Why in news?

The executive council of Barkatullah University in Bhopal has passed a proposal to rename it Vagdevi Bhojpal University. The university was named after Maulana Barkatullah Bhopali in 1988 — before that, it was simply called Bhopal University.

The rename proposal has sparked debate about who Barkatullah was and whether erasing his name amounts to erasing an important chapter of India's freedom struggle.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• Who Was Maulana Barkatullah?
• Core Beliefs of Barkatullah
• The Kabul Government: India's First Government in Exile
• Meeting Lenin
• Why His Legacy Was Forgotten?

Who Was Maulana Barkatullah?

• Maulana Barkatullah Bhopali was born on July 7, 1854, in Bhopal. He was a scholar, freedom fighter, and revolutionary who spent virtually his entire adult life outside India — working to end British rule from abroad.
• He studied in Bombay and then London. He began teaching in Liverpool, where he came into contact with Indian revolutionaries.
• His writings and speeches drew the attention of British authorities, forcing him to leave for the United States in 1899.
• From that point, he never stopped moving — Japan, England, the US, Germany, Russia, Afghanistan, Brussels, Switzerland, France.
  • In US, he corresponded with the freedom fighter Maulana Hasrat Mohani (who coined the slogan Inquilab Zindabad).
• Wherever he went, he built networks, wrote, spoke, and organised against British colonialism.
• He died in September 1927 in Sacramento, California, while attending a Ghadar Party event, with his lifelong associate Raja Mahendra Pratap by his side. He is buried there.

Core Beliefs of Barkatullah

• Barkatullah was a committed anti-colonial thinker who held one conviction above all others: India could only be free if Hindus and Muslims fought together.
• He saw the British policy of divide-and-rule as the primary obstacle to independence.
• He wrote about the suffering of ordinary Indians — both Hindu and Muslim — under colonial economic exploitation, noting that millions had died of starvation.
• His entire political career was built on the idea of composite nationalism — the belief that India's freedom was a shared cause that transcended religion.

The Kabul Government: India's First Government in Exile

• The most significant chapter of Barkatullah's life came during World War I.
• In December 1915, Barkatullah, along with Raja Mahendra Pratap (a Hindu prince) and Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi (an Islamic scholar), established the Provisional Government of India in Kabul, Afghanistan.
• This was India's first government in exile — set up entirely outside British control.
• Raja Mahendra Pratap became President. Maulana Barkatullah became Prime Minister — which is why he is sometimes called the "first Prime Minister of independent India".
• This was not merely symbolic. It was a bold political act — Indians of different faiths forming a government and asserting sovereign authority at a time when India was still firmly under British rule.
• The Kabul government sought support from Afghanistan, Germany, and later Soviet Russia to challenge British power.

Meeting Lenin

• Four years after the Kabul government was formed, its leaders travelled to Moscow to meet Vladimir Lenin, then head of Soviet Russia.
• Barkatullah's statement in Russia captures his worldview clearly. He described himself as neither a communist nor a socialist, but said his goal was the expulsion of the British from Asia.
• He saw European colonialism — led by Britain — as the enemy, and found in the Soviets a natural ally against it.
• After the British victory in WWI dealt a severe blow to the revolutionaries' plans, Barkatullah continued his work — travelling across Europe and keeping his cause alive until his death.

Why His Legacy Was Forgotten?

• Barkatullah spent most of his life abroad and died in the US in 1927 — twenty years before Independence.
• He was never part of the mainstream nationalist movement led by the Congress inside India.
• His revolutionary activities were conducted across multiple countries, leaving little visible trace on the Indian public consciousness.
• He was formally recognised in 1988 when Bhopal University was renamed after him — a long-overdue acknowledgment of a son of the city who had given his life to its freedom.
• Historians argue that the proposal to rename the university now would undo even that belated recognition.
• Historians said that instead of changing the university's name, more should be done to popularise the legacy of Barkatullah.
• They note the irony that the central government has been actively working to popularise Raja Mahendra Pratap — Barkatullah's closest associate — while his name faces erasure.