Two weeks ago, a meeting was organised to recognise a legend named Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh and to celebrate his yeoman service in India’s freedom struggle and in underlining the importance of scientific education for India’s youth.
The meeting was organised by the Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh Foundation to recount his multifarious contributions to national development in the early-to-mid-20th century.
India was under British influence for almost two centuries. At first, the British East India Company came in beginning with the Battle of Plassey against the Nawab of Awadh in 1757. After a century, India came directly under the British Crown for 90 years beginning 1857, the year of the Sepoy Mutiny, which is often referred to as the First War of Indian Independence. A good three generations India suffered and struggled under the British.
There are dozens of prominent leaders who led the freedom struggle at different times, including Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel, in the decades prior to India attaining freedom in 1947. Unfortunately, many crusaders who fought didn’t get their due and remained unsung heroes.
The adage to be cited here is that nothing grows under a peepal tree. Raja Mahendra Pratap was yet another star among the front-line freedom fighters who didn’t get their due.
Born on December 1, 1886 in Mursan in the district of Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, Mahendra Pratap was the third son of Raja Ghanshyam Singh, ruler of Mursan. At the age of three he was adopted by Raja Harnarayan Singh, then ruler of Hathras.
After school, Mahendra Pratap moved to the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College (MAO) in 1895 in Aligarh, which later became Aligarh Muslim University. He married Balveer Kaur from the ruling family of Jind, now in Haryana, in 1902.
With both his father and grandfather divested of their earlier jagirs and power by the British, and the anti-colonial sentiments discernible in the MAO, Mahendra Pratap developed his own profound desire to work towards independence from the British. He attended the meeting of the Indian National Congress session held in Calcutta in 1906 and heard eminent freedom fighters like Dadabhai Naoroji, Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal and Gaikwad of Baroda, where the seeds of nationalism were sowed in his personality. He was barely 20 then.
As per academician Anil Rawat, Tilak and Naoroji influenced young Mahendra Pratap into recognising that education and small industries with local material and indigenous artisans were crucial for India’s progress and prosperity.
Struggle for freedom
A crucial contribution of Mahendra Pratap’s was to get support from like-minded countries in the world aligned against the British for India’s freedom. With credentials from German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Khedive (ruler) of Egypt and Sultan Reshad of Turkey, Mahendra Pratap set up the first Indian government-in-exile in Kabul, Afghanistan on December 1, 1915.
He appointed himself its president, Maulavi Barkatullah as prime minister and Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi as home minister.
After it was formed, the government-in-exile didn’t make much progress because Afghanistan subsequently changed sides and joined the British camp.
He travelled far and wide and lived for long stretches of time in many countries of the world for a total of 32 long years – from when he was 28 to 60 years of age – seeking support for Indian independence.
In the process, Mahendra Pratap learnt to fluently speak eight languages, according to Rawat, and became a quintessential diplomat and envoy extraordinaire for India’s freedom. It was not easy because it took a long time to travel by sea and manage the finances required for it.
Global dissemination of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’
A seminal idea floated by Mahendra Pratap in the international arena was the establishment of a World Federation Centre (WFC) in Tokyo in 1929 while he was in exile in Berlin. In his writings, speeches and meetings with world leaders, he underlined the need for international cooperation in dealing with common global challenges.
Mahendra Pratap’s Indo-Turco-German endeavour to liberate India from the British and his vision on the concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam under the umbrella of the WFC found resonance. A Swedish national named N.A. Nilsson nominated Mahendra Pratap for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1932.
Education
In 1906 Mahendra Pratap joined the Kolkata Congress led by Naoroji. On May 24, 1909, when he was barely 23, he founded the Prem Maha Vidyalaya in Vrindavan, where vocational training was built into the curriculum. He donated revenue from five surrounding villages such that that the college could be supported by Rs 33,000 of income per annum from those villages.
The institution became a centre for meetings between many leaders, including Gandhi and Nehru, where they strategised their initiatives during the freedom movement.
Mahendra Pratap understood the value of scientific temper and a sense of equality and mutual respect among the country’s youth in effectively shouldering the responsibility of governing and managing the future India.
An anecdote in his autobiography reveals the importance he accorded to the empowerment of marginalised communities in the country. Mahendra Pratap was once visiting Dwarka and decided to visit a temple there, where the priests asked him his caste.
He told the priests he was a sweeper – a low caste in the Indian social hierarchy. The priests stopped him from entering the temple premises.
Later, when the chief manager of the temple mentioned his visiting the temple, he refused to go, saying he ‘did not care to visit it when it was guarded by people who had no regard for humanity’.
Conclusion
Mahendra Pratap was three years senior to Nehru and 17 years junior to Mahatma Gandhi in age. He contested the Mathura Lok Sabha seat as an independent candidate in the second Lok Sabha elections. He won the seat, defeating the candidates of both the Congress and the Jana Sangh (which later became the BJP) in that election. He remained a Lok Sabha MP during 1957-62 when Nehru was prime minister.
When he passed away in 1979 at the age of 93, India released a postage stamp in his honour. A university has since been set up bearing his name near Aligarh. Its foundation stone was laid in September 2021 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Mahendra Pratap was a leader of stature who toiled for much of his life to garner support for India’s freedom from the British. He was a visionary, diplomat, author, educationist and social reformer.
A quintessential diplomat, he travelled across countries and continents seeking help from like-minded countries and leaders for India’s independence. He recognised education as the most important prerequisite for India’s progress and prosperity. He set up an institution with global aspirations that could be considered a harbinger of the United Nations.
Concluding his keynote address at the meeting to celebrate Mahendra Pratap’s service, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar exhorted that the country needs to work to ensure that the space and place due to the Raja is accorded to him in the history of India.
A.R. Ghanashyam is a former Indian diplomat.
