Promod Mande Award function in Pune

       It was a surprise invitation from unknown people. When I received this invitation, I was a bit perplexed, as I knew little about Promod Mande too, in whose name the awards were being given. There were two awards, one for an archivist and the other for a writer on revolutionaries. Later on, when I checked, I found Promod Mande was passionate about forts of India and so was for meeting revolutionary freedom fighter martyrs’ families. He was not a professional academic, but out of his passion, he travelled throughout India and collected invaluable and authentic historic material on forts and revolutionaries. He also travelled to record the authentic stops of Shiva ji from Raigadh in Maharashtra to Agra, the capital of Moghuls in his time. He published a few books on this material and used to deliver lectures on his research. That created a tremendous impact on the youth of Pune and surrounding areas. Unfortunately, he died of cancer a few years ago, as his wife predeceased him. He was seven years younger than me in age. He had such an impact on his followers, many of them with well-to-do financial sources that they formed a body to initiate two annual awards in his memory as mentioned above. While they held one offline function in 2019, then due to covid 19, they could not hold any physical function, so the function in 2022, was facilitated due to decreasing threat of Covid. For me too it was the first long air journey after covid years. I returned from Kolkata by air on 15th March 2019 after delivering lectures on Jallianwala Bagh and Bhagat Singh. In between, I had short travels to Delhi and Chandigarh, and also to Dehradun, but this was my first air journey after Kolkata.

     So I travelled straight to Delhi airport by taxi on 15^th October and took a two-hour flight to Pune, reaching before 8 pm. Young volunteers had come to receive me, so accompanied them to the hotel Eagle, where I was to stay put. On the way, we had a nice dinner. Many volunteers came to see me in the hotel. On the 16th morning around 10 am, I was taken to Bhim Sen Joshi Hall in Pune, where the programme was to be held. Reaching there, I was welcomed in style by school students and staff in army uniform giving me a guard of honour! I was feeling embarrassed at a such formal reception but kept answering to saluting young school students as formal response demanded. There were some speeches of formal nature. Late Promod Mande son was on Dias along with some other important functionaries. After I was given a memento and a shawl to felicitate me, I was invited to speak. As a token of respect to the late Promod Mande, I gisted my left word publication Jail Notebook and other writings to Mande’s son sitting on Dias.I spoke longest, but not more than 30 to forty minutes, narrating revolutionaries’ actions in Maharashtra, especially relating to Lahore conspiracy case-Rajguru, Bhagwan das Mahaur, Sadashiv Malkapurkar, Bhusaval bomb case and Durga Bhabhi shooting a British officer on Lamington road in Bombay.

      Without my expectation, they offered an envelope carrying ten thousand rupees cash in it as part of the award. I politely suggested they buy books on Bhagat Singh and other revolutionaries to enrich the libraries movement, which some of the young activists had started from Rajguru Nagar as I saw their book stalls outside the hall. There were hundreds of books on Bhagat Singh and other revolutionaries on display in Marathi, Hindi and English, which included my authored or edited books also, which pleased me immensely. They accepted the suggestion.

What pleasantly surprised me was the popularity of Bhagat Singh in Pune and Maharashtra. Library movement by young activist and role of Academy of Political and Social Studies(APSS) in Pune. Prior to Maharashtra, the popularity was notable in Tamilnadu, earlier called Madras. As Periyar got Comrade P Jivanandam to translate Bhagat Singh’s classic essay in Tamil as early as 1934, much earlier than its translation in Hindi, Punjabi, or Urdu. The essay was first published in the weekly The People in its 27th September 1931 issue in English originally, but Marxist.org kept on presenting it as a translation in English from Punjabi. Only recently it has accepted reality and posted an original essay.

Interestingly Bhagat Singh has become part of socio-religious part of Maharashtra life as I clicked a photograph of Krantikari Bhagat Singh Mitar Mandal. Mitr Mandal is a special Maharashtra socio-cultural phenomenon. During the Ganpati celebration, these Mitar Mandals in the name of heroes is found all over Maharashtra. I remembered that for a confirmed atheist, religious institutions are also named a Gurdwara in name of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Gurdwara exists close to the Hussainiwala memorial of Bhagat Singh at the Indo-Pak border. But among youth, the impact of Bhagat Singh’s revolutionary ideology is also visible, in the form of books being exchanged and read widely, in inappreciation of which I suggested the organizers to buy authentic books on Bhagat Singh’s ideas and contribute these to a wide network of libraries set up for spreading revolutionaries socialist revolutionary ideology

   Later in the afternoon, tried to reach the Mahatma Phule memorial and the first girl’s school set up by the Phule couple, which was in the most crowded market of Pune and it was impossible to reach there due to Diwali crowds. Had to drop the idea after walking quite a bit. I was taken to Nutan Vidya Mandir, where Bhagat Singh’s portrait in black and white with artwork, which was gifted to Marathi novelist Mrinalini Joshi, who wrote a large-sized novel Inqilab in Marathi in the 1970s and was later translated into Hindi. Mrinalini was gifted this portrait by Bhagat Singh’s mother Vidyawati in 1965 and her blessings to the author are printed on the novel Inqilab also. School Principal came to welcome us, clicked photographs and moved at the Academy of Political and Social Sciences set up By Dr Datta Desai in the early 1980s, where Shiv Verma had come to inaugurate. In my earlier visits, I was not able to visit the academy. Dr Desai has translated Bhagat Singh’s complete writings in Marathi from my edited collection, whose first edition was released in Pune by Justice P B Sawant, who wrote its introduction too, in a function held under the aegis of Ambedkar Chair led by Rao Saheb kale in 2008, as part of the birth centenary year of Bhagat Singh. I had seen its updated edition of 2016 but was pleasantly surprised to see its 7 or 8th reprint of 2022 at the book exhibition. Present academy trustee secretary Ajit Abhyankar, along with a few activists were there to interact with me. There was a wall painting of Bhagat Singh in spray technique.

     It was planned to meet Mande group activists after my visit, but we got delayed so much that a few activists just joined for dinner at some restaurant before reaching the hotel. Raviraj Phuge was one activist, who was most active in the whole operation. Praveen and Saurabh Modak accompanied me to various places and Ketan Puri arranged many other things. On the 17th morning on the way to the airport, I was taken to Chapekar brother’s memorial and ancestral house, being renovated. There I met one Padamshree RSS historian and a BJP corporator of the area. Returned to Delhi by flight via Hyderabad in four-plus hours double the time of normal travel.

      On the whole, it was a refreshing trip after two and half years of a home-bound situation. Some photographs of the trip are posted.