Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi was accorded the title of Mahatma in Uttarakhand. It was an Uttarakhandi who had first called Khan Abdul Gafar Khan the ‘Frontier Gandhi’’.
Not just this, it was a Dehradun native who had travelled to Afghanistan and declared India a free country. Revolutionary Ras Behari Bose had gone from Dehradun to Delhi for lobbing a bomb at the viceroy lord Harding. These and other interesting aspects are revealed by senior journalist and writer Jai Singh Rawat in his latest book in Hindi, “Swadhinta Andolan me Uttarakhand ki Patrakarita”.
The book not only revives memories of journalism in Uttarakhand during the colonial era but also presents such historical facts which are relegated to files in the archives unknown to the general public.
In the book recently released by chief minister Harish Rawat, the author states that when MK Gandhi had first returned to India from South Africa, the first three persons he had planned to meet were Ravindranath Tagore, Delhi educationalist Sushil Kumar Rudra and Munshi Ram of Haridwar. Munshi Ram later took Sanyas and was then known as Shraddhananda.
During Gandhi’s first visit to Haridwar when he visited Gurukul Kangri it was Munshi Ram who called him ‘Mahatma’ after which the title became commonl used. Shraddhanand and Gurukul Kangri have also contributed to the freedom movement and the field of journalism in India.
Revolutionary journalist Amir Chand Bambwal who published the Frontier Mail newspaper from Dehradun was the one who first called Khan Abdul Gafar Khan the frontier Gandhi. Rawat’s book also reveals that editor of Nirbal Sewak published in Dehradun in 1914, Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh had reached Afghanistan and declared India a free nation.
He had also declared himself the president of India and met world leaders in this capacity. Revolutionary Ras Behari Bose who had gone to Japan and published a newspaper from there was employed as the head clerk in Forest Research Institute, Dehradun. He had departed from Dehradun to attack viceroy lord Harding with a bomb and returned to Dehradun after the incident.
In his book, Rawat has documented factual history of journalism in Uttarakhand and revealed the role of journalism and journalists from Uttarakhand in the freedom movement. The author has also compiled cuttings of rare old newspapers and writings of journalists and writers which had been banned and confiscated by the colonial authorities at that time.
This prohibited literature is confined to the national archives present in Delhi, said the author. This book consists of 312 pages, authored by Rawat has been brought out by Binsar publishing along with Sri Dev Suman Uttarakhand University Vice Chancellor Professor US Rawat writing the book’s foreword.