Why could Bagha Jatin not be the father of our nation?
The concluding part of an exclusive two-part account on iconic Bengali revolutionary Bagha Jatin, or Jatindranath Mukhopadhyay, written for Get Bengal by his Paris-based grandson.
Since 1908, repressive laws banning all associations had left Jatin with a massive task. First, to provide proper legal defense to accused revolutionaries. Second, to undertake secret tours in the districts to consolidate links between units. Responding to his efforts in a consistent and coordinated way, absconding regional leaders reflected the one single policy summed up by the colonial police as the “Jatin Mukherjee spirit.” Jatin also executed a third and most significant task: registration of the Bengal Young Men’s Co-operative Credit and Zemindary Society at Gosaba, leasing from the philanthropist Sir Daniel Hamilton a few acres of land to provide boarding and lodging to “wayward” young men.
Jatin adopted the experimental method of his friend, educationist Shashibhushan Raychaudhuri: run night classes for adult villagers, polytechnique schools for volunteers, establish rural libraries and charitable dispensaries with ayurvedic and homoeopathic facilities; encourage them with small-scale cottage industries, swadeshi stalls, wrestling clubs, racing, rowing, gymnastics, even cricket. Jatin also picked up competent candidates to practise shooting in the marshes. Sir Daniel offered more plots of land for another branch of this society at Kaptipada near Baripada in Orissa.
According to Nixon’s Report, during three years from May 1908, following arrests and the protracted Alipore Case, and the publicity given to the revolutionary methods, Bengal knew “a very severe anarchical time”. Jatin and his followers executed several “acts of daring and desperate self-sacrifice… to revive the confidence of the people in the movement,” writes Arun Guha. “Nobody outside the innermost circle suspected his involvement. Secrecy was absolute in those days, particularly with Jatindra.”
In addition to ten sensational operations, Jatindra chose four daring murders to serve as a warning to ‘traitors’ of the people’s cause: (a) August 1908, approver Naren Goswami murdered in prison; (b) November 1908, police sub-inspector Nandalal Banerjee murdered on the open streets of Calcutta for having arrested Prafulla Chaki; (c) On February 10, 1909, public prosecutor Ashu Biswas murdered inside Calcutta High Court; (d) On January 24, 1910, dynamic deputy superintendent of police Shamsul Alam shot dead, once again in the corridors of the High Court.
On January 25, 1910, unnerved by the assassination of Shamsul, Viceroy Minto openly declared how “a new spirit” – meaning Jatin Mukherjee – “of anarchy and lawlessness (…) seeks to subvert not only British rule but the Governments of Indian Chiefs.” Minto left India hurriedly.
On January 27, Jatin was arrested along with 66 members of Jugantar. On March 7, 1910 began the Howrah-Shibpur Case - a sequel to the Alipore Case - under Sections 121-124, 302 and 400 of the Indian Penal Code. Hardinge, the newly appointed Viceroy, took no time singling out Jatin as “the one criminal” and concluded: “Nothing could be worse (…) than the condition of Bengal and Eastern Bengal. There is practically no Government in either province.” Reason for shifting the Capital from Calcutta in turmoil to “empress Delhi”.
Inroads into the Army
The barrister Kennedy had drawn Jatin’s attention to the way the Indian budget was being squandered by the Crown to protect its territorial interests in distant nooks of the Empire. He wanted Indian soldiers to think and act patriotically. It turned out to be one of Jatin’s original contributions: that of indoctrinating native soldiers in various British regiments inside India and all over Asia, inviting them to join the insurrection. During the Howrah Gang Case 0f 1910-1911, when Jatin was tried with 46 co-accused, the charges were of waging war against the Crown and tampering with the loyalty of Indian soldiers posted in Fort William and commanding other Indian cantonments. Several officers of the 10th Jat Regiment faced court martial for complicity in sedition, before it was dismantled forthright. Recognising the 10th Jats’ case to be part and parcel of the Howrah Case, Hardinge wrote: “With the failure in the latter, the Government of Bengal realised the futility of proceeding with the former…”
During Jatin’s trial, several eminent militants - like Nikhileswar Ray Maulick and Naren Chatterjee - were singled out for maintaining links with Army officers: first, taking them to secret meetings at Nanigopal Sengupta’s house at Shibpur or later, to the Khidirpur centre under the guidance of Sarat Mitra. Second, moving about with them to meet officers-in-charge of barracks in Benares, Nainital, Lahore, Peshawar etc.
Jatin adopted the experimental method of his friend, educationist Shashibhushan Raychaudhuri: run night classes for adult villagers, polytechnique schools for volunteers, establish rural libraries and charitable dispensaries with ayurvedic and homoeopathic facilities; encourage them with small-scale cottage industries, swadeshi stalls, wrestling clubs, racing, rowing, gymnastics, even cricket. Jatin also picked up competent candidates to practise shooting in the marshes.
H.E. Arsenyev, Russian Consul-General in Calcutta, informed St Petersburg on February 6, 1910: “Despite the British authorities’ desire to keep the affair from becoming public, some details have come to light (…) that conspiracy was connected with the liberation movement which had been gaining momentum in India in recent years…” About the conspirators’ trial, the Russian paper Zemschchina wrote that the sepoys had conducted themselves with great poise. They declared that they had joined a revolutionary union set up by Bengali patriots, and were aware of the fact that they wanted to overthrow British rule in India. Their claim: “Don’t think there are only 25 such sepoys. Oh no! There are many such sepoys, and the fate of British domination in India is in our hands.” Even after the Howrah Case was over in April 1911, while Naren Chatterjee was absconding to avoid arrest, the Khidirpur group, led by Ashutosh Ghosh and the Howrah group under Durgacharan Bose, maintained contact with native officers of Fort William.
Thanks to Jatin’s strategy of a decentralized organisation, none of the undertrial militants of Jugantar could be proved guilty, contrary to the accused in the Alipore Case under Barin’s heroic confession, except Sri Aurobindo, who refused to make a statement. There were only two militants in the Howrah Case who turned approvers.
German Collaboration
Interned at home even after his release, dismissed from his job, Jatin managed to meet the Crown Prince of Germany on his visit to Calcutta in 1912, and obtained from him the promise of arms and funds from Germany in case there was an insurrection during the imminent war between England and Germany. Judging from the lull until Jatin’s return to violence in 1914, the authorities did not fail to notice the rigorous command Jatin had over the violence he had unleashed before going to prison.
One of the most threatening events of the return of Jugantar with its policy of counter-repression was the revolutionaries’ helping themselves to 50 sophisticated Mauser pistols with 46,000 rounds of ammunition from the godown of Rodda & Co, a British firm. Director of Surveys J.C. Nixon shared the militants’ sentiment of personal devotion for Jatin: “He seems to have had a most extraordinary influence over his followers, who looked upon him with something approaching reverence and awe.”
Since 1906, in batches, Jatin had been arranging trips abroad for his emissaries for higher education along with two more objectives: (1) learn as much as possible the techniques of military craft, with manufacture and proper use of explosives; (2) create a public opinion favourable to India’s attempts to get rid of British domination. Tarak Das in the United States represented the most loyal model of this mission. Others like Shrish Sen, Guran Ditt Kumar, Adhar Laskar, Satyen Sen, Khagen Dasgupta, and Surendra Bose in Europe and America showed their efficient devotion to it.
There were others too. As soon as war was declared in 1914, and inspired by Jugantar, Virendra Nath Chattopadhyay (‘Chatto’, brother of Sarojini Naidu) came to an agreement on a 15-point treaty – known as Plan Zimmermann - with the Imperial German Government: Germany was to give Indian revolutionaries arms, explosives, monetary help and officers. But no German or Turkish Army was to advance on a liberation mission. Shrish Sen as Jatin’s emissary was at once contacted by Chatto.
Also at Chatto’s request, Baron Von Oppenheim of the German Foreign Office informed Indian students in 31 German universities about this plan. An immediate response came from a large number of students and professors – Hindus, Muslims and Parsis - hailing from various parts of India.
Whereas Jatin’s emissaries in America – mainly Tarak Das and Bhupen Datta (Vivekananda’s brother) - had been simultaneously trying to contact the German Crown Prince about his promise, by October 1914 they had received an invitation from Chatto to join him in Berlin. N.S. Marathe and Dhiren Sarkar (brother of Benoy Sarkar) had carried a message from the Kaiser himself for Von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador in Washington, to sanction funds to help an insurrection in India. Military Attaché Von Papen received orders to arrange for steamers on the California coast and purchase adequate arms and ammunition to be delivered to the “eastern coast” of India. German consulates in New York, Chicago and San Francisco supplied money and facilities to Indians rushing to join Chatto in Berlin. Gadar Party members had already started reaching India by the thousands.
Rashbehari Bose
Drifting away from the mainstream, momentarily dejected, Rashbehari accompanied Motilal Roy and Amarendra Chatterjee on the flood relief effort in 1913, to meet Jatin. Before Sri Aurobindo left for Pondicherry in 1910, both the Jugantar leaders had received from him the instruction to follow Jatin. Faithful to his mission of an insurrection, Jatin set ablaze Bose’s passion, while the latter discovered in Jatindra “a real leader of men”. During several meetings with Bose, one day Jatin asked him whether he could organise the occupation of Fort William. Accepting the challenge, Bose set out to negotiate with a new set of native officers, distinct from those contacted earlier by the team of Naren Chatterjee. In need of further moral sanction for serving as Jatin’s assistant, Bose sent Motilal to Pondicherry: Motilal returned in November 1913 with Sri Aurobindo’s full approval. Owing to his familiarity with Benares, Bose received the charge of North Indian units and barracks. In addition to the organisation in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, Jatin chose to guide emissaries in Europe and America. The Berlin Committee was to raise an army of liberation by recruiting Indian soldiers from various Anglo-Indian regiments imprisoned in the Middle East: synchronizing with the insurrection from Bengal to Peshawar, they would reach Peshawar through Afghanistan. In a pincer movement, the Gadar leaders under Tarak Das would storm through Thailand and Burma, reach Calcutta, seize Fort William, and join Peshawar.
On January 27, Jatin was arrested along with 66 members of Jugantar. On March 7, 1910 began the Howrah-Shibpur Case - a sequel to th eAlipore Case - under Sections 121-124, 302 and 400 of the Indian Penal Code. Hardinge, the newly appointed Viceroy, took no time singling out Jatin as “the one criminal” and concluded: “Nothing could be worse (…) than the condition of Bengal and Eastern Bengal.
In November 1914, Satyen Sen reached Calcutta, with V.G. Pingley, Kartar Singh Sarabha and an important number of Gadar militants. Charles Tegart had recorded Jatindra’s strategic winning over of Sikh soldiers of the 93rd Burma Regiment (on the eve of their departure for Mesopotamia). Jatin took Satyen to the garden at Baranagar, where they interviewed these soldiers. After several talks with Pingley and Kartar Singh, in the third week of December 1914, Jatin sent them to Bose with necessary instructions.
Bose learnt from them that in addition to four thousand Gadarites who had already returned from America, many more would arrive once the rebellion broke out. Obeying Jatin’s wish, from Benares, Bose sent Pingley with Sachin Sanyal to Amritsar to meet Mula Singh (who had received Satyen at Shanghai). Invited by Bose to appraise the situation in Upper India and to expedite preparations for the rising, Jatin with his family, Atul Ghosh and Naren Bhattacharya set out “for pilgrimage” to Benares, in January 1915.
Despite having won over the 16th Rajput Rifles in garrison in Fort William through Havildar Mansha Singh, Jatindra had preferred waiting for the insurrection till the delivery of the German arms, which would be valuable and indispensable. In the German Foreign Office papers, we come across Bernstorff acknowledging on 7/12/1914 Papen’s purchase of 11,000 rifles, 4 million cartridges, 250 Mauser pistols, and 500 revolvers with ammunition for India. Further on January 9, 1915, Von Oppenheim confirmed the arrival of Professor Barakatullah in Berlin from Washington (collaborating with Tarak Das) and that 30,000 rifles and 5,000 automatic pistols were ready to be dispatched. But according to Bose’s hasty estimation, the Gadar militants, growing impatient for action, were reliable for the purpose. Therefore Jatin, the commander in chief, accepted Bose’s proposal and sanctioned February 21, 1915 as the date of the insurrection.
Failure: A double betrayal
The first blow came in spite of Bose’s watchful eyes: the betrayal by Kripal Singh, a police agent who had been keeping the Imperial Authorities abreast of the decisions taken by leaders of the rebellion. Even on learning that the plot was going to miscarry, Bose turned to Jatin, asking for money. Jatin accordingly improvised two taxi cab robberies on February 12 and 22, 1915, collecting 40,000 rupees, a fabulous booty.
Accepting the futility of trying to restrain the activities of Indian leaders like Taraknath Das, Maulavi Barakatullah, G.D. Kumar or Harnam Singh abroad, and encouraged by the Anglophile President Woodraw Wilson, the British Foreign Office intensified its intelligence network on American and Canadian soil. An agent was introduced in the Department of Justice in Washington D.C. Having recruited refugees from Eastern and Central Europe, a strict chain network watched the shipping of all Germany-bound contraband materials.
Appointed by Calcutta Police, W.C. Hopkinson, who had followed Taraknath to America, discovered that the wayward lifestyle of Jugantar leader Chandrakanta Chakrabarti and his friend Ernst Sekunna could be of immense help. The address of 494, East 141st Street at New York owned by Sekunna had an apartment rented by the Vedanta Centre, presided over by Swami Abhedananda, who had initiated Chandrakanta as a Brahmachari; Chandra had rented the entire basement for living with Ernst. The housekeeper was a Czech refugee who informed Hopkinson that the basement was frequented by many Indians arriving from India, England, France and Germany, and a host of doubtful literature and newspapers from all over the world was to be often found. An ideal prey for an adventurous housekeeper, who was a member of the Czech network of counter-espionage directed by E.V. Voska.
On learning from Hopkinson the scheme by Jatin to free India with German collaboration, Voska rushed to inform the pro-American, pro-British and anti-German T.G. Masaryk (future President of the Czech Republic). The U.S. authorities passed the news immediately to the British police. Ross Hedviek, a Czech author, writes that had Voska not interfered, nobody today would have heard of Mahatma Gandhi, and the Father of the Indian Nation would have been Bagha Jatin.
Whereas, in Balasore, Jatin sacrificed his life after enacting with four associates a heroic battle against an armed police regiment on September 9, 1915, Rashbehari Bose collected more money from Jatin’s associates and fled to Japan, convinced that by he would live to cause a bigger revolution in the future.
Bagha Jatin: Impact on the national psyche
Historians such as Bhupendrakumar Datta have compared the vacuum created by Jatin’s martyrdom with the people’s spontaneous mourning for Gandhiji on January 30, 1948. Jatind’s loyal disciples sensed that there was no room for dejection in the life of a revolutionary. On returning from South Africa in that significant year of 1915, Gandhiji discovered an entire generation prepared to rise in the name of the Motherland; drawing inspiration from the doctrine of passive resistance that Jatin had received from Sri Aurobindo and had transmitted to his followers. Gandhiji skilfully obliterated the “armed riposte to violence imposed” from it, and promising to win over self-rule (swarajya) within a year, he imposed his absolute faith in “non-violence”.
Whereas Jatin’s emissaries in America – mainly Tarak Das and Bhupen Datta (Vivekananda’s brother) - had been simultaneously trying to contact the German Crown Prince about his promise, by October 1914 they had received an invitation from Chatto to join him in Berlin. N.S. Marathe and Dhiren Sarkar (brother of Benoy Sarkar) had carried a message from the Kaiser himself for Von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador in Washington, to sanction funds to help an insurrection in India. Military Attaché Von Papen received orders to arrange for steamers on the California coast and purchase adequate arms and ammunition to be delivered to the “eastern coast” of India.
Diffident, Jatin’s associates delegated Bhupendrakumar Datta to consult Sri Aurobindo. In 1920, on returning from Pondicherry, Datta informed his Jugantar fellows that the Master thought the promise of swaraj within a year was not quite reliable; Gandhiji had come with a tremendous force and deserved collaboration but, warned Sri Aurobindo: “Do not make a fetish of non-violence and feel free to resume action as you choose.” Gandhiji himself acknowledged that trained by Jatin’s loving personality, the Jugantar militants added a special distinction to his project of Satyagraha.
Gandhiji’s repeated failures led the Jugantar men to serve him with their decision to undertake their initial project of “violence”. They would announce it in 1923 by celebrating September 9 (Jatin’s death anniversary). Datta wrote: “Bhagat Singh requested me to send him Jatindranath’s photos and some literature on Balasore. In Benares, too, we had then a powerful organisation. Thus Balasore Day was celebrated from Bengal to Punjab. Amarda (Chatterjee) issued on that very day the Swadesh, a new daily, almost all the pages full of photos and exploits of the heroes.” Two editorials in the following days intimated the readers of the Englishman about the return of the revolutionaries with their violent counter attacks .
From Bhagat Singh to Surya Sen, from Surya Sen to Subhas Bose, Bagha Jatin’s revolutionary vision of a free India swept the Indian sky like a phoenix. While in 1925 in an interview with Charles Tegart, the Commissioner of Calcutta Police, Gandhiji qualified Bagha Jatin as “a divine personality”, Tegart did not reveal to him his own thought: “If Jatin were an Englishman, the English people would have built his statue next to Nelson’s at Trafalgar Square.”
Sri Aurobindo remembered Jatindra Mukherjee as his “right-hand man” and exclaimed: “A wonderful man! He was a man who would belong to the front rank of humanity. Such beauty and strength, I have not seen. And his stature was that of a warrior.”
