Biography of ‘Senapati Bapat’
Senapati Bapat was born in Ahmednagar, a district of Maharashtra, on November 12, 1880. He was fearless as a child. Having once almost drowned in a nearby stream, he didn’t think twice about venturing into the stream again. He brought this same dedication and fearlessness to the aid of his motherland.
Bapat was educated in Edinburgh, Scotland, because he lost a scholarship he had received from the British Government, for expressing anti-British views at a meeting of the Independent Labor Party. Despite the loss of the scholarship he continued his studies abroad, and came home with a preliminary knowledge of how to build bombs. Armed with this knowledge he planned to join other revolutionaries to use it against the British Government, not in an attempt to kill innocent victims, but to draw attention to the cause of freedom. On August 15, 1947, when India was declared free, Jawaharlal Nehru raised the Indian flag in Delhi for the first time. Senapati Bapat was given the same honor in Pune. After independence, Senapati Bapat took an active part in political life. He passed away on November 28, 1967 at the age of 87.
While in hiding after the Alipore bombing of 1908, Bapat traveled the country and discovered that the majority of the Indian population did not realize that their country was under foreign rule. At this point, his focus shifted from overthrowing the British government to educating the population. In 1912, he was arrested in connection with the bombing and was sentenced to be imprisoned. He was free by 1915, and was a “seasoned revolutionary”, according to Richard Cashman.
Bapat had joined the staff of Mahratta and was one of the several influential figures from the Poona area who were aligned with Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s attempts to establish local organisations supporting the cause of Indian independence. He realigned himself with Gandhi’s vision of Swaraj in late 1920, following the death of Tilak and despite having been a fervent supporter of the latter’s vision. This was a considerable shift, given his firebrand nature and willingness to use violence, but although he took the Gandhian oath of non-violence he remained willing to use force when he thought it necessary.
From 1921, Bapat led a three-year farmers’ protest (Satyagraha) against the construction of the Mulshi Dam by the Tata Company. Ghanshyam Shah considers this to be “the first recorded organised struggled against displacement” caused by an irrigation project. The company had initially dug test trenches on land without obtaining permission and the farmers, who were mostly tenants, objected in fear of losing their lands. The dam was eventually constructed and thus the protest ultimately failed.
Compensation for lands submersed by the dam’s construction was eventually arranged but was given to the landlords, who were mostly Brahmins in Poona, rather than to the tenants. Although Satyagrahas are intended to be non-violent, Bapat was jailed for vandalism of the construction project, rather than be captured for this, he turned himself in. His third jail sentence was for speaking at a public gathering held by Subhash Chandra Bose.
