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consisted of about twenty members, including the brothers parents, six uncles, two aunts, and two grandmothers.
The family was wealthy at the time of Damodar Haris
The Chapekar brothers (also spelt Caphekar or
Chaphekar; Marathi ) - Damodar Hari birth, earlier having had a turnover of lakhs of rupees.
Chapekar (1870-1898), Balkrishna Hari Chapekar With passage of time, mainly on account of Vinayak
(1873-1899, also called Bapurao) and Vasudeo Hari Chapekars independent spirit and ways which made him
Chapekar (1879-1899, also spelt Wasudeva or Wasudev) incapable of submitting himself to government service,
- were Indian revolutionaries involved in the assassination and his many unsuccessful business ventures, the family
of W. C. Rand, the British plague commissioner of Pune. gradually sank into poverty. At one time when Damodar
The brothers belonged to Chinchwad, then a village, near Hari was a young boy, the family, consisting of a party of
Pune, in the state of Maharashtra, India. In late 1896, twenty ve travellers, went on a pilgrimage to Kashi, with
Pune was hit by bubonic plague, part of the global Third two servants and three carts. Damodar Hari remembers
plague pandemic; by the end of February 1897, the epi- the death of his elder sister at Gwalior.
demic was raging, with a mortality rate twice the norm, Damodar Hari recalls that their family rose to richand half the citys population having left.
ness which was a result of this pilgrimage; he refutes
it, and is thankful to his grandfather for the opporA Special Plague Committee was formed, under the
chairmanship of W. C. Rand, an Indian Civil Services tunity he had of drinking the waters of the Ganga
Ganges, bathing in it, giving alms and touching the feet
ocer, and troops were brought in to deal with the emer[3]
gency. The measures employed included forced entry of Kashivishveshwara.
into private houses, forced stripping and examination of
occupants (including women) by British ocers in public, evacuation to hospitals and segregation camps, removing and destroying personal possessions, and preventing movement from the city. These measures were considered oppressive by the populace of Pune and complaints were ignored by Rand.
On 22 June 1897, the Diamond Jubilee of the coronation of Queen Victoria, Rand and his military escort Lt.
Ayerst were shot while returning from the celebrations
at Government House. Both died, Ayerst on the spot and
Rand of his wounds on 3 July. The Chapekar brothers and
two accomplices were charged with the murders in various roles, as well as the shooting of two informants and
an attempt to shoot a police ocer. All three brothers
were found guilty and hanged, an accomplice was dealt
with similarly, another, then a schoolboy, was sentenced
to ten years rigorous imprisonment.[1]
Family history
Damodar Hari, Balkrishna Hari and Vasudeo Hari belonged to Chinchwad,[2] then a village[3] near the former
Peshwa capital Pune, in the state of Maharashtra, India.
Damodar Hari the eldest, was born in 1868 [nb 1] The
name of their grandfather was Vinayak and their mother
and father were, respectively, Dwarka and Hari. The
brothers grandfather was the head of the family which
1
Vinayak Hari was left to fend for his family on his own, he
did not have the means to hire professional musicians to
accompany him during his kirtan, so he trained his children to do so.
The father and children became procient in their art
and were admired for their work. The Chapekar brothers received little formal education, but the company
of good people, hearing of kirtans, travelling, witnessing
darbars of great princes and seeing assemblies of eminent scholars was a source of knowledge far more enriching than a few examinations passed in school, writes
Damodar Hari in his autobiography.[3] Hari Vinayak, father of the Chapekar brothers is credited to have authored
Satyanarayanakatha, of the Skandapurana, a Sanskrit
text with translations.[4]
3
3.1
A missionary, Rev. Robert P. Wilder, quoted in a conFurther information: Third plague pandemic Political temporary New York Times article,[7] asserted that that
impact in Colonial India
the cause of plague was native practices such as going
bare-foot, the distrust of the natives about the governPlague struck Pune in late 1896, and by January 1897, ment segregation camps; further, that houses have been
it reached epidemic proportions. Colonial government shut up with corpses inside, and search parties have been
sources report that, when the Governor of the presidency going around to unearth them. The same article included
inspected the city on 8 February 1897, he was told that reported rumours that the plague has been caused by grain
the people would rather have plague than go to a govern- hoarded for twenty years by the banias or grocers being
ment hospital. In 26 days of February, 657 deaths (0.6% sold in the market, while others felt it was Queen Victoof the citys population) were attributed to plague, and ria's curse for the daubing of her statue with tar.[8]
half of the population had deserted the city.
In contrast to the above British accounts, accounts based
To suppress the epidemic and prevent its spread, it was
decided to take drastic action, accordingly a Special
Plague Committee, with jurisdiction over Pune city, its
suburbs and Pune cantonment was appointed under the
Chairmanship of W. C. Rand, I. C. S, by way of a government order dated 8 March 1897.
3
he claimed in marked contradiction to Rands abovequoted statement to be in possession of reliable reports
regarding the rape of two women, one of whom committed suicide rather than live with shame.
In Independent India, a Maharashtra government agency
published school textbook describes the Pune plague as
follows, In 1897, there was an epidemic of plague in
Poona. To control the epidemic, an ocer named Mr.
Rand was appointed. He used tyrannical methods and harassed the people.[11]
6 In popular culture
The award winning Marathi lm 22 June 1897 covers events prior to the assassination, the act and its
[17][18]
Damoder Hari was arrested in connection with the above, aftermath.
on the basis of information given by the Dravid brothers.
In his statement, recorded on 8 October 1897, Damodar
Hari, said that atrocities like the pollution of sacred places 7 Notes
and the breaking of idols were committed by European
soldiers at the time of house searches in Pune, during [1] At three ghatika after sunrise on Friday, partly rst and
partly second day of the dark half of the month of Jyestha,
the plague. Chapekar tells that they wanted to take re-
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