Bajrang Bahadur Singh
| Raja Bajrang Bahadur Singh | |
|---|---|
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| Lieutenant Governor of Himachal Pradesh | |
| In office 1 January 1955 - 13 August 1963 | |
| Preceded by | Maj. Gen. Himmatsinhji |
| Succeeded by | Bhagwan Sahay |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1906 |
| Died | 1973 |
| Spouse(s) | Rani Girija Devi |
| Children | No Issue |
| Residence | Bhadri, Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh |
| Religion | Hindu |
Raja Bajrang Bahadur Singh (1906–1973) was a freedom fighter, politician, visionary statesman, educationist, patron of arts, pilot and early patron of the aviation industry, horticulturist, cattle breeder. His adoptive grandson is none other than Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, independent MLA from Kunda in Pratapgarh.
He was Raja (King) of Bhadri a Taluqdari state of Oudh, and after independence of India, served as the lieutenant governor of Himachal Pradesh, belonging to the royal family of Oudh in Pratapgarh district, Uttar Pradesh.[1]
Early life
The 20th century was a watershed in the political journey of India, where a movement lead by Gandhiji allowed its people to emerge from the colonial yoke giving them an opportunity to share space with the comity of nations. A struggle borne out of many sacrifices was realized on the 15th of August 1947. This date opened up new vistas of hope for a new nation and thus began a journey in the long walk to freedom. As Jawaharlal Nehru said in his independence day speech ‘’A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance”.
In remembering the freedom struggle one must be in a position to appreciate the lives of the individuals who not just participated in the movement for independence but by faith and duty soldiered the responsibility of carrying the country into a new and uncertain future. The pages of history often highlight personalities who are propped up as models worth emulating. While these personalities find a place in popular memory through statues, remembrance days and public holidays men like Raja Bajrang Bahadur finds little mention in scholarly works of history.
This note intends to highlight his life and to see it as a journey that was in consonance with the birth of a new country only so that the reader may greatly profit by knowing about this fine human being while also paying a fitting tribute to a man whose history the record keepers chose to ignore.
Bhadri
By the early 19th century the East India Company brought in new forms of land assessments replacing the earlier Mughalid contracts of social and financial tribute. The increasing demand of revenue hardened relations between the ruler and the ruled, leading to conflicts and social upheavals. In the period following the 1857 revolt there was a transfer of governance from the company to the Crown and this brought in new mechanisms of in the way ‘the drain of wealth’ was carried out from India. In keeping with the spirit of tribute extraction came the creation of Allies. The Taluqdars of Awadh who had earlier fought on the side of the sepoys during the revolt of 1857 now negotiated a compromise which made them a part of a grand alliance to the British.
For the state of Bhadri, being a part of this alliance did not translate into healthy coffers since the new terms of tribute extraction lead to increasing financial distress. By the early 20th century the state had accumulated a debt of 11 lakhs. It was under these circumstances that on a wintery night on the 12th of February 1906 and after three generations of adopting an heir, the reveling presence of 600 Nautch girls welcomed the heir apparent Bajrang Bahadur into this world.
A fellow traveler with the likes of Jawaharlal Nehru, an early patron to India’s aviation industry, freedom fighter, visionary statesman, connoisseur of arts, lover of animals. Much of what he did to empower the lives of the people around him was done because his avid interests allowed him to develop a deep sense of awareness about the things he would later write about and transform. Raja Bajrang the public figure and Raja Bajrang the private person complimented each other, a fine example of this intersection being his relationship with the state of Bhadri.
While we do not have much information about his early years we are lucky to share with the reader the testimonies of his niece Alka who was his daughter in deed and action. Alka was witness to her uncles many interests that had him occupied through his life, she learnt about his involvement with the freedom struggle and saw him excel as a statesman. Her testimonial is one that would take the reader into a world imagined only through vintage post cards.His nephew Raja Udai Singh is the current head of the family.
Developing Bhadri
His devotion towards the freedom struggle was paralleled by his love for the ancestral state of Bhadri. Bhadri was where Raja Bajrang Bahadur taught himself the disciplines mentioned in the earlier paragraphs. His interests in these activities led him to developing Bhadri through the many interventions he brought in the field of horticulture, fisheries, cattle breeding, aviation and dog training. His solutions would later turn into models for other countries to emulate.
Association with Bhagwati Charan Verma
Bhagwat Charan Verma, a noted scholar and poet, counted amongst his closest acquaintances Raja Bajrang Bahadur. Raja Bajrang’ financial backing was essential for Vermaji to pursue his scholarly work. As he was responsible for inviting Vermaji to the Bhadri state for him to eke out a living as well as pursue his literary activities which included writing the much acclaimed ‘Chitralekha’. This financial support was to bear fruition in the publishing of Puranas and other religious works that Vermaji was able to produce in Allahabad thanks to his association with Raja Bajrang.
Love for Children
Women have been victims of neglect for as long as man has weighed their value through his greed and ambition. In a country like India it is no secret that the birth of a male child is more welcome than the birth of a girl. Raja Bajrang was rather blessed with dozens of daughters who weren’t his biological offspring but were left by their parents to his care. These children were taken into the Bhadri house and tended to through the trying years of infancy and adolescence. Alka has fond memories of the truck loads of toys that were brought for the children every time Raja Bajrang visited the city on official work. The children who spent their formative years with the Raja Bajrang Bahadur were given a wholesome education, imbibed with the same values that made Raja Bajrang the man he was and as they approached the legal age of marriage were married with the sacred dignity afforded to an Indian bride.
Career
School dropout to future educationist
The pressure of Having inherited the state of Bhadri at a young age and burdened by the responsibilities of managing the estate meant that that Raja Bajrang Bahadur discontinued his education soon after the 8th grade. Concentrating his energies on the management of his estate he was able to accomplish a turnaround in the fortunes of Bhadri. Soon, the debts would be wiped off and Bhadri would look towards the horizon for better days ahead. It must be known that by the year 1931, the state of Bhadri began to prosper, and despite strong opposition from the Taluqdars Raja Bajrang give a 100% remission on rents to the tenants.
The inability to finish his education did not leave him feeling intellectually inadequate since he more than made up for the lack of a formal schooling. Through his early and later years he displayed a keen interest in acquiring knowledge and It was said he was never seen without a book in hand. His was a mission to not just learn but to apply his wisdom by providing solutions to an ailing agrarian economy as well as a deeply impoverished rural class. His solutions would later get represented in the books and pamphlets he left behind while his deeds would carry a legacy that would stand as an example for those who wished to do similar things for the distressed and marginalized. We have from him works on topics that range from training dogs, Breeding cattle, grafting guavas, Gladiolas, to his most deepest obsession –Aviation.
His appreciation towards learning and education is further reflected in the many schools he started in Bhadri, laying special emphasis on educating the girl child, Bhadri boasted of a school for girls, intermediate and degree colleges for boys in the areas of Pratapgarh and Dewra. Raja Bajrang was responsible for providing education to more than 8000 students at any given time in Bhadri and neighbouring villages- He displayed such foresight at a time when India did not have a formal educational policy and nor did it boast of the high enrolment rate in villages as it does now. His deft skills as an educationist would be acknowledged much later in life by Pandit Nehru when he was awarded the vice chancellorship of the Pant Nagar University.
Fisheries
Having purchased the village of Benti from an Indigo planter he set up a lake side bungalow there and sustained it through fisheries. The backwaters of the Ganga nourished the lake while the flow of water was controlled using sluice gates. Not only did this encourage a lucrative fishery business but more importantly attracted rare and exotic migratory birds that made Bhadri their home at various times in the year.
Horticulture
Raja Bajrang Bahadur was one of the first pioneers of crop rotation where he had varieties of Mangoes, Oranges, Guavas planted in the Bhadri Orchards around the year. This enabled the smallest farmers to benefit from the annual produce the orchards gave out. Raja Bajrang also encouraged farmers to grow the Karonda, a thorny bush and named it the 'Living hedge'. Its growth was encouraged as it would act as a substitute to the mud wall that otherwise runs along the periphery of the farm. In addition to this characteristic, The plant bore berries rich in Vitamin C which were exported to factories in U.P for processing and canning. The red Guava deserves a special mention here, a variety that is now popular around the country and was developed in the orchards of the Bhadri state. The fruit was offered to the Allahabad nursery by Raja Bajrang from where its popularity spread to different corners of the country as an exotic variant of the ordinary guava.
Cattle breeding and dog training
The cattle that he bred attracted curious knowledge seekers from places as far as Japan who came by to learn about these breeding techniques. He started the Bhadri cattle fair which turned into the seventh largest cattle fair in the country. He took steps to improve the breed of local non-descript cattle by distributing Sahiwal bulls, Hissardaile and Jamunapari goats in different sectors of his estate free of cost and instituted prizes to create interest amongst the local people.
This was at a time when the entire function of the government animal husbandry department was to treat animals in the most niggardly fashion.
His book on dog training is now a standard manual on training dogs with the Himachal Pradesh police. He gave the rights of his book to the Himachal Police so that it would pay for the upkeep of the police dog squad he had started . In addition to the manual on training dogs he has successfully developed an entirely indigenous Dog breed which is born docked (tailless).
Tourism
Bhadri’s popularity attracted tourists who came visiting only to return with fond memories of being in the company of Otters, Tigers, Elephants and Deer. Bird lovers who dropped by the lake side Bungalow in Benti would spend hours whetting their appetite viewing exotic winged creatures.
Wild life lovers would appreciate the area around the Terai belt, leased from the government of India and located near Nainital. This enveloped 3000 acres of forests out of which only 500 acres was being farmed. The remaining 2500 acres was left to grow into virgin forests inhabited by Deer, Tiger and Wild Elephants in addition to the luscious forestry it offered to many a prying eye.
Interest in aviation
Raja Bajrang Bahadur had interests that lay unbound much like the mythical winged horse Pegasus. In his book on aviation he makes a special mention of how man has always been curious about acquiring wings to fly. Raja Bajrang Bahadur was fortunate to have lived through the years when man finally acquired the wings to soar into the horizon with the exuberance of Pegasus and the poise of a Falcon.
Raja Bajrang Bahadur’s contribution to India’s aviation history is perhaps unmatched and though the nation has chosen to remember JRD Tata as the father of the aviation industry, hidden behind this fact is the tireless steps that Raja Bajrang Bahadur took on behalf of his countrymen to get them in the air.
Marked out as one of India’s early license holder he would go on to support and encourage pilots to train at flying clubs set up by him at places such as Allahabad, Kanpur, lucknow, jaipur, patna and guwahati. The Uttar Pradesh flying club under whose auspices the various flying clubs operated emerged as the biggest flying club and civil pilot training organization in the world. It was under this club that the Raja Saheb organized the national air rally. Later, the national carrier of India would send India’s future pilots to these flying clubs to train and hence contribute to the limited pool of indigenous trained pilots needed desperately by a just born nation.
At home in Bhadri there existed an air strip which appeared beautifully in the midst of orchards and sunken rose garden sunken rose gardens. This strip was used by the Raja to entertain his close friends some of who included the famous L.T. Douglas Bader, a WW 2 fighter pilot. We know from his niece Alka that his was a passion that knew little fear and for this, his life was dotted by moments when he answered the call of duty to help his countrymen caught in trying times. Her account tells us that during Pakistan’s invasion into Kashmir in 1947 there existed in Srinagar- in addition to the political crisis a major civic issue of evacuating people. Raja Bajrang chipped in by tirelessly fly sorties over Srinagar night after night evacuating people from the troubled valley. We are further informed that during a testing monsoon in Uttar Pradesh ,the river Gomti was to rise to alarming levels leaving most of Lucknow submerged, His family would recall his dare devil maneuvers over their homes in Lucknow dropping food packets and other supplies.
Freedom struggle
It was mentioned earlier in this essay that the State of Bhadri was a part of the grand Taluqdari alliance which was aligned with British interest after the 1857 revolt. Raja Bhadri was cut from a different cloth and was deeply inspired by the Gandhian freedom struggle. This led him to broke with convention and join the Satyagraha for Purna Swaraj. He adopted the use of Khadi, followed Gandhian principles of vegetarianism and encouraged his wife to wear Khadi. Alka recounts how Raja Bajrang’s avowed devotion to the freedom struggle was received admirably by Gandhiji who gifted pair of Khadi Sarees to the Rani of Bhadri.
During the freedom struggle he spent many a night in jail, a place he took to painting using the brush to express the poetic agony of being incarcerated. One such painting that sums up the genius of the man and the irony of his life is a portrait he drew of a woman -sitting in solitude in a room beside a vacant chair and facing a fireplace. The painting best expresses the sense of gloom that Raja Bajrang Bahadur may have experienced in Jail. Through the image of a lonely woman he wishes to metaphorically embody his state of affairs. The irony of the portrait is the empty chair which belongs to he who watches over her well being and he who is now away in jail.
Lt. Governor of the state of Himachal Pradesh
In the late 50’s the state was taking early strides in coming to terms with being a state within a nation, this was also a period of grave hostilities faced by India on its border with China. Located at a strategic point on the map of India the governor needed to act fast to secure the borders and also think of novel ways to transforming a hill state into a lucrative economic and cultural destination. Having trained himself on the fields of Bhadri as a Horticulturalist, agriculturalist and one who knew how to breed fish he applied the expertise foresight in the running of the state of Himachal Pradesh.
One of his earliest endeavors was to introduce into the village economy the Mirror carp and Trout- The fish contained high levels of protein and were essential to supplement the diet of the hill folk during lean seasons bordering on drought. While the Carp continues to nourish the hill state, The Trout is now synonymous with the state of Himachal as a delicacy and also a much sought after catch that many tourists come seeking on their angling expeditions to the state of Himachal.
Raja Bajrang Bahadur went about setting up jungle houses to serve as inspection sites for officials entrusted with the task of protecting the flora and fauna of the forests. He set up schools and laid emphasis on encouraging the growth of Vet nary doctors. The doctors were essential to serve the massive cattle population that contributed to the income of the small and average farmer/pastoralist.
As has been stated earlier Raja Bajrang had a deft understanding of Floriculture and in keeping with his interests he developed several varieties of Gladiolus. One variety was famously referred to as the Zakir Hussain gladiola named after the famous freedom fighter and President of India, Shri Zakir Hussain. Inspired by the popularity of Tulips in Amsterdam Raja Bajrang decided to do the same with Gladiolas in Himachal. The aim was to encourage the growth and export of gladiolas by enabling farmers to invest their energies in this flower.
During the hostilities with China, Raja Bajrang was quick to realize the need to have troops transported to the borders at a brisk pace. The roads were broadened by pulling out all encumbrances that the Public works department faced and mule tracks were replaced with motor able highways.
A catalogue of his complete work credentials;
- Governor of the State of Himachal Pradesh
- Vice chancellor of the G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology
- Member of Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council
- Member of Central Gosamadhan Committee
- Member if Central and State boards of Wildlife
- Member of executive committee of the Kennel Club of India and Retriever Club of India
- Member of the board of Animal Husbandry and Fisheries, U.P.
- Member of Indian Airlines Corporation, New Delhi
- Member of Citizens Council of India
- Director of Reserve Bank of India
- Director of British India Corporation
- Director of Nector Canned Foods Private Limited
Literary works
- Train your own dog
- The Dying Cow
- Paddy wheat Rotation
- The Missing Link
- Hindustan Mein Janwaron Ki Tarakki
- Miracle of Mirror Carp
- Horse and its Age
- Water Plants
- Practical rose growing in India
- Possibilities of Gladiolus culture in Himachal and other Hills
- Manual for police Dog Squad
Post script
Douglas Bader was a decorated war hero who fought the World War as a fighter pilot on the side of the allied forces. Having lost his limbs in the year 1931, he went on to get re commissioned into the royal Air Force where he ran several successful sorties against the Nazis. His plane was shot down over Germany and he was held captive in a POW camp until he was rescued by the American army. Douglas Bader had a movie adapted to his life ‘ the dammed busters’ which went on to win a BAFTA award. Bader arrived in Bhadri after having served as a prisoner of war in Nazi Germany. Having had to fight malnutrition and starvation at the hands of the Nazis, It is said that he was particularly impressed by the abundance of fruits and vegetables being grown in the fertile tracts of Bhadri
The many paintings Raja Bajrang Bahadur drew while in and out of Jail continue to adorn the walls of Bhadri Garhi.
The flying clubs set up by Raja Bajrang have now been disbanded or continue to operate with very little government support. This at a time when India aspires to grow in the aviation sector, Indian pilots are being made to travel abroad to earn an education that was earlier made available in the many flying clubs set up by Raja Bajrang.
The training manual on dogs continues to be put to good use by the Himachal state police. Raja Bajrang continues to find mention amongst dog lovers who have used the book to get to know their dogs better and train them. Alka continues to receive queries from abroad about the book.
His life continues to inspire those who have heard of his deeds or have benefitted from the many interventions he made. His story however, stands in conflict to the story of those who we decide to put on a pedestal for the ‘great deed’s they have accomplished. Raja Bajrang’s deeds were no less important in the nation building process if he lacked any thing it was a fair chronicle of his life. Some thing this note has attempted to do.
The above note is limited by the lucid and enriching accounts of his niece Alka. His life had much more to offer the country and this he did through the many positions he occupied in various institutional bodies. We don’t have with us here Alka’s testimonies to guide us through all the responsibilities he shouldered.
Commemoration
Places name after
There is a Bhadri Girl's Hostel in G.B. Pant Memorial Government P.G. College in Rampur Bushahr. Foundation stone of Bhadri Girl's Hostel was laid down by the Vice-Governor of Himachal Pradesh on 16 April 1961. Hostel was named after the Hon'ble Raja Bajrang Bahadur Singh Ji Bhadri of Rampur Bushahr.[2]
See also
- List of Governors of Himachal Pradesh
- Bhadri (estate)
- Pratapgarh (princely state)
References
- ↑ "Governors of Himachal Pradesh". 19 April 2013. himachalrajbhavan.nic.
- ↑ Bhadri Girl's Hostle
External links
| Government offices | ||
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| Preceded by Maj. Gen. Himmatsinhji |
Lieutenant Governor of Himachal Pradesh 1 January 1955 - 13 August 1963 |
Succeeded by Bhagwan Sahay |
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