Navi Mumbai: As the 80th Independence Day approaches, TOI visited the descendants of the freedom fighter Babu Genu, who was run over at Kalbadevi by a truck transporting imported cloth during the Swadeshi Movement in 1930. Around 200 km from Mumbai, in Mahalunge Padawal village, Ambegaon taluka, Pune district, the grandnephew of Babu Genu, Kisanrao Said (77), said that Babu Genu was only 22 years old when he died.In today’s age, our Baburao would be called a Gen Z and he would have certainly protested in today’s era, too, against the system and certain policy flaws,” Kisanrao said.Kisanrao, who lives in his ancestral village with his octogenarian brother, Babanrao Said (80), recalled a recent incident during the Mumbai protests by Gen Z, when a young woman, Rhiya Ahir, stood in front of a police van to stop it from moving ahead.“Many old timers had remembered Babu Genu after seeing the news image of a woman single-handedly holding back the police van during the Gen Z protest. He too had physically blocked a truck during British era,” said Kisanrao.The only difference, the descendant added, is that “Mumbai Police did not crush the Gen Z protester while, unfortunately, the British police did do so, killing Babu Genu”.Kisanrao has meticulously preserved several old newspaper reports of TOI, Bombay Chronicle (of Pherozeshah Mehta) and Kesari (of Lokmanya Tilak) which had reported the Kalbadevi incident in December 1930.The only facial photo of Babu Genu was sourced by the family from a picture of the martyr published in TOI, while he was taken to GT Hospital, where he succumbed to head injuries on December 12, 1930.His funeral had taken place at Girgaon Chowpatty, attended by hundreds of citizens and various Congress party members, since Babu Genu had joined the Congress and participated in peaceful satyagraha protests.Kisanrao, who retired from the accounts department of Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC), recalled: “Babu Genu was unmarried at the time of his death, and highly influenced by the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. He was survived by his two brothers and a sister. Their father, Krishna Said, was a poor farmer who died early in the village, while their mother became a domestic worker in and around Parel area of Mumbai. She too died before Babu Genu’s martyrdom.”At Mumbai’s Kalbadevi, a farsan shopkeeper at Hutatma Babu Genu Road, Yogesh Joshi (66), commented: “The older generation is aware about the sacrifice of Babu Genu at the end of this lane. Now, even the younger people are knowing about him as a plaque is put up, and every year, on December 12, a remembrance programme is held here.”
