Fulchhaab Saurabh February 2004
Rajkot Ravi Purti Rajendra Dave
Maharaja Bhagavatsinhji’s court jewel
Chandulal Behcharlal Patel
Mahatma Gandhiji was in Panchagini, whence he wrote a post card on the 9th of April 1944 to an individual located in Gondal town of Saurashtra. As was his wont, his hand written missive said, “My Dear Chandulal, writing a preface to your volumes is outside my abilities. Your enterprise has awed me. I believe it will render a great service to our mother tongue.” Chandulal, Gondal’s doyen of education had written to Gandhiji requesting him to write a preface for the volumes that he had edited. But, Gandhiji expressed his regrets. These “volumes” constitute ‘Bhagavadgomandal’ edited by Chandulal – making not just Gondal, but all of Gujarat proud!: Chandulal Behcharlal Patel.
Chandulal was born 5th August 1889, in Jamnagar. A descendant of grandfather Trikamji Purushottam Patel steeped in the Ved’s, and father Bahecharlal Patel – known as “Vihari”, the deeply inspired Poet laureat of Gondal, a savant writer, and a highly respected educator, Chandulal inherited their intellectual prowess and scholarly orientation from them. Schooled at home in Bhayavadar village of Gondal State by his father prepared him to attend the Sangramji (high) school in Gondal, and graduated (metriculated) in just five and half years.
He won the first prize in an Saurashtra wide essay writing competition for students, with “compassion” as the topic. He graduated in 1914 with a B.A. with mathematics as his optional subject, after attending Samaldas college in Bhavanagar. Studentlife was not dominated by the pursuit of examinations and degrees. The seeds of his thoughts and concerns for administration, literature, societal matters, multi-
1916 saw him clad in a simple hand woven dhoti, a native tunic, and a ‘paaghadi’ (turban) on his way to his job as an examiner in the Gondal state administration’s education department. During the course of his 10 year tenure as examiner, he spotted a number of short comings of the primary education institutions, and the improvements that were needed in the education system as well. Maharaj Bhagavatsinhji noticed his talent for bringing about the desired results in the education system of Gondal, and promptly appointed him as Education Officer in charge of the education department of His administration. His first project was to change the text books and rapid readers in use, to reflect the current times and social movements that would cultivate wholesome values, and make them available at a cost that the poorest of students could afford. His intense effort got this done in just a year, and released 7 rapid readers printed and published by the state. The unique aspect of these books was that in a prevalent atmosphere of fear of the ruling Englishmen no curriculum dared mention Indian nationalistic ideas, he included stories about Gandhiji well before his 1930 Dandi salt march, and included chapters about principles, ideas and biographies of various national leaders with illustrations and photographs.
Soon thereafter, he got the state to publish these rapid readers suffused with nationalistic ideas in English, and soon many books in Hindi, Sanskrit and other languages also started being published in Gondal, with the State’s sponsorship, finally approaching a count of 161 publications. He also instituted a raft of other changes and improvements in the education system of Gondal State.
He shortened the 8 year long primary school programme to 6 years, made girls education compulsory and free across the state, got subject matter experts from the state to write and locally publish textbooks with content appropriate to the place, times and audience on subjects other than the language rapid readers to capture the student’s interest, thus replacing the foreign flavoured costly text books in use previously. 1927 saw him acquire approval to start a teacher training institute in Gondal. He built permanent structures for schools in all the villages, and brought an intense focus on education by ensuring that even a single student school was funded and run. He kept one principle front and centre “Education maketh the Society”, and to ensure that the smallest of villages in Gondal state have the opportunity to know about progress in the world, he started a monthly news magazine called “Itarvaanchan patrika” (General Reading broadsheet) and a weekly “svaadhyaay patrika” (self-
The Maharaja had noted his tireless efforts, and inspired efficient work ethic for any assignment given to him, and asked him to take up various other event based tasks as well. He was asked to organise the Maharaja’s Golden Jubilee celebration’s gift to the populace as part of the “tulaavidhi” (weight in gold ceremony) – an amount of C
2 lakhs in gold, to dig wells and build water storage facilities in the villages of the state. 1956 saw a major famine in Saurashtra, and Chandulal was given funding of
C 27 lakhs to provide fodder for the cattle in the state. He was nominated the superintendent of the Census exercise, and later the administrator of homeless shelters and children’s homes. Again, he instituted much needed reforms in these institutions, and made them sustainable and viable.
His Magnum Opus was editing the Gujarati lexicon – Bhagavadgomandal that was the maharaja’s lifetime pursuit for the Gujarati language. Chandulal was awarded the Ranjitram gold medal in 1954 for this immense endeavour. Gondal monarch Bhagavatsinhji had collected rare and unusual words from various Indian languages in use in Gujarati, along with their meanings, etymologies, pronunciations, usage, contexts, colloquial application, unusual facts about the word, related proverbs and grammar. This enormous collection ultimately was spread across 9270 pages in 9 volumes, containing 2,81,377 words and their 5, 40,455 meanings along with picture illustrations where appropriate. One would be inspired to draw comparisons with famous encyclopaedias.
As a culmination of his intense study of Gandhiji’s thoughts, he wrote three books on the subject.
1. Gandhiji na vichaarratno (Gems of Gandhiji’s Thoughts)
2. Gandhi Geeta – a rendering of Gandhiji’s life principles in 700 verses in the style of the Bhagavad Geeta.
3. GandhiGnankosh – based on the definition of words created by Gandhiji.
A notable aspect of his services was his service to the community. His contribution in enabling the farmer community of Gujarat to keep pace with the progressive ideas of global societies is not only significant, but historic in its transformational effect. He was president of the ‘Patidar Yuvak mandal’ (Patidar youth forum) and participated prominently in the ‘Patel Bandhu’ (Patel brotherhood) conferences, and similar community events. His political leadership was through his association with the late Mansukhram Ravajibhai Mehta, and as a minister in the management committee of the early Kathiavad constitutional assemblies.
Saurashtra as a whole started benefitting from his skills and experience when Gondal state merged with the political entity of Saurashtra in 1948, as part of India’s move towards becoming a republic, and he was appointed as deputy education officer of the new Saurashtra state. He immediately started work on adult education, teacher training institutions, local schools and text book publishing. He was also the lone representative of Saurashtra in the Gujarat University senate. He excelled during the famine in Saurashtra in 1956 in delivering relief to the affected populace, especially in distributing fodder arriving from various parts of the country to every village for the cattle there. His work was acknowledged via a cash award of C 2000/-