Textbooks and teaching of history in India have a Bollywood quality to them. Characters and regimes are almost always one-dimensional: either good without a blemish or bad without any saving grace.
Reality is seldom so, even for the heroes of the history. Much less for the common people. My friend Rahul in his May 2008 entry ”A Story to Tell” asks :
“How did native tradesmen, civil servants, and those with occupations and social connections vested in the British empire in India feel about the independence movement?”
This set me thinking about my own family’s involvement in independence movement.
Much of what i know about my forefathers is due to my eea (paternal grandmother). She was married to my family in 1939, when she was just twelve years old. I don’t think she got a fair deal from her in-laws. Still she was fiercely proud of the family and tried to instill the same pride in me. Like official historiography, her narrations also had a purpose beyond just my amusement. Objectivity must have suffered in the process but I was too young to doubt, question or filter. Since then i have tried to fill in the gaps, but without a historian’s rigor or a story teller’s imagination. Here is some of it…
I come from a family of petty zamindaars (landlords). A 19th century land record, that i have seen myself, describes pesha: kashtkaari-o-mahajani (occupation: farming and money-lending]. This probably points to the humble origins of my family. But mahajani must have paid rich dividends in time and the family came to acquire zamindari rights over (whole or parts of) 56 villages spread all over the old Muzaffarpur district.
As family’s landholdings increased, so did its involvement in public life. I do not know if it was by design or by sheer coincidence. What i know for sure is that there was a division of labor within the large joint family. My great grandfather had two elder brothers: Reejhan bhaiya and Bijan Bhaiya. The older (Reejhan Shahi) took charge of Zamindari interests. He was a natural: frugal, hardworking, ruthless, manipulative and well versed with the world of court-kechehri . The younger one, Babu Brijnandan Shahi, was man of intellect. He was the first college graduate from my village (1917) and he took active part in Congress politics from a very early age. He attended the first Congress session held in Bihar and was the pre-eminent Congress leader of the area till his untimely death in 1940-41at age of 45 or so.
He seems to be an interesting character from whatever little i have heard of him. He was a khadi wearing Gandhian but he was also one of the first few in the district to own a motor-car. He would often disapprove of Reejhan bhaiya’s typical zamindari machinations and manipulations but would never resist him firmly. In his autobiography and also in Discovery of India, Nehru laments capture of Congress by local elites like my great granduncle, Brijnandan Shahi. Nehru thought that such people associated with Congress to exploit Gandhi’s (and even his own) moral authority and charisma to cement their power over raiyyats. As the most active, popular and in-demand campaigner of his party in elections, he resented the fact that he had to help local leaders who were active in elections but absent in grassroots activities.
Brijnandan Shahi was also a leader in the same mould. My grandfather, who admired him and followed him into politics, once told me that it was his election to Local Board Chairmanship that hollowed our family out financially. Voters were bribed with bicycles–a thousand were distributed at a time when whole villages did not have even one—free food for days, and much else. Our family spent millions (in today’s value) on that election. Millions that were extracted ruthlessly from dirt poor farmers and spent with abandon on election of a representative from Gandhi’s party. Nehru was rightfully resentful of such leaders but even he was helpless. The capture of Congress was complete and over time Congress party became increasingly reliant on the local elite for material and popular support. Nehru may not have liked Brijnandan Shahi but he did borrow his car for campaigning in 1935 assembly elections. Brijnandan Shahi, while taking Nehru to his destination in his car, tried to take a detour through his own constituency under some ruse. Nehru was extremely popular; his one glimpse would have given a big boost to Shahi’s election. The seasoned campaigner in Nehru immediately saw through Shahi’s stratagem and Shahi received a dose of the famous Nehru temperament.
Brijnandan Shahi was the pioneer. Soon, others followed him into active politics. Some of the best and the brightest in the family chose a political career and made the required sacrifices for it. They spun khadi, were rusticated from college, passed up lucrative government job opportunities and even went to jail. Even women in the family were active. They spun khadi and sang freedom songs: Gandhi baba more dulha bane hain, dulhin bani sarkar! Charakhwa chalu rahe. Irwin jee dekho samdhi bane hai kheer khiauni mein maange suraaj, Charakhwa chalu rahe…(This particular song celebrated the roundtable meet and the Gandhi-Irwin pact, 1931). A small new building, called “Congress”, was built specially for this purpose. It still stands in my village. Not much goes on there anymore.
Active participation in Congress and the independence movement was a drain on family finances but it brought recognition and respect way beyond our means and pedigree. Thanks to Gandhi, wearing khadi, boycotting college, attending congress conventions and going to jail had all become signs of being more advanced and more enlightened. My grandma’s family owned more land and was wealthier, yet, she used to tell us, they were in awe of my family because of its involvement in public life.
One more family story to make my point clear. One of my great grand uncles was married in a rich family. When my family reached the bride’s place, they found that everyone on the bride’s side was wearing silk. On this side, only a few people had silken kurtas. Now this could be a source of major embarrassment for Shahis of Baruraj. Groom’s family was becoming increasingly nervous and dispirited when someone came up with a brilliant idea: Let’s give the few available silken kurtas to servants while all the babus, including the groom, proudly wear Khaddar. Khadi not only saved the day for babus of Baruraj but they also managed to make a show of their being modern, educated, conscientious. Now silk was beneath them, a sign of retrogression.
Gandhi made conviction by colonial government a thing of prestige. Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms and later on Government of India Act 1935 brought power and patronage opportunities to public life. Congress compromise policy of taking everyone along allowed families like mine to non-cooperate with one hand while collecting land revenues for His Majesty’s government with the other.
One last family story to end the piece. During Quit India Movement in 1942, people burned down the police station in my village, chased away the government officials and made Reejhan Shahi, the no-nonsense elder brother of Brijnandan Shahi, in-charge. It was an act of treason he readily took part in, even if under popular pressure. But he was not the kind of a man who could be made to do anything against his wish. He must have been carried away by the zeitgeist. Only a short while ago he had collected “loyal to government” flags issued by the collector and showed them to the American Scouts when they passed through my village during the war period.
