When was chandrashekhar azad born

He got his first punishment at an age of 15 years when he was caught by the Britishers and sentenced to 15 whiplashes. After this incident, he assumed the title of Azad and became famous as Chandrashekhar Azad.

Jallianwala Bagh Massacre deeply disappointed Chandrashekhar Azad. Mahatma Gandhi launched the Non-Cooperation movement in and Chandrashekhar Azad participated actively in it.

He then decided that a fully aggressive course of action was more suitable for his desired outcome. He joined a radical association named the Hindustan Republican Association and took part in several violent activities including the Kakori train robbery and killing of a British police officer He was known for his organisational skills and played a key role in reorganising the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. He wanted complete independence for India in any which way. His crimes made him a wanted man, but he was able to elude the police for several years.

When Azad became the commander-in-chief of the revolutionary party he used to borrow a book titled ABC of Communism from the writer Satyabhakt to teach socialism to his cadres. In , Azad participated in the famous Kakori Train robbery. Before this, Azad has also participated in other robberies carried out by the revolutionaries in various villages targeting big landlords. The Kakori episode proved to be detrimental for the revolutionaries as it brought them into direct confrontation with the British Raj.

As police began a massive manhunt for revolutionaries, several were arrested and put into prison. However, Azad managed to escape and went to Jhansi, where he lived in disguise for some years.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons. After the Kakori incident, the revolutionary party was in total disarray. Azad was the only member left outside of prison and the responsibility of re-organising the party fell upon him. In this monumental task, he got immense help from Punjab-based revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev. Due to their combined and tireless efforts, a new crop of revolutionaries was ready to again challenge the mighty empire with renewed energy and a more developed ideology.

Chandrashekhar Azad was chosen as the commander-in-chief of the party and head of the military department in absentia. First was the adoption of socialism as the ideology and goal of the party and the second was about discarding all religious and caste symbols.

Every member was supposed to do away with all religious and caste symbols like turban, tilak or janeau. Both these incidents brought the revolutionary party into the limelight and created massive support and sympathy for them. However, these two incidents also proved to be the death knell for the HSRA as they led to the arrests of most of its leaders. Azad began his revolutionary career as a radical nationalist and the development of his ideology followed the trajectory of the ideological-political development of the revolutionary movement.

In a way, we can say that Azad was the literal embodiment of the transition of the HRA into HSRA, which signified three important shifts namely, a from anti-colonial nationalism to socialism, b from armed struggle towards mass politics and c from overt use of religious symbology towards militant atheism.

Azad not only lived through this transition but also played an important role in facilitating them. When Ajoy Ghosh met Azad upon his release, the revolutionary party was in total disarray and Azad had dissolved the central committee of HSRA and told the provincial committees to work on their own.

He made plans to reorganise the revolutionary movement in North India and extend it in western and southern India on new lines and for this purpose, he was planning to send a few of his comrades to the Soviet Union for ideological training. This plan was hatched by Azad in consultation with the accused of the Meerut conspiracy case. Azad was in touch with the Meerut conspiracy accused via Rajendrapal Singh Warrior, the organiser of the HSRA in Meerut, whose elder brother Vijay Singh Pal was a member of the defence committee of the Meerut conspiracy case accused and worked as a conduit between them and the revolutionaries.

Warrior in his memoirs has described how an arrangement was made for the HSRA revolutionaries to travel to Bombay where they were supposed to be contacted by a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, who would facilitate their travel to the Soviet Union. Yashpal travelled to Bombay and contacted communist activists but the martyrdom of Azad and later arrest of Yashpal and Pandey foiled their plans.

Young Azad was deeply and emotionally influenced by the tragedy. On February 23, , police surrounded Azad and he was hit on his right thigh making it difficult for him to escape. With one bullet in his pistol and surrounded by police, he found himself outnumbered.

He shot himself keeping his pledge of never being captured alive. Latest News. Thank you for subscribing to our Daily News Capsule newsletter. Whatsapp Twitter Facebook Linkedin. Sign Up. Edit Profile. Subscribe Now. Your Subscription Plan Cancel Subscription.