Mohamed Barakatullah Bhopali
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Mohammed Barkatullah Bhopali | |
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Mahendra Pratap | |
Personal details | |
Born | 7 July 1854 Bhopal, Bhopal State, British India |
Died | 20 September 1927 San Francisco |
Mohamed Barakatullah Bhopali, known with his honorific as Maulana Barkatullah (7 July 1854 – 20 September 1927), was an Indian revolutionary from Bhopal. Barkatullah was born on 7 July 1854 at Itawra mohalla, Bhopal in what is today Madhya Pradesh, India. He fought from outside India, with fiery speeches and revolutionary writings in leading newspapers, for the independence of India. He did not live to see India's independence. He died in San Francisco in 1927 and was buried in Sacramento City Cemetery California. In 1988, Bhopal University was renamed Barkatullah University[1] in his honour. He was also Prime Minister of first Provisional Government of India established in Afghanistan in 1915.
Policy of revolution
While in England he came in close contact with
In England, in 1897, Barakatullah was seen attending meetings of the Muslim Patriotic League. Here, he came across other revolutionary compatriots around
According to a report in the Gaelic American, in June 1907, a meeting of Indians, held in New York, passed resolutions "repudiating the right of any foreigner (Mr. Morley) to dictate the future of the Indian people, urging their countrymen to depend upon themselves alone and especially on boycott and
More vehement was his letter in
On 16 August 1908 arrived from Kolkata
Activities in Japan
Early in 1910, he started the Islamic Fraternity in Tokyo.[citation needed]
In June–July 1911 he left for Constantinople and Petrograd, returned to Tokyo in October and published an article referring to the advent of a great pan-Islamic Alliance including Afghanistan which he expected to become "the future Japan of Central Asia". In December he converted to Islam three Japanese: his assistant Hassan Hatanao, his wife, and her father, Baron Kentaro Hiki. This is said to be the first conversion to Islam in Japan. In 1912, Barakatullah "became at once more fluent in his use of the English language and more anti-British in his tone", observes Ker (p133). Discussing in his paper the "Christian Combination against Islam", Barakatullah singled out the Emperor William of Germany as really the one man "who holds the peace of the world as well as the war in the hollow of his hand : it is the duty of the Muslims to be united, to stand by the Khalif; with their life and property, and to side with Germany". Quoting a Roman poet, Barakatullah reminded that the Anglo-Saxons had been sea-wolves, living on the pillage of the world. The difference in modern times was the added "refinement of hypocrisy which sharpens the edge of brutality". On 6 July 1912, the entry of the paper into India was prohibited, before the Japanese Government suppressed it.[citation needed] Meanwhile, since September, copies of another paper called El Islam appeared in India, continuing Barakatullah's political propaganda. On 22 March 1913 its importation was prohibited in India. In June 1913, copies were received in India of a lithographed Urdu pamphlet, "The Sword is the Last Resort".[citation needed] On 31 March 1914 Barakatullah's teaching appointment was terminated by the Japanese authorities. It was followed by another similar leaflet, Feringhi ka Fareb ("The Deceit of the English") : according to Ker (p135), "it surpassed in violence Barakatullah’s previous productions, and was modelled more on the style of the publications of the Ghadar party of San Francisco with whom Barakatullah now threw in his lot".[citation needed]
The Ghadar episode
In May 1913, G. D. Kumar had sailed from San Francisco for the Philippines and had written from Manila to Tarak Nath Das: "I am going to establish base at Manila (P.I.) forwarding Depôt, supervise the work near China, Hong Kong, Shanghai. Professor Barakatullah is all right in Japan". (Ker, p237).[citation needed] On 22 May 1914, Barakatullah returned to San Francisco with Bhagwan Singh (alias Natha Singh), the granthi (priest) of the Sikh temple at Hong Kong and joined the Yugantar Ashram and worked with Tarak Nath Das. With the outbreak of the War in August 1914, meetings were held at all the principal centres of the Indian population from Asia in California and Oregon and funds were raised to go back to India and join the insurrection : Barakatullah, Bhagwan Singh and Ram Chandra Bharadwaj were among the speakers. (Portland (Oregon) Telegram, 7 August 1914; Fresno Republican, 23 September 1914). Reaching Berlin on time, Barakatullah met Chatto or Virendranath Chattopadhyaya and sided Raja Mahendra Pratap in the Mission to Kabul. Their role was significant in indoctrinating with anti-British feelings the Indian prisoners of war held by Germany. They arrived at Herat on 24 August 1915 and were given a royal reception by the Governor.[citation needed]
Government of Free India
On 1 December 1915, Pratap's 28th birthday, he established the first
References
- ^ Barkatullah University, BHOPAL Archived 6 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine at www.bubhopal.nic.in
- ^ Contributions of Raja Mahendra Prata by Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman, International Seminar on Raja Mahendra Pratap & Barkatullah Bhopali, Barkatulla University, Bhopal, 1–3 December 2005.
- Dictionary of National Biography, ed. S.P. Sen, Vol. I, pp. 139–140
- The Roll of Honour, by Kalicharan Ghosh, 1965
- Political Trouble in India: A Confidential Report, by James Campbell Ker, 1917, Reprint 1973
- Sedition Committee Report, by Justice S.A.T. Rowlatt, 1918, Reprint 1973
- Les origines intellectuelles du mouvement d’indépendance de l’Inde (1893–1918), by Prithwindra Mukherjee, PhD Thesis, 1986
- In Freedom’s Quest, by Sibnarayan Ray, Vol. I, 1998
- Communism in India, by Sir Cecil Kaye, compiled & edited by Subodh Roy, 1971
- "The Comintern and the Indian revolutionaries in Russia in 1920s" by Sobhanlal Datta Gupta, in Calcutta Historical Journal, Vol. XVIII, No.2, 1996, pp. 151–170.