Chachaji

My father was sitting with others one evening, and they were talking about me. He said, “In the whole of our family there are about two or three hundred persons. Every one has risen to high positions. They are M.A., L.L.B.s, military officers, deputy commissioners, public prosecutors and all that.... And I was also hoping that my son will study and he will also become somebody!” Tears welled out of his eyes. And then he told me: “If one of my four sons had died I would not have minded so much. But your leaving the college and studies has disturbed me very much.” This gave me a rude shock. Without telling anybody, I left the house. I had no money and I came to Delhi which was the nearest city to Alwar. It was in 1921. I did not know anyone in Delhi and I had never travelled alone except during school holidays from Lahore to my father’s place and back. Landing here I enquired about the Congress Office, went straight and stayed there. Then within a week or so, I enquired about Arya Samaj and I learnt that they had Arya Kumar Sabha also. Dr. Yudhvir Singh was the President of Arya Kumar Sabha and I became its member.

In 1921, the Volunteer Movement was launched, boycotting the celebrations connected with the visit of the Prince of Wales. The Congress boycotted all celebrations of the Prince’s visit, which was duly carried out together with the bonfire of foreign cloth. On the very day (in November

1921) of his arrival in Bombay, there started clashes, riots

and bloodshed for about three or four days, resulting in the death of 53 persons and the wounding of 400 persons and this could not be controlled in spite of the exhortations of Gandhiji and Sarojini Devi. Gandhiji fasted for five days as a penance for the excesses of the people. The arrival of the Prince caused the Volunteer Movement to consolidate itself all over India. Till then the Congress volunteers were a band of social workers, helping pilgrims at fairs and festivals, patients in epidemics etc. and also providing retinue at conferences and national public functions. They organised hartals and boycott of foreign cloth. I was too young, only seventeen or eighteen. I was a courier, taking messages, letters, khadi, etc. from one place to another, and assisting wherever some organisational work was required. I did it day and night as I had a fire in me to do my bit for the country. The Volunteer Movement was started with the first batch of thirteen or fourteen persons and one person had to be the leader. The first leader was Shri Asaf Ali. All the Volunteers had to be in khadi uniform — khadi shirt, khadi pants and khadi cap. Of course, as I was so young, nothing was more interesting to me than going with the procession of Volunteers, from the start to the end. They would organise a march every week or fortnight or whenever they were able to mobilize adequate number of volunteers.

There was absolute secrecy about the working of this Volunteer Movement. The British Government and its police could not know who would lead the Volunteers the next day, who would be the Volunteers and who would be organising the movement behind the scene. Otherwise the Government and its police would never allow even the stitching of uniforms and the procession of Volunteers. However, I do not know the full details of these secret operations.

There were some other organisers also. I helped the organisers according to my capacity in every manner, buying the cloth, taking the cloth to the tailor, getting the dresses made, delivering them at a certain place and to make the uniforms available to the Volunteers. There was one tailor by the name of Mohammad Quidris and he used to stitch in his shop located in a narrow lane in Old Delhi. I used to deliver the cloth to him, get the dresses made and hand them over at Dr. Sukh Dev’s office. Another leader of Volunteers was Sardar Nanak Singh. A few batches of Volunteers took out processions in the main streets of Delhi, prominent among them was Chandni Chowk. After some time, it was so difficult to find a leader for the batch of Volunteers.

In those days, I had absolutely no money. There was a typewriting and shorthand institute at Nai Sarak and its owner was Shri Ganpatram. Shri Ganpatram and Shri Radha Raman (not the one who became Chief Executive Councillor of Delhi) were the partners. They were having two types of business — they used to sell spare parts for watches in wholesale throughout the country, and the other was a typewriting and shorthand institute.

I went to the institute and expressed my desire to learn typewriting. They wanted me to pay two rupees per month towards the fees, which I could not pay. I offered to Shri Ganpatram: “Could I be of any service? I can render you some service if you so desire, but I cannot pay the money.” He kindly agreed. And I stayed in a small verandah below his house and I was rendering service to him bringing vegetables and other provisions from the market. His wife used to give me a lot of work in exchange for the free tuition in typewriting. She was a Christian lady.

One day when I was practising typewriting, Shri Ganpatram’s partner, Shri Radha Raman walked into the office. His shirt was made of foreign cloth and it brushed against my table and was torn. I remarked spontaneously: “If you had worn khadi it would not have been torn.” So he reacted violently and slapped me. Dr. Sukh Dev was very friendly with Shri Ganpatram and Shri Radha Raman. When they were not getting any leader for the next batch of Volunteers, maybe out of some vengeance or anger, I suggested to Dr. Sukh Dev: “Why not ask Radha Raman to become the leader?” When asked by Dr. Sukh Dev, Shri Radha Raman agreed to lead the procession of Volunteers. Since the Volunteers had to go in a procession on the following day, we had to work throughout the night to get the uniforms ready and make arrangements. While Shri Radha Raman was witnessing a film in a theatre at Darya Ganj, we went there, called him out, got his measurements and his khadi uniform was ready by the next morning. He led the procession of Volunteers as scheduled and all of them were sentenced to one year’s rigorous imprisonment and sent from Delhi to Mianwali Jail.

Dr. Sukh Dev and Sardar Nanak Singh played a very important role in this movement at Delhi. Dr. Sukh Dev was a staunch Arya Samajist from Gurukul Kangri and a dedicated nationalist. He worked for Congress all his life. He was the son-in-law of Swami Shraddhanand and his wife died very early. He never married again. He was a qualified medical practitioner with an M.B.B.S. degree, working in an allopathic hospital at Barwala village, treating the poor free of charge and giving free medicines. He was in the Congress not for any position or power but with the spirit of sacrifice and service. He was regarded very highly and deservingly in the Congress circles for his self-sacrifice and relentless service to the poor and sick.

Sardar Nanak Singh was a businessman, who established Messrs E. Osborne and Company at Hauz Kazi, dealing in foreign rubber carpets and rubber materials. I used to go to his office because of my involvement in the Volunteer Movement. When he was to be arrested, he asked his father Sardar Wadhwa Singh whether he would look after his business in his absence. He told me, “Surely, the whole of my business will be ruined in my absence. But, I do not care for that. I must participate actively in the Congress movement.” He was sentenced to one year’s rigorous imprisonment and was sent to Mianwali Jail in Punjab. When he returned from the jail, there was absolutely nothing left of his business, which he built up in three or four years again. Then, he had to start `Delhi Iron Syndicate’ with Lala Diwan Chand, Seth Raghumal and Dr. Keshav Dev Shastri as partners. He was made the Managing Director as a working partner without any investment.