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TRIBUTE TO UNTOLD HISTORY
Lucknow: With India celebrating her 75th year of Independence, Gujarat has turned its focus inwards for this year’s tableau at the Republic Day parade which will take place in New Delhi on Wednesday.
The float pays tribute to Motilal Tejawat. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his days as Chief Minister of Gujarat, shone a spotlight on the mostly forgotten story of Tejawat.
Barely three years after the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre, in which troops under British command killed at least 379 unarmed demonstrators on April 6, 1919, about 1,200 people were killed in the remote Bhil-dominated villages of Palchitaria and Dadhavav in Sabarkantha district on March 7, 1922.
Born in Koliyari (now in Jhadol tehsil, Udaipur district, Rajasthan in 1886), Tejawat quit his job at the tehsil office after seeing the oppression of the local Bhil people at the hands of the Thakur and the British.
Greatly affected by the Bijolia movement, he then organized several meetings in Bhil villages and was successful in articulating the grievances and demands of the Bhil people.
This gave Tejawat the confidence to associate his movement with the larger Independence movement led by Gandhiji. Meanwhile, reformist newspapers had picked up on the Eki movement, which aimed at stopping exploitation of Bhils.
The rising mass movement set alarm bells rings for the British, who were still reeling from the bad press from the Jallianwala Bagh incident.
So, at noon on March 7, 1922, Mewar Bhil Corps (MBC)—a paramilitary force commanded by British officer Major HG Sutton—opened fired on a large Adivasi gathering led by Tejawat.
Even though more than 1,200 people died, Major Sutton described the massacre as a ‘skirmish’ in which only 22 people were killed.
Despite being seriously injured, Tejawat managed to escape into the the hills where he stayed until he surrendered on the request of Mahatma Gandhi in 1929 and remained imprisoned thereafter. He died in Udaipur in 1963.
As with every year, this year’s tableau was prepared with input from the Information Department of the Gujarat Government, under the guidance of Secretary, Information & Broadcasting Department Avantika Singh, Director of Information DP Desai, subject expert and historian writer Vishnu Pandya, Pankaj Modi and Deputy Director of Information, Hiren Bhatt.
The tableau has been designed and constructed by Siddheshwar Kanuga, owner of Smart Graph Art Pvt. Ltd.