The meaning of freedom
Indira Chowdhury

We identify 15^th August 1947 with the “tryst with destiny” speech that our first Prime Minister made that day.

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance…

In Bombay, as Mumbai was then called, the city had dressed itself to greet this momentous occasion on 15^th August 1947. Alladi Ramakrishnan, later the founder of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai and at that point a young scientist, present in Bombay that day recalled “The whole of Bombay gathered in the spacious maidan behind the Marine Drive. It was a night to remember and the dawn of a new era.”

Homi Bhabha, the cosmic ray physicist who is known as the architect of India’s Atomic Energy Programme, (after whom the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre is named) had started his institute, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, here in Mumbai in 1945. The institute was in Pedder Road at that time. To celebrate the first day of Indian Independence he had given the Indian flag to the laboratory assistant, GV Vasudevachar.  Vasudevachar had recounted this bit of information when I met him in Bangalore around 2005. I was, at that point, setting up the archives of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research which is now in Colaba. But to my dismay, there were no official records of that first flag hoisting in the documents available at the institute. I did not know anything more about what happened to the flag until I met Professor PC Vaidya in 2009.

PC Vaidya, or Prahlad Chunilal Vaidya, a mathematician and freedom fighter. He had joined the Institute of Science in Bombay and had completed a M.Sc in Applied Mathematics. He briefly taught trigonometry and arithmetic to undergraduates at a college at Rajkot. In 1941 he joined the freedom fighter Prithvi Singh Azad in his efforts to train non-violent freedom fighters in developing their bodily strength in resisting attacks by the British police. Even as he worked with Azad, Vaidya continued teaching mathematics privately.

In 1942, PC Vaidya moved to Banaras Hindu University to work with the scientist, V. V. Narlikar – the father of the astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar. That same year, the Indian freedom struggle had reached a critical point with Gandhiji leading the Quit India movement. On August 9 1942, Gandhiji, members of the Congress working committee and leaders of the Indian National Congress were arrested by the British Government. This led to mass protests all over India – thousands were killed and more than 100,000 people were imprisoned. Gandhiji had commenced a 21 day fast to protest against his detention without charges by the British. This was the period, at Aga Khan palace where he was imprisoned, that Gandhiji had lost his close aide Mahadev Bhai Desai and his wife Kasturba. In Banaras, the physicist PC Vaidya anxiously awaited news of Gandhiji whose health was deteriorating as he fasted. But through this deep anxiety that the Gandhian physicist experienced, his mind also worked on Einstein’s theory of General Relativity and he had rapidly worked out a mathematical idea using spacetime geometry – something we know today as the Vaidya metric. [Vaidya’s formulation applies to a set of Einstein’s equations to describe the ‘gravitational field of a star which has a sizeable radiation.’]

I met Professor PC Vaidya in 2009 and conducted what would be the last interview he did. Among the things we spoke about were his memories of that first day of Independence celebrated at Bhabha’s institute which he had joined in 1947. The flag was already there with the laboratory assistant. As a Gandhian and a freedom fighter, Vaidya had hoisted the flag in a way he was familiar with – he had folded the flag and then unfurled and hoisted it. Then Vaidya recounted a twist in the tale:

That morning, “when Bhabha came, he asked, “Where is the flag?”. I pointed out, “There it is.” Then Bhabha said, “No! On the first day of independence you don’t just unfurl the flag – you raise the flag. Bring it down!”

After that, Vaidya said, “We raised the flag and we sang Jana Gana Mana.”

Then Vaidya added quietly, “Raising the flag! Now that is something I learnt from Bhabha. This incident made me feel that even a famous scientist [like Bhabha] is an ordinary citizen.”

Bhabha’s act of raising the flag had elements of ceremony, thoughtfulness and a gravity that were deserving of the occasion – after all, it was the first day that the Indian national flag went up. For Vaidya the inclusion of ceremony and the accompanying solemnity was an important lesson in how to celebrate newly won citizenship. This moment signalled a way of learning about citizenship and its responsibilities, and also expressed pride in hard won self-governance and accompanying thoughts on responsibilities of becoming self-reliant. And Vaidya witnessed in Bhabha’s passionate demand for a formal ceremony his deep identification with that moment when from being a British subject he had become a citizen of India.

The story of raising the flag is but a small instance of the ways in which parts of the past remain in people’s memories – how history text books offer only a small and often selective portion of what happened in the past. Our history lessons do not teach us to listen to people’s memories.

I had the rare privilege of interviewing several celebrated Indians who were very young, the year India became Independent. The distinguished Indian historian, Professor Romila Thapar was a school girl in Poona in 1947. Recollecting those years, she spoke of the impact Gandhiji had. She recollected that whenever Gandhiji was released from Aga Khan Palace, where he was imprisoned, he would hold prayer meetings in the grounds of Dr. Mehta’s Nature Cure Clinic (now the National Institute of Naturopathy). Thapar, and some of her friends would finish their homework after school and rush off to the clinic to attend Gandhiji’s prayer meetings.

“In those years, one of the things that happened to me, which has remained with me since, was that I did feel the impact of nationalism. There was something in the air – which, I felt.”

In her final year of school, she was asked by the Sister Superior of St Mary’s School Pune, to make a speech, hoist the flag and plant a tree. Recounting how she thought about her speech that day she told me, she had felt, “I don’t know what freedom is but it feels good. You know, one doesn’t really know what freedom is, and certainly at that age one doesn’t know. One is looking forward to a new society. One is looking forward to an India that is going to be the kind of India that we want.” Someone had asked her, “What is the kind of India that you want?” And she had said, “It’s got to be something different. So, it’s that kind of feeling that one had, that this was really a big watershed in one’s life.”

Far from Pune, on that very same day, at Woodstock school, in Landour near Mussoorie, in the foothills of the Garhwal Himalayan range, all students went to the Band Stand at the western end of Mussoorie where the flag was to be unfurled by Govind Ballabh Pant, a key figure in the Indian national movement and the Chief Minister of United Provinces at that time. For Professor Ashoke Chatterjee, who was the Executive Director of the National Institute of Design, that first day of Indian Independence is “deeply etched in my mind. It was raining cats and dogs and it seemed a futile thing to go off and listen to Mr G.B. Pant in the pouring rain when you are a school boy of twelve or thirteen. But we all went and we realized how important this was.”

When they got back to school there was a unique celebration. “When I look back,” Professor Chatterjee told me, “this was rather important, because all of us had to serve the staff: the cooks, the service staff, everybody was given a celebratory meal and all the teachers and students had to be the cooks and the ones to serve.” Then he added, “And although I don’t remember this being said, I have a feeling that it was probably a gesture to Gandhiji – that this day belonged to him and it should be observed in a way that was relevant to his way of looking at things.”

Gandhiji himself had started a 24 hour fast that day. He was in Calcutta, in Beliaghata. Abstaining from celebrations, he had addressed a crowd appealing for peace and harmony between Hindus and Muslims. Remembering Gandhiji on a day that is always associated with our first Prime Minister’s iconic speech, pointed to the importance of understanding what freedom meant for those who had witnessed that moment in 1947. These voices recounted a complex set of emotions about that day. History begins with the experiences of those who have lived the past. That past is entangled with their memories.

The story of the flag being raised at TIFR on that first day of Indian Independence is a tiny detail in the larger picture of celebration and yet it brings together the hopes of a new nation and the responsibilities of citizenship that accompanied freedom. It’s a story about scientists who were also freedom fighters and who became citizens. Professor Thapar and Professor Chatterjee in their recollections remind us of the hopes and dreams of youth and the one person who was not a part of those celebrations and yet had given his all to make that moment possible.

Nehru’s oft-quoted, ‘tryst with destiny’ speech was one that many Indians waited for. In 1997, on the fiftieth anniversary of Indian Independence, I had interviewed my grandmother, Induprova Dasgupta what she and the family had done on that first day of Indian Independence. She had told me that the night before they had completed all household tasks quickly, she and her sisters-in-law had decorated the house with alpana  and with garlands and waited for Nehru’s speech (she referred to him as Motilal’s son) that was going to be broadcast over the radio. And yet, it was not a day that was infused only with anticipation and happy thoughts. She also told me of the heaviness that lay at the bottom of her heart as she realised a few months before that day in August that she would not be able freely to go back to her father’s village near Dhaka. That was where she had grown up and that was the village she and her children had taken refuge in during World War II when the Japanese had bombed Calcutta. Independence, she realised, had come at a cost – India was going to be divided. Her fears were real and she never did step into her village again.

Memory is a hook, often pulling out other recollections that lie just below the surface of recollected events. I had asked her if she could remember what she looked forward to the most on that first day of Indian Independence. She said she recalled clearly what that was. She was looking forward to meeting her brother again. She hadn’t seen him for more than a decade as he was a Freedom Fighter and was still in prison. Now he would be free. When had she last seen him? I asked.

“That was a terrible day.” She told me, “He was in prison and I had sent him word that he should get permission and come as soon as possible if he wanted to meet my husband. He was really seriously ill, you see. So my brother got permission from the jailor and came in a police van. Our house was marked as one where the police always came – earlier they would come to arrest my brother who was part of the Anushilan Samiti – one of the underground societies of anti-British revolutionaries. That day, my brother had told the jailor that he needed to spend time alone with my husband – he did not want police in the room where his brother-in-law lay dying. The jailor had agreed and given permission when they spoke. But as expected, the jailor was deceitful and did not write this in the permission order that he gave the police. So when the police insisted on coming in with her brother, her brother was angry and refused to step into the house. He turned around and said, “l shall go back and get permission! He had promised me and he must honour his promise!”

Then she told me, “You know, I ran­ after the police van, crying. I begged my brother to come back. ‘He may not last too long! Please turn around and come back! Come and see him. Once, at least. But my brother left in anger.” The van made its way out of their narrow lane, with a crowd of children following it.

As she spoke, in my mind, I saw this 22 year old turn back, defeated, exhausted and helpless. It was at that moment I recognized for the first time how vulnerable she had been and how she must have had to steady herself to walk in a landscape that was in a state of seismic instability. And I could not imagine how she had traversed that unfamiliar path holding on to her children who were six, three and two at the time. For there was a lot I did not see yet in her story. I heard but did not really listen to her articulation of deep regret for that day when her brother left without meeting my dying grandfather. It was the 4^th of July 1934. Since then she had met her brother several times, always with a police escort. There had been no time for the siblings to reach out to each other for comfort. But such personal costs never counted especially when assessing a successful nationalism that had gained for India her freedom.

At her home there hangs a framed certificate of appreciation for hand crafted bag she had exhibited at the Jessore Khulna Yuva Sammelani exhibition in 1929. The certificate was signed, among others, by Subhas Chandra Bose. This certificate was perhaps instrumental in her getting a job at a Government Primary Schoolafter my grandfather died. My childhood visits to Calcutta hold out pleasant memories of her taking me to the school where she taught craft. She and I would board a crowded bus from her home to the school in the middle of what was called the “office hour”. The bus was usually teeming with young office-going men and women. The men would sometimes say teasingly, “Grandma, why on earth must you travel at this hour? You can go for your tea parties when it is less crowded.” She would elbow her way in, holding my hand tight and answer, “What can I do, baba? This grandma has to go to work, just like you do!” I admired her ability to have a witty answer to these comments. I would spend the day at her school and on the way back, she would stop at a sweet shop and treat me to whatever sweets I liked.

Many years later, I began to put together my grandmother’s story through my long oral history interview with my mother and through conversations with other members of the family. Right after she was widowed, my grandmother had returned to her father’s home in the village with her three children. She was his favourite and he had got her married after spending a lot of time matching her horoscope with those of prospective grooms. He had found her a perfect match – the planetary alignments looked flawless. Until the young man developed pleurisy; soon tuberculosis wasted his body and he was gone, proving all astrological predictions wrong. A story about this time that my mother shared though she may not have witnessed it herself, was that her grandfather had torn all horoscopes to shreds and henceforth no matches were based on horoscopes.

After some months, my grandmother returned to her husband’s home with her three children. Her husband’s brothers felt that she and the children were their responsibility. She cooked for the family along with the other women in the family. She commanded respect and was loved by her husband’s younger siblings and their children. But her yearning for red lentils which was forbidden to widows, was something nobody bothered with. She cooked it frequently. She could never taste the fish fried or cooked into delicious curries. As a child I loved her cooking but it never struck me to ask how she felt about the food she cooked but was forbidden to taste or eat. Later, as a teenager, I was angry on her behalf and thought that the family was most insensitive. But she? She never thought that way. She said that they supported her to bring up her children, put them through school. She accepted the traditional restrictions about food and dressing for widows. As a young feminist I saw this as part of her social conditioning that had become so deeply ingrained that she never questioned it. Was she free if she never questioned things that held her back? She was certainly not weak. She was not a strong woman one reads about in novels and biographies. Barely four and half feet tall, delicate, her face had a softness about it. In her youth she was seen as a beauty and her close family called her Chhabi which would translate as “picture” in English. Formally, she was named Induprova – the light of the moon. So many things she said or did were conventional. And yet, through all those tumultuous years, she was, perhaps, gathering the parts that she would come to call her own.

In the early 1970s, my mother’s best friend lost her husband to cancer. She was forty with two young daughters. I still remember the telegram being delivered to our small town home and my mother in tears. My parents took a quick decision to visit Calcutta. The journey must have taken them six hours by train and I did not accompany them. Recollecting that difficult time, many years later, my mother’s friend told me how much that visit had meant to her. But there was someone else who had given her strength to step into this phase of her life. “Your grandmother came to see me soon after I lost my husband,” she told me. And in that stifling atmosphere made heavy with tears and among whispering voices raspy with crying, she had spoken out, to the surprise of many. She was tiny, but that day, her voice rang out clearly, unfaltering in its firmness, unflinchingly discarding all orthodox notions of what a widow should do: “Let me say this in front of all those who are here. I am saying this as I am older than all of you – and older than your mother, Meera. You will not dress like a widow and nor will you eat like one!” In that hushed silence of her audience, she continued, “I was widowed when I was twenty two with three little children. I wore white and I cooked fish and masoor dal (red lentils) for the extended family every day. I was not allowed to eat either. I loved masoor dal – so I would occasionally smell it when nobody was looking. The only thing I know for certain is that wearing white or not eating fish, meat or lentils does not prove anything about how much you love or miss your husband. The elders in my family did not ever say I could eat these or wear coloured saris. I am much older now, so I am telling you this: you will not love or miss your husband any less if you wear coloured saris and eat fish or meat or lentils. There was no elder who had spoken for me when I was widowed.” My mother’s friend always cried when she recounted this story about my grandmother.

The harsh rules and rituals of widowhood were not something I gave thought to as a child, but as I began to read more as a teenager, I began to relate all that I read to the way my grandmother’s life had unfolded, and the weight of her words began to sink in. And yet, she had never expressed anger, resentment or bitterness towards her family that had never stood up and argued against cold-hearted conventions. I had never heard her lament her fate or complain against her elders who never spoke up for her. Her journey that began well before Independence was a hard one. The coming of Independence changed India, but did not quite change things for her. But as she moved deeper into her journey, she had found that the voices that busily articulated rules and conventions could be left behind, and she could speak in a voice that was uniquely her own. Though that moment came more than two decades after Indian Independence.

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I am grateful to Nandini Dasgupta for her help. And as always to Vivek Dhareshwar for insightful conversations.