By triggering an ugly row over commemorating Raja Mahendra Pratap at the Aligarh Muslim University campus, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Uttar Pradesh unit has reduced him to a Jat King. But he was much more than that. He was an internationalist who advocated universal humanity, a revolutionary, a reformist and a visionary who dreamed of a world federation.
If the BJP takes a closer look at Pratap’s beliefs, it would find itself severely at odds with the ideals that he campaigned for throughout his life. He spoke of the commonalities among religions and advocated a universal religion based on the love of humanity that he named Prem Dharam. He had a vision of a universal humanity in a world federation eschewing national chauvinism and jingoism. No surprise, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1932.
An alumnus of the Muslim Anglo-Oriental College, he donated land for the Aligarh Muslim University, just as his father Raja Ghanshyam Singh did before him. He converted his haveli into the technical institute Prem Mahavidyala. He believed in panchayati raj as the only way to transfer power to the people. Furthermore, he left India in 1914 at the age of 28 to campaign for India’s freedom.
Indefatigable freedom fighter
Pratap established the first Provisional Government of India in Kabul in 1915, much before the Indian National Congress adopted the goal of complete freedom for India in its 1929 session.
The Provisional Government, called Hakumat-i-Moktar-i-Hind, was constituted with Pratap as the president, Maulvi Barkatullah as prime minister and Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi as interior minister. It was backed by Germany and Turkey, and drew its members from representatives of the main revolutionary groups based abroad, the Berlin Committee, the Ghadar Party, the Khilafat Movement in India, and the tacit backing of the Indian National Congress. It heralded the Indian desire for independence from colonial rule on the international map.
In the 31 years he lived abroad in exile, Pratap worked indefatigably for the cause of India’s freedom. He and his revolutionary companions paved the way that was later followed by Subhash Chandra Bose, who also travelled the same route through Kabul to Germany and then to Japan.
In 1929, Pratap moved to Japan and formed the Executive Board of India in Japan during World War II. There, he began publishing the World Federation Monthly Magazine. Pratap was allowed to return to India in 1946 only after Mahatma Gandhi interceded with the colonial authorities in India.
World traveller
Pratap was an intrepid traveller whose journeys took him around the world several times. He went from Switzerland to Berlin, Istanbul, Isfahan, to Kabul, Turkmenistan, Moscow, to Europe, America, Mexico, Cuba, China, Mongolia, Japan, Bangkok and Manila.
During his foreign missions advocating India’s freedom, he also helped open up contacts between different countries. He carried letters and messages between Afghanistan and Japan, China and Japan, and between successive regimes in Moscow and Kabul. The Afghan Amir sent him on a mission to America. He met the Panchen Lama and corresponded with the Dalai Lama as he sought to improve relations between China and Tibet.
Equity and justice
An untiring Pratap was also a journalist throughout his life. He published his own magazines to publicise his views and wrote articles and letters to the editors of newspapers in different countries, articulating the aspirations of the Indian people. Even after independence, he continued campaigning for his ideals and was an independent Member of Parliament from Mathura from 1957 to 1962.
In his autobiography, Jawaharlal Nehru described Pratap as Don Quixote. Pratap may have tilted at windmills in advocating a cause that was unacceptable to the opinion of the time, in talking of a cooperative world federation with equitable and just distribution of resources, of a religion based on love. But some of his ideals of equity came to be incorporated in the charter of the United Nations.
The BJP’s Uttar Pradesh-centric politicking dishonours the memory of a reformist thinker whose vision encompassed the whole world.
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If the BJP takes a closer look at Pratap’s beliefs, it would find itself severely at odds with the ideals that he campaigned for throughout his life. He spoke of the commonalities among religions and advocated a universal religion based on the love of humanity that he named Prem Dharam. He had a vision of a universal humanity in a world federation eschewing national chauvinism and jingoism. No surprise, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1932.
An alumnus of the Muslim Anglo-Oriental College, he donated land for the Aligarh Muslim University, just as his father Raja Ghanshyam Singh did before him. He converted his haveli into the technical institute Prem Mahavidyala. He believed in panchayati raj as the only way to transfer power to the people. Furthermore, he left India in 1914 at the age of 28 to campaign for India’s freedom.
Indefatigable freedom fighter
Pratap established the first Provisional Government of India in Kabul in 1915, much before the Indian National Congress adopted the goal of complete freedom for India in its 1929 session.
The Provisional Government, called Hakumat-i-Moktar-i-Hind, was constituted with Pratap as the president, Maulvi Barkatullah as prime minister and Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi as interior minister. It was backed by Germany and Turkey, and drew its members from representatives of the main revolutionary groups based abroad, the Berlin Committee, the Ghadar Party, the Khilafat Movement in India, and the tacit backing of the Indian National Congress. It heralded the Indian desire for independence from colonial rule on the international map.
In the 31 years he lived abroad in exile, Pratap worked indefatigably for the cause of India’s freedom. He and his revolutionary companions paved the way that was later followed by Subhash Chandra Bose, who also travelled the same route through Kabul to Germany and then to Japan.
In 1929, Pratap moved to Japan and formed the Executive Board of India in Japan during World War II. There, he began publishing the World Federation Monthly Magazine. Pratap was allowed to return to India in 1946 only after Mahatma Gandhi interceded with the colonial authorities in India.
World traveller
Pratap was an intrepid traveller whose journeys took him around the world several times. He went from Switzerland to Berlin, Istanbul, Isfahan, to Kabul, Turkmenistan, Moscow, to Europe, America, Mexico, Cuba, China, Mongolia, Japan, Bangkok and Manila.
During his foreign missions advocating India’s freedom, he also helped open up contacts between different countries. He carried letters and messages between Afghanistan and Japan, China and Japan, and between successive regimes in Moscow and Kabul. The Afghan Amir sent him on a mission to America. He met the Panchen Lama and corresponded with the Dalai Lama as he sought to improve relations between China and Tibet.
Equity and justice
An untiring Pratap was also a journalist throughout his life. He published his own magazines to publicise his views and wrote articles and letters to the editors of newspapers in different countries, articulating the aspirations of the Indian people. Even after independence, he continued campaigning for his ideals and was an independent Member of Parliament from Mathura from 1957 to 1962.
In his autobiography, Jawaharlal Nehru described Pratap as Don Quixote. Pratap may have tilted at windmills in advocating a cause that was unacceptable to the opinion of the time, in talking of a cooperative world federation with equitable and just distribution of resources, of a religion based on love. But some of his ideals of equity came to be incorporated in the charter of the United Nations.
The BJP’s Uttar Pradesh-centric politicking dishonours the memory of a reformist thinker whose vision encompassed the whole world.
