IMPORTANT NATIONAL LEADERS

Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917)

● He was the first Indian to demand

Swaraj in the Calcutta Session of INC,

1906.

● He was also known as the Indian

Gladstone, Grand Old Man of India.

● He was first Indian to be elected to the

House of Commons on Liberal Party

ticket.

● He highlighted the draining of wealth

from India by the British and its effect

in his book Poverty and Un-British Rule

in India (1901).

Annie Besant (1847-1933)

● She founded the Theosophical Society

in India and started the Home Rule

League.

● She established Central Hindu School

and College at Banaras (later BHU).

● She was elected the President of the

Calcutta Session of INC, 1917.

● She did not attend the 1920 Session at

Nagpur due to growing differences with

Gandhiji, as she felt that Government

of India Act, 1919 were a means to free

India.

● She edited famous Newspapers — New

India and Commonweal.

● She prepared — The Lotus Song, a

translation of Gita into English.

Bal Gangadhar Tilak

(1857-1920)

● He was awarded with the title

Lokmanya.

● He established new English school at

Poona. He was the editor of Maratha in

English and Kesari in Marathi.

● He joined INC in 1891 and moved an

Arms Act Resolution.

● He celebrated the Ganapati pooja and the

Shivaji festival.

● He collaborated with Agarkar and set up

institutions to give economically feasible

education to people.

● He was called Bal, Lala lajpat Rai was

called Lal and Bipin Chandra Pal was

called Pal.

● They were called as the trio of Lal, Bal,

Pal, an extremist group.

● He founded the Home Rule League in

1916 and helped in ushering the Lucknow

Pact and the Reforms Act at the Amritsar

Congress in 1919.

● He demanded swaraj and gave the slogan

Swaraj is my birth right and I shall have

it.

● Valentine Chirol described him as the

Father of Indian unrest.

● He wrote the books The Artic Home of

Vedas and Gita Rahasya.

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay

(1833-1894)

● He was a great scholar best known for the

composition of the hymn Bande Mataram.

● His first novel was Durgesnandini,

published in 1864 and he started the

journal Bangadarsan.

Bipin Chandra Pal (1858-1932)

● He was awarded with the title Mightiest

Prophet of Nationalism by Aurobindo

Ghosh.

● He supported the ‘Age of Consent Bill,

(1891), Swadeshi Movement and fought

for the cause of the Assam tea-gardeners.

● Half Naked Saint (by Franq Mores,

1931).

● Rashtrapita (by Subhash Chandra Bose,

1944).

● Birth 2nd October, 1869 at Porbandar in

Gujarat.

● Mother Putali Bai.

● Father Karam Chand Gandhi.

● Political Guru Gopal Krishna Gokhale.

● Private Secretary Mahadev Desai.

● Influenced by John Ruskin (Unto the

last); Leo Tolstoy; Thoreau; Emerson; the

Bible; the Gita.

● As an Editor

● Indian Opinion (1903-15) in English,

Gujarati, Hindi and Tamil.

● Harijan (1919-31) in English, Gujarati

and Hindi.

● Young India (1933-42) in English and

Gujarati.

● Literary works

Hind Swaraj (1909)

My Experiments with Truth (Auto

Biography, 1927).

Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949)

● Popularly known as the Nightingale of

India, she was a nationalist and poetess

from Uttar Pradesh.

● She was married to Dr Govindarajulu

Naidu in 1893.

● Under the guidance of Gopal Krishna

Gokhale, she became the first woman to

participate in the India’s struggle for

independence.

● She participated in the Dandi March with

Gandhiji and presided over the Kanpur

Session of Congress in 1925.

● She was the first woman to become the

Governor of Uttar Pradesh State.

● Her famous books include — The Golden

Threshold (1905), The Feather of the

Dawn; The Bird of Time (1912) and The

Broken Wing (1917).

Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari

(1879-1972)

● He was a politician and lawyer from Tamil

Nadu.

● He gave up his practice during

Non-Cooperation Movement.

● He held the post of the

General-Secretary of the INC in

1921-1922 and was a member of

Congress Working Committee from

1922 to 1924.

● He started the Civil Disobedience

Movement in Tamil Nadu and was

arrested for leading a Salt March from

Trichinapoly to Vedaranniyam on the

Tanjore coast.

● He was elected as the Chief Minister of

Madras in 1937 elections.

● He resigned from Indian National

Congress in 1942 for not accepting the

Cripps’ Proposal.

● He prepared the CR Formula for

Congress-League Cooperation.

● He served as the Governor of Bengal

(August-November, 1947) and was the

first and last Indian Governor-General

of India (1948-50).

● He became the Minister of Home

Affairs in the country’s first cabinet.

● He founded the Swatantra Party in

1959. His rational ideas are reflected in

the collection Satyameva Jayate.

● He was awarded with the Bharat Ratna

in 1954.

Dr Rajendra Prasad (1884-1963)

● He participated in Swadeshi Movement

(established Bihari Students,

Conference), Champaran Satyagraha,

Non-Cooperation Movement, Civil

Disobedience Movement and Quit India

Movement.

● He founded the National College at

Patna.

● He was elected as the Minister Incharge

of Food and Agriculture in the Interim

Government (1946).

● He was the President of the Constituent

Assembly.

● He became the first President of the

Indian Republic. He was honoured with

Bharat Ratna in 1962.

● He edited the newspaper—Desh (Hindi

weekly).

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964)

● He became the General Secretary of the

Indian National Congress in 1928 and

its President in 1929.

● The Independence resolution was passed

under his Presidentship at the Lahore

Session.

● He was the first Prime Minister of

Republic India (from 1947 to 1964), also

known as Architect of Modern India. He

authored the Doctrine of Panchseel and

believed in the policy of non-alignment.

● Books—The Discovery of India,

Glimpses of World History, A Bunch of

Old Letters, The Unity of India,

Independence and After, India and the

World, etc.

● His autobiography was entitled as

Auto-biography.

Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar

(1891-1956)

● Dr Ambedkar was the great leader of the

depressed class and an eminent jurist.

● He set up a network of colleges in the

name of People’s Education Society.

● He founded the Depressed Classes

Institute (1924) and Samaj Samata

Sangh (1927).

● He participated in all the Three Round

Table Conferences of London and signed

the Poona Pact with Gandhiji in 1932.

● He was in the Governor-General’s

Executive Council from 1942 to 1946

and organised the Indian Labour Party

and Scheduled Caste Federation.

● He became the Chairman of the Drafting

Committee of Indian Constitution.

● As the first Law Minister of the

Independent India, he introduced the

Hindu Code Bill.

● He started The Republican Party in 1956.

● He embraced Buddhism towards the end

of his life.

Subhash Chandra Bose

(1897-1945)

● He passed the Indian Civil Services

Examination in 1920 in England, but

left it on Gandhiji’s call of

Non-Cooperation Movement.

● He founded the independence for India

League with Jawaharlal Nehru.

● He was elected as the President of INC

at its Haripura Session (1938) and

Tripuri Session (1939), but resigned

from Tripuri due to differences with

Gandhiji.

● He founded the Forward Bloc (1939)

and Kisan Sabha.

● He escaped to Berlin in 1941 and met

Hitler. He took the charge of Indian

Army (Azad Hind Fauz) in 1943 in

Singapore and set up Indian Provisional

Government there.

● He addressed Mahatma Gandhi as the

Father of the Nation.

● He supposedly died in a plane crash in

1945.

● He gave the famous slogans — Dilli

Chalo and Jai Hind.

● The India Struggle was his

autobiography.

Bhagat Singh (1907-1931)

● He was a member of Hindustan Socialist

Republican Association.

● He started the ‘Militant Naujawan

Bharat Sabha’ in Punjab.

● He killed British official Saunders in

1928 and was involved in Lahore

Conspiracy and bombed the Central

Legislative Assembly.

● He was executed on 23rd March, 1931.