Remembering Maharana Pratap, Tagore and Gokhale

Nation remembers legendary warrior Maharana Pratap, Rabindranath Tagore and Gopal Krishna Gokhale on their birth anniversaries.

Maharana Pratap

• He was a Rajput king of Mewar in Rajasthan area and was famous for his bravery in the region and his fight at Haldighati.
• He was born on May 9, 1540, Pratap was the second son of King Udai Singh-II and Queen Jaiwanta Bai.

Rabindra Nath Tagore

• The 159^th birth anniversary of Rabindra Nath Tagore is being celebrated all over West Bengal. A multifaceted personality, his prose, poetry and artwork are brilliant and thought provoking. He enhanced India's pride and richly contributed to the freedom movement.
• He was born on May 7 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta to Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi.
• Tagore is also known as Gurudev, Kabiguru and Biswakabi.
• He began writing poetry when he was just eight years old. He released his first collection of poems under the name Bhanusimha, or Sun Lion when he was 16. Soon, he began writing short stories and dramas under his own name. His writings gave rise to new forms of prose and verse which were different from the traditional models based on classical Sanskrit.
• He attended a number of sessions of the Indian National Congress in Calcutta where he composed songs and sang during India's freedom struggle. He wrote India's national anthem, Jana Gana Mana and in 1911, he sang Jana Gana Mana as the opening song for the second day of the Congress Session. It was later adopted as India's National Anthem.
• He also wrote, Amar Sonar Bangla, the national anthem for Bangladesh. The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
• While Rabindra Jayanti is celebrated on May 7 every year, Bengalis observe it on Pochishe Boishakh, the 25th day of the first Bengali month of Boishakh, and which rarely coincides with May 7.
• He was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.
• Tagore and the world-renowned scientist Albert Einstein were mutual admirers and also have a picture of them alongside each other. Tagore met Einstein at the latter's home in Germany's Caputh in 1930.
• He passed away on August 7, 1941, in Calcutta.

Gopal Krishna Gokhale

• He was a famous social reformer, freedom fighter, scholar and Mahatma Gandhi's political guru.
• He was born on May 9, 1866 in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra. He was a professor of history and political economy at the Fergusson College, Pune. He resigned from the job to join active politics.
• He was among the most prominent faces in the Indian National Congress (INC) and a strong advocate for constitutional ways of struggle for gaining independence from the Britishers.
• He also served as the President of the INC and was elected to the post in 1905.
• His deep concern for the marginalised section of the society led him to form the Servants of India Society, whose members dedicated themselves to lifelong service for the poor and downtrodden. He also worked for the cause of the oppressed in South Africa.
• He persuaded a young Mohandas Gandhi to return to India from South Africa to help the Congress in struggling for India's independence.
• His rival in the INC was Lokmanya Tilak. Both the leaders came to represent the moderate and extremist faction in the party.
• His mentor was Justice G. Ranade who had started the Sarvajanik Sabha Journal with the help of Gokhale.
• He died at the age of 48, on February 19, 1915 in Bombay.