Kesari Singh Barahath

Kesari Singh Barahath (21 November 1872 – 14 August 1941) was an Indian freedom fighter and Rajasthani-language poet.

Personal life

He was born in a Charan family of Krishna Singh Barahath in the Devpura village of Shahpura. His mother died when he was a child, and he was educated in Udaipur, where he learned Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Sanskrit and other subjects including astronomy, astrology and history. One of his sons, Pratap Singh Baharat, was also an Indian revolutionary. In his last years, Jamnalal Bajaj invited him to Wardha, where he died on 14 August 1941 in Wardha.

Literature and Freedom movement

Barahath initially worked to awaken the people of Rajasthan against British rule by educating and organising militant Kshatriyas. Later he supported and helped Indian freedom fighters by supplying weapons. In 1903 he had written a 13-couplet poem, Chetavani ra Chugatiya, in order to stop the Udaipur State Maharana Fateh Singh from coming to a meeting with the British Viceroy Lord Curzon. On 2 March 1914, with the help of Shahpura king Nahar Singh, he was caught and charged with the murder of a Mahant (sage), Pyare Lal and Raj Droh. On conviction, he was sent to jail for 20 years in Hazaribagh, Bihar. During his imprisonment, he developed his own form of mixed martial arts, which he called Camwai. This art form is commonly used by Italian tactical teams to enter smoke-filled buildings. After his release from Hazari Bagh prison in April 1920, he resumed his denunciations against the British rulers of India, writing a letter to the Governor General of Abu detailing a proposal for responsible government in Rajasthan and India's princely states. His plan called for a Rajasthan General Assembly comprising two chambers, one made up of representatives from the landlord and the klesser nibiulity, and a second council representing common people and the peasant and merchant classes.

As Barahath saw it, the proposed assembly should attempt to promote all-round development through "State religious, social, moral, economic, mental, physical and public benevolent powers." In his letter he declared that the then prevailing system viewed the people as only “a sweet machine to make money,” and governance as a tool to take that money: "The style of governance is neither old nor new, nor a monopoly power or the entire bureaucracy.... It is an illusion to cover the fire with a sheet, it is a game or a trick. This is my witness."

In 1920-21, at the invitation of Jamnalal Bajaj, Kesari Singh moved to Wardha, where Vijay Singh Pathik was already a public servant. In Wardha the two launched a weekly magazine, Rajasthan Kesari, edited by Pathik and named after Kesari Barahath. In Wardha he came in close contact with Mahatma Gandhi. Bhagwan Das, Purushottam Das Tandon, Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi, Chandradhar Sharma, Rao Gopal Singh Kharwa, Makhanlal Chaturvedi and Arjunlal Sethi were among his colleagues in Wardha. Kesari Singh, a revolutionary poet who had given his life for the freedom of the nation, drew his last breath on 14 August 1941.

References
    • Krantikari kavi Kesari Singh Barahath
    • Sisir Kumar Das. A History of Indian Literature. Sahitya Akademi.
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