One lawyer to do it all

Lawyer of revolutionaries in the independence movement, Bharat Ratna holder, and Home Minister of India during the Reorganisation of States, GB Pant passed away in 1961

Govind Ballabh Pant; Source: Public Domain

It was 1914. The movement for refusing coolie-begar to the colonial officials was at a high. This was a law requiring that Indians provide free transportation of luggage of the British officials travelling through their regions. A young lawyer in Kashipur looked up to the plight and struggle of the villagers in refusing coolie-begar, and was inspired by the leaders of this movement - promising to himself to join in.

This man, Govind Ballabh Pant, started off by joining the legislative assembly of the United Provinces in 1921. As he was an extremely shrewd lawyer, and since the Congress had big plans to tussle with the British in the legal sphere, they needed all hands on board. Representing big names in the movement, like Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan, and others, involved heavily in the looting of a train at Kakori in UP, executed by the HSRA.

Pant would be arrested time and again for his involvement in Civil Disobedience and attending sessions of the then-banned Congress, however, he would also enrol himself in the Legislative Councils established by the Government of India Acts under colonial rule, and served as a moderator between the Gandhian and Bose factions inside the Congress.

Once independence was achieved, he would be elected the first Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, reforming and stabilizing the largest state of the country by population. His life would take him on one more political struggle, as in 1955 he would be sworn in as the Home Minister of India.

There was no doubt he had big shoes to fill - he was just getting an idea of how large an office Vallabbhai Patel had left behind. But he came out on top of this too, as, under him, a process of reorganisation of Indian states along linguistic lines took place, a process crucial to ensure British-era artificial divisions of communities were erased, and people could get a base of identity in their regions. He would be awarded the Bharat Ratna, but the stress of the job made him suffer a heart attack, and a stroke, from which he would never recover, on the 7th of March, 1961.