Chapter 20- CCC
The carved teak doors creaked open slowly as Shyam stepped forward, holding a bound scroll wrapped in indigo silk. As he unfurled it onto the table before the gathered delegates—merchants, nobles, scholars, and artisans—the room hushed.
"This," Shyam said, "is the structure of the Bharatiya Vyapar Sangh. These are not just business divisions—they are shields, hammers, and bridges. Each one born of our soil, yet hidden in plain sight. Their names are ours, not theirs."
He began to read from the parchment.
1.Yantra-Labh Mandal Unveiled
> "Now comes the beating heart of our resistance," he began, voice steady and reverent.
"The Yantra-Labh Mandal — where invention becomes our sword and strength."
He slowly unwrapped the copper plate, revealing the seal: a hand-forged wheel entwined with a lightning bolt. Below it, etched in Devanagari: "शक्ति से सृजन" (Shakti se Srijan – Creation through Strength).
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🛠️ Mission:
Replace British machines with indigenous technology.
"No more will we bend before steel stamped in London," Shyam declared. "We shall forge our own metal, shape our own wheels, spin our own future."
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🏷️ Brands Operated:
🔹 Yantra-Labh – Produces low-cost, rugged village machines:
Spinning Wheels – Hand-cranked and modified for continuous use by village women.
Looms – Foldable, easy-maintenance models for remote weavers.
Bull-driven Water Pumps – Modified to operate deeper wells in drought-prone areas.
🔹 Agni-Yantra – A bolder venture for heavier industries:
Steam-powered grain crushers
Manual-printing presses with rotating iron drums
Village-grade mini-engines for oil extraction, jaggery making, and early textile dyeing.
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🔬 Innovation Centers:
Mysore Forest Workshops – Hidden under the protection of the local king, filled with handpicked inventors working in secrecy under dim lanterns and watchful guards.
Bhavnagar Desert Forges – Located in camouflaged underground courtyards; their chimneys rise only at night to avoid British patrols.
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💰 Support Model:
🔧 Inventors:
Receive 60% profit share, full rights to expand their innovations within the Sangh.
👑 Local Kings & Zamindars:
Who fund tools, protection, and space, receive 25% share and political credit in their domains.
🛡️ Sangh Confederation:
Holds 15% for shared reinvestment — protection, R&D, and underground trade route maintenance.
> "Every wheel that turns for us," said Shyam, "stops one for them."
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🔐 Symbolism and Branding:
No British markings. No Latin script.
All machines engraved with the Sangh's secret copper insignia and a simple flame-shaped glyph — only recognizable by trusted dealers.
Even bolts, rivets, and belts were catalogued in native terms — kandaa, gati-dand, taap-chakra — confusing for British customs inspectors, but immediately clear to Bhartiya mechanics.
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📦 Distribution System:
Workshop to Cart: Components transported in grain sacks or religious idols to avoid search.
Village Assemblies: Trained engineers (called Yantra-Gurus) assemble machines in remote zones.
Maintenance Schools: Quietly opened in temple schools, teaching repair skills.
> "Let the British ship iron. We will teach fire."
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🌿 Closing the Scroll
As Shyam finished reading, he passed the copper plate to the audience. One by one, artisans rose from their seats — shawl-wrapped weavers, old carpenters, sons of blacksmiths — and pressed their thumbs to the warm copper seal. A silent vow.
> "For every chain they forged," Ramrajan said from behind them, "we will forge a tool."
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Absolutely. Let's now create a full, expanded, and restored version of the Textile & Khadi Division scene, reincorporating the lines you mentioned were missing from earlier drafts, and presenting them in novel form, while maintaining all rich details about Singham & Sons and the Kapda Mandal.
The late afternoon sun filtered through the slatted teakwood windows, casting long golden stripes across the stone floors of the Kolar Assembly. Overhead, khadi banners fluttered gently, each dyed in deep indigo and embroidered with verses from the Rigveda, spun by village girls from Bhagalpur and Madurai.
The Assembly was full—over two hundred merchants, princes, engineers, and guild-leaders seated in quiet anticipation. Shyam stepped forward to address them, holding in his hand a scroll stamped with red wax—the official seal of the Kapda Mandal and Bunkar Sangh.
He opened his speech slowly, in his clear and steady voice:
> "They built their empire on cotton," he said, letting the silence settle over the crowd. "Let us unravel it—thread by thread."
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🪡 2. Bunkar Sangh & Kapda Mandal – The Textile & Khadi Division
> "Our mission," Shyam continued, "is to counter the cloth of Manchester, revive our dying handlooms, and scale khadi until it wraps every inch of Bharat—not with submission, but with pride."
The Sangh had now officially established two interconnected arms:
Bunkar Sangh – To support, retrain, and empower local weavers
Kapda Mandal – To oversee large-scale distribution, marketing, and sales under Bhartiya names
Together, they formed the largest indigenous textile network since the fall of the Mughal karkhanas.
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🧭 Regional Hubs – The New Mandals
Bhagalpur – For silk-thread khadi and tribal textile blending
Dhaka – Jamdani revival and river-route export
Ahmedabad – Indigo dye works and coarse khadi
Madurai – Women-led weaving guilds and fine cotton
Each region trained apprentices, distributed looms, and reestablished local dye vats, shut down by colonial tariffs.
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🛡️ Sales Model: Cloaked in Language and Code
Shyam unrolled a coded export register written in Awadhi and Tamil. Each batch of cloth was sold under names that confused British records—"Dhaga Raja," "Veeran Kapda," "Champa Vastra."
Weights were not listed in pounds or yards but in local pauti, man, and kos—reviving pre-British systems to bypass taxation and inspection.
> "If they use tariffs and registers as weapons," Shyam said, "we shall use language, memory, and trust as shields."
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🦁 The Rise of Singham & Sons Textile
At the core of the Kapda Mandal's strength stood one lion.
Shyam paused, placed a thick red ledger on the table, and looked at the audience.
> "Now let me speak of a house whose looms roar louder than those of Lancashire.
Singham & Sons Textile."
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⚙️ Their Machines Were Faster Than the British
While the British looms clattered in smoke-filled mills, the rotary-crank looms of Singham & Sons—crafted in Kolar's workshops—ran 25% faster, consumed 40% less thread, and never relied on imported steel. Built for Indian hands, they could be repaired in the field using local parts.
> "They built an empire of cloth," Shyam said, "but we have built a revolution in thread."
The crowd erupted in soft applause.
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🏭 Their Factories Doubled in One Month
> "Just last month, in June," Shyam said, "Singham & Sons doubled the size of all five of their southern factories. While the British seek to starve us with rail lines meant only for exports—our looms now hum in harmony."
Their factories were:
1. Kolar – Engineering HQ and loom production
2. Mysore – Silk and cotton blending division
3. Tiruchirappalli – Indigo and starch dye houses
4. Thanjavur – Worker-owned khadi centers
5. Madras (Chennai) – Southern export hub and merchant guild training
> "They didn't build it with debt," Shyam added. "They built it with faith—faith in Bharat."
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🧱 Northward Expansion
Four new factories were already under construction:
Gaya – Bihar's new khadi hub
Kanpur – Wool and leather blending
Lucknow – Chikan embroidery and spinning
Varanasi – Silk-dye and ritual cloths
These projects, funded by merchant alliances and temple trusts, were to be equipped with the same advanced looms, each stamped with a copper plate reading:
"शक्ति से सृजन"
Creation Through Strength
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🤝 Singham's Model of Justice and Brotherhood
Full wages paid weekly
Profit-sharing with every master weaver
Widow support funds
Onsite grain kitchens and medical halls
> "In Manchester," Surya had once said, "cloth enslaves. In Kolar, cloth liberates."
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🧵 A Message from the Lion's Son
As the sun began to set outside the assembly hall, a calm young man walked to the podium. He was the eldest son of the Singham lineage, visiting from Madras.
His voice was soft, but carried weight.
> "We did not build this for wealth," he said. "We built it so no child of Bharat would freeze or starve while British cloth rots in dockyards.
Our threads are not for export—they are woven in love, and meant for the skin of our people."
🧭 A Message to the North
With their growing strength, the Singham family pledged to send 50 looms, 8 master-trainers, and 20 crates of dyed thread to launch the Kapda Mandal North.
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Ramrajan rose, bowed slightly, and declared aloud before the hall:
> "From today onward, the house of Singham shall be known across the Sangh as:
The Guardian Loom of Bharat."
Absolutely. Here's a fully expanded novel-style version of the Agriculture & Forest Produce Division — 🌾 Krishi Mandal & VanShakti Sangh — now presented as Scene 6, continuing the same tone and detail as previous chapters.
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– Seeds of Sovereignty
Under a carved wooden archway stood a low table draped in fresh jute cloth, and upon it rested gourds of heirloom seeds, bundles of medicinal roots, and scrolls inked with ancient crop maps.
Shyam stood beside a tall tribal elder from Bastar, and between them was a sealed wooden chest marked in charcoal with the glyph:
"बीज रक्षा – जीवन रक्षा"
Preserve the seed, protect the life.
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🌾 3. Krishi Mandal & VanShakti Sangh (Agriculture & Forest Produce Division)
> "Before the British," Shyam began, "our fields grew thirty kinds of grain—bajra, jowar, ragi, masoor, kulthi, rajgira… Now, they force us into cotton, indigo, and poppy—cash crops for foreign coffers, not for Indian stomachs."
The gathering murmured in agreement. An old Maratha landowner raised his fist.
> "Our bulls now plough debt," he growled. "Not soil."
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🥣 Mission: Free Farmers from Foreign Dependency
The Krishi Mandal was born to reverse that oppression—reclaiming indigenous seeds, native farming rhythms, and weather-based grain cycles, all banned or discouraged by colonial officers.
Shyam tapped the ledger.
> "We don't need British agriculture schools. Our grandmothers knew more about the moon, wind, and soil than their best professors."
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🧪 Brands Operated
1. Beej Raksha
Purpose: Preserve and circulate desi seeds
Ledgers stored in: Temples and schools
Work: Create decentralized, secret seed vaults across tribal hills, temple basements, and gurukuls
2. VanShakti Sangh
Purpose: Connect forest communities to fair barter markets
Products:
Dried harad, amla, baheda
Forest honey
Medicinal bark, roots, and oils
Regions: Bastar, Nilgiris, Chhattisgarh, Kumaon, Nagaland
A tribal woman from the Nilgiris rose to speak, her hair braided with forest blooms.
> "They called our herbs primitive. Then shipped them to London in glass jars. VanShakti will sell them to our own vaidyas first."
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🛤️ Routes: Secret Barter Corridors
Smuggled on the backs of mules and hidden in jaggery sacks, the Sangh built shadow routes along forgotten paths:
Burma Border (Assam/Arunachal): Hidden ferries under tribal control
Nepal Border (Bihar-UP): Pack routes run by Sanyasi traders
Malwa Forest Trails: Oxen carrying seed sacks wrapped in saffron cloth
Each route was protected by grain-for-grain barter systems—no coin, no tax, no trace.
> "We grow with the monsoon, not with British calendars," said an elder from Garhwal. "We are not plantations. We are farmers of freedom."
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📚 Farmer Education Reborn
Villagers were retrained to read clouds, track insect cycles, and prepare seed for drought
Workshops were held under banyan trees—oral learning circles, not paper exams
Grain bins were rebuilt using ancient mud-plaster techniques, not colonial steel silos
Shyam unfurled a map, not of roads, but of soil—red, yellow, loam, clay, all drawn in natural dye.
> "The British measure distance. We measure depth. Soil, culture, and time."
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📜 Final Vow
Ramrajan, standing quietly at the edge, stepped forward to make a final declaration:
> "Let this be known across Bharat:
The hands that till soil are the hands that save nations.
The grain we plant today is the fire we light tomorrow."
A copper seal was placed beside the seed chest. On it, engraved in Devanagari:
"अन्न ही अमृत है – स्वतंत्रता की जड़ें मिट्टी में हैं।"
Grain is nectar—freedom's roots are in the soil.
He spoke not with thunder, but with the weight of truth.
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4. 📚 Education & Print Division – Gyaan Prakash & Deshi Shiksha
> "British schools teach us that Newton gave us gravity. That Hippocrates invented medicine. That Rome civilized the world. But long before that," Shyam paused, lifting a thick manuscript, "we were watching planets, calculating eclipses, diagnosing through the pulse, and setting broken bones with precision."
He passed the scroll to the headmaster from Madurai.
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📘 Brands Operated:
Gyaan Prakash – The Confederation's secret press network.
Locations: Kolar, Patna, Gaya, Calcutta — all operated quietly under the umbrella of Singham & Sons Press Works.
Purpose: Mass-printing reformist literature, hidden history, medical knowledge, and scientific texts in regional languages.
Deshi Shiksha – Village learning centers using Bharatiya frameworks.
Focus: Sanskrit, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Marathi texts
Curriculum: Aryabhata's Siddhantas, Bhaskara's Lilavati, Charaka's Samhita, Panini's grammar, Chanakya's Arthashastra
Shyam unrolled a freshly inked draft.
> "This is the start of our Bharatiya Curriculum. Let every child learn where they come from."
As the late afternoon sun dipped low behind the coconut palms, the golden light filtered through high arched windows, landing like ancient script on the tiled stone floor of the Sangh's central hall. The scent of ink, sandalwood smoke, and hot brass filled the air. Inside, the room buzzed not with noise, but with purpose.
Seated in a semi-circle around a large central writing table were the gathered minds of the Sangh's Education & Print Division. Shyam, steward and master coordinator of the confederation, stood beside an oil lamp, a rolled letter in one hand and two freshly stitched books in the other.
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📚 Education & Print Division: Gyaan Prakash & Deshi Shiksha
Shyam addressed the hall with deliberate calm, his voice laced with gravity.
> "We meet not to boast, but to remember. The British robbed our textbooks, rewrote our histories, burned our scrolls, and called us savages. But they forget—our wisdom cannot be erased; it can only be rewritten by us."
He gestured toward a large trunk being wheeled in by two young press apprentices.
> "This is the result of quiet fire."
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🏭 The Four Pillars of Print: Sangh's Secret Press Network
Paper and Printing Mills Operated by the Singh Family:
Kolar – Headquarters press, equipped with double-wheel manual lithographs.
Thanjavur – Tamil and Sanskrit editions for South Bharat, housed under a disguised spice company.
Kochi – Trade route press using fast drying techniques near the port.
Madras – High-output, night-shift press working under a shell book company named Nilgiri Works.
All four had been expanded in May and June, with backup boilers, calligraphers, and new copper-type fonts imported quietly through southern ports.These presses ran day and night—some under false British names, others hidden behind herbal shops or sweet stores—producing:
Bilingual newspapers (coded margins, double meanings)
Pocket-size books for village teachers
Illustrated scrolls for illiterate workers
Leaflets in temple bhajan formats (used to spread history through songs)
They printed not just leaflets and pamphlets—but complete illustrated books, schoolbooks, poetry, history, science, and encoded circulars.
> "We've already begun compiling new books," Shyam said, raising a stitched manuscript in both hands. "Not to flatter ourselves—but to reclaim ourselves."
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🪔 Books in Progress:
Shyam signaled for the scribes to display titles.
1. Siddhanta Darpan
Chapters from Aryabhata, Bhaskara II, Varahamihira
With regional translations and simple diagrams for children
2. Charak Sushruta Samhita
Paired with modern herbal glossary
For vaidyas, village doctors, and mothers
3. Rajyagatha – Tales of our Kingdoms
True history as seen by Bharat
Volumes include:
The Maurya lineage and Ashoka's dhamma
Gupta golden age – Kalidasa, Aryabhata, Nalanda
Cholas, Cheras, Pallavas, Satavahanas – Sea trade, temple architecture, steelwork
Rajputs of Mewar and Marwar – Prithviraj Chauhan, Bappa Rawal
Ahoms of Assam – who stopped Mughals
Marathas – Shivaji's forts, Bajirao's valor
> "No longer will our children think we were always ruled. They will know we once ruled wisely, bravely, with vision and soul," Shyam declared.
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🕯️ Two Books in Every Hand
As the final bell tolled from the mandir tower, Shyam walked to a trunk marked in red ink.
He opened it and drew out two crisp, stitched volumes:
1. हम एक हैं – We Are One
A soul-stirring call of unity
Stories, poems, and parables about brotherhood from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, from Peshawar to Rangoon
2. The True Face of British Civilization
A factual, cutting indictment of colonial cruelty
Chapters:
The Slaughter of Buffaloes to Starve Native Americans
The African Slave Auctions and Chains
The Bengal Famine and Salt Tax
The Export of Grain During Drought
The Divide & Rule Game in India
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📘 Two Books, Two Flames
A hush fell as Shyam lifted the two published volumes, hot off the presses, embossed in hand-pressed covers, smelling of ink and cloth pulp.
> "We are not just publishing. We are igniting."
He held up the first volume.
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📗 1. हम एक हैं – We Are One
A literary and philosophical collection:
Poems from all regions in their dialects
Proverbs, parables, bhajans of unity
Illustrated maps of ancient Bharat
> "Let no merchant, no reformer, no child ever say again—I am separate."
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📘 2. The True Face of British Civilization
A fearless exposé:
The starvation of Native Americans by buffalo slaughter
Slave auctions of African men, women, and children
The Bengal Famine, salt tax, and forced grain exports
Drought denial in Bihar, and railway schemes made for looting
> "They don't fear us because we have swords. They fear us when we pick up pens."
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🪔 Ceremony of Distribution
One by one, every merchant, envoy, teacher, and reformer present in the gathering was given both books, wrapped in a cotton cloth marked with the Sangh's "Shakti se Srijan" seal.
Shyam personally handed copies to the delegates from:
Travancore
Mysore
Rajasthan
Amritsar
Nagpur
Calcutta
Patna
Madurai
Ahmedabad
And lastly, he turned to the printing press apprentices who had worked through nights.
> "You too will carry these. Because the Sangh is not about position—it is about purpose."
As the evening prayers rang out from a nearby mandir, the copper seal shimmered in the fading light.
> "These are not just books," Shyam said again, gently. "These are our mirrors and our shields."
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