{"id":106954,"date":"2026-06-06T11:10:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T05:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=106954"},"modified":"2026-06-06T11:10:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T05:40:16","slug":"maulana-barkatullah-the-forgotten-freedom-fighter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/maulana-barkatullah-the-forgotten-freedom-fighter\/","title":{"rendered":"Maulana Barkatullah: The Forgotten Freedom Fighter and the University Rename Row"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Maulana Barkatullah Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The executive council of <\/span><b>Barkatullah University in Bhopal<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> has passed a proposal to rename it <\/span><b>Vagdevi Bhojpal University<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The university was named after Maulana Barkatullah Bhopali in 1988 \u2014 before that, it was simply called Bhopal University.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The rename proposal has sparked debate about who Barkatullah was and whether erasing his name amounts to erasing an important chapter of India&#8217;s freedom struggle.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Who Was Maulana Barkatullah<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Maulana Barkatullah Bhopali was born on July 7, 1854, in Bhopal. He was a <\/span><b>scholar, freedom fighter, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and<\/span><b> revolutionary<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> who spent virtually his entire adult life outside India \u2014 working to end British rule from abroad.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He studied in Bombay and then London. He began teaching in Liverpool, where he came into contact with Indian revolutionaries.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His writings and speeches drew the attention of British authorities, forcing him to leave for the United States in 1899.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From that point, he never stopped moving \u2014 Japan, England, the US, Germany, Russia, Afghanistan, Brussels, Switzerland, France.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In US, he corresponded with the freedom fighter Maulana <\/span><b>Hasrat Mohani<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (who coined the slogan Inquilab Zindabad).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wherever he went, he built networks, wrote, spoke, and organised against British colonialism.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He died in September 1927 in Sacramento, California, while attending a <\/span><b><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/ghadar-party\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ghadar Party<\/a> event<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, with his lifelong associate Raja Mahendra Pratap by his side. He is buried there.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Core Beliefs of Barkatullah<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Barkatullah was a committed anti-colonial thinker who held one conviction above all others: India could only be free if Hindus and Muslims fought together.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He saw the British policy of divide-and-rule as the primary obstacle to independence.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He wrote about the suffering of ordinary Indians \u2014 both Hindu and Muslim \u2014 under colonial economic exploitation, noting that millions had died of starvation.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His entire political career was built on the <\/span><b>idea of composite nationalism<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 the belief that India&#8217;s freedom was a shared cause that transcended religion.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>The Kabul Government: India&#8217;s First Government in Exile<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The most significant chapter of Barkatullah&#8217;s life came during World War I.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In December 1915, Barkatullah, along with Raja Mahendra Pratap (a Hindu prince) and Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi (an Islamic scholar), established the Provisional Government of India in Kabul, Afghanistan.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This was India&#8217;s first government in exile \u2014 set up entirely outside British control.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Raja Mahendra Pratap<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> became President. <\/span><b>Maulana Barkatullah<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> became <\/span><b>Prime Minister<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 which is why he is sometimes called the &#8220;first Prime Minister of independent India&#8221;.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This was not merely symbolic. It was a bold political act \u2014 Indians of different faiths forming a government and asserting sovereign authority at a time when India was still firmly under British rule.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Kabul government sought support from Afghanistan, Germany, and later Soviet Russia to challenge British power.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Meeting Lenin<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Four years after the Kabul government was formed, its leaders travelled to <\/span><b>Moscow to meet Vladimir Lenin<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, then head of Soviet Russia.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Barkatullah&#8217;s statement in Russia captures his worldview clearly. He described himself as neither a communist nor a socialist, but said his goal was the expulsion of the British from Asia.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He saw European colonialism \u2014 led by Britain \u2014 as the enemy, and found in the Soviets a natural ally against it.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After the British victory in WWI dealt a severe blow to the revolutionaries&#8217; plans, Barkatullah continued his work \u2014 travelling across Europe and keeping his cause alive until his death.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Why His Legacy Was Forgotten<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Barkatullah spent most of his life abroad and died in the US in 1927 \u2014 twenty years before Independence.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He was never part of the mainstream nationalist movement led by the Congress inside India.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His revolutionary activities were conducted across multiple countries, leaving little visible trace on the Indian public consciousness.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He was formally recognised in 1988 when Bhopal University was renamed after him \u2014 a long-overdue acknowledgment of a son of the city who had given his life to its freedom.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Historians argue that the proposal to rename the university now would undo even that belated recognition.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Historians said that instead of changing the university&#8217;s name, more should be done to popularise the legacy of Barkatullah.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They note the irony that the central government has been actively working to popularise Raja Mahendra Pratap \u2014 Barkatullah&#8217;s closest associate \u2014 while his name faces erasure.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source:<\/b> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-history\/maulana-barkatullah-prime-minister-name-bhopal-university-10726132\/lite\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">IE<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/theprint.in\/feature\/who-was-maulana-barkatullah-indias-1st-pm-in-exile-whose-name-bhopal-university-wants-to-drop\/2950970\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TP<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maulana Barkatullah, a revolutionary freedom fighter and Prime Minister of India&#8217;s first government-in-exile, is at the centre of a university renaming debate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":106969,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[60,7992,22,59],"class_list":{"0":"post-106954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"tag-mains-articles","9":"tag-maulana-barkatullah","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-mains-current-affairs-tag","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106954"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106974,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106954\/revisions\/106974"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}