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Journalism of Courage
In May 1879, Justice Mahadev Govind Ranade’s family returned to Pune from Nashik to spend the summer vacation in the city which he had made home. According to his wife, the vacation was a joyous one, spent socialising with friends and family – until the night when they woke up to the news of fires at two great Peshwa-era palaces in Pune.
“We were spending such a pleasurable vacation of two months in Pune. During this time, every now and then we would hear the news of dacoities in Pune and surroundings in which often times elites of the city were harassed directly and indirectly. So, on the night of May 16 1879, at about two o’clock, it was the evil fate of us Punekars that Budhwar Wada, the Peshwa palace that was a jewel of the city and a memorial to Peshwa as well as Vishrambaug Wada caught sudden fires and burnt down by morning,” Ramabai Ranade writes in her autobiography Amchya Ayushyatil Kahi Athvani published in 1910.
The fires that resulted in the destruction of the Budhwar Wada and caused considerable damage to Vishrambaug Wada turned into a national controversy as the British authorities investigated how the fires started and who was behind them.
Built in 1813 by Bajirao II, Budhwar Wada housed the offices of the government. “It was a three-storeyed building constructed in an architectural style that merged the traditional Maratha and European styles. On the north-eastern end facing the street, it had a tower which held a clock gifted by Sardar Vinchurkar. After the end of the Peshwa rule, the British continued the government use of the expansive wada. Its first floor had a school, the first floor a magistrate court, treasury offices, postal department, and the second floor was used for storage,” historian Avinash Sovani told The Indian Express.
In 1848, the Poona Native General Library was opened on the ground floor of the wada, he added. “The library burnt down completely in the fire – only a handful of books could be saved – and was later reopened elsewhere,” Sovani said.
Vishrambaug Wada, which survives today, was also built around the same time. During the British rule, it housed a high school and a book depot.
Immediately after the fires broke out, they were linked to the general unrest in the Deccan area, especially due to the activities of the revolutionary Vasudev Balwant Phadke, who was carrying out daring dacoities in the region – robbing the government treasuries as well as the rich native elite and using the funds to help the poor reeling under a famine.
“It seems beyond doubt that both the fires were the work of incendiaries and they are generally attributed to dacoits,” a report in The Times (London) three days later said.
It was suspected that the motive of the arsonists was to destroy the government records on the mortgages on the loans taken by the general public from moneylenders. Other theories speculated that the fire was an attempt to get rid of the courts that worked from the building or that it was an attempt to rescue Hari Naik, an associate of Phadke, who was arrested and held nearby.
Some sections of the government also tried to place the blame for the fires on the ‘educated elite’ of Pune who, reports said, were sympathetic to the revolutionary cause of the ‘dacoits led by Phadke’.
The insinuation that Pune’s educated elite had something to do with the fires was vehemently denied by the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha. “The whole community were never before so much dismayed and grieved as by the loss of these two historical palaces…They did their best to extinguish the fires, and worked unceasingly at the pumps, which enabled them to rescue one half of the Vishrambaug Wada,” reads an article in the Quarterly Journal of the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha published in October 1879.
Put in the dock, the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha conducted its own investigation and zeroed in on an employee of the Book Depot housed in Vishrambaug Wada who was quizzed and then handed over to the police. Finally, three people – Krishnajee Narayan Ranade, the bookkeeper at the Book Depot housed in the Vishrambaug Wada; his son Keshaw Krishna Ranade; and a messenger employed in the office Shamrao Bulal – were arrested and tried for the crime.
“Krishnajee Narayen said his accounts as keeper of the book depot were falsified and there was a deficiency in cash of 6000 rupees. In the hope of destroying evidence of his embezzlement, he conceived the plan of the burning of the depot, which, it will be remembered, was in Vishrambag and he induced his son and clerk to carry out the scheme. The Boodhwar Palace was burnt to distract attention,” reads a report of the trial carried by The Times (London) on June 16, 1879.
The trial ended with the jury returning a guilty verdict for the accused. The judge sent the Ranade father-son duo to rigorous imprisonment for life citing the “serious nature of the offence and the irreparable mischief done”. Bulal was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment as the judge gave him the benefit that he might have acted under the influence of his boss.
Notwithstanding the conviction of the trio from the Book Depot for the alleged arson at Budhwar Wada and Vishrambaug Wada, the British seemed convinced that the Pune elite had something to do with these “anti-government acts”.
In fact, soon after the fire, the government transferred Justice Ranade who was in Pune to Dhulia, without letting him finish his tenure at Nashik or his holiday in Pune. His wife recalls in her autobiography: “His friends urged him to ask for reconsideration since the heat was terrific at that time and they feared moving to a lower altitude at such a time might affect his eyes but he refused to consider these requests, stating: As long as I am in the government service, I shall give no cause for complaint. When the time comes for me to ask favours or make excuses, I will resign.”
