INDIAN HISTORY LEADERS OF NATIONAL MOVEMENT Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866 - 1915) In the 1906 Calcutta session he declared Swaraj for India follow- Political guru of MAHATMA ing the partition of Bengal. GANDHI. He was the leader of moderate He was the author of the monu- group in the Congress Party. mental work Poverty and Un- He played a commendable role British Rule in India. In this in the imperial Legislative book he describes the ‘drain Council of which he was a theory’, i.e. the exploitation of member in 1902. Indian wealth by the British. He founded 'The Servants of India Society' and He organised the Indian Society in England. served as President of the Indian National Con- He was President of the Indian National Congress gress in 1907. three times. Until Mahatma Gandhi appeared, Gopalakrishna He is also known as the Father of Indian Politics Gokhale was the national leader of the freedom and Economics. struggle. He suggested the name ‘Congress’ for the Indian Feroz Shah Mehta (1845 - 1915) National Congress. The word ‘Congress’, which means an assembly of people, was taken from He was chosen the president of Indian National North American history. Congress in 1890. Surendranath Bannerji (1848-1925) His political ideology was, as was the case with most of the Indian leaders of his time, moderate Indian patriot from Bengal, one and was hence not directly opposed to the of the first three candidates to crown’s sovereignty but only demanded more pass the ICS Examination. autonomy for Indians to self-rule. He entered the Indian Civil Serv- ice in 1869 but was dismissed for Badaruddin Tyabji (1844-1906) a minor irregularity. Leader of the Indian National He founded the Indian Associa- Movement. tion in 1876. He was President of He was the first Indian barrister the Indian National Congress twice (1895 and 1902) of the Bombay High Court. and led the anti-partition agitation in 1905. He was the first Muslim to be- come the President of the Na- Aurobindo Ghosh (1872-1950) tional Congress (in 1887). He was a freedom fighter, poet, scholar, yogi and Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917) philosopher. Known as the Grand Old Man of India. Worked towards the cause of India’s freedom, He was a prominent Congress leader and worked and for further evolution of life on earth. for Swaraj in England which was the centre of his The famous Alipore Bomb Case proved to be a political activities. He was associated with Bhikaji turning point in Sri Aurobindo Ghosh’s life. For a Camma. year Aurobindo was an undertrial prisoner in soli- He was the first Indian to be elected to the House tary confinement in the Alipore Central Jail. of Commons from a London constituency (1862). He was an MP in the Parliament of the UK be- He utilized this period of incarceration for an in- tween 1892 and 1895 and the first Asian to be a tense study and practice of the teachings of the British MP. Bhagavad Gita. Deputy Collector Rank File Lala Lajpat Rai (1865-1928) The three leaders, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Dedicated social worker and Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal are known in the his- educationist who joined the In- tory of the Indian freedom movement as Lal, Bal dian National Congress in 1888. and Pal. He supported the extremist lead- Tagore, Rabindranath (1861- ers in the 1907 Congress split 1941) along with Tilak. He started and edited a newspa- Rabindranath Tagore, also known as per Young India, presided over the 1920 Congress Gurudev, is one of our country’s most distinguished and respected men of session and became member of the Indian Legis- letters. lative Assembly in 1923. He was the first Indian and the In 1920 he led the non-cooperation movement in first Asian to have won the Nobel Punjab and was sent to jail. When he visited La- Prize for Literature for his lyric Gitanjali (on No- hore on October 30, 1928 he suffered severe lathi vember 13, 1913). blows in a police attack and later died of his inju- He was a great author and educationist who ries. founded the Shantinikethan (1901) at Bolepur, He is also called Sher-e-Punjab (Punjab Kesari). West Bengal, which later became the Vishwabharati Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856- University. 1920) The British Government knighted him with the ti- Aggressive freedom fighter tle ‘Sir’ which he returned in 1919 in protest against popularly known as Father the Jallianwala Bagh Tragedy. of Indian Unrest. He is also His important books are Bisarjan, Chitra, The called Lokmanya (Loknayak Gardener, Gitanjali, Gora, Hungry Stones, The is Jayaprakash Narayan). Wreck, Lipika and Post Office. His political career began in His famous quotation is: “I am restless, I thirst for 1896 during the famine in the the distant, the far away.” Deccan. Our national anthem, Jana Gana Mana, and the He was the first Indian leader to give the slogan national anthem of Bangladesh 'Amar Sona ‘Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it’. Bangla...." were composed by Tagore. He is the author of Gita Rahasya through which Rash Bihari Bose (1886-1945) he taught the people to fight against oppression He was a revolutionary leader against the British and unrighteousness. Raj in India He started two well-known newspapers Kesari One of the key organisers of the Ghadar con- (Marathi) and Maratta (English) to arouse na- spiracy and later, the Indian National Army. tional sentiments. He was the founder leader of the Home Rule Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988) League in 1916 along with ANNIE BESANT. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was a Bal Gangadhar Tilak belonged to the extremist staunch Congress man and a wing of Congress along with Lala Lajpat Rai and soldier of the Indian freedom Bipin Chandra Pal. The conflict between moder- struggle. ates and extremists led to a split of Congress at His admirers called him Badshah the Surat session of Congress in 1907. Khan, or the King Khan. Congress was later united at Lucknow session in He was also called Frontier Gan- 1917 due to the efforts of Annie Besant and dhi because he organised the Sudhakar Rao. people of the North-West Frontier Province INDIAN HISTORY (NWFP) of undivided India (now merged with He later went to South Africa to help Indians there Pakistan) on Gandhian principles. These people at the request of MAHATMA GANDHI. were called Red Shirts for the colour of the uni- Asaf Ali (1888-1953) forms they wore. After the partition of India in 1947, NWFP was merged into Pakistan but the Indian nationalist leader and freedom fighter. A struggle of Frontier Gandhi did not end with it Minister in the interim Government (1946). He and he continued to fight for the independence was India’s first Ambassador to USA. He also of his people, the Pakhtuns or Pathans worked as the governor of Orissa. (Pakhtoonistan). Azad, Chandrasekhar (1906-31) He was the first foreigner to be awarded the Bharat Chandrasekhar Azad was an In- Ratna (1987), the second being NELSON MANDELA. dian revolutionary who was in- He formed the movement known as Khudai volved in the Non-Cooperation Khidniatgan (Servant of God). Movement and the Assembly Bomb incident, the Delhi Con- Ambedkar, B.R. (1891-1956) spiracy, the Lahore Conspiracy Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was etc. an eminent jurist, social reformer He died fighting a lone battle with the police. and scheduled castes leader. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958) He was born on April 14, 1891 at Nationalist Muslim scholar, President Mhow, Madhya Pradesh, into of the Indian National Congress. the Mahar community, which He founded Al Hilal and Al was an untouchable backward caste. Balagh Urdu weeklies. He was the Chairman of Constitution Drafting He was free India’s first Union Committee and is considered the Architect of the Education Minister. Indian Constitution. He established UGC IIT He was Minister of Law (1946-51) in the Nehru (Kharoaghuo) and many other Cabinet. institutions. He was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna He was posthumously conferred the Bharat Ratna in 1990. (1992). He was the main inspiration behind the inclusion He wrote India Wins Freedom. of special provisions in the Constitution of India for the development of scheduled castes people. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838-94) He attended all the three Round Table Confer- Celebrated Bengali novelist and author of Vande ences in London as a representative of the de- Mataram, the National Song of pressed classes of India. India is from his work Anand He was affectionately called Baba Saheb. Math. He became a staunch Buddhist and converted to He also wrote Kapal Kundla, Buddhism in the last stage of his life. Durgesh Nandini, Chandra Andrews, C.F. (1871-1940) Sekhar, Vish Vriksha. His famous book Kamala Charles Freer Andrews was a Brit- Kanter Daftar highlights the ish missionary and close associ- social evils that prevailed in society of that time. ate of Mahatma Gandhi. He came Vande Mataram was first sung at the 1896 ses- to India in 1904 and devoted him- sion of the Indian National Congress. The Eng- self to India’s freedom struggle. lish translation of Vande Mataram was made by He came to be known as Deena SRI AUROBINDO GOSH. Bandhu. Deputy Collector Rank File Banerjee, W.C. (1844-1906) Cama Bhikaji (1861-1936) W.C. Banerjee was the first Presi- Indian revolutionary leader. dent of the Indian National Con- She was the founder of the Free Indian Society in gress held in 1885 at Bombay. He UK. She was the first to unfurl the flag at Stutt- migrated to England in 1902 and gart (Germany) during Social Congress session worked for the Indian cause.