Feeled pain on Indian condition

On his return home from England, Jawaharlal found India politically dull. The political leaders were divided into extremists and moderates. The extremists at this time were without their leader, Tilak, who was in prison. The Congress, which was the organisation of Indian nationalists, was at this time a moderate group. Jawaharlal was a delegate to the Congress session at Bankipore in 1912. He found it was an upper class affair and was like a social gathering, not a political meeting. It had little to do with the people. Jawaharlal was very disappointed.

Jawaharlal, after attaining the Degree of Barrister

The first world war broke out in August 1914. India had no interest in the war but was brought into it without her consent. According to a report about nine and half lakhs person were recruited, among them 30 thousand died and more than 60 thousand were seriously injured. Seven and half thousand were captured and 5 thousand missing. These figures are enough to touch anybody’s heart. Jawaharlal actually realised how dependent is an slave country. The Indian people helped the British but they also wanted freedom from British rule. Slowly political life grew again. Tilak came out of prison and he and Annie Besant started organisation called Home Rule League.
Jawaharlal wanted to adopt the ways of the people and was gradually drawn into political activities. He was shy of public speaking. It was in 1915 that he made his first public speech in Allahabad, to protest against the Press Act. He spoke briefly and in English. As soon as the meeting was over, Dr. Tej Bahadur Sapru, a leading moderate leader, embraced and kissed him in public.
It was during the Lucknow Congress session in 1916 that Jawaharlal first met Gandhi. Gandhi had became a popular legend. His South African career, during which he had evolved Satyagraha and gave it a name, had cast a shadow across the land and legends had gathered round his life of renunciation and saintly character. Jawaharlal know him well and work with him closely. Jawahar was one of the signatories of the satyagraha vow, formulated by Gandhi. Satyagraha day witnessed hartals, there was firing by the police and the military at Delhi and Amritsar, mob violence in Amritsar and Ahmedabad. The long horror and indignity of martial law in the Punjab where the sturdy people were led by militant nationalists was to shock and convulse the whole of India. Then there was Jallianwala Bagh massacre where General Dyer opened fire indiscriminately and without provocation on unarmed crowd cornered in an enclosed park with an only exit barred by Dyer’s soldiers. After the massacre, Jawaharlal assisted the Congress Inquiry Committee, and visited Amritsar and Punjab to take depositions and collect material for the speeches in the Assembly of his father and Pd. Malviya, a moderate Congress leader, about the actual firing, the atrocities under martial law and the general misbehaviour of tommies. He also helped in relief work.

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