SP leader Maurya questions inclusion of Savarkar biography in U.P. school curriculum

`

SP leader Maurya questions inclusion of Savarkar biography in U.P. school curriculum

Subject : History

Section: Modern India

Context: After the Uttar Pradesh Secondary Education Board decided to incorporate the biography of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, along with 49 other eminent leaders, into the academic curriculum of the State Board, Samajwadi Party (SP) national general secretary Swami Prasad Maurya on Saturday asked the government why it has not included the biographies of Muslim League leaders

V D Savarkar

• V D Savarkar was born on 28th May, 1883 in Bhagur, a village near Nashik in Maharashtra.

Related Organisations and Work:

• Founded a secret society called Abhinav Bharat Society.
• Went to the United Kingdom and was involved with organizations such as India House and the Free India Society.
• Involved in the formation of Hindu Mahasabha.
• He was the president of Hindu Mahasabha from 1937 to 1943.
• Savarkar wrote a book titled ‘The History of the War of Indian Independence’ in which he wrote about the guerilla warfare tricks used in 1857 Sepoy Mutiny.
• He also wrote the book ‘Hindutva: who is hindu?’.

Trial and Sentences:

• Arrested in 1909 on charges of plotting an armed revolt against the Morley-Minto reform (Indian Councils Act 1909).
• Arrested in 1910 for his connections with the revolutionary group India House.
• One of the charges on Savarkar was abetment to murder of Nashik Collector Jackson and the second was waging a conspiracy under Indian penal code 121-A against the King emperor.
• Following the two trials, Savarkar was convicted and sentenced to 50-years imprisonment also known as Kala Pani and transported in 1911 to the Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• He was not considered by the British government as a political prisoner.
• He died on 26th February 1966 due to fasting on his own wish of death.

Abhinav Bharat Society (Young India Society)

• It was a secret society founded by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and his brother Ganesh Damodar Savarkar in 1904.
• Initially founded at Nasik as MitraMela, the society was associated with several revolutionaries and political activists with branches in various parts of India and London.

India House

• It was founded by ShyamjiKishanVerma in 1905 in London.
• It was opened to promote nationalist views among Indian students in London.

Free India Society

• It was a political organization of Indian students in England, committed to obtaining the independence of India from British rule.
• Initially an intellectual group, it became a revolutionary outfit under its founding leader, Madam BhikajiCama.

Hindu Mahasabha

• It was a political party formed in 1933.
• It was founded by Veer Damodar Savarkar, LalaLajpat Rai, Madan Mohan Malviya.
• The organisation was formed to protect the rights of the Hindu community, after the formation of the All India Muslim League in 1906 and the British India government’s creation of separate Muslim electorate under the Morley-Minto reforms of 1909.
• Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha is one of the oldest organizations of India as it was formed in 1907.
• Eminent leaders extended this Organization in 1915 on All India basis.
• In the 1930s, it emerged as a distinct party under the leadership of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who developed the far-right ideology of Hindutva (Hindu-ness) and became a fierce opponent of the secular nationalism espoused by the Congress.
• During the Second World War, the Mahasabha supported the British war effort and briefly entered coalitions with the Muslim League in provincial and central councils.
• It opposed the Quit India Movement and supported the British.
• The party opposed the 1947 partition of India and sought the establishment of a secular and united state named Hindustan with same rights for citizens without regards to religion
• The Eminent personalities who founded this Organisation and who presided over the All India Sessions held include Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Lal Lajpat Rai, Veer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, etc.

Muslim League

The All-India Muslim League (popularised as the Muslim League) was a political party established in 1906 in British India

The founders of the Muslim League were: Khwaja Salimullah, Vikar-ul-Mulk, Syed Amir Ali, Syed Nabiullah, Khan Bahadur Ghulam and Mustafa Chowdhury.

The first Honorary President of the League was Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah (Aga Khan III).

Objectives

1. To create among Muslims the feelings of loyalty towards British Government and to remove misconception and suspicious.
   2.To Safeguard the political rights of the Muslims and to bring them into the notice of the Government.
   3. To prevent among the Muslims, the rise of prejudicial feelings against the other communities of India.

The first session of all India Muslim league was held at Karachi on 29th December, 1907 and was presided over by Adamji Peer Bhai.

It was being felt from the beginning that the All India Muslim League would not achieve considerable success without winning the British Public opinion to its side. Therefore, Syed Ameer Ali organized the branch of Muslim league at London. The inaugural meeting was held on 6th May 1908, at London Caxton Hall. It was participated by the Muslim and those British people who favoured their view point.

Jinnah:

• Born on 25 December 1876 in Karachi, now in Pakistan, (then part of British-controlled India) , Jinnah was a barrister by occupation at Lincoln’s Inn in London, England.
• Jinnah was the person who successfully structured the dream for an independent Pakistan and became its first leader.
• He is popularly called there as ‘Quaid-I Azam’ or ‘Great Leader’.

Role in Indian politics

• In 1916, he was elected as the president of the Muslim league.
• Jinnah rose to prominence in the Indian National Congress in the first two decades of the 20th century. In these early years of his political career, Jinnah advocated Hindu–Muslim unity, in which Jinnah had also become prominent.
• In 1920, however, Jinnah resigned from the Congress when it agreed to follow a campaign of satyagraha, which he regarded as political anarchy.
• In 1940, in the Lahore Muslim League session, the first official demand for the partition of India and the creation of a Muslim state of ‘Pakistan‘ was called upon
• His continuous efforts and negotiations with the British government resulted in the partition of India and the formation of the state of Pakistan on 14 August 1947.
• Jinnah became the first governor general of Pakistan, but died of tuberculosis on 11 September 1948.

Major Contributions by him:

• Muhammad Ali Jinnah is known to be the first political leader to raise a voice against the Salt Tax.
• He helped in shaping the 1916 Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the All-India Muslim League.
• Jinnah, also, was a key leader in the All-India Home Rule League.
• He even proposed a fourteen-point constitutional reform plan for protecting the political rights of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent.

Events leading to partition

Pakistan Resolution—Lahore (March 1940)

• The Muslim League passed a resolution calling for “grouping of geographically contiguous areas where Muslims are in majority (North-West, East) into independent states in which constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign and adequate safeguards to Muslims where they are in minority

August Offer

• Linlithgow announced the August Offer (August 1940) which proposed, no future constitution to be adopted without the consent of minorities.

1. Rajagopalachari Formula

• C. Rajagopalachari (CR), prepared a formula for Congress-League cooperation in 1944. It was a tacit acceptance of the League’s demand for Pakistan.
• Jinnah wanted the Congress to accept the two-nation theory. He wanted only the Muslims of North-West and North-East to vote in the plebiscite and not the entire population

Wavell plan

• The viceroy, Lord Wavell was permitted to start negotiations with Indian leaders. The League claimed some kind of veto in the council. Wavell announced a breakdown of talks thus giving the League a virtual veto. This strengthened the League’s position

The Cabinet Mission Plan

• The Cabinet Mission Plan was against the creation of Pakistan since grouping was option; one constituent assembly was envisaged; and the League no longer had a veto. Muslim League. The Muslim League believed Pakistan to be implied in compulsory grouping.

Direct action

• The Muslim League on June 6 and the Congress on June 24, 1946 accepted the long-term plan put forward by the Cabinet Mission, July 29, 1946 The League withdrew its acceptance of the long-term plan in response to Nehru’s statement and gave a call for “direct action” from August 16 to achieve Pakistan.
• Government headed by Nehru was sworn in on September 2, 1946 with Nehru continuing to insist on his party’s opposition to the compulsory grouping. Wavell quietly brought the Muslim League into the Interim Government on October 26, 1946. The League was allowed to join without giving up the ‘direct action’.

Indian Independence Act

• Mountbatten Plan, June 3, 1947: The freedom-with-partition formula was coming to be widely accepted well before Mountbatten arrived in India. Mountbatten’s formula was to divide India but retain maximum unity
• The Act provided for the creation of two independent dominions of India and Pakistan with effect from August 15, 1947. As per the provisions of the Indian Independence Act, 1947, Pakistan became independent on August 14 while India got its freedom on August 15, 1947. M.A. Jinnah became the first Governor-General of Pakistan.

Congress and Gandhi stand

• The virtual collapse of the Interim Government also made the notion of Pakistan appear unavoidable.
• Official reference to Pakistan came in March 1947, when CWC resolution stated that Punjab (by implication, Bengal) must be partitioned if the country was divided.
• Gandhi felt helpless because there had been a communalisation of the people. He had no option but to accept partition because the people wanted it

Post-independence riots

• On both sides of the Radcliffe Line, sizable sections of populations became minority (religion-wise)—20 million non-Muslims in Pakistan and 42 million (later reduced to 35 million) Muslims in India.
• In absurd hurry, the British government appointed the Boundary Commission under the chairmanship of Sir Cyril Radcliffe.
• The communal riots had started in August 1946 itself, but with the announcement of partition and independence, the situation became more inflamed, due to Gandhi’s initiatives, no massacres took place in these regions)
• Amidst serious chaos, the British troops started to leave India from August 17, 1947 and the process was completed by February 1948.
• To resolve the problems of refugees and restore communal peace in the two countries, especially in Bengal (East Pakistan as well as West Bengal), the Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru and the Pakistani prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, signed an agreement on April 8, 1950