Bagha Jatin (1879- 1915 ) was an Indian revolutionary activist who belonged to the Bengal Presidency and was one of the important leaders of the ‘Jugantar Party,’ a revolutionary organisation in Bengal.
Wiki/Biography
Jatindranath Mukherjee was born on Sunday, 7 December 1879 (age 35 years; at the time of death) in Kushtia, Bengal Presidency, British India (now Bangladesh). His zodiac sign was Sagittarius. Bagha Jatin received his school education from Krishnanagar Anglo-vernacular School (A.V. School), Nadia, West Bengal. Later, he earned a degree in Fine Arts from the Calcutta Central College (now Khudiram Bose College), West Bengal. Jatindranath Mukherjee was five years old when he lost his father. His father was an intellectual man, who had knowledge of Brahmanic studies and horse riding. His mother shifted to her paternal home in Kayagram village in Nadia district from Calcutta along with Jatin and his sister Benodebala. His mother was a prominent social worker and a poet, who brought up her children in a strict environment to make them vigorous, brave, and selfless. She was a follower of the writings of Bankimchandra Chatterjee and Yogendra Vidyabhushan. She was familiar with the social and political changes which were taking place in India during the British Raj. She was the sister of a well-known lawyer in Bengal named Basanta Kumar Chattopadhyay. One of Basanta Kumar’s clients included the great Indian philosopher Rabindranath Tagore. In his teens, Jatindranath developed a good physique and muscular strength. He was a kind and cheerful man.
Bagha Jatin in 1895, shortly before joining the University of Calcutta
Jatindranath used to take part in various religious plays in which he portrayed Prahlad, Dhruva, Hanuman, and Raja Harish Chandra. At a very young age, he developed feeling of patriotism and often persuaded the playwrights to organise and write plays on nationalism. Various musicians of his group were also motivated by Jatindranath to compose songs based on nationalism. During his last year at the Krishnanagar Anglo-vernacular School (A.V. School), Jatindranath attempted the entrance examination for Calcutta Central College (now Khudiram Bose College) in 1895 and passed the same. After finishing his school education, he went to Calcutta Central College to pursue graduation and also started learning steno typewriting from Mr Atkinson so that he could avail more job prospects in future.
Family
Parents & Siblings
His father’s name is Umeshchandra Mukherjee, and his mother’s name is Sharatshashi. Bagha Jatin had an elder sister named Benodebala.
Wife & Children
He got married to Indubala Banerjee in 1990.
Jatindranath Mukherjee standing behind Didi Binodebala (sitting) with his wife, Indubala, elder son Tejendra (left) and daughter Ashalata (right)
Jatindranath Mukherjee had three sons named Atindra (1903–1906), Tejendra (1909–1989), and Birendra (1913–1991), and a daughter named Ashalata (1907–1976). Atindra, the first son of the couple, died in infancy in 1906. Later, they had three more children.
Caste
He belonged to the Brahmin community.
Meeting with Swami Vivekananda
During his college days, Jatindranath became a follower of Swami Vivekananda. Swami Vivekananda was of the view that the spiritual progress of humanity is possible only if it is free from any slavery and bondage. Jatindranath learnt the art to conquer the five senses from Swami Vivekananda. Soon, an army of physically strong men was organised by both of them to volunteer and serve the people who were devastated during famines, epidemics, and floods. Meanwhile, Jatindranath, along with Sister Nivedita, an Irish disciple of Swami Vivekananda, established a “man-making” venture, which was once described by J. E. Armstrong, Superintendent of the colonial Police, as
Owed his preeminent position in revolutionary circles, not only to his qualities of leadership, but in great measure to his reputation of being a Brahmachari with no thought beyond the revolutionary cause.”
Jatindranath’s spirit and passion to die for a cause motivated Swami Vivekananda to send Jatin to the Gymnasium of Ambu Guha, where he could practice professional wrestling. At Ambu Guha, Sachin Banerjee, the son of Yogendra Vidyabhushan, a popular author of the biographies such as Mazzini and Garibaldi, became the mentor of Jatindranath. In 1899, Jatindranath left his college studies and moved to Muzaffarpur. Bagha Jatin was a follower of Swami Vivekananda and was inspired by his ideology. The slogan raised by Jatin was:
Amra morbo, jagat jagbe” — “We shall die to awaken the nation.”
The Title ‘Bagha’
Jatindranath, along with his wife, Indubala, and sister, Vinodebala, returned to village Koya in March 1906 from Haridwar after completing the last rituals of his infant son Atindra. Soon, Jatindranath received the information that a tiger had entered the village and was troubling the lives of local villagers and needed to be caught. Soon after receiving the news, Jatindranath went to the nearby forest to search for the tiger. In the jungle, he confronted the Royal Bengal tiger and fought with it. Jatindranath struck the neck of the tiger with the Gorkha dagger (Khukuri) and killed it. Jatindranath also got wounded in the fight. A well-known surgeon of Calcutta, Lt-Colonel Suresh Prasad Sarbadhikari, provided treatment to Jatindranath. According to Sarbadhikari, the tiger poisoned the whole body of Jatindranath with its nails and brutally injured him. An article in the English press was also published by Dr Sarbadhikari describing the heroic deeds of Jatindranath. Dr Sarbadhikari was impressed with the initiatives of Jatindranath. The Government of Bengal felicitated Jatindranath with a shield, which had a scene of him killing the tiger. This incident earned him the name ‘Bagha Jatin’ in which Bagha means tiger.
Revolutionary Activities
In 1990, Jatindranath co-founded the Anushilan Samiti. He was the pioneer in establishing various revolutionary branches of Anushilan Samiti in various districts of Bengal. According to Daly’s Report,
A secret meeting was held in Calcutta about the year 1900. The meeting resolved to start secret societies with the object of assassinating officials and supporters of Government. One of the first to flourish was at Kushtea, in the Nadia district. This was organised by one Jotindra Nath Mukherjee [sic!].”
Further, Nixon reported,
The earliest known attempts in Bengal to promote societies for political or semi-political ends are associated with the names of the late P. Mitter, Barrister-at-Law, Miss Saralabala Ghosal and a Japanese named Okakura. These activities commenced in Calcutta somewhere about the year 1900, and are said to have spread to many of the districts of Bengal and to have flourished particularly at Kushtia, where Jatindra Nath Mukharji [sic!] was leader.”
One of the branches of Anushilan Samiti was established in Dacca soon after the inauguration of its head office in Bengal. In Dacca, Bagha Jatin met Sri Aurobindo at the place of Yogendra Vidyabhusha. Here, Bagha Jatin decided to start an armed uprising all over India by attacking British regiments and organising a secret society. According to W. Sealy’s report,
Connections with Bihar and Orissa” notes that Jatin Mukherjee “a close confederate of Nani Gopal Sen Gupta of the Howrah Gang (…) worked directly under the orders of Aurobindo Ghosh.”
Activities During the Prince of Wales’ visit to India
In 1905, the Prince of Wales visited India and a procession was organized in Calcutta to celebrate his visit. Several local people attended this procession and gathered on roads and streets. During the procession, a carriage of some Indian women was parked near the carriage of Prince of Wales. Some English military men, who were sitting on a roof above the carriage, dangled their feet on the passengers of the carriage. Upon noticing the misbehaviour, Jatindranath went on the roof and tried to warn the Englishmen; however, these men started remarking nasty comments. This made Jatindranath slap each of the Englishman, and he pushed them to the ground while pointing toward the public and Prince. Bagha Jatin was already aware that the attitude of the Englishmen was rude toward Indians, and the Secretary of the State, John Morley, used to receive a lot of complaints from the Indians in this matter. According to an article on Bagha Jatin,
The use of rough language and pretty free use of whips and sticks, and brutalities of that sort…” He will be further intimated that the Prince of Wales, “on his return from the Indian tour had a long conversation with Morley [10/5/1906] (…) He spoke of the ungracious bearing of Europeans to Indians.”
In 1906, Taraknath Das, Guran Ditt Kumar, and Surendramohan Bose, who were the followers of Bagha Jatin, started publishing periodicals with revolutionary literature in the United States to develop a base of nationalism among the Indians settled there. Later, a bomb manufacturing unit near Deoghar was started by Bagha Jatin and Barindra Kumar Ghosh, a renowned Bengali revolutionary activist. Earlier, another bomb unit was established by Barindra Kumar at Maniktala in North Calcutta. Bagha Jatin was curious about commencing the terrorist activities; on the other side, Barindra Kumar Ghosh believed that it was important to curtail the officers, both Indian and Britishers, in the British army and not to create a terror situation in the region. Soon, Bagha Jatin established,
A decentralised federated body of loose autonomous regional cells.”
Along with the revolutionary activities, Bagha Jatin was also involved in organising charitable missions to help the poor Indian citizens during the floods and epidemics along with the volunteer doctors. He often attended the spiritual and religious gatherings, which were organised at the Ardhodaya such as the Kumbha Mela, and the annual celebration of Ramakrishna’s birth. According to the British officials, Bagha Jatin used to attend these religious ceremonies and functions as he wanted to establish an army of rebels against British rule in India by making better relations with the Indian religious leaders. In 1907, Bagha Jatin, as a professionally competent revolutionary, went to Darjeeling for three years on some special work. According to a media source,
From early youth he had the reputation of a local Sandow and he soon attracted attention in Darjeeling in cases in which (…) he tried to measure the strength with Europeans. In 1908 he was leader of one of several gangs that had sprung up in Darjeeling, whose object was the spreading of dissatisfaction, and with his associates he started a branch of the Anushilan Samiti, called the Bandhab Samiti.”
Bagha Jatin at the age of 24, in Darjeeling
In April 1908, at Siliguri railway station, Bagha Jatin and the English police officers named Captain Murphy and Lt Somerville were involved in a scuffle. Jatin was soon arrested for his misbehaviour with the Englishmen. During the court trials, his case was covered by a large number of media houses, who mocked in their headlines that a few Englishmen were single-handedly thrashed by an Indian. The senior official of the police, Wheeler advised these two English policemen to withdraw their case against Bagha Jatin as it was ruining the reputation of the British police in the media. Soon, the Magistrate discharged Jatin from jail and warned him not to misbehave in future. Jatin reacted immediately to the Magistrate and said that he did not regret his actions and would not act in a similar way in self-defence in future. Jatin further added that if needed, he would fight for the rights of his compatriots. During his stay in jail, once, the police superintendent Wheeler asked Jatin in a pleasant mood that with how many people he could fight alone. Jatin responded,
Not a single one, if it is a question of honest people; otherwise, as many as you can imagine! I can’t win against even one man if he’s righteous, but I am blessed to be able to take down plenty of the wrong sort.”
Alipore Bomb Case
After the Muzaffarpur incident in Bengal, Bagha Jatin was detained by the British government in the Alipore Bomb Case in 1908. Soon, the court trials began against him, and simultaneously, Jatin was handling the workings of the secret society of Bengal i.e. Jugantar Party by linking the central organisation of the Jugantar Party in Calcutta with its branches, which were dispersed in various parts of North India such as Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, and UP. Later, Pathuriaghata Byam Samity was founded by Jatindranath Mukherjee and his comrade Atul Krishna Ghosh. During the Indian independence movement, the setting up of this organisation played a crucial role in accommodating the armed revolutionaries. Apart from housing the activists, several social services were also organised by this organisation. These services included running the night schools for adults, homoeopathic dispensaries, training centres to open small scale cottage industries and agricultural innovations. Soon after the Alipore Bomb case, Bagha Jatin began organising a series of revolutionary activities in Calcutta to revive the confidence of activists and civilians in India’s independence movement. Soon after initiating these revolutionary attempts in Calcutta, Bagha Jatin became a well-known rebellious activist in Calcutta. According to an Indian author Arun Chandra Guha,
These brought him into the limelight of revolutionary leadership although hardly anybody outside the innermost circle ever suspected his connection with those acts. Secrecy was absolute in those days – particularly with Jatin.
Thereafter, a series of revolutionary activities were conducted under the leadership of Jatin. On 7 November 1908, the revolutionaries of Bagha Jatin’s group attempted to kill the Lt Governor of Bengal. Charu Chandra Bose assassinated the Prosecutor Ashutosh Biswas on 10 February 1909. Shamsul Alam, the Deputy Superintendent of Police, was assassinated on 24 January 1910 by Biren Datta Gupta. reportedly, Alam was a cruel policeman who was hated for torturing the imprisoned revolutionaries by extracting information from them. Biren Datta Gupta was arrested by British officials soon after the assassination of Shamsul Alam. Biren stated the name of Bagha Jatin as his leader during the court proceedings, and on 21 February 1910, Gupta was executed by hanging by the colonial government. The Viceroy Minto attended a public conference amid the assassinations of high British officials. With profound grief, Minto stated,
A spirit hitherto unknown to India has come into existence, a spirit of anarchy and lawlessness which seeks to subvert not only British rule but the Governments of Indian chiefs…”
Howrah-Sibpur Conspiracy Case
On 27 January 1910, Bagha Jatin and his forty-six co-conspirators were detained by ACP Tegart in the Howrah-Sibpur conspiracy case, and they were all accused of murder charges. Jatin was accused of the following charges in the Howrah Gang Case:
Conspiracy to wage war against the King-Emperor” and “tampering with the loyalty of the Indian soldiers” (mainly with the 10th Jats Regiment) posted in Fort William, and soldiers in Upper Indian Cantonments.”
The British officials lacked solid proof against Jatin and his co-conspirators and most of the revolutionaries were acquitted. The credit went to the decentralised way of working of Bagha Jatin that led to the omission of evidence. There were a lot of statements issued by various prominent British officials soon after Jatin was acquitted from the Howrah Conspiracy case. F.C. Daly issued a statement, which read as,
The gang is a heterogeneous one, with several advisers and petty chiefs… From the information we have on record we may divide the gang into four parts: (1) Gurus, (2) Influential supporters, (3) Leaders, (4) Members.”
According to J.C. Nixon, the Howrah Conspiracy Case was reported as,
Although a separate name and a separate individuality have been given to these various parties in this account of them, and although such a distinction was probably observed amongst the minor members, it is very clear that the bigger figures were in close communication with one another and were frequently accepted members of two or more of these samitis. It may be taken that at some time these various parties were engaged in anarchical crime independently, although in their revolutionary aims and usually in their origins they were all very closely related.”
In a written statement, Viceroy Lord Hardinge informed Earl Crewe (H.M.’s Secretary of State for India) about the release of Jatin in the Howrah Conspiracy case:
As regards prosecution, I (…) deprecate the net being thrown so wide; as for example in the Howrah Gang Case, where 47 persons are being prosecuted, of whom only one is, I believe, the real criminal. If a concentrated effort had been made to convict this one criminal, I think it would have had a better effect than the prosecution of 46 misguided youths.”
On 28 May 1911, Viceroy Lord Hardinge further stated,
The 10th Jats case was part and parcel of the Howrah Gang Case; and with the failure in the latter, the Government of Bengal realised the futility of proceeding with the former… In fact, nothing could be worse, in my opinion, than the condition of Bengal and Eastern Bengal. There is practically no Government in either province…”
In February 1911, Bagha Jatin was discharged from the Alipore Bomb case. Several rebellious acts were ceased by him soon after he was acquitted from jail. However, he was planning something big that alerted and signalled the British officials. Meanwhile, he had a meeting with the German Crown Prince when he was on his tour to India. Jatin urged him to supply arms. During the same period, Jatin was fired from his government job. Later, Bagha Jatin shifted to Calcutta where he started constructing the Jessore–Jhenaidah railway line on a contract basis. Bagha Jatin used to travel all the provinces of Bengal on horse and bicycle to revive the strength of revolutionary organisations again. Bagha Jatin then went to Haridwar on a pilgrimage along with his family members. There, his guru Bholananda Giri met him. Thereafter, he went to Brindavan and had an encounter with a revolutionary saint named Swami Niralamba, who was the organiser of the revolutionary groups in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab provinces. The revolutionary activities in these provinces were executed under the leadership of Rasbehari Bose and Lala Har Dayal. Soon after returning from Haridwar, Bagha Jatin started reorganising the Jugantar party and its rebellious acts. The Damodar flood affected the main districts of Burdwan and Midnapore in 1913, and Bagha Jatin organised a relief work for the devastated lives. Some authors commented on the leadership qualities of Bagha Jatin as,
Jatin “never asserted his leadership, but the party members in the different districts acclaimed him as their leader.”
After observing Bagha Jatin’s work during the floods, Rasbehari Bose started following him following which Bose went to Benaras to accompany Jatin in the revolutionary activities. According to Bose, Bahgha Jatin was a real leader. In 1913, Bagha Jatin, along with Rasbehari Bose, organised a meeting in which they decided to organise an armed attack similar to the mutiny of 1857. At the Fort William of Calcutta, a negotiation deal with the native officers, to organise the scattered forces, was renewed by Rasbehari Bose. Meanwhile, various Indian revolutionaries started migrating to Europe and the United States on the orders of Bhagha Jatin and his organisation. By this time, Bagha Jatin had developed an international influence. Dhan Gopal Mukerji, an author who was settled in New York, mentioned in one of his books that this influence had disturbed the equilibrium of the British government in India. Mukerji wrote,
Before 1914 we succeeded in disturbing the equilibrium of the government… Then extraordinary powers were given to the police, who called us anarchists to prejudice us forever in the eyes of the world… Dost thou remember Jyotin, our cousin – he that once killed a leopard with a dagger, putting his left elbow in the leopard’s mouth and with his right hand thrusting the knife through the brute’s eye deep into its brain? He was a very great man and our first leader. He could think of God ten days at a stretch, but he was doomed when the Government found out that he was our head.”
Since 1907, in Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, and San Fransisco, the evening schools were run by Taraknath Das, Guran Ditt Kumar, and Surendramohan Bose, who were the envoys of Bagha Jatin. In these schools, the students from the Hindu and Sikh communities used to learn reading and writing English along with their rights in the USA with a constant reminder of their duties towards their own motherland. During this time, an English magazine ‘Free Hindustan’ was sponsored by the Irish revolutionaries to Indians residing in the USA, and a Gurmukhi publication titled Swadesh Sevak was also popular. In Calcutta and London, Shyamji Krishna Varma was looking after the revolutionary organisations. In May 1913, another revolutionary of the Jugantar group, Guran Ditt Kumar, created a satellite in Manilla that linked Asia with the America West Coast. Lala Har Dayal was responsible for delivering crucial rebellious speeches against colonial rule in India at the central hubs of Indian emigrants.
During the World War I
After the declaration of World War I, an International Pro-India Committee was established in September 1914 at Zürich. Later, the Berlin Committee or the Indian Independence Committee was formed as one of its branches, and Virendranath Chattopadhyaya was the president of this branch. This organisation received the full support of the German government, and the members of the Ghadar Party also appreciated the efforts. The militants of the Ghadar party, who were settled outside India, began migrating to India during the outbreak of World War I to participate in the war and fought with the arms, ammunition, and funds, which were issued by the German government. Meanwhile, an armed rebellion was planned by the Jugantar party under the leadership of Bagha Jatin, who was responsible for dealing the cargo consignments from California to the coast of the Bay of Bengal with the ambassador Bernstorff in Washington and Von Papen. On the other side, Rash Behari Bose carried out an armed uprising in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. Under the leadership of Bagha Jatin, this armed revolution chain took place on an international level and was widely known as the German Plot, the Hindu–German Conspiracy, or the Zimmermann Plan. Later, a series of dacoities named “Taxicab dacoities” and “Boat dacoities” was executed by the members of the Jugantar party for funds. During this time, various Sikh soldiers were interviewed by Bagha Jatin and Satyendra Sen at Dakshineshwar gunpowder magazine. Satyendra Sen came to India with Vishnu Ganesh Pingle, a leading member of the Ghadar Party who was admired by the Sikh revolutionaries. According to some media sources,
Sen is the man who came to India with Pingle. Their mission was specially to tamper with the troops. Pingle was captured in Punjab with bombs and was hanged, while Satyen was interned under Regulation III in the Presidency Jail.”
Soon after their arrival in India, Bagha Jatin advised Vishnu Ganesh Pingle and Kartar Singh Sarabha to meet Rashbehari somewhere in North India. During this time, the members of the Jugantar Party were continuously advising Bagha Jatin to move to a safer place as British police were chasing his whereabouts to prevent any uprising. Bagha Jatin escaped to Balasore on the Odisha coast from Kolkata. On the Odisha coast, Bagha Jatin established a business house named “Universal Emporium” under the patent of Harry & Sons in Calcutta. This organisation was formed to transfer the information about him and the revolutionaries who went abroad to the members of his organisation. The Kaptipada village in Mayurbhanj was the hiding place of Bagha Jatin. This place was thirty miles away from Balasore. In April 1915, Bagha Jatin moved to the Odisha state. Soon after his arrival, Jatin sent Naren Bhattacharya to Batavia, where he made an arms and funds deal with some German authorities. The brother of Karl Helfferich, Theodore, met Naren Bhattacharya, a German Counsel. Theodore assured Naren that a cargo full of arms and ammunition was on its way from Germany to India. Soon the cargo vessel full of arms and funds reached the delta region of the Ganga, and the British officials received the information regarding its arrival and sealed the seashores on the eastern coast from the Noakhali–Chittagong side to Odisha and conducted several raids to find the links between Bagha Jatin and Harry & Sons. They found that he was staying in Kaptipada village with his companions Manoranjan Sengupta and Chittapriya Ray Chaudhuri. A British police team started raiding the Kaptipada village, and on the other side, the organisation members of Bagha Jatin informed him to leave the village as the police were behind him. Bagha Jatin left no time to escape as he was waiting for his comrades Nirendranath Dasgupta and Jatish, and this delayed his departure. Meanwhile, the police surrounded the whole village with a huge police force, which was led by Europen officers from Calcutta and Balasore. Jatin and his companions ran through the forests of Mayurbhanj to escape the police arrest and reached the Balasore Railway Station. British police were trying hard to capture Bagha Jatin and his companions by announcing a huge reward to those who would help them by providing information about Jatin. On 9 September 1915, after escaping the police arrest and running through the dense forests in rain, Bagha Jatin and his comrades reached a hillock at Chashakhand in Balasore. Here, the police found the Bagha team and were ready to fight face to face. Chittapriya Ray Chaudhuri requested Bagha Jatin to run away to a safer place and said that he would protect him from the rear, but Jatin did not want to leave his companions. Meanwhile, a huge police force reached the spot. They had a scuffle that lasted for seventy-five minutes. The revolutionaries had the Mauser pistols and the police confronted with modern rifles. Chittapriya Ray Chaudhuri died during the gunfight, and no casualties were recorded by the British government. During the fight, Jatin and Jatish got seriously injured and were arrested by the police. The police also detained Manoranjan, Sengupta, and Niren. On 10 September 1915, Bagha Jatin breathed his last in a hospital at Balasore.
Bagha Jatin after the final battle
Death
On 10 September 1915, Bagha Jatin died due to gunshot wounds at Balasore, Bengal Presidency, British India. Soon after the death of Jatin, the intelligence chief and police commissioner of Bengal, Charles Tegart, grieved his death. Charles stated,
Though I had to do my duty, I have a great admiration for him. He died in an open fight.”
Later, Charles admitted,
Their driving power (…) immense: if the army could be raised or the arms could reach an Indian port, the British would lose the War.”
An Indian Marxist revolutionary, radical activist, and political theorist, M. N. Roy, mentioned Jatin in one of his writings after the death of Bagha Jatin. M. N. Roy stated,
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 Jatin Da 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.”
The site where the battle happened is named Rakta-Teertha
According to some media sources, Charles Tegart once disclosed to his colleagues,
If Jatindranath were an Englishman, his statue would have been built next to Nelson’s at Trafalgar Square.”
Facts/Trivia
- Jatindranath, his wife, and his sister went on a pilgrimage to Haridwar soon after the death of Atindra to find inner peace and relief and there they received initiation from the saint Bholanand Giri.
- In 1906, Jatindranath Mukherjee, along with Sir Daniel, began helping Indian intellectual students by sending them abroad from India for their higher studies and military training.
- A book titled ‘Sedition Committee Report 1918,’ which was written by Sidney Arthur Taylor Rowlatt, narrated that Jatindranath Mukherjee was the inventor of a new revolutionary bank robbery method in India on the automobile taxi-cabs. Sidney Arthur Taylor Rowlatt wrote,
Almost contemporaneous with the anarchist gang of Bonnot well known in France, Jatin invented and introduced in India bank robbery on automobile taxi-cabs,”a new feature in revolutionary crime.”
- Bagha Jatin met several fellow revolutionaries at Howrah jail during his detention period in the Howrah Conspiracy Case. These revolutionaries were the members of the revolutionary groups/branches, which were established by him in different parts of Bengal. In Howrah’s jail, Bagha Jatin came to know through an envoy that Germany had declared war against England. This was the opportunity that Bagha Jatin was seeking for a long time to organise an armed rebellion against the Britishers from its Indian regiments with the help of Indian soldiers.
- A film titled Bagha Jatin was directed by Hiranmoy Sen in 1958. This film was a tribute to the sacrifices of Bagha Jatin for India’s independence.
- A postal stamp was issued by the Government of India in 1970 in the name of Bagha Jatin to honour his sacrifices for the independence of India against the British Raj.
Bagha Jatin on a 1970 stamp of India
- In 1977, the Government of India and its film division produced a film based on the revolutionary activities of Bagha Jatin. This film was directed by Harisadhan Dasgupta.
Statue of Bagha Jatin near Victoria Memorial, Kolkata
- Later, a locality in Kolkata named Baghajatin was named after him in his memory.
- Thereafter, at Barbati Girls High School, which is situated near the banks of the river Budha Balanga in Balasore, a statue of Bagha Jatin was established by the Government of India. This was the place where Jatin breathed his last.
- After many years of India’s independence from the British Raj, a park at Chashakhand was established by the Government of India in his memory. This place is 50 kilometres east of Balasore where Jatin and his comrades struggled in an armed war with the British force.
The Memorial Park on the site of the Battle of Budi Balam
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education