The Prince

On 13 March 1910, the police arrested a 26 old man in Paris and deported him to Britain. In Britain, he was to be kept under maximum security. The British government had ensured that the arrest was kept under wraps and that neither general public nor the Indian community in London got any winds of it. He was to be sent to Bombay to face charges that were as yet not even known to the British parliament. It would suffice to surmise that the young man was a special prisoner. Why else British authorities prepare a full ship to transport a single prisoner to India?

The ship SS Morea had special guards and a carefully designed cage in which the young man was to be kept chained. British instructions to the special guards were curiously akin to forest guards tasked to transport dangerous carnivores. The ship left the shores of England and in due course called its port on 08 July 1910 at Marseilles in France for replenishment. Sensing that the ship was in port, the young man made a daring escape. He swam ashore in his shackles and ran into a couple of French policemen on patrol. Unfortunately, he did not speak French and the policemen wouldn’t understand English. As he tried to mime his way through, the British guards from the ship arrived and it did not take much of explaining by them to get him back into custody.

Deciding that he was too dangerous to be conveyed by just one ship and his guards, British government dispatched a naval frigate to escort SS Morea to Bombay. Of course, the British authorities took care to stow the young man into a 4’X4’ cage for the reminder of the journey under heavy chains. The ship reached Bombay on 22 July 1910. In the dock, as the ship berthed, soldiers with their rifles and bayonets lined up every feet of the gangway. When the entire dock had been so secured the young man was taken under escort to a police van that carried him on to Yeravada, Pune. Thus the young man arrived to a reception befitting a prince, even though he was in chains.

He was indeed the prince among Indian freedom fighters. A prince whose mere writings sent shudders down the spine of an Empire that had hundred thousand men in arms in India; a prince who invoked a passion among his countrymen for freedom like how the wind stokes a forest fire. Unlike Machiavelli who wrote of how a prince should be, this prince had written how the British had ravaged the country through and after the mutiny of 1857. Of course, he was the first person ever who called 1857 the first war of independence. His book The History of the War of Independence was to become the inspiration for Sardar Bhagat Singh and later to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. This prince spoke of war in open terms and he was no advocate of conciliation in the manner that many others thought of their relations with the Empire.

The prince then, was to be meted with the princeliest among the punishments that British Empire had devised for those who thirsted for freedom with their souls – banishment to Kaalapani, the infamous Circular Jail in Port Blair. The trail against him proceeded in the most expected manner of a farce on legal systems in the world and ended in June 1911. On 04 July 1911, he was transported to Port Blair.

The prince was assigned to the hardest of labors in the jail like chopping wood, manually pulling the oil mill and a score of other menial and physically straining tasks. After ten years of condemnation in Port Blair, he was finally moved back to mainland and lodged in Ratnagiri jail. It took another three years for the prince to be set free in 1924, although on restrictive conditions. The prince, in the new found freedom from chains, actively taught and wrote against the colonial masters advocating resistance. In fact his words on the proposal of partition of India reverberate with solemn truth even today:

“MY PERSONAL VIEW IS THAT WE MUST VIGOROUSLY PROTEST AGAINST THE CREATION OF A MOSLEM STATE INDEPENDENT OF THE CENTRAL INDIAN STATE. WE WILL NOT SIGN WILLINGLY THE DEATH WARRANT OF THE INTEGRITY OF HINDUSTHAN”.

The prince is the only Indian for whom the Empire enacted a separate law that could be used to arrest him in London; he is the only Indian again over whom a case was laid at the Office of International Arbitration in the Hague contesting his arrest and deportation on French soil in Marseilles; a prince for whom two empires, France and Briton, had to stand in the court to justify his arrest and custody; a prince who thereby made his own history – just like a prince.

The name of the prince is Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, more popularly Veer Savarkar.

                                                          

The Story of Bikaner Camel Corps

The Ganga Risala / Bikaner Camel Corps of Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner

The Bikaner Camel Corps was a former army regiment that operated under the Imperial Service Troops of India and took part in the First World War and the Second World War. The Imperial Service Troops of India were the official armed forces of the princely states of India under the British Empire. The unit served along with the British Indian Army, when their service was demanded by the British administration. The British Indian regiment was also a part of the Presidency Armies in British India.

The Bikaner Camel Corps was formed in the year 1889 by Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner state. The unit was initially raised as the Ganga Risala unit after the British authorities in India accepted the offer of the ruler to create an army of around 500 soldiers. The Princely State of Bikaner followed the tradition of utilising armed forces mounted on camels. Later in 1900, Maharaja Ganga Singh led the regiment of Ganga Risala during its participation in the Boxer Rebellion in China. The troops of the armed force later took part in the Somali Uprising in Somaliland from 1902 to 1904; and also fought in Egypt during the First World War. In the year 1915, the unit fought against Turkish forces at the Suez Canal.

In one engagement the Maharaja himself fired many rounds at the enemy, and after their defeat led the Ganga Risala in pursuit. Ganga Singh also fought on the French front and represented India at the Paris Peace Conference after the war. When India's membership in the proposed League of Nations was being denied, on the grounds that it was not a self-governing state, the Bikaner Maharaja successfully stated India's case: "Where it is a question of securing the peace of the world, the important fact must be borne in mind that India represents one fifth of the entire human race." The Bikaner Camel Corps also provided valuable military services during the Second World War in the Middle East. The unit was aided by the Bijay Battery, which was also a camel-mounted unit.

After the country acquired independence from the supremacy of the British Empire in India on 15th August 1947, the nation was segregated into 2 geographical parts by the Partition of India. Thus, the Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan were formed. Accordingly the British Indian Army was also divided amongst the 2 newly formed nations. The Bikaner Camel Corps unit was assigned to the modern Army of independent India.

Later in the year 1951, the regiment was amalgamated with the Jaisalmer camel troops in order to raise the Ganga Jaisalmer Risala. Later it was unit with the Grenadiers and was designated as the 13th battalion. The Ganga Jaisalmer Risala was dismounted in 1974 and underwent conversion into standard infantry. It continues to serve as a regular infantry battalion under the name 13 Grenadiers (Ganga Jaisalmer). Post 1971 the unit has seen action in counter insurgency operations in the states of Punjab and Assam. The Ganga Risala still survives though as a part of the Border Security Force, retaining the name Bikaner Camel Corps. It has to its credit one Kirti Chakra and one Shaurya Chakra among numerous other awards. It is the only camel cavalry operated by present day armed forces.

All for a pinch of salt....

In the early hours of today, 06 June, seventy years before thousands of young men stared at the approaching beachheads in Normandy. The weather had turned foul and their commanders knew that it was too late to turn back. The landings had to proceed as ordered. They also knew that the Germans were prepared to welcome them with murderous fire. The invasion fleet was drawn from eight different navies, comprising 6,939 vessels: 1,213 warships, 4,126 landing craft of various types, 736 ancillary craft, and 864 merchant vessels. There were 195,700 naval personnel involved. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings)

At 0630h, The American Second Army began landing on Omaha beach. The beach was taken, lost and retaken twice during the day with over 9387 American service men giving their lives for it. The history of the world was re-written by the sacrifices of these men. President Obama, paying tributes to these men today at Normandy described the Omaha as "Democracy's Beach", to the cheers and tears of thousands of French and American veterans who had gathered to observe the day. He was right when he said that these men had come to protect the liberty of people whom they had never met. And a grateful France remembers them and honors their graves as its own children's. President Obama also paid glowing tributes to the British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand troops who co-wrote world history on that day.

While the American soldiers in Normandy were writing history with their sacrifice, elsewhere in West Asia, Africa, Germany, Italy and the Far East, two and a half million Indian soldiers had already created history for the British Empire. 87000 Indians gave their life to "protect the liberty of people whom they never knew" - in President Obama's words. India contributed 1200 million Pound Sterling to the British war effort, apart from paying for all the British, Indian, American and other 'foreign' forces stationed on Indian soil to fight the Japanese and to assist the Chinese. The hidden cost to India was even more - take for example 1.8 million tons of wood (mostly saal) from Indian forests that was used by Britain for army purposes all over the world or even the 400 miles of railway tracks taken out with their wooden sleepers for relaying in West Asia and Africa for the British campaign. India which started with just 350 million USD 'debt' to Britain in 1939 had USD 1.92 billion in debt at the end of the war!! History is witness to the truth that the Allied victory would not have been possible but for the huge sacrifices that India made, albeit as a 'slave' of the Empire.

Despite the truly selfless sacrifice of Indians in the war that is being described today as the war for liberty and democracy in Europe, it is sad that not a word has been said about those valiant Sikhs, Gorkhas, Rajputs, Madrasis, Mahrattas and Bengalis who are buried in the sands of time. These men, poor peasant children from humble backgrounds in India, are neither heroes like those Americans in their native land; they were not considered saviors of mankind for they were from a 'colony'; they are forgotten in their own land for they died far away.

But, they were men of a great culture were the code of honor is held above even life. They were the children of great warriors like Ashoka, Akbar, Guru Teg Bahadur, Maharana Pratap Singh, Balaji Baji Rao II, Rani of Jhansi, Tantya Tope, Rani Mangamma, Veera Pandia Katta Bomman, Marudu Brothers, Tipu Sultan, and Birsa Munda - whose very names represent the great martial traditions that India is home to. They gave their life, voluntarily and smiling, for they had had a pinch of salt on which they had taken a pledge for their colonial masters. For that pinch of salt, they broke their culture by going overseas; for that pinch of salt, they fought like fiery devils; for that pinch of salt, they gave their lives.

They continue to be, wherever they are, unheard-unsung-unknown, all for a pinch of salt.