Vaman Narayan Joshi (also spelled as Waman Narayan Joshi) (1889 14 January 1964) also known as Daji was an Indian freedom fighter and revolutionary from

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

. He is known for his involvement in the assassination of

Nashik Nashik, formerly Nasik, is a city in the northern region of the Indian state of Maharashtra situated on the banks of the river Godavari, about northeast of the state capital Mumbai. Nashik is one of the Hindu pilgrimage sites of the Kumbh ...

's district collector,

A. M. T. Jackson Arthur Mason Tippetts Jackson (1866 – 21 December 1909) was a British officer in Indian Civil Services. He was a learned Indologist and a historian. He contributed many papers on Indian history, books on folklore and culture and was popu ...

, as Joshi trained

Anant Laxman Kanhere Anant Laxman Kanhere (7 January 1892 - 19 April 1910) was an Indian freedom fighter. On 21 December 1909, he shot Arthur Mason Tippetts Jackson, who was the district collector of Nashik in British India. The murder was an important event in th ...

, who carried out the killing of Jackson. Following Jackson's assassination, Joshi was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. He became a prominent figure in the revolutionary movements of his time.

Early life

Joshi was born into a poor family in 1889 in the village of Samsherapur in the

Akole Akole is a city and taluka in the Akole tehsil of Ahmednagar District, Maharashtra, India. It is situated within the Sahyadri Mountains of the Western Ghats. The city has several historical sites that reflect its connection to the history an ...

tehsil of

Ahmednagar Ahmednagar, officially Ahilyanagar, is a city in, and the headquarters of, the Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra, India. Ahmednagar has several dozen buildings and sites from the Nizam Shahi period. Ahmednagar Fort, once considered almost impre ...

. After his father's death, Joshi and his elder brother resorted to begging to support their family due to severe financial difficulties. He worked as a teacher in a Panchayat Union school.

Role in the Independence movement

At the age of 15, he took a pledge to boycott foreign goods, a commitment he upheld throughout his life. In 1907, when he was in

, he became actively involved in revolutionary organisations such as Mitra Mela and

Abhinav Bharat Abhinav Bharat is a Hindutva organization founded by retired Indian Army Major Ramesh Upadhyay in 2006 in Pune, India. It has a large base in Madhya Pradesh. The organization is believed to be the revived form of the pre-Independence era Abh ...

, founded by

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (28 May 1883 – 26 February 1966 ), was an Indian politician, activist and writer. Savarkar developed the Hindu nationalist political ideology of Hindutva while confined at Ratnagiri in 1922. The prefix "Veer" (mea ...

. Joshi played a major role in the assassination of

Arthur Mason Tippetts Jackson Arthur Mason Tippetts Jackson (1866 – 21 December 1909) was a British officer in Indian Civil Services. He was a learned Indologist and a historian. He contributed many papers on Indian history, books on folklore and culture and was popu ...

, the British collector of Nasik. He trained

for the assassination, orchestrating the plan that led to Jackson's death. He provided firearms training to Anant Kanhere and assisted him in identifying Jackson for the assassination. Joshi drafted the entire assassination plan in a letter, sending it to Kanhere at his residence in

Aurangabad Aurangabad (), officially renamed as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar in 2023, is a city in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the administrative headquarters of Aurangabad district and is the largest city in the Marathwada region. Located on a ...

. Upon comprehending the plan from Joshi's letter, Kanhere tore it into fragments and disposed of them in a corner of the room. Later, the British authorities reconstructed the 28 torn pieces of this letter and presented them as evidence against Vaman Narayan Joshi in court.

Imprisonment

On 29 December 1909, Vaman Narayan Joshi was arrested for his involvement in the assassination of Jackson. He was taken from his ancestral home in Samsherapur in handcuffs and ropes. Despite a search of the house, nothing incriminating was found. British authorities paraded him before the public, marching him 40 kilometres from Samsherapur to Nasik to instill fear among the people. In Nasik Jail, Joshi faced brutal treatment for several days by a police sub-inspector named Ali Khan. He was offered leniency in exchange for confessing to the crime and implicating his fellow revolutionaries, particularly mentioning

. However, Joshi bravely faced the torture and calmly stated, "I accept death, but I will not disclose any information about my comrades." In 1918, he was transferred from

Cellular Jail The Cellular Jail, also known as Kālā Pānī (), was a British colonial prison in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The prison was used by the colonial government of India for the purpose of exiling criminals and political prisoners. Many ...

Yerwada Jail Yerwada Central Jail is a noted high-security prison in Yerwada, Pune in Maharashtra. This is the largest prison in the state of Maharashtra, and also one of the largest prisons in South Asia, housing over 5,000 prisoners (2017) spread over va ...

Pune Pune ( ; , ISO 15919, ISO: ), previously spelled in English as Poona (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1978), is a city in the state of Maharashtra in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau in Western ...

, where he was kept for four years and subjected to unbearable hardships, including forced labour, before his release in 1922. After serving his sentence, Joshi returned to his village and found his family scattered and facing continued harassment from British authorities.

Death

Vaman Narayan Joshi died on 14 January 1964.

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Joshi, Vinayak Narayan 1889 births 1964 deaths Indian independence activists from Maharashtra Indian revolutionaries People from Ahmednagar Prisoners and detainees of British India