Saturday, February 6, 2021

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, First Education Minister in India

Born in Mecca (now in Saudi Arabia) in 1888, Abul Kalam Azad was an Islamic theologian and a great scholar of Arabic, Persian and Urdu. He adopted the pen-name of Azad at the age of 16. He published a number of papers such as Al-Nadwah, the Vakil, Al-Hilal (“The Crescent”) and Al-Balagh. 

He was 35 when he was elected President of the INC in its Delhi session in 1923, becoming the youngest to hold that office. He was again elected to the presidentship of Congress in 1940 and continued to hold that position until 1946.

After Indian independence in 1947, he became the Education Minister in Jawahar Lal Nehru’s cabinet. He had written autobiographical narrative, 'India Wins Freedom' which holds more than religion politics was responsible for the partition of the country. 

Azad died in 1958. In 1992, he was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award.


Annie Besant (1847-1933)

A leading member of the Theosophical Society, Annie Besant was an Irish English woman who came to India in 1893 to spread the beliefs of the society which she had joined in 1889.   

In India, Annie Besant settled in Varanasi where she founded the Central Hindu College in 1898. In 1907, she was elected president of the Theosophical Society. In 1914 she started the publication of the Commonweal and New India. These journals soon became her chief vehicle for propagating the beliefs of India’s freedom.

In 1916 Besant established the Indian Home Rule League. She was a leading member of the Indian National Congress of which she was elected president in the Calcutta session in 1917.  She was also the founder of Indian Boy Scouts Association and Indian Woman’s Association.  

Credited with the foundations of several schools and colleges, she had also established the National University at Adyar in 1918. Besant died in 1933.




Badruddin Tyabji: First Muslim President of Indian National Congress

Badruddin Tyabji was the third President of the Indian National Congress (INC) after Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee (1885) and Dadabhai Naoroji (1886). He was the first Muslim president of INC. 

Together with Pherozeshah Mehta and K. T. Telang, he formed the Bombay Presidency Association in 1885. Bombay Presidency Association came into being as a result of the reactionary policies of Lytton, governor-general of India, and dissatisfaction with the Ilbert Bill. 

He died of heart attack in London in 1906.


Friday, February 5, 2021

Dadabhai Naoroji: First Indian MP in British Parliament

Born of priestly Parsi family in 1825 in Bombay, Dadabhai Naoroji took a leading part in founding the Indian National Congress of which he was the president for three times (in 1886, 1893 and 1906). Affectionately called the 'Grand Old Man of India', he was the first Indian to be elected to the British Parliament. He entered the British House of Commons as a member of the Liberal Party in 1892. 

In 1852, Naoroji established Bombay Association, India’s first political association.  In 1867 he helped establish the East India Association which aimed to put across Indian viewpoints across to the British public 

A critic of British economic policy in India, Naoroji is known for his enunciations of the Drain Theory in his long paper, Poverty and Un-British Rule in India.

Dadabhai Naoroji died in 1917 in Mumbai.


Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee, First INC President

A successful lawyer, W C Bonnerjee was born in 1844 in Calcutta and comes lauded as the first president of the Indian National Congress. He was the first Indian to contest election to the British House of Commons. 

He was again elected president of the INC in the Allahabad session in 1892. He was a moderate in politics.

He had defended nationalist leader Surendranath Banerjee in a contempt of court case in the High Court of Calcutta.

W C Bondnerjee died in England in 1906.

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Faruqi Dynasty of Khandesh

                                                                    Fort Asirgarh

Situated in the Tapti valley, Khandesh was a province in the empire of Muhammad bin Tughluq, the second ruler of the Tughlaq dynasty. After the death of his successor Firoz Shah Tughluq (1309 –1388), Malik Raja Faruqi, then governor of Khandesh, declared his independence from Delhi Sultanate and founded the Faruqi (also spelt Farooqui) dynasty of Khandesh Sultanate. 

Malik Raja Faruqi strengthened his position by a matrimonial alliance under which he married his daughter to Hushang Shah, the Malwa ruler. He was succeeded by his son Nasir Khan (reigned 1399-1437) who succeeded in capturing the impregnable fort of Asirgarh from a Hindu chieftain by subterfuge.   

He built a new town which was named Burhanpur after Chishti Sufi saint Burhanuddin Gharib. In 1417, his invasion was repulsed by the Gujarat sultan Ahmad Shah whose suzerainty was acknowledged by him. The Gujarat Sultan, in turn, recognised Nasir’s right to rule over Khandesh.

Nasir’s successors, Adil Khan and Mubarak Khan, accepted suzerainty of Gujarat Sultanate. Adil Khan II (1457-1503) was more enterprising and established his overlordship on the Hindu rulers of the Garha –mandala and Gondwana. The later Faruqi rulers were weaklings. Dynastic rivalries offered the Sultans of Gujarat and Ahmadnagar opportunities to interfere in the affairs of Khandesh sultanate which was ultimately annexed into the Mughal Empire in 1601 during the reign of Akbar.  

 

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Nagarjunakonda: Relics of the Past


                                        Nagarjunakonda|Wikimedia Commons


If you travel 170km southeast of Hyderabad and then take a 45-boat ride over the Nagarjuna Sagar reservoir on the Krishna river, you will discover the island of Nagarjunakonda, littered with the remnants of wonderful Buddhist structures. Located in the state of Andhra Pradesh, Nagarjunakonda was visited by seventh century AD Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang in 640 AD. 

Before the construction of Nagarjuna Sagar Dam in 1960, Nagarjunakonda, which is spread over an area of 144-acre, was the top of a hill. In order to save several Buddhist structures such as stupa, chaitya, viharas that ran the risk of being submerged due to creation of Nagarjuna Sagar dam, they were reassembled on this hill.

One of the Buddhism’s most visited sites, Nagarjunakonda is named after famous Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna, who is credited to have introduced Buddhism to Andhra Pradesh in the 2nd century AD. Tradition has it that it was at Nagarjunakonda or Nagarjuna’s hill where, Nagarjuna, an authority on the Mahayana form of Buddhism, propounded the world famous Buddhist philosophy of Sunyata (the Void). A contemporary of Kanishka, Nagarjuna wrote Madhyamika Karika which forms the basic text of the Madhyamika (Intermediate), one of the two philosophical schools of Mahayana Buddhism, other being Yogacharya.  

Places of interest in Nagarjunakonda

The most striking structure in Nagarjunakonda is the Mahastupa which is said to contain a bone relic the Buddha. In its current shape, the stupa reaches a height of 18 meters and has a diameter of 32.3 meters. It is the most massive structure in Nagarjunakonda.


Today In Indian History (5th January)

1592 - The fifth Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, builder of Taj Mahal, was born on January 5, 1592, in Lahore. He ruled from 1628 to 1658).  1659...