Eminent Personalities Of Modern India – Part 2

Eminent Personalities Of Modern India

C.Shankaran Nair

He was the first Indian to be appointed as the Advocate General of Madras and later as an Education Member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council in 1915 where he was responsible for the appointment of the Sadler Commission. He was the President of the Congress session in 1897 and resigned from the Executive Council protesting against the Jallianwalla Bagh Massacre.

C.R Das

One of the foremost Congress leaders who gave his lucrative legal practice to join the Non-Cooperation Movement but when the movement was withdrawn, he advocated council entry and formed the Swaraj Party in 1922. He earned the reputation as an excellent legislator and was elected the Mayor of Calcutta. He was associated with the labour movement and presided over two sessions of the A.I.T.U.C. (All India Trade Union Congress). He was titled Deshabandhu and was the guru of Subhas Chandra Bose, besides inspiring a generation of Bengali youth movement but founded the Swaraj Party after the movement along with C.R. Das advocating council entry. He was appointed by the All parties conference to frame a Constitution for India which came to be known as the Nehru Report.

M.R. Jayakar

One of the famous lawyers who gave up practice to join the Non-Cooperation Movement, he was an advocate of council entry and founded the Liberal Party which fought the 1921 elections. He represented Bombay University in the Bombay Legislative Council and was later the Vice-Chancellor of Pune University. He mediated between the Government and the Congress in 1931 to bring about the Gandhi Irwin Pact…

C. Rajagopalachari

An intellectual and a lawyer from Madras, he joined the Non-Cooperation Movement and opposed council entry in 1922. He was the leader of the Salt Satyagraha in the Madras Presidency and was elected its Premier in 1937 when the Congress won elections there. He was the last Governor-General of India (1948-1950) but resigned from the Congress to form the Swatantra Party.

Tej Bahadur Sapru

A famous Constitutional lawyer, he helped built the Hindu college in Benares and the Benares Hindu University with the help of M.M. Malavya. He helped draft the Nehru Report in 1928 and represented the Liberal Party in the three R.T.Cs held in London.

Moulana Abul Kalam Azad

A Muslim Scholar from Al Azhar, Cairo, he joined the Khilafat movement and later the Congress to which he remained loyal. He became the youngest President of Congress in 1923. In 1912, he started a newspaper called Al Hilal to spread nationalist ideas and authored the book ‘India Wins Freedom’. He was the President of the Congress from 1940 to 1946. He was independent India’s first education minister and was instrumental in setting up the University Grants Commission in 1956.

Sisir Kumar Ghosh

One of the most fearless journalists of the 19th century, he along with Motilal Ghosh founded the Amrit Bazaar Patrika, a famous vernacular newspaper that heavily criticized Lord Lytton’s policies and served as a vehicle of Indian nationalism.

C.F. Andrews

An Englishman belonging to the Society of Quakers, he studied at Cambridge and made India his home. He taught in Delhi and Shantiniketan and wrote a book called ‘The Rise and Growth of Congress in India’. He went to South Africa to help Gandhi and organized an agreement between the latter and General Smuts. He also organized the Indian Scouts and Guides and for his social service in India, he was given the title “Deenabandhu”.

R.C. Dutt

He joined the I.C.S. in 1869 and became a prominent moderate leader and presided over the Congress session at Lucknow in 1899. He published The Economic History of India where he examined the economic record of colonial rule since 1757 in detail and exposed the drain of wealth from India and its economic exploitation.

A.O. Hume

A civil servant of Scottish descent known for his liberal views, he joined the Bengal Civil Service in 1849 and retired as an Indian Civil Service Officer. He was the moving spirit behind the foundation of the Indian National Congress where he brought all the regional associations together on a common platform. He was its General secretary till he left for England in 1894.

William Wedderburn

An English I.C.S. officer, a close friend of Hume and his biographer, he presided over the Indian National Congress session at Bombay in 1889. After his departure from India, he was active in the Brịtish Committee of the Indian National Congress in London.

Lala Lajpat Rài

A firebrand extremist leader from Punjab and an Arya Samaj activist, he inspired a whole generation of youth in Punjab to join the freedom movement. He was the President of Congress in 1920 and then formed the All India Trade Union Congress the same year. But, later he drifted towards communalism and joined the Hindu Maha Sabha arguing for Hindu rights. He died due to a lathi wound while leading an anti-Simon demonstration at Lahore in 1928. He authored two books, Young India and Unhappy India.

Bipin Chandra Pal

A Brahmo Samaj reformer, a prominent extremist leader, author and journalist, he emerged as a national figure when he took the message of Swadeshi to the Madras Presidency and played an important role in organizing workers during the Swadeshi Movement. But he retired from active politics soon after.

Aurobindo Ghosh

A firebrand extremist leader from Bengal, he was unfairly disqualified from the I.C.S. He was a fierce advocate of Swadeshi and Boycott and even provided inspiration to revolutionary terrorists. After the Surat Split in 1907, he escaped from Bengal and retired to Pondicherry to lead a spiritual life.

Aswini Kumar Dutt

A school teacher and an active Swadeshi worker, he established the Swadesh Bandhav Samithi at Barisal in East Bengal as a volunteer organization to mobilize the masses and he succeeded in generating a mass following among the Muslim peasantry of the region. He was deported by the British after the repression.

Rabindranath Tagore

A brilliant artist, he broke the domination of Victorian naturalism over Indian art and sought inspiration from the rich indigenous Mughal, Rajput and Ajanta schools. He was responsible for the cultural regeneration during the Swadeshi Movement.

Nandalal Bose

A disciple of Rabindranath Tagore, he left a major imprint on Indian art and was the first recipient of a scholarship offered by the Indian Society of Oriental Art founded in 1907.

Subramanya Bharati

A revolutionary Tamil poet, he was closely associated with the extremist movement during Swadeshi. Through his poems, he called for national unity, liberty, freedom and equality and inspired the freedom struggle. He also stood for the emancipation of women.;

Barindra Ghosh

Brother of Aurobindo, he started the newspaper Yugantar to propagate Boycott and revolutionary terrorist ideas through the medium of religion. His activities came to an end when he was imprisoned after being tried in the Alipore Conspiracy Case.

Khudiram Bose

A young revolutionary who gave studies to join the Swadeshi movement, after which he became a revolutionary terrorist and threw a bomb along with Prafulla Chaki on Judge Kingsford. He was tried and hanged and remained a popular hero of Bengal.

V.D. Savarkar

A famous revolutionary from Poona, he set up the Abhinav Bharat in 1904 on the lines of Mazzini’s Young Italy. He later went to England on a scholarship but was arrested for his revolutionary activities and sentenced to transportation for life at Andamans. He was released early and he joined the Hindu Maha Sabha and began to preach extreme anti-Muslim communalism.

Check out History of India notes in detail. 

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