Ahmedabad3 hours agoAuthor: Aziz Cutleriwala
From demanding freedom from British rule to seeking accountability from an elected government, young Indians have repeatedly taken their causes to the streets. More than eight decades after 17-year-old Bhavanishankar Hargovindas Pandya left home to join the Quit India Movement, another generation of youngsters has been protesting over issues such as the NEET paper leak, student deaths and government accountability.
Now 100, Pandya looks back at the risks, anger and sacrifices that drove youngsters of his generation into the freedom struggle.
Bhaskar English met with Bhavanishankar Pandya, who shared the days of freedom struggle
Bhaskar English held a conversation with him in detail, and compared it with the student protests of today. The causes are different, but the impulse is familiar: when young people feel that something is wrong, they choose not to remain silent.
Bhavanishankar Pandya’s freedom struggle At 100, freedom fighter Pandya still speaks about his youth with the energy of someone who has never really left those days behind.
Growing up in Sarsavni village of Mehmedabad, opposite the house of Ravishankar Maharaj, he had absorbed the idea of service to the nation early in life. Mahatma Gandhi’s call of “Do or Die” turned that inspiration into action.
For Pandya, the trigger was also deeply personal. He remembers the killing of 18-year-old Gujarat College student Vinod Kinariwala, who was shot dead by British police after refusing to lower the national flag during a student rally. He recalls similar incidents in Ahmedabad and Vadodara, including the death of 17-year-old Rasik Jani and the killing of six youths in police firing during a student rally in Vadodara.
Protest, disruption and prison Pandya and his fellow youngsters tried to disrupt the British administration. They attempted to remove railway tracks between Kapadvanj and Nadiad and later planned to burn government letters kept at railway stations.
He also joined a group of 18 youngsters led by Bamal Mehta for a demonstration. Later, the group tried to mobilise farmers in Anklav, Anand. The police, however, were tracking the organisers. Pandya was arrested, spent 21 days in custody and was eventually sentenced to a year in Sabarmati jail.
100 year old freedom fighter Bhavanishankar Pandya
Inside prison, he found himself among nationalists including Ganesh Vasudev Mavalankar, Morarji Desai, and Jugatram Dave. The protest, he says, did not end behind bars.
Eight decades later, a new generation takes the street
The British are gone, but young people are again taking to the streets—this time demanding accountability over issues such as the NEET paper leak and the deaths of students.
Shreya, a 21-year-old social and political science graduate, said her education itself made remaining silent difficult.
For law student Amarnath Mohanty, the reason was equally simple: democracy comes with accountability.
“I believe in democracy. I believe in the Constitution. I believe that the government is accountable to us,” he said, questioning the response to NEET and other paper leaks.
Same fire, different times Pandya, however, sees a difference between the two generations. The freedom struggle, he says, was carefully organised and built around discipline, knowledge and sacrifice. He feels some contemporary protests can appear aggressive and lack that foundation.
Yet, he does not dismiss the anger behind them. Young people facing uncertainty over unemployment and their future, he believes, often feel that nobody is listening.
And perhaps that is where the two generations meet. “None of us ever won our rights by sitting at home,” Shreya said. For Bhavanishankar Pandya, that sentence may sound familiar even if the cause, the situations and the century have changed.
