Chapekar brothers
Despite orders from the government to pay heed to religious sentiments, Rand appointed over 800 officers and soldiers - the measures employed included entry into private houses, stripping and examination of occupants (including women) by British officers in public, evacuation to hospitals and segregation camps and preventing movement from the city.
Thus, to put an end to the injustice borne by the people of Pune, the Chapekar brothers shot Rand, and his military escort Lieutenant Ayerst, on 22 June 1897.
On 22 June 1897, the Diamond Jubilee of the coronation of Queen Victoria, Rand and his military escort Lt. Ayerst were shot while returning from the celebrations at Government House.
All three brothers were found guilty and hanged, an accomplice was dealt with similarly, and another, then a schoolboy, was sentenced to ten years' rigorous imprisonment.
[1] Damodar, Balkrishna and Vasudeo Chapekar hailed from Chinchwad,[2] then a village[3] near the former Peshwa capital Pune, in the present day Indian state of Maharashtra.
[citation needed] With passage of time, mainly on account of Vinayak Chapekar's independent spirit and ways which made him incapable of submitting himself to government service, and his many unsuccessful business ventures, the family gradually sank into poverty.
At one time when Damodar Hari was a young boy, the family, consisting of a party of twenty five travellers, went on a pilgrimage to Kashi, with two servants and three carts.
[citation needed] Damodar recalls that their family rose to richness which was a result of this pilgrimage; he refutes it, and is thankful to his grandfather for the opportunity he had of drinking the waters of the Ganga – Ganges, bathing in it, giving alms and touching the feet of Kashivishveshwara.
[3] The brothers' father, Hari, was sent to Poona High School up to 6th standard, after which a Shastri was deputed to teach him Sanskrit at home so as to prepare him in the profession of a kirtankar.
Even Vinayak Chapekar left the house for the then Maratha capitals of Indore and Dhar, he worked there as a writer, he had an excellent Balbodh and Modi hand.
[3] Hari Vinayak was left to fend for his family on his own, he did not have the means to hire professional musicians to accompany him during his kirtan, so he trained his children to do so.
The Chapekar brothers received little formal education, but the "company of good people, hearing of kirtans, travelling, witnessing darbars of great princes and seeing assemblies of eminent scholars" was a source of knowledge far more enriching than a few examinations passed in school", writes Damodar Hari in his autobiography.
The committee had the right to mark special grounds for giving funeral to corpses suspected to have succumbed from plague, and prohibit use of any other place for the purpose.
[7] The resentment culminated in Rand and his military escort being shot dead by the Chapekar brothers on 22 June 1897.The assassination led to a re-evaluation of public health policies.
He also writes that closest watch was kept on the troops employed on plague duty and utmost consideration was shown for the customs and traditions of the people.
The same article included reported rumours that the plague has been caused by grain hoarded for twenty years by the banias or grocers being sold in the market, while others felt it was Queen Victoria's curse for the daubing of her statue with tar.
[12] In contrast to the above accounts, accounts based on local sources quote, among others, Narasimha Chintaman Kelkar as stating that the appointment of military officers introduced an element of severity and coercion in the house searches, the highhandedness of the government provoked the people of Puna, and some soldiers were beaten in the Rasta Peth locality.
[13] Kelkar alleged that the soldiers involved in the house searches "either, through ignorance or impudence, would mock, indulge in monkey tricks, talk foolishly, intimidate, touch innocent people, shove them, enter any place without justification, pocket valuable items, etc".
"[1] Gopal Krishna Gokhale alleged in an interview with the Manchester Guardian, while on a visit to Britain, that soldiers "ignorant of the language and contemptuous of the customs, the sentiments and the religious susceptibilities of the [Indian] people" had been "let loose" upon the city of Poona, and had "wantonly destroyed property, appropriated jewellery, burnt furniture, entered kitchens and places of worship, contaminated food, spat upon idols or broke them by throwing them on the ground, and dragged women into the streets for inspection before removal to hospitals" during house searches.
In his autobiography Damodar Hari writes that he believed the jubilee celebrations would cause Europeans of all ranks to go to the Government House, and give them the opportunity to kill Rand.
In his statement, recorded on 8 October 1897, Damodar Hari, said that atrocities like the pollution of sacred places and the breaking of idols were committed by European soldiers at the time of house searches in Pune, during the plague.
[20] An article, published in The New York Times, dated 4 October 1897, reports the arrest of Damodar Chapekar Deccani, and 28 others, Ayerst's and Rand's slayers.
