I have great pleasure in writing this foreword to the second volume of the History of Freedom Struggle in Andhra (1906-20).
As is well-known a new stage opened in the history of the struggle with the partition of Bengal in 1905. By that time new leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bepin Chandra Pal and Aurabindo appeared on the national scene. They were rot content like the leaders of the previous period with demanding a few political con-cessions or administrative reforms from the British. They placed before the people the ideal of Swaraj in the sense of complete freedom of the country from foreign rule. It was the only ideal which according to them was worth fighting for. They also devised new methods of political action in place of prayers, petitions, and memorials sub-mitted to government during the previous twenty years. Though they considered that there was nothing wrong in resorting to armed rebellion for liberating the country they felt that under the conditions then prevailing such a rebellion was not practicable and therefore advocated for the purpose the boycott of British goods, the adoption of Swadeshi and and the establishment of a national system of education. They even thought of passive resistance as a final weapon. In addition to all this they gave a spiritual significance to nationalism and identified it with the worship of the motherland-the Bharata Mata-and they invoked the Bandemataram Song of Bankin Chandra as a Mantra for worshipping the mother. The movement they inaugurated came to be known appropriately as the Bandemataram movement.
In the years 1906-11 politics in Andhra were shaped by this movement and its ideals. The Andhra leaders were inspired by them and they did everything possible through their speeches and writings and through the district and provincial conferences they organised to spread the new ideas among the people. In this effort at mass awakening the tour which Bepin Chandra Pal undertook in Andhra in 1907 at the invitation of Mutnuri Krishna Rao, the scholarly editor of Krishna Patrika, played a significant part. From this time onwards Swaraj and Bandemataram were on the lips of s of everybody. As a result of the new ideas several young Andhras were sent to Japan and elsewhere to get trained in modern industries. Swadeshi stores were opened in almost all towns and the habit of using indigenous articles in preference to foreign ones became common. Above all it was under the influence of the new movement that Kopalle Hanumantha Rao started the Andhra Jateeya Kalasala which in due course became one of the best centres of national education in the country.
As usual a policy of repression was resorted to by government to meet the new situation. Among those who fell victims to it was Gadicherla Harisarvothama Rao who was sentenced to three years rigorous imprisonment for an article which he wrote in his paper Swarajya.
This, the second volume in the history of Freedom Struggle in Andhra deals with the significant developments in the period 1906-1920. These developments centre round the Bandemataram movement (1906-11), the Andhra movement (1911-16), the Home Rule movement (1916-18) and the beginnings of the Non-co-operation movement under the leadership of Gandhiji (1919-20).
It was the Bandemataram movement that was responsible for the eventful tour of Bipin Chandra Pal in Andhra in 1907, the student activities in Rajahmundry which led to the emergence of G. Harisarvothama Rào as a prominent leader and the Cocanada riots in protest against the high-handedness of Dr. Kemp. Details regarding these and other events closely connected with the Bandemataram movement are given in the volume.
The volume also contains the first connected account of the beginnings and growth of the Andhra movement, and of the activities of the Home Rule League in Andhra of which G. Harisarvothama Rao was the Secretary. It also gives an idea of the response of Andhra to Gandhiji's first call for non-cooperation.
Following the general pattern of the volumes of the Freedom Struggle this volume is divided into two parts. Part I is devoted to a general survey of the struggle and consists of twelve chapters of which the first serves as a general introduction to the events of the period. Chapters II-VII deal primarily with the Bandemataram movement: chapter VIII with the Andhra movement; chapters IX and X with National Politics and the Home Rule Movement and chapters XI and XII with the emergence of Gandhiji as the national leader and the birth of the non-cooperation movement.
The second part consists of 183 documents selected from the source material collected mainly from Government confidential reports and newspapers of the time. It may be mentioned that the source material was collected by the well-known historian Dr. Venkataramanayya and by Sri A. Jagannadham the present Assistant Director of State Archives, Hyderabad.
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Emperor & Queen (494)
Islam (234)
Jainism (273)
Literary (870)
Mahatma Gandhi (380)
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