VASUDEV BALWANT PHADKE

Vasudeo Balwant Phadke (1845-11-04–1883-02-17) was an Indian revolutionary and is widely regarded as the "father of the armed struggle" of India's independence. Moved by the plight of the farmer community in Maharastra, Vasudev formed a revolutionary group, known as Ramoshi, which waged a struggle to overthrow the British Raj. Vasudev came into the limelight when he got complete control over the city of Pune for a few days by catching the British soldiers off guard during one of his surprise attacks.

Early years

Vasudev was born on 1845-11-04 in Shirdhon village in Raigad district, Maharashtra. He dropped out of high school and took up several different jobs. Eventually he worked as a clerk with military accounts department in Pune for 15 years. During this period he began attending lectures by Govind Ranade which mainly focused on how the British Raj policies hurt the Indian economy. Vasudev was deeply hurt by how this was leading to widespread suffering in the society. In 1870, he joined a public agitation in Pune that was aimed at addressing people's grievances. Vasudev then founded an institution, the Aikya Vardhini Sabha, to educate the youth.

Revolt with the help of the Ramoshi's

In 1875, after the then Gaikwad ruler of Baroda was deposed by the British, Phadke launched protest speeches against the government. Severe famine coupled with the evident apathy of the British administration propelled him to tour the Deccan region, urging people to strive for a free republic. Unable to get support from the educated classes, he gathered a band of people from the Ramoshi caste. People from the Kolis, Bhils and Dhangars were also included later. He taught himself to shoot, ride and fence. He organised around 300 men into an insurgent group that aimed at liberating India from British rule. Vasudev intended to build an army of own but lacking funds they decided to break into government treasuries. The first raid was done in a village called Dhamari in Shirur taluka in Pune district. The income tax which was collected for British Raj was kept in the house of local business man Mr. Balchand Fojmal Sankla. They attacked the house and took the money for the benefit of famine stricken villagers. There they collected about four hundred rupees but this led to his being branded as a dacoit. To save himself Vasudev had to flee from village to village, sheltered by his sympathisers and well-wishers, mostly the lower class of the society. Impressed by his zeal and determination, the villagers of Nanagaum offered him protection and cover in the local forest. The general plot would be to cut off all the communications of British forces and then raid the treasury. The main purpose of these raids was to feed famine-affected farmer communities. Vasudev performed many such raids in areas near Shirur and Khed talukas in Pune.

Meanwhile, Vasudev continued his raids and increased his follower-base. The monetary situation of the movement improved. But then Vasudev had a realization the people around him were more interested in his loot, or wealth, than in the ideals that he wanted to fight for. Vasudev decided it was time for him to find a new place. He decided to move to south, and headed for Shri Shaila Mallikarjun shrine. After overcoming the moral defeat, Vasudev again recruited about 500 Rohilas to form strong army to start a fresh fight against the British Raj.

Capture and death

Vasudev's plans to organize several simultaneously attacks against the British Raj nation wide were met with very limited success. He once had a direct engagement with the British army in the village of Ghanur, whereafter the government offered a bounty for his capture. Not to be outdone, Phadke in turned offered a bounty for the capture of the Governor of Bombay, announced a reward for the killing of each European, and issued other threats to the government. He then fled to Hyderabad State to recruit Rohilla and Arabs into his organisation. A British Major, Henry William Daniell and Abdul Haque, Police Commissioner to the Nizam of Hyderabad, pursued the fleeing Vasudev day and night. The British move to offer a bounty for his capture met with success: someone betrayed Phadke, and he was captured after a fierce fight at Devar, Navadgi near Hyderabad on 20 July, 1879. From here he was taken to Pune for trial. His own diary provided evidence to have him sentenced for life. Vasudev was transported to jail at Aden, but escaped from the prison by taking the door off from its hinges on 13 February, 1883. But his escape was too short lived: he was recaptured and put back in prison. Vasudev then went on a hunger strike to death. On 17 February, 1883 Vasudev breathed his last breath as a result of his protest hunger strike.

Legacy

Phadke's exploits are sometimes held to have inspired Bankim Chandra Chatterjee to write the patriotic novel Anand Math. In 1984, the Indian Postal Service issued a 50 paise stamp in honour of the revolutionary. A chowk in South Mumbai near Metro Cinema is named in his honour.Saga of Indian Revolutionaries

In the post-1857 period the first man to strike a blow for swaraj was Vasudev Balwant Phadke – a revolutionary. The Indian struggle for independence was dominated first by constitutionalists who believed in petitions and public debates and later by peaceful agitationalists like Tilak and Gandhiji. But, whenever there was a lull in mainstream political activities, the revolutionaries would take over. As the swadeshi movement in protest against the partition of Bengal gradually lost its tempo, the younger activists who had taken part in the agitation, formed revolutionary groups that threw up martyrs like Susheel Sen and Khudiram Bose. After Tilak's deportation to Mandalay in 1908 there was a spurt in revolutionary activities which resulted in the so-called Nasik Conspiracy in India and the assassination of Curzon Wylie in London. An unending series of revolutionary activities in Bengal, Punjab, United Provinces (UP) and Maharashtra led to the appointment of the Rowlatt Committee. The Rowlatt Committee submitted a detailed report on revolutionary activities right from the killing of Rand by the Chaphekar brothers in 1897 to the bomb attack on Viceroy Lord Hardinge in 1912. It was to counteract revolutionary activities that the Rowlatt Committee conceived the two Rowlatt bills which triggered off country-wide protests and culminated in the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh. After Jallianwala Bagh the struggle for freedom grew more defiant and even those who had admiration for the western democratic institutions and methods no longer trusted the British sense of justice and fair play.
Gandhiji's emergence as the undisputed leader of the Indian masses had as its backdrop the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy which was the direct outcome of the agitation launched by Gandhiji against the Rowlatt bills. Thus paradoxically, the revolutionaries and Gandhiji who represented two extremes of the Indian struggle were in a way interconnected, notwithstanding the fact that Gandhiji abhorred violence.
After Jallianwala Bagh, many young men burning with patriotic fervour including Chandrasekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh, joined Gandhiji's non-violent, non-cooperation movement. It was only when Gandhiji abruptly called off the non-cooperation movement in 1922 that some of his followers took the path of violence.
Between 1922 and 1924, Alluri Sitaram Raju led the tribals of the Rampa sub-division, in the Telugu region of South India, in an uprising against the British. On 23 September, 1922 he and his men destroyed an army contingent at Damanapalli Ghat. The British mounted a massive operation to crush the uprising but it took them more than a year to subdue the tribals and capture Raju whom they immediately shot dead.
Go to Next Page