Bharat Scout and Guides (Its History, and about Boy and Girl Scouts)

Here you will read about Bharat Scout and Guides, Its History, and about Boy and Girl Scouts.

What is Bharat Scout and Guides?

Bharat Scouts or Guides are India’s Regional Scouting and Guiding Organization that the Government of India acknowledges the national headquarters for BSG.

Scouting was established in India in 1909 as just an overseas division of the Scout Association and become a part of the World Scout Organization in 1938. Guiding throughout India started around 1911 and was one of the founding members of the World Federation of Girl Guides as well as Girl Scouts in 1928, which now comprises Bangladesh &  Pakistan. Its BSG will represent 2,886,460 Guides (as of 2011) plus 1,286,161 Guides (since about 2005).

History of Scout and Guides

1. Boy Scouts

Scouting is officially established in British India of 1909, beginning at the Bishop Cotton Boys ‘ School to Bangalore. Scouting of native Indians started in 1913 with Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Justice Vivian Bose, Girija Shankar Bajpai, Annie Besant, Pandit Hridayanath Kunzru, or  George Arundale. Before that date, Scouting was only open to the British as well as foreign Scouts. Its Cub section was begun in 1916, preceded by the Rover segment in 1918.

Since 1916, J. S. Wilson, Calcutta’s Senior Deputy Commissioner to Police, implemented Scouting of Boys as either a textbook at the Calcutta Police Training College. Colonel Wilson worked with the District Scout Commissioner, Arthur Pickford, and that in 1917 he had become Assistant Scout of a very old Mission Church Troop.

Furthermore, the two fought for the entry of Indian boys to the Boy Scouts Association that had not been accepted by the order of a Governments of India, so “Scouting could prepare them becoming revolutionaries.”

Wilson began then serving as Cubmaster and Scoutmaster but replaced Pickford at District Commissioner on May 1919, once Pickford became appointed Chief Scout Officer for India.

The Boy Scouts in Bengal was established to get around the Government Order, with the same aims and methods. Many independent Scout organizations have started to arise, the Indian Boy Scouts Organization, established in 1916, headquartered in Madras and led by Annie Besant & George Arundale;

Nizam’s Scouts of Hyderabad; Boy Scouts to Baroda; Boy Scouts for Mysore; Seva Samiti Scout Association (Humanity Strengthen Provider Society), established in 1917 only by Madan Mohan Malaviya and otherwise Hridayanath Kunzru and perhaps based in Allahabad; again the groups mentioned above’ Boy Scouts of Bengal and probably some others. A meeting was held in Calcutta of August 1920, where Wilson scripted a Scout Rally. Also, the Viceroy in India invited to further Lord Baden-Powell, so than Chief Scout of the whole World, to come to visit India.

Lords and ladies Baden-Powell landed in Bombay at the end of January 1921 for either a brief tour of the subcontinent until leaving Calcutta for the Rangoon. Alfred Pickford followed them, becoming one of the close friends.

The emblem of a Boy Scouts Organization in India–notice modern Burma, Pakistan or Bangladesh will be included in the map The logo of a Boy Scouts Organization in India–note that contemporary Burma, Pakistan and Bangladesh would be included through the plan.

The result of the whole visit was indeed a union of all Scout organizations except the Seva Samiti Scout Organization throughout the Boy Scout Association for  India. Throughout 1922 Pickford moved to England, and it was appointed Overseas Commissioner of a Boy Scouts Association in their London office. Still, his vision of bringing local boys into the organization had been realized.

Throughout 1938, after a surge of nationalism, the number of members quit the Boy Scouts Organization in India. They established–together with Seva Samiti Scout Alliance and also the newly formed Indian National Scout Organization–the very first co-educational Scout and Guiding Organization in India. The same year, the Boy Scouts Association in India had become a member of the international Scout Organization.

2. Girl Guides

The very first Girl Guides Company was started in Jabalpur of 1911 at a Christ Church School. The movement immediately grew: in 1915 there were more than 50 companies with far more than 1,200 participants, all explicitly registered with either the Girl Guide Organization and the all limited to girls of European descent. Of 1916, such companies created the All India Girl Guides Organization. The company launched for Indian girls that same year.

J. S. Wilson received transportation to the Girl Guide meeting.

Girls themselves are never quite sure if they wanted to sit in a police van or even a riot vehicle. The former shielded them of public view, and they were boiling; this latter, being prisons of enlarged concrete, were more relaxed, but suggestive of a Calcutta Zoo!

Of 1928, an all India Girl Guides Organization joined its World Association of Girl Guides as well as Girl Scouts and one of its founding members. The above membership was renewed in 1948 during the independence or division of India.

Bharat Guides and Scouts

During the first years since India’s independence, top politicians, along with Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Mangal Das Pakvasa, and also Scout leaders, wanted to unite the Indian Scouts and Guides.

First popularity has been the merger of that same Boy Scouts Association in India and even the Bharat Scout Association creating the Bharat Scouts as well as Guides on 7 Nov 1950. Almost a year back on 15 Aug 1951, some all India Girl Guides Association joined a new body.

Throughout 1959, the BSG organized the 17th World Scout Meeting throughout New Delhi. Its Sangam World Girl Guide / Girl Guide Center of Pune, Maharashtra, India, opened the doors of 1966. The proposal for such a fourth world center dates back in 1956 once it was established at a WAGGGS International Commission conference in New Delhi.

A United Nations has selected Bharat Guides and Scouts named honorary “Peace Messengers” for the outstanding and meaningful contribution to either the International Year after Peace of 1986.

An 18th West Bombay Scouts Team

18th Sethna’s West Bombay Scout Group is the oldest and largest operating Scout Group of India. It was founded in 1914 after (1898–1954) Rustomji Edulji Sethna came around the Scouting of Boys book written about Robert Baden-Powell, the father of Scouting.

He was also in love with the book and founded some of the first Indian Scout teams for aboriginal people. Earlier, there have been some Scout classes, but they were mostly British expatriates throughout India.

Sethna resisted joining one of competing Scout associations as well as registering his troops till Scouting was open to everyone, regardless of color, caste as well as creed. He spoke to Baden-Powell about either the difference.

By 1921, many rules were modified, and all of them were permitted to become part of the Scout community. An 18th West has already been running continuously from the day it opened. Any of the World Wars or indeed the Indian split has stopped the party from operating.