Chachaji

Sharma: When did you come out of the jail?

Chacha Ji: Well, I was in jail only for nine months. After that, on account of the ‘Gandhi-Irwin Pact’, we were all released.

Sharma: So after that what were your spheres of activities?

Chacha Ji: Well, as I told you, I had my business. I had started my business in 1926 with a partner. And I had given up my service. My partner was Pandit Kanhaiya Lal Punj. He was so nice and so noble that, although I was a partner in business and for the full year I was working in Chandni Chowk in the movement relating to foreign cloth, he never minded. He did not mind my working in the 1930 movement and my going to jail. He was very happy and in the course of time my normal life started. Of course my life started with Congress and Congress work I continued. My life was entirely with the Congress work, which I did day in and day out. By that time probably the Provincial Congress Committee was also made and I was a member of the Provincial Congress Committee.

Sharma: Mr Jauhar, you saw the 1920-1921 movement, i.e. the Non-cooperation movement, and you also participated in the 1930 movement. What was the difference between the two?

Chacha Ji: The 1920-21 movement was the first mass movement and so there were very very few people who were strong and who could take part in that. After all, to stand against the British Government and to give out their names was not so easy. Gradually after 10 years, the people had gained some more confidence and consciousness and now they could openly come out in much bigger numbers—I mean not the entire people but those who were drawn towards the national cause. Their number was greater and consequently the movement was more powerful, much stronger and more broad-based.

Sharma: What was the proportion of women in the 1930 movement?

Chacha Ji: Up to 1930, the proportion of women was not much. It was negligible. Very few strong women we had. Of course, in the whole of Delhi, we may have had about ten or twelve ladies under the leadership of Behn Satyawati. There was no general awakening. But in the next movement in 1930, the Civil Disobedience movement, of course, quite a large number of women came forward.

Sharma: When you sent women to picket at the foreign cloth shops, etc., what was your object in sending them?

Chacha Ji: First of all, you see, the ladies were always in purdah in those days. When they would go to somebody’s house, they would have more moral and sentimental effect upon the person. Moreover, as the leader was a lady, so naturally quite a few ladies were working with her. It was not deliberate that way. But supposing we had to put four or five volunteers somewhere, there was one lady volunteer also along with them.

Sharma: Do you think the 1930 movement brought in such a large number of women in the movement?

Chacha Ji: Certainly it did. It brought in the women much more.

Sharma: It brought about some sort of emancipation of women also?

Chacha Ji: Certainly it did. There is no doubt about it. Women were gradually coming out in those days because of the national cause and a national movement.

Sharma: They came out of purdah?

Chacha Ji: Oh, yes! they came out of purdah and, of course, even Hindu ladies who used to be quite conservative came out and worked with us.

Sharma: Now what was the reaction of husbands in the case of married women and parents in the case of unmarried women? Would they be permitted willingly?

Chacha Ji: It must be individual, of course. Certainly they permitted them. There is no doubt about it. After all, the ladies who were strong in character, they wanted to come out. Nobody could stop them. In some cases, maybe one or two cases, the husbands might not have liked it. But I do not know of any such case. I feel, generally husbands were happy about it.

Sharma: Did your wife participate in the 1930 movement?

Chacha Ji: No, my wife went to jail in 1932.

Sharma: In the second Civil Disobedience movement?

Chacha Ji: Yes, in the second Civil Disobedience movement.

Sharma: Who were the most prominent women in Delhi in 1930?

Chacha Ji: I can remember their faces even now but I do not remember their names. Of course, Satyawati was there. Then there was Memobai. Although she was illiterate, she was very powerful. There may be three or four ladies still living.

Sharma: Would these women organise picketting on their own or the Provincial Congress Committee helped them?

Chacha Ji: No. The picketting was all organised by the Provincial Congress Committee, and the leader was Satyawati. And there were I think over 100 volunteers and they were placed in different streets, different Katras where the foreign cloth was sold. In the open shops, of course, they stopped it—they could openly sell foreign cloth in those days. But in wholesale shops, because it was a question of involvement of money, the merchants were put in an awkward position, because their cloth would not move. Then there was a lot of resentment. And there were some sort of underhand means by which they wanted to take away their cloth to the railway station. It was a kind of struggle: they were trying to do that and we were trying to catch them. And we even sometimes caught the bales at the railway station and brought them back and stored them in the Congress office.

Sharma: What did you do with the ‘seized goods’?

Chacha Ji: The ‘seized goods’ were in the end given back to the owners. There was no malpractice of any nature whatsoever. Of course fines were imposed. When the fine was collected the material was given back.

Sharma: And they willingly paid the fine?

Chacha Ji: No. They were coerced to pay the fine. More or less, they were coerced to pay the fine.

Sharma: And these fines went to?

Chacha Ji: To the Provincial Congress Committee for work.

Sharma: And the Provincial Congress Committee must have been very rich at that time?

Chacha Ji: Not at all. The expenses were exorbitant. It was never rich. We were always living hand-to-mouth. Never rich.

Sharma: What were your other sources of income?

Chacha Ji: There was no other source of income, except some donations. Mostly they were secret donations, because if anybody would give money they could not give openly because the name would go to the British. Whenever money was needed, leaders would collect. I was not collecting money that way. As regards door-to-door collecting or collecting the annual subscriptions, I used to do quite a lot. But as regards the secret fund, people who were much senior in age and mature, they used to bring money.

Sharma: You don’t know anything about it?

Chacha Ji: I do not know much. But I know one or two people. I know those who were contributing. One was Lala Pearey Lal of Pearey Lal & Sons, Motorwala. His son, Raghunandan Saran, was a member. Raghunandan Saran was all along in the movement and was a friend of Jawahar Lal Nehru. He was my colleague. But he never worked openly with us.

Sharma: Who was the other person who contributed secretly?

Chacha Ji: Lala Narayan Dutt—Arya Samaj contractor. He was also giving but not as much. But he could bring from other Arya Samaj contractors also.

Sharma: Now you were engaged in collecting funds for the Congress door-to-door?

Chacha Ji: That was by way of annual subscriptions and making new members.

Sharma: What was the response of the people when you would ask them to become a Congress member, or give donations? What was the response of the people?

Chacha Ji: Usually they used to give but not much. They would give five rupees or ten rupees. And of course the membership was limited. So the people whom we knew, we would ask them to become members. And sometimes we had to use a little bit of argument with them or question them: “Why do you fear? It is a national movement. You should become a member.” We were trying to increase the membership, making very serious effort. It was not an easy task. It was not that the people came of themselves and became members. That hardly happened.

Sharma: Do you think your labours were well rewarded?

Chacha Ji: That I have never thought in life, never in my life even up to this moment. I have never thought of any reward.

Sharma: No. Not for your own person. I was asking for….

Chacha Ji: We were not thinking in terms of reward of our labours, even for the nation. This never came to our mind. If it is me personally, I have probably said it so many times—that it is Grace or a natural instinct or a “fire” in me...I will do that work without any consideration, without any thought, without any calculations.

Sharma: Now, could you tell us, in 1930, what class of persons were brought into the Congress? Was the Congress still confined to the middle class people or had the people belonging to the lower strata of society also started joining it? You were also brought in?

Chacha Ji: There was no lower strata at all. It was only the middle class and very few from above middle class, like Dr Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, that were there.

Sharma: I am not talking of the leaders, but about ordinary members.

Chacha Ji: Membership was also mostly confined to the middle class.

Sharma: You do not remember people who were working in factories or doing odd jobs?

Chacha Ji: No, no, they had not come by that time. Only a few such people we had in the Congress in those days—as I said one was a tailor. Similarly one or two other people from the lower strata. But the movement had not at all taken any root among the workers of factories or the labour class or the agriculturists or small shopkeepers.

Sharma: Mr Jauhar, could you tell us of the bonfire of foreign clothes in Delhi?

Chacha Ji: That was in the year 1929, about October or November, if I am right. I do not know who decided about it, but there was a huge bonfire done on the banks of Yamuna when Pandit Moti Lal Nahru was also present and also Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya. Many, many surrendered their clothes which were made of foreign cloth and indeed there was a very, very big bonfire that evening.

I was married in 1927. All the clothes which were given to my wife were made of foreign cloth and one or two dresses were very very costly, they were called makhmal, made of zari-gold and all those things.

Personally myself…I had started wearing hand-woven and hand-spun Khaddar clothes since 1921, and after that till now I have not used a thread of any mill-cloth or any foreign cloth in my life.

But out of this dowry with my wife, whatever clothes were there, 100 per cent were given for the bonfire except the two costly dresses which were made of makhmal and zari.

And I do not know how it happened. By chance, these two costly dresses were presented to King Amanullah Khan of Kabul and his wife who came here from Kabul and were passing through this place. Of course, I cannot say how many other people came forward with their clothes for the bonfire. But this was my personal position.

Sharma: Was it a very big bonfire?

Chacha Ji: Yes, it was a very big bonfire. Even clothes from 500 people or 1,000 people would make a big bonfire. We were not conscious of keeping records or taking photographs in those days.

But it was a really big bonfire and it excited the whole of Delhi, arousing a national consciousness for Swadeshi.

Sharma: Do you have any idea of the Government reaction to it?

Chacha Ji: I do not have any idea how the Government reacted but there was no incident to show that they prevented it. This I remember. There was nothing done to prevent it.