Tej Bahadur Sapru

Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru (Kashmiri: तेज बहादुर सप्रू (Devanagari), تیج بہادر سپرو (Nastaleeq)), KCSI (8 December 1875 – 20 January 1949) was an eminent lawyer, political and social leader in India during the British Raj. He was knighted in 1922.

Tej Bahadur Sapru was born on December 8, 1875 in Aligarh, what is now a district of the state of Uttar Pradesh. He was born in a Kashmiri Hindu family of the Sapru sub-caste. He was educated at the Agra College,

Sapru worked in the Allahabad High Court as a lawyer where Purushottam Das Tandonworked as his junior. Tej Sapru was probably the best Hindu lawyer in British India. Only Shia Muslim barristers such Sir Ali Imam, Syed Hasan Imam, M. A. Jinnah and Sir Sultan Ahmed were considered better than him.

Indian Liberal

Sapru was a jurist and leader of the Indian Liberal Party. He favoured a dialogue with the British Empire and sought self-government reforms, but not independence from the Empire.

Sapru and others like M.R. Jayakar favored discussions and dialogue with the British, and were regular participants in the provincial and central legislatures that most Indians thought were rubber-stamps of the Viceroy.

Political career

He carried forward the moderate policies of Gopal Krishna Gokhale in the radicalized post-Amritsar Massacre period after World War I. Sapru criticized Mahatma Gandhi's leadership, as well as the Non-Cooperation Movement and the Salt Satyagraha.

However, he often acted as a mediator which helped him to broker the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, bringing the Salt Satyagraha to an end; and the Poona Pact, striking an agreement between Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar and the British government.

However, in the polarized atmosphere of the time, his Liberal Party remained an intellectual talking shop with little popular backing - it was less than the sum of its distinguished leadership.

Legislative career

Sapru served in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) Legislative Council (1913–16), the Imperial Legislative Council (1916–20), and was law member of the Viceroy's Council (1920–23). He was very active in the Indian Round Table Conferences 1931-1933 (see Muldoon) and served as an informal spokesman for liberal views in the first of these which was boycotted by Congress. He was also a member of the Privy council in 1934.

The 1940s: WWII, Public image and death

Sapru strongly supported Britain and the inclusion of British India in World War II. However, Sapru was one of the most important lawyers engaged to defend captured soldiers of the Indian National Army, led by Subhas Chandra Bose.

Although regarded with respect in independent India, Sapru was slightly unpopular amongst common people due to his pro-British opposition to the Indian National Congress and leaders like Mahatma Gandhi.

He died shortly after India's independence, on January 20, 1949 in Allahabad.

Family life

Sapru was the only son of Ambika Prasad Sapru, and Gaura Hukku. He was the first cousin of Allama Iqbal, whose grandfather was Sahaj Ram Sapru. He and his wife had 3 sons (Prakash Narain, Trijugi Narain, and Anand Narain) and 2 daughters (Jagdembashwari and Bhuvaneshwari.) He is the grandfather of Jagdish Narain Sapru.

See also

• Indian Independence Movement, Indian National Congress, Indian Liberal Party
• Leaders of the Independence Movement

References

• Crusader for self-rule: Tej Bahadur Sapru & the Indian National Movement: life and selected letters(1999) by Rima Hooja ASIN: B0006FEFZK,
• Tej Bahadur Sapru (Builders of modern India) by Sunil Kumar Bose, Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India (1978), ASIN: B0006E11GM
• Indian national movement and the liberals by Abha Saxena, Allahabad, India: Chugh Publications, 1986. foreword by A.C. Banerjee.
• Muldoon, Andrew Robert, “Making a `moderate' India: British conservatives, imperial culture and Indian political reform, 1924—1935”
• Read this essay by A G Noorani to learn more about differences between Sapru and Mahatma Gandhi