Chachaji

Sharma: Mr Jauhar, looking back, do you recall what impression the doings of the British officials in Lahore left on you?

Chacha Ji: The impression on me, of course, was so bad all through that I felt that the British must leave the country. They must. They were so brutal and had no right to stay in our country. Even at that age, before I went to the National College, I felt very strongly like that. Every day Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew used to lecture at a fixed time at Golbagh—a famous garden in the heart of the city. About a hundred or two hundred students would come to hear him daily. Before I went to the National College, I did not miss even one lecture. Probably I was the first to go there. Wherever any such national activity took place, I used to slip out from the hostel to attend that. So that is all I remember about my days in Lahore.

Sharma: Mr Jauhar, do you recall what made you take interest in the national movement? Your family were loyalists.

Chacha Ji: Well, that is very difficult to say. Probably it was destined from my previous life, or something like that. But I was very strongly for it, and in fact, there was a ‘Fire’ in me that guided and pushed. It was not the national movement or any other movement, but wherever there was something strong to be done, I would jump into that. Of course, not mental thinking or anything. All my life till now, wherever I found any movement which is the strongest, I jump into it.

Sharma: Mr Jauhar, do you remember the questions you asked Gandhiji and his reply, and the overall impression that the meeting left on your mind?

Chacha Ji: Probably it was only in excitement that I got up and asked Mahatma Gandhi: “How are the British going to be turned out from this country?” Then there was a great noise and I did not hear what Mahatma Gandhi said. But everyone was looking at me because I was so young and had asked such a question. I was one of the first to leave college in response to his call.

Sharma: What appealed to you in Gandhi’s programme that you left your studies?

Chacha Ji: Well, I left my studies because, as I said, there was a “Fire” in me...I jumped into this “Fire”, which was stronger than the studies.

And that must be one reason, as I have explained, why I was not very good in studies. That may also be the indirect reason for that, because my studies were disturbed on account of my being a player as well as on account of my taking interest in other activities which were even stronger than the studies.

After this, when I came to Delhi, during my entire life up to the movement of 1942, I have been working actively, most actively, without shirking at any moment and even for a second, in the Congress movement and for the national movement, in whatever form it was practicable and possible

Sharma: In 1920, there were two elements in Gandhi’s movement. First, there was intense sacrifice in it. Students were asked to give up their studies. Lawyers were asked to give up courts and they had to forego their fat incomes, and all that. But of the two what was uppermost in your mind?

Chacha Ji: I think the uppermost was the element of sacrifice for the country because, as I said, I wanted something very strong to be done. So it was the ‘sacrifice’. I was told that a National College was going to be opened and we would have our own studies, and all that. I was one of the foremost students of that newly started National College.

And I also felt that I must leave my studies and sacrifice my career and do something special and new. It was explained to me that a National College was to be formed in which there will be education on national lines. I was all for it and was considered as an important figure in its organisation.

Sharma: Did Gandhi’s personality leave some impression on your mind?

Chacha Ji: Gandhiji’s personality—of course! He was so thin and lean. Yet he was so frank and so fearless—to stand against the most powerful British Government. That was an indirect impression on my mind naturally.