Freeindia > Biographies > Freedom Fighters > Mahadev Desai
Quit India Resolution
On August 8, 1942, the All-India Congress Committee adopted a resolution sanctioning 'The starting of mass struggle on non-violent lines on the widest possible scale under the leadership of Gandhi.'The committee demanded the complete withdrawal of the British power from India so that the war could, indeed, become a people's war in which millions of free Indians could participate with zeal and enthusiasm.The 'Quit India' resolution was in effect a call for an open revolt against foreign rule.Gandhiji urged everybody to act as if they were free and said, 'I am not going to be satisfied with anything short of complete freedom. We shall do or die.We shall either free India or die in attempt'.
The British Government of India could not afford to ignore this open challenge to its authority. on August 9, at early dawn, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabh Bhai Patel, Abul Kalam Azed and other members of the Congress Working Committee were arrested. Within, a week, almost every important functionary of the Congress in every part of India was put behind the bars.The number of persons arrested tpotalled more than 60,000 according to official information.The real figures were probably much higher.According to non-official estimates, the number of those killed alone had reached about 10,000. The resolution started a historical phase in India's Struggle for Freedom and is an important milestone in the journey towards independence.
Mahadev Desai (1892-1942)
Mahadev Desai was born on January, 1892 at Saras in Surat district.He received primary and secondary education at different places in Gujarat, but graduated from the Elphinstone College, Bombay in 1910.He joined the Law College thereafter and got his LL.B. in 1913. Mahadev Desai met Gandhiji on 31 August, 1917 and found in him his Guru and moved like a shadow behind him till his death.
After joining Gandhiji, Mahadev Desai actively participated and courted arrest in Champaran Satyagraha (1917), the Berdoli satyagraha (1928), and the Salt satyagraha(1930).In 1921, Gandhiji sent him to edit Motilal Nehru's periodical, the Independent, at Allahabad and there too he was arrested and jailed after his release in January, 1923, he returned to Ahmedabad and looked after the editorial work of the Navjivan.His sharp editorials on the hollowness of the constitutional reforms of 1919 and his tirade against the British Government kept up the tempo of the freedom struggle. Between 1924 and 1928 he toured the country with Gandhiji, explaining the salient features of the freedom struggle.He accompanied Gandhiji in 1931 to the Round table Conference in London.In the quit India Movement of 1942, he, along with Gandhiji was arrested and sent to the Aga Khan Palace for imprisonment where he died peacefully on 15 August, 1942, deeply mourned by the nation and by Gandhiji in particular who considered himself an orphan.
Freeindia > Biographies > Freedom Fighters > Meera Behn
India's Struggle For Freedom
India's Freedom Struggle records some of the most glorious episodes in the annals of the country's recent past.The story of this struggle has been told and retold through various media.A large number of postage stamps have been issued to honour the personalities and to commemorate the events connected with the freedom Struggle.These stamps, however, do not narrate the complete story of the long drawn out struggle for Independence.An attempt is, therefore, being made, now to fill in the gaps through the issue of a series to depict the major landmarks in India's struggle for Freedom.
The present set of three stamps, on the themes of 'Quit India Resolution', 'Mahadev Desai' and 'Meera Behn' is the first issue in the proposed series.This set, thus, marks the beginning of an ambitious project under which about 4-6 stamps will be issued, every year, till 1997-the 50th year of India's independence, to complete the story of the struggle through stamps.
Meera Behn (1892-1982)
Meera Behn was born as Madeleine Slade in 1892 in England.Her father Admiral Sir Edmond Slade, came of a traditional aristrocratic family. She read Romain Rolland's Book 'Mahatma Gandhi' at one sitting and it changed her life-'Now I knew what that something was, the approach of which I had been feeling.'
Gandhiji gave her the name of Meera in view of her devotion to him and her dedication to the service of India.Soon after she came to India, she was sent to the Kanya Gurukul, Dehra Dun, where she taught English, Spinning and carding, and studied Hindi and the Scriptures. She accompanied Gandhiji to the Second Round Table Conference in 1932 and acted as his interpreter on the Continent on his way back home.She said that India was her home and she felt like a foreigner in England.She joined the Satyagraha movement later on and was in prison once with Kasturba, and twice by herself.
She was arrested along with Bapu on the morning of 9 August, 1942 and was in the Aga Khan Palace detention Camp from august, 1942 to May, 1944. It was on 18 January, 1959 that she left India for good and settled in a small village about 30 miles from Vienna.She was awarded Padma Vibhushan in January, 1982.She passed away on 20 July, 1982.
Copyright © by FreeIndia.Org - India Site dedicated to freedom movement, education, culture, All Right Reserved.
