Maulana Barkatullah Bhopali:
The Executive Council of Bhopal’s Barkatullah University has passed a proposal to rename the institution Vagdevi Bhojpal University.
- Maulana Barkatullah Bhopali (July 7, 1854 – September 1927) was a legendary anti-colonial revolutionary, scholar, and fiery journalist who served as the Prime Minister of India’s first Government in Exile, established in 1915.
- He spent the entirety of his adult life operating from international soil, building global anti-imperial networks to secure India’s complete independence from British rule.
- Born in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, he was a highly meritorious student who mastered multiple languages. He moved to Bombay and later to London for advanced studies.
- While teaching Arabic and Persian in Liverpool, England, he crossed paths with active Indian revolutionaries. His regular anti-British articles and fiery public speeches quickly made him a prime target for British intelligence, forcing him to flee to the United States in 1899.
- Barkatullah was a staunch believer in absolute Hindu-Muslim solidarity.
- In his personal letters to fellow freedom fighter Maulana Hasrat Mohani, he highlighted that the brutal famines and economic starvation orchestrated by the British crushed both Hindus and Muslims equally, concluding that India could never achieve true sovereignty unless all religious communities fought shoulder to shoulder against the divide-and-rule strategy.
