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Rand : W.C. Rand, ICS, Collector of Poona, appointed Special Officer on plague duty in Poona in February 1897, was shot along with his military escort Lt. Ayerst, on 22 June 1897 at 7 p.m. while returning from the lively celebrations, held with due pomp & ceremony in the height of famine & plague ravaging the populace, at the Govt. House for the Diamond Jubilee of the Thrice-Blessed Queen-Empress Victoria – totally ignorant of the real India, knowing only the morsels of the surreal India her Govt.-controlled staff fed her. Rand & his sidekick were killed by the Chapekar brothers, Damodar Hari (1870-98), Balkrishna Hari (1873-99) & Vāsudev Hari (1879-99). Damodar was arrested on the basis of information given by Dravid brothers. They were hanged on the basis of just one point in Dāmodar’s detailed statement of 8 October 1897: Atrocities like the pollution of sacred places & the breaking of sanctified Murties by soldiers, in house searches deserve such a response. Charged under section 302 of the I.P.C. sentenced by a kangaroo court (a practice as old as 1857) & hanged, on 18 April 1898. Balkrishna absconded, but was betrayed by a false friend in January 1899. On 9th February 1899, the Dravid brothers were eliminated by Vāsudev, Mahādev Vināyaka Ranade, & Khando Vishnu Sathe, who were trapped when the cornered constable Rama Pandu the same evening. All were hanged in May: Vāsudev on 8th, Mahādev on 10th, & Balkrishna on 12th. Sathe a minor was sentenced to 10 years R.I. The summary executions inspired many youths to join revolutionary groups for getting rid of the worse-than-plague British oppression. A Bombay daily had commented, “Englishmen…have now experienced how one is wounded at heart when one’s casteman’s blood is shed.” In autumn of 1896, a ship from China that anchored in Bombay turned out to be a carrier of bubonic plague – part of the global Third Plague Pandemic, it soon swept through the presidency killing 20,000. News of this outbreak spread like wild fire all over the country. Early in February 1897, the Infectious Diseases Act was placed on the Statute-book by the Govt. of India. Provincial Governments were thereby armed with supreme powers to enable them to eradicate the disease. By the end of February 1897, mortality rate had hit twice the so-called norm. On 8th March, Bombay’s Governor Sandhurst appointed a Special Plague Committee under the Chairmanship of W.C. Rand, ICS, with jurisdiction over Pune city, its suburbs, he put Pune cantonment under Rand & decreed Pune Municipality was to be Rand’s handmaiden. Though Sandhurst visited that very day & sought the co-operation of local leaders & advised Rand & Co. to respect public sentiment, Rand & his satellites were bent upon doing their will, he ignored the fact of Rand’s cruelty had made him odious at Wai. On 12 March 1897, 893 officers & men under a Major’s Paget’s command were imposed were placed on plague duty. Rand’s work began on 13 March & ended on 19 May, thereupon he declared the plague mortality was just 2091. Plague accompanied by the famine that had been raging in most parts of the country since 1895, resulted in soaring prices of food grains & fodder, & looting. Agriculturists sold off cattle for a song & eager butchers & conversion-hungry missionaries exploited this calamity. Tilak revived the Sārvajanik Sabhā’s social activities as the Govt.’s Famine Code lacked the most essential code of conduct: the ignorance of the peasantry & the unwillingness of the subordinate Govt. officers to grant relief permissible under the Code appeared to him insurmountable barriers, obstructing the alleviation of public distress. He got the Code translated in Marathi for volunteers of the Sabhā to go into the districts to explain to the people their rights & duties under the circumstances by citing the relevant sections of the Famine Relief Code, e.g. demand work, not pay taxes due to lack of money, etc., & even harnessed Govt. machinery for widely distributing these booklets. British & loyalist Indian press maligned it as an Irish-type “no-rent campaign” incited by Tilak; Sandhurst promptly outlawed the Sabhā (see Gokhale). The Plague Commission ordered the principal occupant of a house or a building to report all deaths & all illnesses suspected to be plague. Funerals were declared unlawful until the deaths were registered. The Committee had the right to mark special grounds for giving funeral to corpses suspected to have succumbed from plague, & prohibit use of any other place for the purpose. Disobedience of the orders would subject the offender to criminal prosecution. Tilak did not object to the threefold remedial measures proposed by Rand. Removal of patients to hospitals, removal of persons from the affected zone to the segregation camp & arrangements for disinfecting the houses & localities suspected of infection. When an exodus of the well-to-do started, he remarked that such vast numbers had not left Poona in panic even when the Holkar sacked the city. He deplored so-called leaders had deserted the poorer sections. In March the situation got worse. Though almost half the population had deserted the city in panic, the average daily mortality reached 60 in the 1st week & soared to 84 once during the next. The presence of vast numbers of soldiers struck terror in the citizens’ heart. “Even Mountstuart Elphinstone had not,” remarked Tilak caustically in his Kesari, “during his stay at the Poona Residency, such a huge body of soldiers at his command.” Public sentiment in Poona was piqued because the city had been singled out for the imposition of troops. The vagaries & harshness of the plague-administration only exasperated this wounded sentiment. A soldier could send a healthy man to the plague-hospital because he suspected him to have a temperature. Persons were taken exposed & naked to the segregation camp for fear that their infected clothes might spread infection in the camp. Old men & women, pregnant women, all without exception, were indiscriminately driven to the segregation camps, where proper arrangements for lodgings & feeding were not made. Rules empowered soldiers to burn clothes directly used by the patient. Enlarging the scope of the rule, soldiers did not hesitate to burn any article they laid hands on. In the course of house-searches, members of the search-party pocketed valuables. Tiny boxes, which were not at all likely to contain a dead body, were broken open & their contents pilfered. Tilak, who cooperated with Govt. in order that distress might be relieved, explained to Bombay they should consider the plight of the people. Neither Sandhurst nor Rand cared two hoots about toning down the rigours of the plague-administration in spite of the fall in the death-rate towards the end of April. Poona heaved a sigh of relief when early in May it was announced that the soldiers would leave. In his report on the administration of the Pune plague, Rand wrote, “It is a matter of great satisfaction to the members of the Plague Committee that no credible complaint that the modesty of a woman had been intentionally insulted was made either to themselves or to the officers under whom the troops worked”. He also writes that closest watch was kept on the troops employed on plague duty & utmost consideration was shown for the customs & traditions of the people. A missionary, Rev. Robert P. Wilder, quoted in a contemporary New York Times article, asserted that the cause of plague was native practices such as going bare-foot, the distrust of the natives about the government segregation camps; further, that houses have been shut up with corpses inside, & search parties have been going around to unearth them. The same article included reported rumours that the plague has been caused by grain hoarded for twenty years by the banias or grocers being sold in the market, while others felt it was Queen Victoria's curse for the daubing of her statue with tar. On 22 June 1897, the Diamond Jubilee of the coronation of Queen Victoria, Rand & his military escort Lt. Ayerst were shot while returning from the celebrations at Government House. Both died Ayerst on the spot & Rand of his wounds on 3 July. Govt. of Bombay announced a reward of Rs 2000 to those who would supply information leading to the arrest of persons responsible. Mr Brewin, a shrewd Secret Service Officer was transferred from Bombay to Poona. Mr Lamb, the Collector of Poona, waited for a few days. Finding that no public meeting to condemn the crime was convened by public leaders, himself convened a meeting of notables on 28th June. At this meeting he said that he had been “hoping & expecting that some expression of abhorrence of the terrible misdeed might reach him from the city of Poona” & referred to the existence in the city of “a secret band of sedition-mongers & instigators of murder”. Warning that there had been in a section of the Vernacular [vernae is Greek for slave] Press a vehement display of thinly veiled sedition, he held out the threat the Govt. was bent on unearthing secret bands, tracing culprits & their instigators & checking all mischievous influences & propensities. Tilak was arrested on 27th July 1897 under I.P.C. Sections 124-A & 153-A, for his articles in Kesari in connection with murders of Rand & Ayerst. [Based on S.L. Karandikar: 134; R.C. Majumdar et al, History & Culture of the Indian People, 1963, Vol. X, Part II: 521-2, 577; G. Sabharwal, The Indian Millennium: A.D.1000-2000, Penguin, 2000: 421, 423; S.V. Bāpat, Reminiscences & anecdotes of Lōk. Tilak, 1924: 50-51; Wiki: Chapekar Brothers]