Independence Day: Visakhapatnams landmarks of the liberty battle

While a lot of India’s freedom battle is advised by way of occasions in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, Visakhapatnam had its personal highly effective, if quieter, moments of resistance. From salt-laden fingers held excessive on the seashore to fiery speeches within the Town Hall, these landmarks narrate the town’s struggle for swaraj.

In the Nineteen Forties, Visakhapatnam was a comparatively small coastal city with fewer organised public occasions when in comparison with main city centres of the Independence Movement. Yet the areas and tales which have survived from that interval reveal a metropolis absolutely engaged within the battle, albeit in its personal method.

The daybreak of freedom

For heritage narrator Jayshree Hatangadi, recollections of August 15, 1947, have at all times been colored by her grandmother’s vivid storytelling. CV Ratnamani, born in 1918, described the day as considered one of unrestrained celebration in Visakhapatnam. Drums echoed close to Kurupam Market for days. Residents wore khadi. Women wore strings of white and orange flowers of their hair. At the entrances of properties, chukkala muggus within the form of Gandhiji’s charkha appeared in saffron, white and inexperienced.

“Proud and excited, my mother and father have been taken to see the India map outlined in glowing lights on the facade of Poorna Theatre (at the moment in One Town), the place they stood nonetheless and saluted,” says Jayshree. Their father, CV Ramana Murthy, introduced them with small silver flag brooches, equivalent to these offered on the household retailer, the Eastern Art Museum.

Town Hall: A stage for awakening

Long earlier than freedom, the Town Hall had been central to the town’s political awakening. Its basis stone was laid on April 3, 1901 and it was inaugurated on March 8, 1904, by RH Campbell, then District Collector of Vizagapatam (a district within the Madras Presidency of British India). The constructing’s stone-walled Gothic construction quickly grew to become synonymous with public discourse, protest and civic meeting. In 1906, the corridor hosted early Vande Mataram conferences, gatherings that drew the eye and suspicion of the colonial authorities. On April 6, 1919, the town noticed Satyagraha Day towards the Rowlatt Act, with residents filling the corridor to listen to excerpts from Gandhi’s writings in an open problem to the Press Act, says Jayshree. According to heritage fanatic and INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage) member Edward Paul, the Town Hall additionally grew to become a cultural hub. “It is an iconic constructing, not just for its structure, however for the calibre of occasions it hosted,” he says. The stage noticed performances by MS Subbulakshmi, Dwaram Venkataswamy Naidu, and public lectures by Sarojini Naidu, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, CV Raman and Rabindranath Tagore. Through the Nineteen Twenties and Nineteen Thirties, the corridor was a discussion board for debate on non-cooperation, the boycott of overseas fabric and girls’s participation within the Freedom Movement. Jayshree shares, “Students from Andhra University marched to the constructing in khadi caps, organising mock parliaments and affirming Gandhi’s name for self-reliance. Even beneath strict surveillance, conferences continued, typically disguised as cultural evenings to keep away from British interference.”

The shoreline protest: Town Hall Beach

The stretch of shore close to the Town Hall, now a part of the Visakha Container Terminal, grew to become the positioning of the town’s Salt Satyagraha. When Gandhi visited in April 1929, the variety of ladies individuals exceeded that of males. Among them was 10-year-old Ok Sarojini, Jayshree’s mom’s cousin, who donated her gold bangle to assist the trigger. During the identical marketing campaign, Digumarthi Janakibai assumed management when male organisers have been arrested. She held a fistful of salt so firmly that the tahsildar pricked her hand to drive it out. She later gave start to her first youngster in jail whereas serving her sentence.

Streets of defiance

The studying room, as soon as housed in a dilapidated constructing by Maharajah Gode Narayana Gajapathi Rao, was rebuilt in 1917 by his daughter, the Rani Sahiba of Wadhwan, in his reminiscence. Inaugurated in 1917 by the then Governor of Madras, John Baron Pentland, the motto of the room was to advertise studying throughout colonial occasions. 

Among the town’s oldest studying areas, it as soon as housed a well-stocked library that drew students and residents alike. Its quiet partitions have witnessed many historic moments, together with visits by Sri Tenneti Viswanadham and Tagore. In 1932, Kapuganti Chidambaram was compelled to stroll from The Hindu Reading Room to the One Town Police Station whereas being crushed repeatedly. Witnesses recalled that he continued to chant ‘Vande Mataram’ till he collapsed. Incidents similar to these didn’t develop into nationwide headlines, but they marked the willpower of the town’s residents to take dangers for the reason for freedom.

A uncommon second within the Collectorate

One of probably the most uncommon occasions of Visakhapatnam’s independence historical past passed off on the Collectorate. On August 15, 1947, AH Southern, the British Collector of Vizag, personally lowered the Union Jack and raised the Indian tricolour.

The act was given additional significance by the truth that the identical constructing had been inaugurated on August 15, 1913, precisely 34 years earlier. According to Edward Paul, the Indian flag was additionally hoisted that day on the Police Barracks by the Collector.