Hemu Kalani: Sindh’s Teenage Martyr

Hemu Kalani was 19 when the British offered him a way out. He only had to name his friends.

He refused. He was hanged on 21 January 1943, two months before his twentieth birthday.

1Who was Hemu Kalani?

He was a Sindhi schoolboy who grew into a young revolutionary.

• He was born Hemandas Kalani on 23 March 1923.
• His birthplace was Sukkur, in Sindh.
• Sindh was then part of the Bombay Presidency.
• Sukkur is now in Pakistan.
• His parents were Pesumal Kalani and Jethi Bai.
• His family was Sindhi.
• As a boy he campaigned with friends for a boycott of foreign goods.
• He urged people to buy swadeshi goods instead.
• He was drawn to revolutionary action as a young man.
• He wanted to drive the British out of India.
• He is counted among the youngest revolutionaries executed by the British.
• He led the Swaraj Sena.
• The Swaraj Sena was a student body linked to the All India Students Federation.

2How did he join Quit India?

The movement of 1942 gave his anger a target.

• Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement in 1942.
• Hemu Kalani joined it as soon as it began.
• The call went out in August 1942, with the slogan “Do or Die”.
• The British soon arrested most top Congress leaders.
• Protests then spread across India without a central plan.
• In many places people attacked rails, wires and police posts.
• Support for the movement was strong in Sindh.
• The British sent troops there in response.
• These included European battalions.
• Kalani learned that a train would carry troops and supplies near Sukkur.
• He decided to derail it.
• He wanted to slow the movement of British soldiers.
• Sindh’s part in Quit India is often left out of textbooks.
• His story fills part of that gap.

3What happened on the night of 22 October?

The plan failed before it was finished.

• The train was due at midnight on 22 October 1942.
• The plan was to remove the fishplates from the track.
• Removing them would loosen the rails and could derail the train.
• Kalani and his friends had no proper tools.
• They used a rope to loosen the fixings.
• British men saw them at work.
• The sabotage was not completed.
• He and his friends were working in the dark, with makeshift tools.
• Kalani was caught.
• He was imprisoned and beaten.
• He was questioned by the Indian Imperial Police.
• The police wanted the names of his helpers.

4What choice did he make?

He chose silence over his own life.

• He refused to give any names.
• He was tried and sentenced to death.
• One account says he looked happy after the sentence.
• The same account says he even put on weight.
• People in Sindh petitioned the Viceroy for mercy.
• The British set one condition.
• He had to reveal the names of his co-conspirators.
• He refused again.
• He was hanged on 21 January 1943.
• He was 19 years old.
• He was two months short of his twentieth birthday.
• It is said that he walked to the gallows smiling.
• Accounts say he carried a copy of the Bhagavad Gita.
• It is also said he hummed all the way.
• These details come from later accounts.

5How is he remembered?

India honours him widely. His home town barely does.

• India Post issued a 1983 stamp in his honour.
• A statue of him stands in the Parliament complex.
• It is in front of the Deputy Speaker’s office.
• Roads, circles and parks carry his name in many Indian cities.
• These include Nagpur, Agra, Ahmedabad, Delhi and Raipur.
• In Mumbai, a road in Chembur is named for him.
• Nagpur, Agra and Indore also have statues of him.
• A park in Kanpur carries his name.
• A school in Lajpat Nagar, Delhi, is named for him too.
• A poem on him was written just four days after his hanging.
• It was published only in 2017.
• In Sukkur, a park named for him was later renamed Qasim Park.
• In Pakistan he is mostly absent from history books.
• Sindh, his home province, is the exception.

6What are the exam traps?

A famous coincidence is not a link.

• He was born on 23 March.
• Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were hanged on 23 March 1931.
• This is a coincidence of dates, not a direct link.
• He joined Quit India in 1942, not the Civil Disobedience Movement.
• His act was a derailing attempt, not a bank robbery.
• He was hanged at 19, not 25.
• The British asked him for names in return for mercy.
• He did not ask for mercy himself.
• Do not say he fought in the Civil Disobedience Movement.
• Quit India came in 1942.
• Remember Sukkur, which is now in Pakistan.
• Read about the Quit India Movement.
• Read about Bhagat Singh.
• Read about Khudiram Bose.