VASUDEVA TILAK, BA.LLB STUDENT, VAIKUNTA BALIGA COLLEGE OF LAW, UDUPI.
We have heard true tales of many freedom fighters but there once lived a legend who went through the whole British Empire all by himself. For the first time an Empire where “ the sun never sets” was almost shredded in the darkness of fear, finding no light. He was none other than Vasudev Balwant Phadke also known as ‘Father of Indian Armed Rebellion’.
He was born on 4 November 1845 in Raigad district, Maharashtra in a Marati Chitpavan Brahmin family. We all as kids loved to play childlike games but he loved learning physical skills like wrestling as such. After dropping out from high school he moved to Pune and took the job as a clerk in military accounts department. He worked there for straight 15 years.
He was an obedient disciple of Krantiveer Lahuji Vastad Salve. Salve, an expert wrestler and a freedom ideologist. He preached the importance of independence from colonial rule. As salve belonged from Mang Community, he taught Vasudev to get backward castes into mainstream independence movement. In 1870, he joined a public agitation in pune that was aimed at addressing people’s grievances.
One day when he was in his clerk duty, he was denied the approval of leave by British authority and was not able to see his dying mother for the last time. This incident enraged Phadke and it became the turning point in his life where his seek for vengeance never let him turn back to British Empire.
Severe famine coupled with the apathy of colonial administration propelled him to tour the deccan region and filling enthusiasm within the people to strive for Indian independence. As unable to get support from educated class people, he gathered a band of people from the Ramoshi community. He organised around 300 men and hit hard the Britishers with insurgency movements. First raid was done to a house of a local business man where the collected income tax of colonials was stored and that money was benefited to a needy famine stricken village. But due to looting he was termed as a dacoit and had to flee from village to village to save himself from the clutches of Britishers.
After several attacks against the colonial government his head was priced as bounty if anybody captured him or killed him. Phadke in turn offered a bounty for the capture of governor of Bombay and announced a reward for killing each European. Later after this he fled to Rohilia. He was betrayed by one of his own members and was captured after a fierce fight in a temple.
As colonial rule prevailed, the judgement was also on their side. By this Vasudev was sentenced to jail and was transported to jail at Aden in Yemen. But even over there he didn’t quit, and successfully escaped from the prison by taking the door off from its hinges. This shows the ‘never give up attitude’ which is present in every freedom fighter but was extreme within Vasudev. Still he was recaptured and then went on a hunger strike and died on 17 February 1883.
The worst among all forms of death is starving to death by hunger. And attaining that death intentionally is purely impossible. But there are heroes in our Indian history who have achieved all these impossibilities for a particular goal. And that great goal was named ‘SWARAJYA’.
