POLITICIAN in the MAKING I Curzon's Unprecedented Policy

53 Chapter III POLITICIAN IN THE MAKING i Curzon’s unprecedented policy towards the Princely States and the Princes themselves, had an immediate though inadvertent spinoff effect. For the first time a Viceroy of India was articulating the very problems that the millions of state subjects laboured under. This viceroy, whose aim, though it was not to ensure the loyalty of the states subject to their rulers, but the loyalty of the Native Princes to the Crown of England, had for the first time devised a strong arm method, as it were, to ensure good government in the States. For the first time a dispassionate Viceroy asked for annual administrative reports, made frequent visits to the States that were quite often followed up by severe indictment of the Rulers. While Curzon incited opposition and even the hostility of the Princes, the Foreign and Political Department as well as the political agents were on the reverse side. Curzon’s were the very ideas that formed the coherent basis upon which popular movements in the States were founded. 54 It was in Western Maharashtra that the first stirrings of national consciousness saw their birth. As we liave described earlier, the spread of English education had a profound effect on the nature of responses of the youth in the early years of the twentieth century. The, iT^j)st important factor that enabled Maharashtra a lead over even Bengal ^ a s the mass movement and resurgence during the ^th Century when Namdev, and Tukaram composed hymns, (abhanga), in praise of the Supreme One in Marathi and Dhyaneshwar translated the Gita into Marathi — the language of the masses - so that every man could derive spiritual guidance through it. All of them, Namdev, Tukaram and Dhyaneshwar were not of the upper castes in the rigidly structured Hindu system. That the three got instant acceptance for the next four hundred years proved that the renaissance in Maharashtra had cut across man made barriers. This spiritual and cultural renaissance enabled Maharashtra to "rise phoenix like from the very ashes of its apparent ruin.'" It was Shivaji, a son of the soil, who had converted the as yet abstract, though strongly felt, need for an independent identity, into reality, when he bound his people into a highly motivated, compact fighting force. 55 threw off the yolk of the Adil Shah (in whose army his father Shahji Bhonsle, served as a general), established the Maratha kingdom that was later expanded into an Empire under the stewardship of the Peshwas. Western India had thus a keenly conscious, religious, cultural and political identity. This has been stated time and time and again in the numerous dispatches of the British wherein the educated intelligentsia in Maharashtra, especially the Chitapavan Brahmins were viewed as the unflinching opposers to British rule. Upon this was superimposed English education and young maharashtrians had found a whole new avenue to enhance and sharpening their skills to attain Independence. This was true of the Princely States as much as it was true of the British provinces. The difference was that while the provinces were governed by the tenets of modern government, the rule of law, and freedom of expression within proscribed limits, the States had autocratic despotism that often meted out harsh treatment to dissenters. There was no guarantee of life and property and certainly no freedom of expression. Thus a well defined popular movement in the Indian States was both long in coming and slow in progress, being further hampered by no support from Ihe Indian National Congress and no 56 recognition from the British. Yet as new ideas of liberalism, democracy, accountability blew like a breath of fresh air across the state boundaries, by the first decade of this century the Princely States of Maharashtra seemed ready for a catalyst. And one of the earliest catalysts was Ganesh Raghunath Abhyankar, a lawyer by profession and the subject of the state of Sangli, in Western Maharashtra. The Abhyankars hailed from a little hamlet called Naringre in the Deogad Taluka of the Ratnagiri District, about 120 miles north of Goa. The Abhyankars were Chitpavan Brahmins described by James Grant- Duff in his History of the Marathas as having "sagacity, good manners and intellect." It is known that the Abhyankars owned all the territories north of Goa and this brought them inevitably into conflict with the Ranes who had their stronghold in the village of Sanguelim in Goa. In the village of Naringre stands ’the Samadhi’, the cenotaph of Dinkarrao Abhyankar, the great grandfather of our subject. It was Ganesh Raghunath who formed a trust in the early years of the century, that has since ensured the upkeep and maintenance of the monument. 57 Once the Peshwas had established their defacto control over the Maratha confederacy, there began a gradual inigration of brahmins from Ratnagiri and the Konkan, in general, to Poona. Moreover the Peshwas always found their brides from amongst the Chitpavan families of the Konkan. fwhen the Peshwa created a ring of Chitpavan brahmin states around Kolhapur, where the ’eclipsed’ descendant of Shivaji held court, many more avenues of employment sprang up. Thus it was that about 1760 Haripant Abhyankar, the son of Dinkarrao, decided to shift with his family to Lakshameshawar in the State of Mi raj (one of the Patwardhan states) where he was employed as a revenue official. It was here in Lakshameshwar on the 10th May 1876, coinciding with the Vishaka Shudha Panchami, that Ganesh the first born of Raghunath Hari, grandson of Haripant Abhyankar, saw the light ofjjay. Ganesh Raghunath Abhyankar and his three younger brothers received their early education at the Kannad High School in Lakshameshwar. This knowledge and command of Kannadi was to be put to use in the later years, by Ganesh Raghunath, in his legal practice. When around 1885 Raghunathrao was transferred to Mangalvedha a district in the Sangli State, to take up the post of Mamlatdar,^ he sent his 58 eldest and youngest sons to Sangli, to obtain ’English’ education. Here during his school years he came in contact with Vinayakrao Mainkar who was his classmate, Wamanrao Patwardhan and Krishnaji Pant Khadilkar who were his seniors. These were his lifelong associates. While still at school Abhyankar formed a Social Debating Society where he invited his fellow students to speak and debate any issue of social import that they felt strongly about. He was helped in this venture by Krishnajipant Khadilkar, Yashwantrao Kolhatkar and Wamanrao Patwardhan. It was here that young Ganesh germinated and crystallized his ideas on the plight of the subjects of the Princely States. Soon he was contributing articles to newspapers and magazines in Sangli. It was about 1889 that when he was 13 years of age, that Ganesh was married to a girl from the Gadgil family of Sangli, as was customary for brahmins in those days. In 1889 Janakibai, Ganesh’s widowed mother who, had set up house in Sangli for her sons, after the death of her husband Raghunathrao a few years earlier, succumbed to the dreaded disease during the first Plague Epidemic in Sangli. To add to his misfortunes, soon his wife too succumbed to Plague in 1890, leaving behind an infant daughter 59 Ganga, affectionately called ’Gangutbai’. Undaunted, Ganesh began to give tuitions in English to supplement his family resources and to ensure that he and his brothers continued their studies. Suddenly Ganesh found himself catapulted into the position of ’head of f.unily’ and the responsibility of his three younger brothers and infant Gan^iutbai rested heavily on his young shoulders. To help him keep house the boys asked their widowed grandmother to live with them. In 1892 after completing matriculation, Ganesh decided to shift his family to Poona so that while he could join the newly founded Fergusson College, his brothers could join the New English School. r1 t As we have discussed earlier the reforms in Education and the spread j of English education spearheaded by Monstuart Elphinstone and others had its counter movement that Tilak and Agarkar started in Poona. These were young men who were preoccupied not so much with their own future but ' with the future of India. "They felt the humiliation of foreign rule, I criticized the policies of British officials, and had nothing but scorn for (what seemed to them) the halting and feeble policies of the leaders of the educated classes in India. They felt outraged by the subservience of the 60 titled gentry, the diffidence of the intelligentsia, the passivity of the masses, and the conceit of the Anglo-Indian administrators. They were convinced that India could build a future for herself by the efforts of her own people, and that the initiative for this had to come from the educated classes. The Government had done something for English education; it had opened schools and colleges, but they were too few, and already there were signs that its commitments, particularly for higher education, might be reduced. Moreover, how could Western education be a liberating force in India if it was directed by the officers of an alien government? The obvious solution was to provide Indian enterprise and management in education, to design it solely for Indian needs and interests, and to fill it from the fetters of official control. Tilak and Agarkar persuaded two other young men Bhagwat and Karandikar, to join them in opening a private school in Poona. A high school unaided by the government seemed a risky, almost a quixotic venture. Where was the money to come from?"^ They were fortunate in the support they received from M.G.

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