Bagha Jatin/Temp3
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Bagha Jatin, born Jatindranath Mukherjee (7 December 1879–10 September 1915) was an Indian revolutionary activist against British rule. He was one of the leaders of the Yugantar party that was the main association of revolutionaries in Bengal, and was instrumental in the planned Indo-German Conspiracy during World War I.
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[edit] Early life
Jatin was born in Kayagram, a village in the Kushtia subdivision of Nadia district in what is now Bangladesh. His parents were Umeshchandra Mukherjee and Sharatshashi; his father died when Jatin was five years old. As he grew older, Jatin gained a reputation for his charitable disposition encouraged by his mother, as well as his cheerful nature, physical bravery and great strength; the name by which he came to be known ("Bagha Jatin" — Tiger Jatin) derived from an incident in which he killed a tiger with a dagger.[1]
Afer passing the Entrance examination in 1895, he joined the Calcutta Central College, for his First Arts. Soon he started visiting Swami Vivekananda, whose social thought, and especially his vision of a politically independent India in the interest of a spiritual progress of mankind, had a great influence on him.In 1900, Jatin married Indubala Banerjee of the Kushtia upazali of Kumarkhali; they had four children: Atindra (1903–1906), Ashalata (1907–1976), Tejendra (1909–1989) and Birendra (1913–1991).
[edit] Revolutionary activities
According to secret Police Reports Jatin was among the founders of the society Jugantar and organised its branches in the districts.[2] While training and competing in climbing, swimming, and shooting in the body building akhda (a sort of combination of religious school and gymnasium, involving physical and religious training, and much used by revolutionary groups at the time), Jatin participated also in a meeting of prominent revolutionary leaders of Bengal, held at Calcutta, at the time of the Indian National Congress Session in 1906.The bond between Jatindranath and Sri Aurobindo that started in 1903,became stronger and Jatin became one of the most trusted lieutenants of Aurobindo.[3] M. N. Roy alias Narendra became an able comrade of Jatin.
According to J.E. Armstrong, Superintendent of Police, Jatin "owed his preeminent position in revolutionary circles, not only to his quality of leadership, but in great measure to his reputation of being a Brahmachari with no thought beyond the revolutionary cause." [4]
Jatin, together with Barindra Ghosh, set up a terrorist bomb factory near Deoghar, while Barin did the same at Maniktala in Calcutta; the aim, aside from the general production of terror, was the elimination of certain British officers. In 1908 Jatin was one of over thirty revolutionaries accused in the Alipore bomb case following the Muzaffarpur bombing, but was acquitted for lack of evidence.
During the Alipore Bomb Case, Jatin took over the leadership of the Jugantar Party, and revitalized the links between the central organization in Calcutta and its several branches spread all over Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and several places in U.P.[5]. Jatindranath leased from Sir Daniel Hamilton lands in the Sundarbans to shelter revolutionaries not yet arrested. Revolutionaries there were engaged in night schools for adults, homeopathic dispensaries, workshops to encourage small scale cottage industries, experiments in agriculture.Since 1906, with the help of Sir Daniel, Jatin sent meritorious students abroad for higher studies as well as for learning military craft .[6]
On 24 January 1910, as part of a Jugantar campaign against those who had been responsible for the arrests and trials in the Alipore bomb case, Samsul Alam, the Deputy Superintendent of Police, was shot and killed by Biren Dutta Gupta on the stairs of the Calcutta High Court building. Jatin was arrested in connection with this murder, but was released and immediately re-arrested along with forty-six others in connection with the Howrah conspiracy case.
This case involved charges of waging war against the Crown and tampering with the loyalty of Indian soldiers, such as those belonging to the Jat Regiment posted in Fort William, and soldiers in Upper Indian Cantonments .[7] While held in Howrah jail, awaiting trial, Jatin made contact with many fellow prisoners, prominent revolutionaries belonging to various groups operating in different parts of Bengal, who were all accused in the case. He was also informed by his emissaries abroad that very soon Germany was to declare war against England. He counted heavily on this war to organise an armed uprising among the Indian soldiers in various regiments.[8]
The Howrah conspiracy case failed due to lack of proper evidence ,and Jatin was acquitted in 1911 and released. He lost his government job, and started a contract business constructing the Jessore–Jhenaidah railway line. He went on a pilgrimage, and at Hardwar visited Bholananda Giri who had given him spiritual instruction in 1906. Jatin went on to Brindavan where he met Swami Niralamba (who, before becoming a sanyasi, had been Jateendra Nath Bannerjee), a renowned revolutionary who followed Sri Aurobindo's teachings.
Niralamba gave Jatin information about and links to the units set up by him in Uttar Pradesh and the Punjab, revolutionary activities in these regions being led by Lala Hardayal and Rash Behari Bose. On return from his pilgrimage, Jatin started reorganising Yugantar. During the flooding of Hughli and Midnapore, relief work brought together the leaders of various of these groups, and they chose Jatin and Rashbehari Bose as leaders in Bengal and northern India respectively. Jatin revitalised the links between the central organisation of Yugantar in Calcutta and its several branches spread all over Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, and several places in Uttar Pradesh.
There were also attempts to organise expatriate Indian revolutionaries; a Yugantar Ashram was set up in San Francisco, California, and the Sikh community also became involved. When World War I broke out, European-based Indian revolutionaries met in Berlin in order to form the Indian Independence Party, and gained the support of the German government.
[edit] During World War I
In September 1914, the International Pro-India Committee was formed at Zurich by Champakaraman Pillai, who also became its president. Later it was merged into a bigger body, the Berlin Committee, led by Chatto, alias Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, which had as members almost all the prominent Indian revolutionaries abroad, including the leaders of the Ghadar Party. Many members of the Gadhar party arrived in India, and helped the revolutionaries in their attempts to create an uprising inside India during World War I, with the help of arms, ammunition, and funds supplied by the German government.
Jugantar, under Jatin's leadership, had started planning and organising an armed revolt. Rash Behari Bose was given the task of carrying out the plan in Uttar Pradesh and the Punjab. This plan came to be known as the German Plot, or the Indo-German Conspiracy.The revolutionaries even planned to indoctrinate the regiments posted at the Calcutta Fort and seize it in due time, paralysing thus the British military hold on India.[9]
Jugantar started to collect funds by organising a series of dacoities (armed robberies) known as "Taxicab dacoities" and "Boat dacoities".[1]
As the police activities to prevent any uprising increased, eminent members of Yugantar suggested that Jatin should move to a safer place. Balasore on the Orissa coast was selected as a suitable place, as it was very near the spot where German arms were to be landed for the Indian rising. To facilitate transmission of information to the Jatin, a business house under the name "Universal Emporium" was set up, as a branch of Harry & Sons in Calcutta, which had been created in order to keep contacts with revolutionaries abroad. Jatin therefore moved to a hideout outside Kaptipada village in the Native State of Mayurbhanj, more than thirty miles away from Balasore.
While Jatin stayed in Orissa, Naren travelled to Batavia in order to make a deal with the German authorities concerning financial aid and the supply of arms. The plot leaked out through Czech revolutionaries who were in touch with their counterparts in the United States [10]; as soon as the information reached the British authorities, they alerted the police, particularly in the delta region of the Ganges, and sealed off all the sea approaches on the eastern coast from the Noakhali–Chittagong side to Orissa. Harry & Sons was raided and searched, and the police found a clue which led them to Kaptipada village, where Jatin was staying with Manoranjan Sengupta and Chittapriya Ray Chaudhuri; a unit of the Police Intelligence Department was despatched to Balasore.
[edit] The final battle
Jatin was alerted and advised to leave his hiding place, but his insistence on taking Niren and Jatish with him delayed his departure by a few hours, by which time a large force of police, headed by top European officers from Calcutta and Balasore, reinforced by the army unit from Chandbali in Mayurbhanj State, had reached the neighbourhood. Jatin and his companions walked through the forests and hills of Mayurbhanj, and after two days reached Balasore Railway Station.
The police had announced a reward for the capture of the fleeing revolutionaries, so the local villagers were also in pursuit. With occasional skirmishes, the revolutionaries, running through jungles and marshy land in torrential rain, finally took up position on 9 September 9 1915 in an improvised trench in undergrowth on a hillock at Chashakhand in Balasore. Chittapriya and his companions asked Jatin to leave and go to safety while they guarded the rear. Jatin refused to leave them, however.
The contingent of Government forces surrounded them. A gunfight ensued, lasting seventy-five minutes, between the five revolutionaries armed with Mauser pistols and a large number of police and army armed with modern rifles. It ended with an unrecorded number of casualties on the Government side; on there revolutionary side, Chittapriya Ray Chaudhuri died, Jatin and Jatish were seriously wounded, and Manoranjan Sengupta and Niren were captured after their ammunition ran out. Jatin died in Balasore hospital on 10 September 1915.
[edit] Jatindranath's idealism
According to the eminent historian Amales Tripathi - this operation dealt a serious blow to the British colonial policy, since definite chances were on the side of the Indians [11] . He quotes the overtly admitted report by Charles Tegart - that the driving power of Jatin was immense; that this uprising had been extremely well conceived. [12]
Jatindranath Mukherjee was an ardent devotee of Swami Vivekananda. He used to explain his ideal in these words: "Amra morbo, jat jagbe" - "We shall die to awaken the nation".[13] Even Charles Tegart, the Intelligence Chief and Police Commissioner of Bengal, paid a tribute to Jatin: Though I had to do my duty, I have a great admiration for him. He died in an open fight.[14]
On learning of his beloved JatinDa's death, M.N. Roy was to write : "I could not forget the injunction of the only man I ever obeyed almost blindly. (...) JatinDa's heroic death... must be avenged. Only a year had passed since then. But in the meantime I had come to realise that I admired JatinDa because he personified, perhaps without himself knowing it, the best of mankind. The corollary to that realisation was that Jatinda's death would be avenged if I worked for the ideal of establishing a social order in which the best in man could be manifest." [15]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Two Great Indian Revolutionaries by Uma Mukherjee ;eye-witness by Jatin's younger cousin Amûlya
- ^ cf: op. cit., Vol. I, pp13-14 F.C. Daly's Report and Vol. II, p509 J.C. Nixon's Report
- ^ Sri Aurobindo’s exact words were : Jatindranath "... was one of my most trusted lieutenants, a wonderful man who would belong to the front rank of humanity. Such beauty and strength combined into one I have not seen. His stature was like that of a warrior." (Sisirkumar Mitra, Resurgent ndia, Allied Publishers, 1963, p367).
- ^ Amiya K. Samanta,ed.,Terrorism in India text, Vol. II, p393.
- ^ M.N. Roy's Memoirs p.3
- ^ Interview with Dr Taraknath Das in September 1952, corroborated by Bhupendrakumar Datta's investigation and written statement.
- ^ major charge against Jatin Mukherjee and his party during the trial (1910-11) was conspiracy to wage war against the King-Emperor and tampering with the loyalty of the Indian soldiers (mainly with the 10th Jats Regiment) [cf : Sedition Committee Report, 1918]
- ^ Samanta, op. cit. Vol II, p 591
- ^ Biplabi jîbaner smriti by Jadugopal Mukhopadhyaya, 2nd edition, pp351, 536, 537
- ^ Spy and Counter-Spy by E.V. Voska & W. Irwin, pp98, 108, 120 122-3, 126-127; The Making of a State by T.G. Masaryk, pp50, 221, 242; Indian Revolutionaries Abroad by A.C. Bose, pp232-233
- ^ swâdhînatâ samgrâmé bhârater jâtîya kongres (1885-1947),Amalesh Tripathi, 2nd Print, pp77-78
- ^ Written notes by Manindra Chakravarti
- ^ Biplaber padachinha by Bhupendrakumar Datta, 2nd ed., p74
- ^ Samanta, op. cit., Vol. III, Introduction, p.viii
- ^ I M.N. Roy's Memoirs pp35-36.
[edit] Sources and external links
- Bagha Jatin — from Banglapedia.
- Jatindranath Mukherjee — Bhupendrakumar Datta
- Great Indians
- Bhupendrakumar Datta, "Mukherjee, Jatindranath (1879–1915)" in Dictionary of National Biography volume III, ed. S.P. Sen (Calcutta: Institute of Historical Studies, 1974), pp162–165
- Saga of Patriotism - Article on BAGHA JATIN - Springing Tiger of Bengal -( By Sadhu Prof. V. Rangarajan & R. Vivekanandan)
- Bimanbehari Majumdar, Militant Nationalism in India, Calcutta, 1966, p111, p165
- W. Sealy, Connections with the Revolutionary Organisation in Bihar and Orissa, 1906-16,
- Report classified as Home Polit-Proceedings A, March 1910, No. 33-40 (cf Sumit Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1903-1908, New Delhi, 1977, p376
- Sisirkumar Mitra, Resurgent ndia, Allied Publishers, 1963, p367).
- J.C. Ker, ICS, Political Trouble in India, A Confidential Report, Delhi, 1973 (repr.), p120. Also consult : (i) "Taraknath Das" by William A. Ellis in Norwich University, 1819-1911, Montpellier, 1911, Vol. III, pp490-491, illustrated (with two of Tarak’s photos); (ii) “The Vermont Education of Taraknath Das : an Episode in British-American-Indian Relations” , Ronald Spector, in Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society, Vol. 48, No.2, 1980, pp88-95
- German Foreign Office Documents, 1914-18 (Microfilms in National Archives of India, New Delhi). Also, San Francisco Trial Report, 75 Volumes (India Office Library, UK) and Record Groups 49, 60, 85 and 118 (U.S. National Archives, Washington DC, & Federal Archives, San Bruno)
- Amales Tripathi, svâdhînatâ samgrâmé bhâratér jâtiya congress (1885-1947), Ananda Publishers Pr. Ltd, Kolkâtâ, 1991, 2nd edition, pp77-79
- Bagha Jatin by Prithwindra Mukherjee in Challenge : A Saga of India’s Struggle for Freedom, ed. Nisith Ranjan Ray et al, New Delhi, 1984, pp264-273
- Sedition Committee Report, 1918
- Mukherjee, Jatindranath (1879-1915) by Bhupendrakumar Datta in Dictionary of National Biography, ed. S.P. Sen, Institute of Historical Studies, Calcutta, 1974, Vol. III, pp162-165
- Bagha Jatin by Prithwindra Mukherjee, Dey’s Publishing, Calcutta, 2003 (4th Edition), 128p [in Bengali]
- Sâdhak Biplabi Jatîndranâth by Prithwindra Mukherjee, West Bengal State Book Board, Calcutta, 1990, 509p [in Bengali]
