Window Seat | Mrinal Chatterjee 9.8.2020
Quit India Movement
It is said that Quit India (Bharat Chodo) movement shook the
foundation of British Empire. On 8
August 1942 at the All-India Congress Committee session in Bombay, Gandhiji launched the 'Quit India' movement. He gave a call for 'Do or Die'- karo ya maro.
The British Goverment swung into action almost
immediately and arrested almost all front-line Congress leadership including
Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel under the Defence of India Rules. The Working Committee, the
All India Congress Committee and the four Provincial Congress Committees were
declared unlawful associations under the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1908.
The assembly of public meetings was prohibited.
Even without the top leaders and under severe
repressive measures the movement erupted across the country. Aruna Asaf Ali
unfurled the national flag at Gowalia Maidan in Bombay. In several places,
local leaders declared National Governments- though
most of them could survive only for few weeks. Without the top leaders
and a well laid out strategy, the movement became rudderless. As a result most demonstrations had been suppressed by 1944,
though upon his release in 1944 Gandhi continued
his resistance and went on a 21-day fast.
Though the Quit India
movement failed to dispel the British from India, it showed the mood of the
public which eventually led them to quit India. There were other
socio-political and geo-strategic reasons too. By the end of the Second World War,
Britain's place in the world had changed dramatically and the demand for
independence of India could no longer be ignored.
Many of us
know about the role Gandhi and other senior leaders played in this movement. However,
not many (that include me as well) know about the leaders at the grass root
level, about the leaders of these 'National Governments'- beyond their state. I
just read about Chittu Pandey, popularly referred to as the Sher-e- Ballia
(Lion of Ballia), who 'established' National Government in Ballia, UP on 19
August 1942 for a few days before it was suppressed by the British.
Similar
National government was also established in Satara in Maharashtra and Tamluk in
Bengal. In Tamluk, the Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar functioned for almost two years
from December 17, 1942 to August 8, 1944. The chief protagonists were Satish Chandra
Samanta, Sushil Kumar Dhara, Ajoy Mukherjee and Matangini Hazra. It had its own
newspaper Biplabi.
I guess,
feature films (or at least web series) could be made on each of these ‘National
Governments’ and/or persons, who fought for the independence of the country and
largely remained unsung.
Coming to
films, a handful of films have been made on or with the Quit India movement as
prominent background. Most prominent among them are Kismet, directed by Gyan
Mukherjee (1943) and Saheed directed by Ramesh Saigal (1948) in Hindi and ‘42’ in
Bengali. Made in early 1950s it was directed by Hemen Gupta. Music was by
Hemanta Mukherjee. In Hindi a film 1942: A Love Story was made in 1994. But
this Vidhu Vinod Chopta directed film was more a typical ‘bollywood’ love story
than a faithful documentation of the times of 1942.
Regional language in Digital Age
The emphasis on mother tongue in New
Education Policy (NEP) has a futuristic construct. Historically, language has
held a significant space in India. At present, over sixty-five per cent of the
country converse in vernacular. Furthermore, the Indian diaspora and exodus
from rural India retained their linguistic, civic, cultural, spiritual and
emotional bond with their origin. Though people consume English publications,
they are interested in media in native language they grew up in and uphold the
presence of their mother tongue.
Social Media and most
of the web initially adopted English as a lingua franca. However, they swiftly
had to innovate and adapt to gain traction. These days, mother tongue is given
much emphasis by not just newspapers and social media but every player in the
digital domain.
The
Saga of the Mobile Phone in India
Little over a quarter century ago, on July 31, 1995 to be exact, a
phone call was made from Writer's Building in Calcutta (now Kolkata) to Sanchar
Bhavan in New Delhi that ushered in a communication revolution in India. It was
the first mobile phone call in India. The then Union Telecom Minister Sukh Ram
and the then Chief Minister of West Bengal Jyoti Basu spoke to each other using
hand held Nokia mobile phones over a private MobileNet service.
Mobile
phones were slow to take off in India, owing to expensive call rates (Mobile
call charges back cost Rs 8.40 per minute for both outgoing and incoming calls.
Rates could go up to Rs 16.80 per minute) and the cost of early mobile
hand-sets. But as rates fell and smartphones emerged which brought Internet to
our palms- the mobile usage soared. Between 1995 and 2020, the growth in number
of mobile phone users has been 3000-time. By end 2019, the number of mobile
subscribers in India crossed 1161 million. Mobile internet users doubled in
last 5 years.
Thanks
to the advance in ICT, today’s mobile phone has become a multi-functional
device. It could be and being extensively used in practically every field be it
business, education, governance, health services delivery and myriad other
activities. During Covid-19 pandemic- mobile phone has become the life-line for
hundreds of millions of people.
Tailpiece: LIC
Wife was an LIC employee. She went to a portrait painter to get
her painting done. She asked him to add an eleven lakh rupees necklace to her
neck on the portrait, although she was not wearing any.
The painter asked
why she wanted it in her picture.
She replied:
If I die, no doubt my husband will marry again. The new wife will see
this picture and will search endlessly for this non-existing necklace. They both
will fight and that's when my soul will find real peace.
This is called:
Jeevan Anand Policy. Zindagi ke saath
bhi, zindagi ke baad bhi.
Tailpiece: Friendship
Corona infected
Amitabh Bachhan. Amar Singh died.
This is called true
friendship.
(Courtesy: Social
Media)
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