Revolutionary Nationalism: From Anushilan Samiti to Bhagat Singh and the INA

Who were the revolutionaries?

Alongside the constitutional and mass movements, a stream of revolutionary nationalists believed that British rule could be ended only through armed action – assassinations of oppressive officials, raids to collect arms and money, and attempts at armed uprising with foreign help. They were mostly educated young men and women, inspired by Indian history, the Gita, the Irish and Russian revolutionaries and, later, socialism. Their numbers were small and they were crushed by the state, but their courage and sacrifice inspired millions. UPSC asks about organisations, conspiracy cases and leaders, and about the change in ideology from religious nationalism to socialism.

Historians usually describe two waves:

The first wave in Maharashtra

• The Chapekar brothers (Damodar and Balkrishna) shot W.C. Rand, the plague commissioner of Pune, and Lieutenant Ayerst in 1897, angered by harsh plague measures. This was the first political assassination by Indian revolutionaries.
• V.D. Savarkar and his brother Ganesh founded the Mitra Mela (1899), which became the Abhinav Bharat (1904). In 1909, Anant Kanhere killed the Nashik collector Jackson (the Nashik Conspiracy Case); Savarkar was sentenced to transportation for life and sent to the Cellular Jail in the Andamans.

The first wave in Bengal

• Anushilan Samiti, founded in 1902 in Calcutta (with Pramatha Mitra, Aurobindo Ghose's brother Barindra Kumar Ghose and others), with a strong branch in Dhaka under Pulin Behari Das.
• Jugantar (a newspaper and group) was started in 1906 by Barindra Kumar Ghose and Bhupendranath Dutta (Vivekananda's brother).
• Muzaffarpur bomb case (1908): Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki threw a bomb at a carriage they believed carried the judge Kingsford; two English women were killed. Prafulla Chaki shot himself; Khudiram, aged 18, was hanged.
• Alipore Bomb Case (1908–09): Aurobindo, Barindra and others were tried; C.R. Das defended Aurobindo, who was acquitted and later withdrew to Pondicherry.
• Rash Behari Bose and Sachindranath Sanyal organised the bomb attack on Viceroy Hardinge in Delhi in 1912 (the Delhi Conspiracy Case).
• Jatindranath Mukherjee ("Bagha Jatin") planned an armed rising with German arms (the Indo-German plot) and died fighting at Balasore in 1915.

Revolutionaries abroad

• India House in London was set up by Shyamji Krishna Varma (1905), who also published *The Indian Sociologist*. Madan Lal Dhingra shot Curzon Wyllie in London in 1909.
• Madame Bhikaji Cama unfurled an Indian flag at the International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart (1907).
• The Ghadar Party was founded in San Francisco in 1913 by Lala Har Dayal, Sohan Singh Bhakna and others, mostly Punjabi Sikh migrants in North America. Its weekly *Ghadar* was published in several languages. It planned a revolt in the Indian army during the First World War (fixed for 21 February 1915), but the plan was betrayed, and the Lahore Conspiracy Case led to many executions, including Kartar Singh Sarabha.
• The Komagata Maru incident (1914): a Japanese ship carrying Indian migrants was refused entry to Canada and, on its return, police fired on the passengers at Budge Budge near Calcutta.
• The Provisional Government of India was set up at Kabul in 1915 with Raja Mahendra Pratap as president and Barkatullah as prime minister.

The second wave: HRA and HSRA

After Gandhi withdrew the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1922, many young people turned again to revolutionary action, now inspired by the Russian Revolution and socialism.

• The Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) was founded at Kanpur in 1924 by Sachindranath Sanyal, Ramprasad Bismil, Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee and others. Its aim was a federal republic of the United States of India.
• Kakori train robbery (9 August 1925): HRA members looted government cash from a train near Lucknow. Ramprasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan, Roshan Singh and Rajendra Lahiri were hanged.
• The Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) was formed at Ferozeshah Kotla, Delhi, in September 1928 under Chandrashekhar Azad, with Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and others. Adding "Socialist" showed their goal of a socialist society.
• Saunders' killing (December 1928): to avenge the death of Lala Lajpat Rai after a police lathi charge during the anti-Simon protest in Lahore, Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Azad shot the police officer J.P. Saunders.
• Central Legislative Assembly bomb (8 April 1929): Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt threw harmless bombs in the Assembly to protest against the Public Safety Bill and the Trade Disputes Bill, shouting "Inquilab Zindabad", and courted arrest to use the trial for propaganda. Their aim was "to make the deaf hear".
• Jatin Das died after a 64-day hunger strike in Lahore jail in 1929.
• Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were hanged on 23 March 1931 in the Lahore Conspiracy Case; this day is observed as Shaheed Diwas. Bhagat Singh's essay *Why I am an Atheist* shows his rationalist outlook.
• Chandrashekhar Azad died in an encounter at Alfred Park, Allahabad, in February 1931.

Bengal in the 1930s

• Chittagong Armoury Raid (18 April 1930): the Indian Republican Army of Surya Sen ("Master da") captured the Chittagong armoury and proclaimed a provisional government. The group fought at Jalalabad hills. Surya Sen was hanged in 1934.
• Women played a major role: Pritilata Waddedar led an attack on the Pahartali European Club (1932) and took her own life to avoid capture; Kalpana Dutt was sentenced to transportation; Bina Das fired at the Bengal governor at the Calcutta University convocation (1932); Shanti Ghosh and Suniti Chaudhary shot a district magistrate in Comilla (1931).
• Udham Singh shot Michael O'Dwyer, the former Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab at the time of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, in London in 1940.

Subhas Chandra Bose and the INA

The Indian National Army (Azad Hind Fauj) was first formed by Captain Mohan Singh in 1942 from Indian prisoners of war captured by Japan in Malaya, with Rash Behari Bose as a leading figure of the Indian Independence League. Subhas Chandra Bose, who had escaped from house arrest in Calcutta in 1941, reached South-East Asia in 1943 and took command. He formed the Provisional Government of Free India (Azad Hind) at Singapore on 21 October 1943, gave the slogan "Delhi Chalo" and "Give me blood and I will give you freedom", and set up the Rani of Jhansi Regiment for women under Lakshmi Swaminathan (Sahgal). The INA fought with Japan on the Imphal–Kohima front in 1944 but retreated after Japan's defeat. The INA trials at the Red Fort (1945–46) of Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Sehgal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, defended by Bhulabhai Desai, Nehru and others, caused a nationwide wave of sympathy.

Assessment

Revolutionaries could not overthrow British rule, and their methods drew criticism from Gandhi. But they kept the spirit of resistance alive, introduced socialist and secular ideas (Bhagat Singh), inspired the youth, and their trials became powerful national events. The INA also contributed to doubts about the loyalty of the Indian army, which helped convince the British to leave.

Mains practice question

Q. "The revolutionaries of the 1920s moved from individual heroism to a socialist vision of freedom." Examine. (150 words)

Framework: first-wave groups and religious idiom; disillusionment after 1922; HRA to HSRA; Bhagat Singh's ideas; collective action at Chittagong; contribution and limits.

Quick self-test

1. Who founded the Ghadar Party? *(Lala Har Dayal and Sohan Singh Bhakna, 1913)*
2. Where was the HSRA formed? *(Ferozeshah Kotla, Delhi, 1928)*
3. Who led the Chittagong Armoury Raid? *(Surya Sen)*
4. Where did Bose proclaim the Provisional Government of Free India? *(Singapore, 21 October 1943)*