Bapat was educated in Edinburgh,
Scotland, because he lost a scholarship he had received from the British
Government, for expressing anti-British views at a meeting of the Independent
Labor Party. Despite the loss of the scholarship he continued his studies
abroad, and came home with preliminary knowledge of how to build bombs.
Armed with this knowledge he planned to join other revolutionaries to use
it against the British Government, not in an attempt to kill innocent victims,
but to draw attention to the cause of freedom. There were others whose
opinions differed, and soon a fatal bomb attack, in which he was accused
of indirect involvement, resulted in his going underground. He took this
opportunity to travel around the country he was working so hard to free.
During these travels the
realization came to him that the vast majority of Indians had yet to realize
that they were under foreign rule. Thereafter his focus shifted from overthrowing
the government, to educating the masses regarding the foreign government.
For four years he eluded the British officials and worked towards this
new goal. The British government caught up with him because of a tip-off
from one of his friends regarding his location.
This was to be the first
of three trips to jail for Bapat. The second came shortly after his release
when he went to fight for the rights of those whose homes were threatened
by a Dam project. Bapat repeatedly stopped work on the dams by uprooting
rail lines that were being planted to move lumber and equipment to use
during construction. For this act he turned himself in and was sentenced
to 7 years imprisonment. His final trip to jail was a result of defying
orders not to speak at a public gathering held by Netaji Subash Chandra
Bose.
On August 15, 1947 when India
was declared free, Jawaharlal Nehru raised the Indian flag in Delhi for
the first time. Senapati Bapat was given the same honor in Pune. After
independence Senapati Bapat took an active part in political life. He passed
away on November 28, 1967 at the age of 87