Today In Indian History (26th February)

320 – Chandragupta I is officially crowned as the first Gupta Emperor on 26 February in 320 AD. 

1966 - Death of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar on 26 February 1966. Popularly known as Veer Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was a great revolutionary and later on a leader of the Hindu Mahasabha. 

Savarkar was born on 28 May 1883 to a Marathi Hindu Chitpavan Brahmin family to Damodar and Radhabai Savarkar in Bhagur in the Nashik district in Maharashtra. He had three other siblings: two brothers, Ganesh and Narayan, and a sister named Mainabai. 

In 1899 he established the first revolutionary society the Mitra Mela (Friends Association), which was named as the Abhinav Bharat Society (New India Society) in 1904. 

In 1906 Savarkar went to England and became a member of the revolutionary group led by Shyamji Krishna Varma. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Revolt of 1857, he wrote a famous book in which he called the Revolt the First war of Indian Independence. In 1907, Savarkar organized the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 in London. 

In London he was a close associate of Madan Lal Dhingra who murdered Curzon Wyllie with a bomb.

In 1910 he was arrested in London, brought to India and tried in the Nashik Conspiracy case. He was sentenced to two consecutive life transportations, which meant fifty years. He spent ten years in the Andaman jail-from 1911 to 1921 and three years in other prisons. After his early release from prison in 1924 he organised a movement of social reforms and also joined the Hindu Mahasabha. He was elected president of the Hindu Mahasabha for five consecutive years, 1937-42.

Veer Savarkar was tried for his role in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi but he was acquitted by the court for lack of evidence.

Born in 1883 in Bhagur village to father Damodarpant and mother Radhabai, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar had two brothers, Ganesh and Narayan, and a sister, Mainabai. 

Today In Indian History (19th February)

1630 - Birth of Shivaji. Founder of the Maratha kingdom in 17th-century, Shivaji was born in the hill-fort of Shivneri near Junnar (in the Pune district of Maharashtra) on February 19, 1630. However, according to one school of thought, he was born in 1627.

1915 - Death of Gopal Krishna Gokhale on 19 February in 1915. Born on 9 May in 1866, Gopal Krishna Gokhale was an Indian freedom fighter and political guru of Mahatma Gandhi. He was the president of the Benares session of Indian National Congress in 1905. In that year he had founded Servants of India Society.

Ridiculing the idea of Swaraj in 1903, Gopal Krishna Gokhale had said "Only mad men outside lunatic asylums could think or talk of independence"

In 1907, the Congress had been divided into two factions in the Surat session. While the moderate faction was headed by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Bal Gangadhar Tilak was the leader of the extremist group.

Gopal Krishna Gokhale was also a mentor to Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Gokhale had described Jinnah as "an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity". Once Jinnah had expressed the desire to become "the Muslim Gokhale".

Today In Indian History (8th January)

1884 -  Death of Keshub Chandra Sen, an Indian philosopher and social reformer, on 8th January, 1884. 

Keshub Chandra Sen became a member of the Brahmo Samaj in 1857.  

The first schism in the Brahmo Samaj raised its head in 1866 when Debendranath Tagore, one of the founding members of the Brahmo movement, and Keshub Chandra Sen parted ways on the issue of integrating elements of Christianity, advocated by the latter. 

On November 11, 1866 Keshub Chandra Sen established his own breakaway "Bharatvarshiya Brahmo Samaj"(Brahmo Samaj of India). The branch led by Tagore came to be called as Adi Brahmo Samaj.

Keshub Chandra Sen wrote articles for a journal named Indian Mirror which was started in 1861. In 1867, he helped Atmaram Pandurang establish the Prarthana Samaj in Bombay. 

Keshav Chandra Sen also established the Indian Reform Association.

Keshub Chandra Sen: A Biography

Born to a respectable family in Calcutta on 19 November 1838, Keshab Chandra Sen was a strong votary of widow remarriage, He had started Bamabodhini Patrika, a journal for women.

Keshab Chandra Sen launched several radical reforms, such as giving up of caste names, advocating inter caste marriage and launched movement against the social vices prevailing at that time like child marriage. These radical reforms resulted in the first schism in the Brahmo Samaj. The original Brahmo Samaj, founded by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, came to be known as Adi Brahmo Samaj and the other, the Brahmo Samaj of India was established by Keshab Chandra Sen in 1866.

In 1870 Keshab Chandra Sen founded the India Reform Association which succeeded in persuading the British Government to enact the Native Marriage Act of 1972 (popularly known as Civil Marriage Act) legalizing the Brahmo marriages and fixing the minimum marriageable age for boys and girls.

It was under the advice of Keshab Chandra Sen that the reformist Dayanand Saraswati began to use Hindi for his writings and teachings.  

Today In Indian History (7th January)

1738 -  Peshwa Bajirao and Nizam of Hyderabad signed a peace treaty on January 7, 1738 following the Maratha triumph at the Battle of Bhopal which was fought on 24 December 1737. 

The Battle of Bhopal took place in Doraha near Bhopal between the Maratha Confederacy and the combined armies of the Mughal chiefs, Nizam-ul-Mulk(Asaf Jah I, first Nizam of Hyderabad), Rajput kingdoms and the Oudh State.

Today In Indian History (4th January)

1316- Death of Alauddin Khilji on 4 January 1316.

1931- Death of Muhammad Ali Jauhar Khan (10 December 1878 – 4 January 1931), one of the founders of All-India Muslim League and a leading figure of the Khilafat Movement.

Muhammad Ali Jauhar was poet and journalist. He had started an English newspaper called “The Comrade”. 

1948- Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, gained independence from Britain on 4 January 1948. 

Today In Indian History (2nd January)

1878- Mannathu Padmanabhan, social reformer and freedom fighter from Kerala, was born on 2nd January 1878 in Perunna, Kottayam district of Kerala. He was the founder of the Nair Service Society (NSS). He participated in the Vaikom (1924–25) and Guruvayoor (1931) temple-entry Satyagrahas and the anti-untouchability movements. 

1954 – India establishes its highest civilian awards, the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan. They were instituted on 2nd January. 

The first recipients of the Bharat Ratna were: C. Rajagopalachari (last Governor-General of India and founded the Swatantra Party),  Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Nobel laureate C. V. Raman. They were honoured in 1954.

The first recipients of the Padma Vibhushan award were Satyendra Nath Bose, Nand Lal Bose, Zakir Husain, Balasaheb Gangadhar Kher, Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, and V. K. Krishna Menon, who were honoured in 1954. 

Today in Indian History (29th December)

 

December 29, 1844

• Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee or Umesh Chandra Banerjee, the first president of Indian National Congress in 1885, is born in Calcutta. He was also the first Indian to fight the election to British Parliament.