Shivaji: Founder of the Great Maratha Empire

One of the most famous figures of Indian history, Shivaji was the founder of the Maratha kingdom. The rise of Marathas is considered to be a revival of Hinduism in the seventeenth century. A brilliant leader, Shivaji was a just ruler and a statesman of consummate craft. He always respected the religion of his adversaries.

Belonging to the Bhonsle clan, Shivaji was born in the hill-fort of Shivneri near Junnar (in the Pune district of Maharashtra) in 1630. According to one school of thought, he was born in 1627. His grandfather Maloji was employed with the Nizam Shahi rulers of Ahmednagar. Shahji, eldest son of Maloji and father of Shivaji, was initially in the service of the Ahmednagar kingdom as a trooper in the army.

Shahji was married to Jijabai, daughter of a noble in the service of Nizam Shahi Kingdom. Jijabai, who was a virtuous lady and had a profound impact on Shivaji, was the daughter of Lakhuji Jadav Rao, who claimed descent from the Yadavas of Devagiri.

Shahji was soon able to earn fame and occupied a place where he could play an important role in the political and military affairs of Nizam Shahi kingdom. He fought against the Mughals in 1336, the year Ahmednagar was annexed to the Mughal Empire by Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor. Shahji then entered the service of the Adil Shahi rulers of the Bijapur kingdom. Shahji moved to his new jagir with his second wife after entrusting his paternal jagir of Poona and the care of his young son Shivaji and his mother Jijabai to an able Brahmana, Dadaji Khonddev who was earlier employed in the service of the Adil Shahi rulers.

Shivaji directed his early military campaign against the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur. He was wise enough not to offend the Mughals now as it would not be a viable proposition to fight on two fronts given his military strength at that time. In 1653 Shivaji captured Kalyan, an important and wealthy Adil Shahi city on the west coast. From 1657 to 1660, Shivaji became successful in plundering several territories belonging to the Bijapur kingdom. This earned the ire of the Adil Shahi ruler. Ali Adil Shah sent in 1659, Afzal Khan, one of the foremost nobles and generals of Adil Shahi, to bring Shivaji back to Bijapur dead or alive. In order to apprehend Shivaji, Afzal Khan proposed a meeting with Shivaji, promising him pardon and grant of territory. In the meeting that ensued Afzal Khan tried to attack Shivaji with a dagger while embracing him. But wily Shivaji was able to kill Afzal with gloves with steel claws (bahgh nakh).

Meanwhile when the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb heard of Shivaji’s depredation, he deputed his maternal uncle Shayista Khan to the Deccan to crush the Maratha. Early in 1660, a joint attack by the Mughals and Adil Shahis was launched against Shivaji, who being a skillful strategist, embarked on a surprise attack at the well-guarded mansion of Shayista Khan in Poona in 1663. In the scuffle Shaista Khan lost his thumb and his son, Abul Fath, was killed. This incident served a body-blow to the Mughal prestige in the Deccan. Aurangzeb recalled Shayista Khan (Shaista Khan) and appointed his own son Shah Alam as Viceroy of the Deccan.

In the following year (1664) Shivaji sacked Surat, the richest port on the west, facing no opposition from the Mughal troops. Thus Shivaji continued to annoy Aurangzeb.

In 1665, Mirza Raja Jai Singh of Amber, Aurangzeb’s Hindu general, and Dilir Khan were entrusted by Aurangzeb with the task of suppressing Shivaji. Jai Singh was able to tactfully put Shivaji in the dock and concluded a treaty with him, known as the treaty of Purandar (1665). Under the terms of the treaty, Shivaji was allowed to retain 12 of his forts, including Raigarh while ceding 23 of his forts to the Mughals.

After the treaty of Purandar, Shivaji visited the Mughal court at Agra. He was humiliated by Aurangzeb there. His great escape from the Mughal court is a famous fact of history.

After returning to the Deccan in 1666 Shivaji for three years shied away from military campaigns and devoted his time reorganizing his internal administration. On the other hand, Shah Alam, the Mughal viceroy in the Deccan, also adopted a conciliatory policy and Aurangzeb granted Shivaji the title of ‘raja’ and his son Shambaji was granted a mansab and jagir in Berar. However, hostilities once again started when Aurangzeb attacked a part of the jagir in Berar. Shivaji sacked Surat for the second time in 1670. He was able to recover almost all the forts ceded to the Mughals.

Shivaji was at his zenith of power and on the 16th June, 1674, he arranged his grand coronation at Raigarh with great pomp and splendour, and assumed the title of Chhatrapati (Lord of the Umbrella, or king of kings). He also introduced a new era of his own, starting from his coronation.

Shivaji died a premature death at the age of fifty-three (or fifty, according to some) on the 14th April, 1680.

Rani Gaidinliu: Revolutionary Woman from Manipur

Described by Jawaharlal Nehru as the Rani of the Nagas, Rani Gaidinliu was a Naga woman revolutionary leader and successor to the political movement launched by the Naga leader Haipou Jadonang (1905-31) to derive away the British from Manipur. She was born in 1915. 
 

After the execution of Jadonang in 1931 by the British, Rani Gaidinliu led a popular rebellion against the British rule at the young age of sixteen. In order to suppress her followers and capture her, the British deployed regular army columns. In 1932, she was arrested by the British government who sentenced her to life imprisonment. She spent fourteen years in different jails of Guwahati, Shillong, Aizawl, Tura and others.

Rani Gaidinliu was finally released from the prison after India’s independence in 1947. She died in 1993.

Rash Behari Ghose: Moderate INC Leader

Born in Khandaghosh village in the Purba Bardhaman district in district of West Bengal in 1845, Rash Behari Ghose was an eminent lawyer, educationist, social worker and philanthropist. His was a brilliant academic career. He proved to be a very successful lawyer.

Rash Behari Ghose was a leading leader of the moderate wing of the Indian National Congress. During the freedom struggle for India there were two divisions in the Indian National Congress (INC)- moderate and extremist. He is said to have called the extremists “irresponsible agitators” and “pestilential demagogues”. He was a believer in the British sense of justice.    

Rash Behari Ghose was elected President of the Indian National Congress at the Surat session of 1907. It was at the Surat session when INC split into two sections: moderate and extremist. He was again elected president of the INC in its subsequent session in 1908.   

Rash Behari Ghose breathed his last on February, 28, 1921.  

The Congress Party which currently rules India at the centre has retained the name Indian National Congress.

Swami Shraddhanand: The great Hindu Reformist

Swami Shraddhanand was a leading member of the famous reform movement Arya Samaj and tried his best to propagate the ideals and teachings of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, who founded the movement in 1875. A nationalist leader from Punjab, he strove hard to reform Hinduism of purging it all later degenerate features that had crept into it. 

A successful lawyer and great educationist, Shraddhanand plunged headlong into the freedom movement. He started a weekly, Satya Dharma Peacharak, from Jalandhar and in 1902 founded the Gurukula at Kangri near Haridwar (now in Uttrakhand and an important place of Hindu pilgrimage). During the anti-Rowlatt Act agitation, he joined the National Movement and was the Chairman of the Reception Committee of the Amritsar session of the Congress in 1919.

Shraddhanand was a liberal social reformer who advocated widow remarriage and female education and opposed child marriage and caste discrimination. He was the president of the Suddhi (re-conversion) Sabha of the Arya Samaj. His conversion programme was not liked by the Muslims. A Muslim fanatic named Abdul Rashid murdered him on 23rd December, 1926. 

 

Sri Narayan Guru: Reformer Saint of Kerala

Born in 1856, Sri Narayan Guru was a great socio – religious reformer, saint, seer, poet and philosopher of the southern state of Kerala. Belonging to a lower caste, he fight against the Brahmin domination was relentless. His contribution to the spread of education in Kerala was immense. He stressed the need of education and for freedom. According to him, the essence of all religions is one and same, and exhorted the people to study all religions.

Aravipuram Movement
In 1888 an important event took place in the life of Narayan Guru when he installed a Shiva idol at Aravipuram (consecration) located in the district of Thiruvananthapuram.  This event known as the Aravipuram pratistha is celebrated on Shivaratri Day every year. The consecration of Shiva by Narayan Guru assumes historical significance in Hinduism because it was done by a person who himself was forbidden from entering the shrine due to his being a lower caste.

Revered by millions of people, Sri Narayan Guru instructed to inscribe the following words on the wall of the temple:

“Devoid of dividing walls of caste, of race, or hatred of rival faiths, we all live here in brotherhood”.  

Charles Freer Andrews: A Biography

An English missionary and social reformer, Charles Andrews Freer (also known as C. F. Andrews) had a fascination for everything Indian. Born in 1871 in England, He taught at St. Stephens College in Delhi. A close confidante of Mahatma Gandhi, he maintained close association with Gopal Krishna Gokhle, Rabindranath Tagore, and other Indian freedom fighters. He spent time with Gandhi at the Phoenix ashram in South Africa and worked hard to improve the lot of Indians living in African countries, West Indies, Fiji, etc.

A veteran trade union activist, Charles Freer Andrews was president of the Trade Union Congress two times (1925 and 1927). He also actively participated in the movements for the eradication of untouchability. Andrews took active participation in the famous Vaikom Satyagraha in 1925. Vaikom Satyagraha was a movement in Travancore in Kerala against removal of deep-rooted malaise of untouchability in Hindu society. Working closely with Dr.B R Ambedkar he formulated the Dalit (Harijan) demands in 1933. His love for the poor earned the title of Dinabandhu from Mahatma Gandhi.

Charles Freer Andrews died in Calcutta in 1940. 

A Selection of Famous Quotes on India

There is no doubt that world’s debt to India is immense. Many good things have been said, rightly so, about this country by scholars, scientists and great men of the world. Below are some of the famous quotes on India.

"India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grandmother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only."

-       Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain. American Author

"India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all".

-       Will Durant, American writer and historian

We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.

-       Albert Einstein, American scientist

If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India.

-       Max Mueller, German scholar:

If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India.

-       Romain Rolland, French scholar.  

India - The land of Vedas, the remarkable works contain not only religious ideas for a perfect life, but also facts which science has proved true. Electricity, radium, electronics, airship, all were known to the seers who founded the Vedas.

- Wheeler Wilcox, American Poet

India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.

-       Hu Shih, former Ambassador of China to the US.