up for Phadke by the British government in various places.

  In retaliation, Phadke audaciously announced a double bounty on anyone who brought the heads of Bombay governor Sir Richard Temple, Poona’s collector and the session judge. He signed this declaration in his own name with the self-styled honorific: ‘The new Pradhan of the Peshwa’. He also declared that this act of his would lead to a rebellion across India and a massive repeat of the 1857 uprising. This declaration was stuck on all the major walls and buildings in Poona. At the same time, on the night of 13 May 1879, his revolutionary associates set fire to two big European bungalows—the Vishrambagh Wada and Budhwar Wada—in Poona, burning government documents. 21 These incidents found its echoes in London as it was quoted in the British Parliament. Going into a tizzy, the press there reacted in horror, even calling for the imposition of martial law in Poona. The Daily Telegraph , Morning Post , The Times , Bombay Gazette and several newspapers castigated the government for living in a world of make-believe while discontent simmered underneath. The Bombay Gazette noted with deep concern:

  The rumours that have been flying about Western India for the past few months have now received ample confirmation. The rumours ascribe to certain members an ambition on their part to renew in Western India those tactics by which Shivaji in days gone by succeeded eventually in sapping the power of the then mighty Mughal Empire. A little martial law would do Poona a great deal of good. The Mutiny attained its dangerous proportion mainly because we ignored it at the beginning. There should be no mistake of that sort in Poona now. 22

  Sir Richard Temple also outlined in detail these activities of Phadke in his letter dated 3 July 1879 to Viceroy Lord Lytton. That someone from their own governmental ranks could be so embittered to organize an armed rebellion against them rattled the British government in India. It also blew in the face of British claims back in London that things were fine in India after the Queen’s Proclamation of 1858 and the subsequent ‘reforms’ in governance that they claimed to have brought about. Phadke was a living embodiment of their failures and he had to be curbed at any cost.

  However, the Ramoshees decided to part ways with Phadke soon after. In the few pages of his extant diary, Phadke writes about them in utter frustration:

  Seeing what had occurred in the last ten days, I began to consider what all this would end in, and how I could accomplish anything with such people (Ramoshees) who on committing a dacoity first of all rob and make away with the booty and then bully for their share of the division, after which they are anxious to return to their homes at once. Under such circumstances how can two hundred men be collected? . . . If I had two hundred men I would have looted the Khed treasury and got much money as at this time the revenue was being collected and had I got more money I could have got the assistance of 500 horses. Through poverty no one possesses horses. If I had got horsemen they would have been good men, not deceitful like Ramoshees . . . they (Ramoshees) fear to go before guns and have great avarice of money. 23

  But not one to give up easily, Phadke sent his emissaries to the Lingayat adventurers, the Rampa rebels in the Godavari district, and to all the native states in the south. He sent his trusted accomplice, Bhaskar Jyotishi, to Benares on a secret mission and sought reinforcements from Maulvi Muhammad Saheb of Hyderabad who was the leader of the Arabs, Rohillas and Sikhs in the service of the Nizam of Hyderabad. He summoned his colleagues in different parts of India to rally around his banner, envisioning a simultaneous rising all over India. His vision was to stop mails, cut off railway and telegraph lines, break open jails and get the convicts on to the revolutionary side. In his own words:

  Having obtained Rs 5000/- from a Savkar, I proposed to send to all sides three or four men a mon
th in advance, so that small gangs might be raised by them and from which great fear would come to the English. The mails would be stopped and the railways and telegraph interrupted, so that no information could go from one place to another. Then the jails would be opened and all the long sentenced prisoners would join me because if the English government remained they would not get off. If I obtained 200 men, even should I not be able to loot the treasury, I should carry out my intention of releasing criminals. How many and where the military were would not be known and thus thousands of ignorant people would collect. This would be good and my intentions would be carried out . . . When a child is born it is as a drop of water, when he grows up he can carry out his desires, but only in one year or five can he do it? So also with a ‘BAND’! Even though it may be small, if the foundation is good it shall grow big and conquer this oppressive government. There is much ill feeling among the people (against the British) and if a few make a commencement those who are hungry will join. Many men are inclined to begin and the result would eventually be good. 24

  Contemporary newspapers like the Deccan Star and Bodh Sudhakar were tempted to compare the activities of Wasudev Balwant Phadke with the events of the American War of Independence. The Bodh Sudhakar of 13 December 1879 rues:

  We are certain that those who esteem and applaud Washington will do the same in the case of Wasudev Balwant, but the natives of India have lost all ideas of patriotism and hence there is no one among them to appreciate him. Washington pursued a policy which was perfectly understood by all his countrymen but the plans of Wasudev Balwant were utterly unintelligible to his followers . . . Wasudev Balwant wished to establish a republican government but the accomplishment of this object was no easy matter unless all the people were of the same mind with him. 25

  Things now took an unfortunate turn for Phadke. The British were on the run to capture this nuisance of a ‘brigand’. He was encircled from all sides in Gangapur, near the Sholapur–Karnatak border, and eventually captured, tried and sentenced for life to the fort of Aden. He unsuccessfully tried to escape and finally fasted to death on 17 February 1883.

  Paying rich tributes to him, the editor of the Amrita Bazar Patrika wrote:

  Vasudeo Balwant Phadake possesses many of the traits of those high souled men who are now and then sent in this world for the accomplishment of great purposes . . . The noble feelings of a Washington, a Tale (of Switzerland) and a Garibaldi animated his breast . . . his heart overflowed with love for India. Whatever he had he was willing to offer for his country, even his life. The very idea of establishing a Republic shows the unselfish nature of his mind. He had no intention to establish a Raj of his own . . . forget for a moment that Phadake led bands of dacoits and sought the subversion of British Government and then he stands before you as being as superior to the common herd of humanity as the Himalayas to the Satpura range. 26

  One does not know the exact contours of the ‘republic’ that Phadke wished to establish. But from contemporary reports in newspapers it can be inferred that he was deeply influenced by the concept of the American Republic and wanted to model the new, free India on similar lines. Thus, it was not mere anarchy and dacoity that revolutionaries such as Phadke indulged in. They also had a broad vision of the alternative that they wished to establish after overthrowing British rule by force.

  While Phadke’s rebellion might have been crushed, the spirit of armed rebellion was still alive. It undoubtedly was left leaderless and scattered for a while, but the embers were not extinguished. The belief that arming India and Indians was the only way to snatch freedom from the British began to gain ground. The mobilization and support that Tilak offered this sentiment further aided the belief. By 1894, many secret groups roamed Maharashtra with a renewed hope.

  The other outcome of these explosive events was a growing realization in the minds of the British, albeit in a minority, of the need to engage with Indians and win them over to avoid a repetition of 1857. Allan Octavian Hume (1829–1912) was one such British administrator and policy influencer. As the collector of Etawah, he had seen the horrors of 1857 first-hand. The nightmare of having to paint his skin black and wear a sari and burqa to escape the bloodthirsty revolutionaries looking for British officers in 1857 had a lasting impression on him. He was a critic of Lord Lytton, by the end of whose listless career devastating famines, frontier wars and administrative vagaries produced a potpourri of disenchantment with British rule. After his retirement, around the same time, Hume wanted to do something to ensure that ‘sudden violent outbreak of sporadic crime, murders of obnoxious persons, robbery of bankers and looting of bazaars’ 27 did not coalesce to ‘develop into a National Revolt’ 28 that it had a potential to. He rued that the British government had a ‘studied and invariable disregard, if not actually contempt for the opinions and feelings of our subjects’. 29 He believed in the need for an institutionalized channel of communication between the rulers and the ruled. It was envisaged that several existing civil society organizations across India, such as Ranade’s Sarvajanik Sabha, the Bombay Presidency Association with members like Pherozeshah Mehta, Nana Shunker Sheth, Justice Telang and Badruddin Tyabji, and Surendranath Banerjea’s Indian National Association (INA) in Bengal would merge to create this pan-Indian platform.

  Accordingly, the Indian National Congress took shape and its first session was held in Bombay on 28 December 1885 with seventy-two delegates in attendance. Hume assumed the charge as general secretary and Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee of Calcutta was elected president. The Congress had no intentions of seeking independence from British rule and instead pledged unswerving loyalty to the Crown. It had modest demands—recruitment of Indians in high offices, reduction of taxes, appointment of a few Indians on government advisory bodies and creating a partial entry for Indians into the legal system. The acceptance, even in part, of even some of these ‘demands’ could then be showcased by the British as living up to the aspirations of the Indian people, who on their part would be expected to be ever grateful to this benevolent, participatory regime. As Hume’s biographer Sir William Wedderburn noted:

  There was no cause for fearing political danger from the Congress . . . it is the British Government which has let loose forces which unless wisely guided and controlled must sooner or later involve consequences which are too dangerous to contemplate. And it is to limit and control them and direct them when there is yet time to do so . . . that this Congress movement was designed. 30

  One gets a glimpse of the nature of demands and motivations of the Congress and its early leaders in the words of Dadabhai Naoroji, who elucidated in his presidential address at the Ninth Annual Session of the INC at Lahore on 27 December 1893:

  Our faith in the instinctive love of justice and fair play of the people of the United Kingdom is not misplaced . . . I for one have not the shadow of doubt in dealing with such justice loving and fair minded people as the British. We may rest fully assured that we shall not work in vain. It is this conviction, which has supported me against all difficulties. I have never faltered in my faith in the British character and have always believed that the time will come when the sentiments of the British Nation and our Gracious Sovereign proclaimed to us in our Great Character of the Proclamation of 1858 will be realized. 31

  In these early days of the nationalist struggle for freedom, these pioneering leaders, while not wanting at all either in patriotism or intent, had almost an innocent belief in the fairness and intent of British rule, which was deemed as divinely ordained for the betterment of India. They hoped and believed that such conciliatory tones, reverential petitions and requests would help them achieve a greater participation for Indians in the process of governance.

  ~

  Back in faraway Bhagur, the sheer expanse and the drama surrounding these tumultuous developments across Maharashtra and India captivated young Vinayak who keenly followed all that was happening.

  2

  Painful Transitions

  A fter the tragedy of R
adhabai’s demise, the year 1896 finally brought cheer to the Savarkar family. Babarao turned seventeen and was married to Yashoda, the niece of Nanarao Phadke of Tryambakeshwar. She was two years younger than Vinayak and thus began a lifelong friendship between the two. In her memoirs, she narrates the incident of her first meeting with her favourite brother-in-law, Vinayak. 1

  A day before the wedding, unable to contain his curiosity about his future sister-in-law, Vinayak, along with his younger brother Bal, turned up at the residence of Yashoda’s uncle, advocate Nanarao Phadke. Yashoda was busy with the pre-marriage rituals. Besides, she was suffering from a bout of conjunctivitis. The smart thirteen-year-old Vinayak arrived at their doorstep and with an air of confidence inquired: ‘Is this the Phadke residence? Where is our sister-in-law?’ A bemused group of women asked him who he was and which sister-in-law he was looking for. Vinayak’s gift of the gab and smart replies won their hearts. Yashoda’s mother, Mathura Tai, reminisced that she could not tire seeing Vinayak’s adorable, handsome and delicate frame.

  After the wedding that was held at Tryambakeshwar, when the time came for the Yashoda’s departure, she started crying at the prospect of leaving her maternal home. Her mother tried in vain to console her. Seeing her sob uncontrollably, Vinayak stepped forward and assured her mother that he would take care of nursing her conjunctivitis and give her the proper medication. His innocence about the reason for her tears made everyone, including Yashoda, burst out laughing. On the return journey at night from Tryambakeshwar to Nashik in a bullock cart, Vinayak kept describing the natural beauty of the region to Yashoda who could barely keep her eyes open.