Har Dayal: The Great Revolutionary

Shubh Paul, E. Jaiwant Paul

Sujets

• Juvenile Nonfiction
• Har Dayal
• Revolutionary
• Ghadar Party
• Independence

Informations

• Publié par: Roli Books
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2003
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788194566144
• Langue: English

Extrait

E. Jaiwant Paul is a man of varied interests, having authored books like: By My Sword and Shield - Weapons of the Indian Warrior; Rani of Jhansi Laksmibai; Baji Rao - The Warrior Peshwa; The Story of Tea; Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan and The Greased Cartridge: The Heroes and Villains of 1857-58 . A hardcore corporate, he initially worked with Hindustan Lever and was later a Director of Brooke Bond, India. Thereafter, he headed the National Mineral Water Company in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. A keen cricketer and tennis player, he now lives in Delhi and serves as a Director of a few companies.
Shubh Paul was at school in Lahore and after Partition moved to Shimla and Chandigarh where her father was a judge of the Punjab High Court. She did her master’s in History from Delhi University. After her marriage, she worked with Mother Teresa and took a keen interest in the West Bengal Council of Women in Calcutta. An enthusiastic trekker, she has trekked with her husband in Kashmir, Kulu Valley and Garhwal. This book is of special interest to her as Har Dayal was her grandfather.
 
OTHER LOTUS TITLES Anil Dharker Icons: Men & Women who Shaped Today’s India Aitzaz Ahsan The Indus Saga: The Making of Pakistan Ajay Mansingh Firaq Gorakhpuri: The Poet of Pain & Ecstasy Alam Srinivas Women of Vision: Nine Business Leaders in Conversation Amarinder Singh The Last Sunset: The Rise & Fall of the Lahore Durbar Aruna Roy The RTI Story: Power to the People Ashis Ray Laid to Rest: The Controversy of Subhas Chandra Bose’s Death Bertil Falk Feroze: The Forgotten Gandhi Harinder Baweja (Ed.) 26/11 Mumbai Attacked Harinder Baweja A Soldier’s Diary: Kargil – The Inside Story Ian H. Magedera Indian Videshinis: European Women in India Kunal Purandare Ramakant Achrekar: A Biography M.J. Akbar Blood Brothers: A Family Saga Maj. Gen. Ian Cardozo Param Vir: Our Heroes in Battle Maj. Gen. Ian Cardozo The Sinking of INS Khukri: What Happened in 1971 Madhu Trehan Tehelka as Metaphor Manish Pachouly The Sheena Bora Case Moin Mir Surat: Fall of a Port, Rise of a Prince, Defeat of the East India Company in the House Of Commons Monisha Rajesh Around India in 80 Trains Noorul Hasan Meena Kumari: The Poet Prateep K. Lahiri A Tide in the Affairs of Men: A Public Servant Remembers Rajika Bhandari The Raj on the Move: Story of the Dak Bungalow Ralph Russell The Famous Ghalib: The Sound of my Moving Pen Rahul Bedi The Last Word: Obituaries of 100 Indian who Led Unusual Lives R.V. Smith Delhi: Unknown Tales of a City Salman Akthar The Book of Emotions Sharmishta Gooptu Bengali Cinema: An Other Nation Shrabani Basu Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan Shahrayar Khan Bhopal Connections: Vignettes of Royal Rule Shantanu Guha Ray Mahi: The Story of India’s Most Successful Captain S. Hussain Zaidi Dongri to Dubai Thomas Weber Going Native: Gandhi’s Relationship with Western Women Thomas Weber Gandhi at First Sight Vaibhav Purandare Sachin Tendulkar: A Definitive Biography Vappala Balachandran A Life in Shadow: The Secret Story of ACN Nambiar – A Forgotten Anti-Colonial Warrior Vir Sanghvi Men of Steel: India’s Business Leaders in Candid Conversation
FORTHCOMING TITLES Jenny Housego A Woven Life
 

 
ROLI BOOKS
This digital edition published in 2020
First published in 2020 by
The Lotus Collection
An Imprint of Roli Books Pvt. Ltd
M-75, Greater Kailash- II Market
New Delhi 110 048
Phone: ++91 (011) 40682000
Email: [e-mail]
Website: www.rolibooks.com
Copyright © E. Jaiwant Paul & Shubh Paul, 2020
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, print reproduction, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Roli Books. Any unauthorized distribution of this e-book may be considered a direct infringement of copyright and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
eISBN: 978-81-945661-4-4
All rights reserved.
This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form or cover other than that in which it is published.
 
Contents
Dedication
Introduction
The Early Years
The Historical and Political Backdrop
Scholar at Oxford
India House: ‘A Sinister Institution’
‘Disassociation’ from Oxford
India Again: The Political Missionaries
Paris and Bande Mataram
Despair and Hope
Shaking Up San Francisco
The Founding of the Ghadar Party
‘Maro Firangee Ko’
Constantinople and Berlin: Mission to Afghanistan
Disillusionment in Germany
Somersault in Sweden
Back to London
A Sudden Ending
Appendix I
Appendix II
Appendix III

 

D EDICATED TO
S HANTI D EVI
DAUGHTER OF
H AR D AYAL
AND TO OUR DAUGHTERS
N ISHA AND V IVEKA

 
Introduction
H e was a handsome man with a chiselled nose, strong chin and a trimmed moustache. He wore steel-rimmed spectacles, but behind them his eyes were sharp and penetrating. A friend once presented him with gold-rimmed glasses, but he put them away, saying they were not for him. He wore rumpled, inexpensive and badly cut clothes. His complexion, for a North Indian, was darkish. He was not tall, just about 5 ft. 7 inches. But he had a strong presence, and people, especially students, were drawn towards him. His laugh was hearty, a trait inherited by his progeny. By far his most outstanding feature was his colossal intellectual power. His prowess in this regard was legendary, and not only was he capable of brilliant and provocative ideas but his memory was encyclopaedic. He mastered fourteen languages including Esperanto!
‘I am a revolutionist first and everything else afterwards,’ Har Dayal once said. It sums up the man. He had one thought, one passion: overthrowing British rule in India. He lived for it and was willing to die for it. He sacrificed everything to this end. He sacrificed his home and his family. He remained in exile for most of his life and never again set eyes on his young wife or ever saw his unborn daughter. He sacrificed a glittering career and his wealth and lived instead in dire poverty, sleeping in garrets on bare floors and going through countless mortifications. Many Governments issued warrants of arrest against him, and he had to fly from place to place and became a man without a country. Death passed by him many a time. His hopes were dashed again and again; a lesser man would have been shattered, but he became stronger and marched on. He was a man possessed. Sadly, after all this, he missed by a few years seeing his country get its independence.
As a nationalist and a revolutionary he was steadfast, but otherwise, he was many different people at different times. He was an anarchist, whose creed was the bomb, yet in later years he was a pacifist. He was an ascetic, who at one time thought of founding a new religion. He was a staunch Hindu, but he never worshipped or bothered with prayers or the scriptures. He cared little what God a man believed in. He rejected the West, and yet for a while, embraced it. He was a scholar whose knowledge was prodigious, he was a man of culture and sensitivity, he was a Marxist, a rationalist, a modernist and a humanist. He was many things, but he was always, at all times, important. He was a paradox. He changed tack at various stages of his life. But his ‘inner spirit’ was steadfast and he never swerved from his one single aim, which was to throw the British out of India so that his motherland could be free. This was the fierce fire that raged within him, unchangeably, steadily. Revolution was the only way, any other way was self-defeating. His personal sacrifices were enormous. The nation owes him a great debt of gratitude, and nothing can dim the flaming magnificence of his patriotism and idealism.
I had heard of Lala Har Dayal as a little boy. My father, when he was a student in the 1920s, like every other student of his time was a great admirer of Har Dayal. He could repeat long excerpts from his speeches, specially the more stirring ones, without any reference to notes. So I grew up in awe of the very name ‘Har Dayal.’
Several years later, I was introduced to a very charming young lady at Scandal Point in Shimla. I was then a student at St. Stephen’s College at Delhi, which incidentally was Har Dayal’s College also. She joined the University at Delhi soon after, and I got to know her rather well. Some time later, I discovered, to my delight, that she was Har Dayal’s granddaughter. A few years later, we were married—not entirely because she was Har Dayal’s granddaughter!
The family, except his brother Kishan Dayal, knew little about Har Dayal. After he had been thrown out of India, he corresponded over several years with his wife and his daughter, whom he had never seen. But all his letters had been left in Lahore when the family was forced to move to Shimla after Partition. For several years after Har Dayal had been exiled from India, the rest of the family was also under surveillance. Their mail and parcels were censored. The British suppressed all revolt with great ferocity, and rebels were shot or hung up on gibbets. Terror stalked all those even connected with revolutionaries, their families and friends. There was no sanctity of life or property. Har Dayal’s family therefore talked little about him, many thoroughly disapproved of him, and therefore he was swept under the carpet.
The literature about our first line of national leaders is vast. The libraries and archives are full of material, books, records and documents about them. There is, however, an unfortunate paucity of material about, what for a better term, can be called our second line of national leaders. Not more than a handful of these pioneer nationalists are remembered. This is particularly true of the extremists, the ones who took r