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Dandi march. When India got her freedom he
was made the Home Minister and Deputy
Prime Minister. His greatest contribution was
the reduction of526 princely states to 26. He
was called the Iron Man of India.
Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru
(1875-1949)
Kashmiri Brahmin born on December 3,
187 5 was a brilliant student and topped first
class in B.A, M.A. He did his law and joined
the Bar. Started his practice at the Allahabad
High Court in the company of legal luminaries
like Motilal Nehru and Pandit Sunderlal. At
the age of 46 he was made Law Member of
Lord Reading's Executive Council. But the
exit of Montagu from the India Office and
Gandhiji's imprisonment made him resign his
Membership of the Executive Council. He
joined the National Convention of Annie
Besant which had the support of many parties
except the Congress and was elected its
president in 1923. In 1944 he was called by
Gandhi for consultations in regard to a
compromise solution with Jinnah but warned
that this would ultimately lead to the partition
of India.
Muhammed Ali Jinnah
(1876-1948)
Bom in Karachi, he was sent by his father
to England for training as a barrister. After
returning to India in 1896, Jinnah moved to
Bombay to practise as a lawyer. Through his
integrity, ability and hard work, Jinnah
became one of the best-known lawyers in the
subcontinent. He joined the Indian National
Congress. In 1909 the Bombay Muslim
constituency elected him to the Central
Legislative Council in Delhi. He came in
contact with Gopal Krishna Gokhale who
considered Jinnah to be a potential
ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity. In 1913
he was persuaded by Muhammed Ali to join
the Muslim League. He did this on the
assurance that the aims of the League were
similar to the Congress and that his
membership of the League would not imply
disloyalty to "the larger national cause to
which his life was dedicated." Jinnah
continued to work for Hindu-Muslim
understanding and brought about the Lucknow
Pact between the Congress and the League in
1916 by which the Congress accepted the
principle of separate electorates for the
Muslims. The end of World War I saw the rise
of Gandhi as the leader of the national
movement. In the Provincial elections held in
1937 the Congress swept the polls so far as
the General or predominantly Hindu seats
were concerned. The Muslims wanted to form
coalitions with the Congress but this
demand was rejected by the Congress. Jinnah
declared that the Muslims can expect "neither
fairplay
nor
justice
under
Congress
Government." In 1940 at the Lahore session of
the Muslim League, Jinnah declared that the
Muslim nation must have a separate
independent
state.
He
became
the
unquestioned leader of the Muslim masses,
who hailed him as
Quaid- i-Azam,
the Supreme
Leader. He was reelected president of the
Muslim League year after year, and took part
as the representative of the Muslims in the
negotiations with the Viceroy and British
Government that resulted in partition and the
creation of the independent states of India and
Pakistan in 1947. Jinnah became the first
Governor-General of Pakistan.
Chakravarti Rajagopalachari
(1878-1972)
Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, described by
Gandhi as "the keeper of my conscience" was
bom on December 10,1878 in Thorapalli, a
village in Salem District of Tamil Nadu. He
was the third and youngest son of Chakravarti
Venkataraya also called Chakravarti Iyengar,
and Saligaramma. His father was Munsiff of
Hosur. He joined the Hosur Government
School and at 11, went to the Central College
in Bangalore for higher studies. He joined the
Madras Law College, joined the Salem Bar in
1910 and soon made a mark. As chairman of
the Salem Municipal Council, to which post he
was elected in 1917, he began his lifelong
crusade against the evils of caste and alcohol.
He entered politics as a radical. His hero was
Tilak. He supported Annie Besant at first but
when she moved to a moderate position, C.R.
decided to organise the radicals in the South.
He met Gandhi for the first time in 1919 in
Madras. The following year he gave up his
legal practice. From 1922-1942 Rajaji was a
member of the Congress Working Committee.
The Dandi Salt march in 1930 led by Gandhi
was replicated in the south when Rajaji
organised a march from Tiruchi to
Vedaranyam. As a result of the Salt
Satyagraha at Vedaranyam, Rajaji was sent to
prison for a year. During his first spell as
Chief Minister of Madras in 1937-39 he
enacted laws which opened all the temples to
Harijans and introduced Prohibition in three
districts. His first office in free India was
Governor of West Bengal. In June 1948 he
succeeded Lord Mountbatten as Governor-
General. When differences arose between
Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajaji was
called to Delhi and sworn in as Minister
without portfolio. On Patel's death in
December 1950 he took over as Union Home
Minister. In the first general elections held in
the composite province of Madras in 1952, no
party emerged with a decisive majority.
Nominated to the Legislative Council, Rajaji
su0ceede,d in forming a stable Congress
Ministry/and served as Chief Minister from
1952 to 1954. As Chief Minister, he
reluctantly agreed to the formation of a
separate Andhra Province. He felt that
linguistic provinces would weaken the country
and create problems. The controversy over the
modified scheme of elementary education
which he introduced led to his resignation. He
was past 80 when he formed the Swatantra
Party to counter the "authoritarian tendencies"
creeping into the body politic. At 84 he made
his only trip abroad when, in 1962, he went to
Washington to plead with President Kennedy
for cessation of nuclear explosions. He passed
away on December 25, 1972. Jaya Prakash
Narayan decribed him as a "gadfly to the
Congress rulers who came to look upon this
ardent patriot as a thorn in their side and
branded him a reactionary and spokesman of
the rich, though in truth it was the Congress
that was enjoying the patronage of the rich..."
Mother (Mirra Richards)
(1878- 1973)
She was born in Paris to wealthy parents
Mirra had psychic and spiritual experiences
early in her life. In 1914, she arrived in
Pondicherry with her husband, Paul Richards,
and met Sri Aurobindo, the patriot- poet and
yogi who was in self-exile from British India.
She became a disciple of Sri Aurobindo and
was the main force behind the setting up of the
Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry. While
Aurobindo was the Guruji she became The
Mother to the inmates. She was the inspiration
behind the establishment of the international
city of Auroville, the City of Dawn, which
was inaugurated in February 1968. She died in
her 95th year in November 1973.
Muhammad Ali
(1879- 1930)
He was born in Rampur, a small Muslim
princely state in northern India. Following his
education at Aligarh and Oxford he entered
the civil service of Baroda State. After starting
an independent weekly review,
The Comrade,
Muhammed Ali entered politics. He was one
of the original founders of the Muslim League
and it was through his efforts that the founder
of Pakistan, Muhammed Ali Jinnah, joined the
Muslim League in 1913. Was a leader of the
Khilafat movement after the end of World
War I, organised to protest against the