Kumaon remembers its leader GB Pant

BD Kasniyal

Pithoragarh, September 9

Leaders belonging to various political parties and social organizations paid rich tributes to Bharat Ratna Pt. Govind Ballabh Pant, a renowned leader of the Gandhian era, on his 128th birth anniversary at various functions organised in the Kumaon region today.

GB Pant was a freedom fighter, ace statement, and a powerful orator. He was born at Khoont village in Almora district on September 10, 1887. He had his early education at a school in Almora and later went to Allahabad for higher education. He also obtained a degree in law from Allahabad University.

He was influenced by the speeches of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, an ace freedom fighter and social worker of that time, and he took to politics, negating family pressure to join government service. He started practising law in Kashipur town of Nainital.

“Besides practising law at Kashipur, he also started publishing weekly newspaper ‘Shakti’ in association with Pt. Badri Datt Pandey. He highlighted local problems in the newspaper, and particulary wrote against the tradition of Kuli Begar, a curse imposed on Kumauni society by the British,” said PC Joshi, a veteran journalist based in Almora.

Pant studied the works of great thinkers such as Dadabhai Nairoji, Bankim Chandra Chaterjee, Ramesh Chandra, Hernry George, Charles Dickens and Voltaire, which sowed the seeds of politics in Pant’s simple heart.

Though Pant was born in a conservative Brahmin family of Kumaon, he was a big supporter of social reforms. He felt that for the uplift of the country, deprived person of society need to be given opportunities to rise. He also felt the need to remove barriers of caste, religion, creed and community. “GB Pant was a supporter of unity in diversity,” said Joshi.

Pant actively took part in the freedom struggle of the country and was hit by a lathi while saving Jawaharlal Nehru during a protest against the Simon Commission in Lucknow in 1928. “The lathi blow sustained by him to save Nehru made him suffer for life as he could never straighten his back or stand straight lifelong,” said Joshi.

However, this disability could not deter Pant from taking part in the freedom struggle. He participated in the Salt Satyagraha in 1930, Satyagraha in 1940 and the Quit India movement in 1942.

Pant was elected Deputy Leader of the Congress in the Central Legislative Assembly in 1934 and became the first premier of the united province in 1937. “He resigned from the post after the Congress left legislative positions in protest against involving India in the Second World War without consent. He, however, regained the position by winning election held after the end of the war. He did a yeoman job in abolishing the Jamindari system in the state, thus giving to the common tiller the ownership of the land that they had been tilling for centuries,” said Joshi.

Pant became Union Home Minister following the demise of Sardar Patel in 1954. He played a significant role in the reorganisation of states on linguistic basis. He was awarded Bharat Ratna in 1957. He died on March 7, 1961, due to a heart attack. “Through his oratorical skills, he made a significant contribution in the Legislative Assembly before Independence and in Parliament afterwards, to analyse complex issues of parliamentary traditions, procedures, social and economic issues of the time, land reforms and the significance of the Hindi language and the Devnagri script,” said Joshi.