Bagha Jatin
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Bagha Jatin (lit. 'Tiger Jatin'; pronounced [ˈbaɡʰa ˈd͡ʒot̪in]) or Baghajatin, born Jatindranath Mukherjee (pronounced [ˈd͡ʒot̪ind̪roˌnatʰ ˈmukʰoˌpaddʰaj]); 7 December 1879 – 10 September 1915) was an Indian independence activist.[1][2]
He was one of the principal leaders of the Jugantar party that was the central association of revolutionary independence activists in Bengal.[3][4]
Early life
Jatin was born in a
Student in Calcutta
After passing the Entrance examination in 1895 from
Fed up with the colonial system of education, Jatin left for Muzaffarpore in 1899, as secretary of barrister Pringle Kennedy, founder[citation needed] and editor of the Trihoot Courrier.[8] He was impressed by this historian; through his editorials and from the Congress platform, he showed how urgent it was to have an Indian National Army and to react against the British squandering of Indian budget to safeguard their interests in China and elsewhere.[citation needed]
Marriage
In 1900, Jatin married Indubala Banerjee of Kumarkhali upazila in Kushtia; they had four children: Atindra (1903–1906), Ashalata (1907–1976), Tejendra (1909–1989), and Birendra (1913–1991). Struck by Atindra's death, Jatin, with his wife and sister, set out on a pilgrimage and recovered their inner peace by receiving initiation from the saint Bholanand Giri of Haridwar. Aware of his disciple's revolutionary commitments, the holy man extended to him his full support.[citation needed]
Title Bagha Jatin
Upon returning to his native village Koya in March 1906, Jatin learned about the disturbing presence of a tiger in the vicinity; while scouting in the nearby jungle, he came across a Royal Bengal tiger and fought hand-to-hand with it. Wounded, he managed to strike with a Small dagger (Khukuri) on the tiger's neck, killing it instantly.[citation needed] The famous surgeon of Calcutta, Suresh Prasad Sarbadhikari, "took upon himself the responsibility for curing ... [Jatin,] whose whole body had been poisoned by the tiger's nails."[9] Impressed by Jatin's exemplary heroism, Dr. Sarbadhikari published an article about Jatin in the English press. The Government of Bengal awarded him a silver shield with the scene of him killing the tiger engraved on it.[10] The title 'Bagha', meaning 'Tiger' in Bengali, became associated with him since then.
Revolutionary activities
Several sources mention Jatin as being among the founders of the
In 1905, during a procession to celebrate the visit of the Prince of Wales at Calcutta, Jatin decides to draw the attention of the future Emperor on the behaviour of HM's English officers. Not far from the royal coach, he singles out a cabriolet on a side-lane, with a group of English military men sitting on its roof, their booted legs dangling against the windows, seriously disturbing the livid faces of a few native ladies. Stopping beside the cab, Jatin asks the fellows to leave the ladies alone. In response to their cheeky provocation, Jatin rushes up to the roof and fell them with slaps till they drop on the ground.[14] The show is not innocent. Jatin is well aware that John Morley, the Secretary of State, receives regularly complaints about the English attitude towards Indian citizens, "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."[15]
Organiser of secret society
Jatin, together with
In May 1907 he was deputed as a
The Jatin Mukherjee spirit
After the
The Howrah-Sibpur conspiracy case
On 25 January 1910, "with the gloom of his assassination hanging over everyone", the Viceroy Minto declared openly: "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..."
The case failed because of lack of proper evidence thanks to Jatin's policy of a loose decentralised organisation federating scores of regional units, as observed by F.C. Daly more than once: "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."
A new perspective
Jatin Mukherjee was not involved in the Alipore Bomb case. Jatin was acquitted in February 1911 and released. Immediately, he suspended armed revolution. This stalemate proved Jatin's full command of violence as an antidote, contrary to the
Niralamba gave Jatin complementary information about, and links to, the units set up by him in Uttar Pradesh and the
Meeting with Jatin increased
There were also attempts to organise expatriate Indian revolutionaries in Europe and the United States. Jatin's influence was international. The Bengali bestseller Dhan Gopal Mukerji, settled in New York and, at the summit of his glory, was to write : "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."[37]
Right since 1907, Jatin's emissary,
During World War I
Shortly after when World War I broke out, in September 1914, an International Pro-India Committee was formed at
These efforts were directly connected with the Jugantar, under Jatin's leadership, in its planning and organising an armed revolt. Rash Behari Bose assumed the task of carrying out the plan in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. This international chain work conceived by Jatin came to be known as the German Plot, the Hindu–German Conspiracy, or the Zimmermann Plan. Jugantar started to collect funds by organising a series of dacoities (armed robberies) known as "Taxicab dacoities" and "Boat dacoities". Charles Tegart, in his "Report No. V" on the seditious organisations mentions the "certain amount of success" in the contact that exists between the revolutionaries and the Sikh soldiers posted at Dakshineshwar gunpowder magazine; Jatin Mukherjee in company of Satyendra Sen was seen interviewing these Sikhs. 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."[39] With Jatin's written instructions, Pingle and Kartar Singh Sarabha met Rasbehari in North India.[40]
Preoccupied by the increasing police activities to prevent any uprising, eminent
In April 1915, after meeting with Jatin,
A network of Czech and Slovak revolutionaries and emigrants had a role in the uncovering of Jatin's plans.
Jatin's death
Jatin was informed of British action by Niren and was requested to leave his hiding place, but his insistence on taking Nirendranath (Niren) Dasgupta and Jyotish Pal with him delayed their departure by a few hours, by which time a large force of police, headed by top British officers from Calcutta and Balasore, reinforced by the army unit from Chandabali in Bhadrak district, had reached the neighborhood. 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 five fleeing "bandits", 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 1915 in an improvised trench in the undergrowth on a hillock at Chashakhand in Balasore. Chittapriya Ray Chaudhuri and his companions asked Jatin to leave and go to safety while they guarded the rear. Jatin, however, refused to leave them.
The contingent of Government forces approached them in a pincers movement. 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. The incident known as Battle of Balasore ended with an unrecorded number (25 as per local eye witnesses) of casualties on the Government side. On the other hand, revolutionary Chaudhuri died on the spot, Jatin and Jyotish Pal were seriously wounded, and Manoranjan Sengupta and Niren were captured after their ammunition ran out. Jatindranath Mukherjee died at the Balasore district hospital on 10 September 1915. Senguptan and Niren were hanged at Balasore district jail.
Legacy
Inspired by Swami Vivekananda, Jatin expressed his ideals in simple words: "Amra morbo, jagat jagbe" — "We shall die to awaken the nation".[45] It is corroborated in the tribute paid to Jatin by Charles Tegart, the Intelligence Chief and Police Commissioner of Bengal: "Though I had to do my duty, I have a great admiration for him. He died in an open fight."[46] Later in life, Tegart 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". Professor Tripathi analysed the added dimensions revealed by the Howrah Case proceedings: acquire arms locally and abroad; raise a guerrilla; create a rising with Indian soldiers; Jatin Mukherjee's action helped improve (especially economically) the people's status. "He had indeed an ambitious dream."[47]
Informed about his death, M. N. Roy wrote: "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."[48]
In 1925,
The locality of Baghajatin in Kolkata has been named after him. Barbati Girls High School situated near the banks of the Budhabalanga River in Balasore town has a statue of Bagha Jatin as it was here the erstwhile Balasore district government hospital was housed and he breathed his last. Chashakhand, a place near Phulari just about 15 km east of Balasore, has a park in his memorium as it was here he fought the British forces after crossing the Budhabalanga River which flows nearby.
Photo gallery
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Jatin in 1895, shortly before joining the University of Calcutta
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Jatin at the age of 24, in Darjeeling, 1903
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Jatin in 1912. Standing behind Didi Vinodebala (sitting) with his wife Indubala, elder son Tejen (left) and daughter Ashalata (right)
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Bagha Jatin after the final battle. Balasore, 1915
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Statue of Bagha Jatin nearVictoria Memorial, Kolkata
In popular culture
- In 1958 a patriotic film named Bagha Jatin was released under the direction of Hiranmoy Sen.
- Indian film director Films Division.[50]
- In 2023, Bagha Jatin, a film directed by Arun Roy, has been released. Dev is essaying the titular role in the film. Music of the film is being directed by Nilayan Chatterjee.
See also
Notes
- ^ "Remembering Bagha Jatin". The Statesman. 11 September 2013. Archived from the original on 15 July 2019. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
- ^ Hemant Rout (10 September 2010). "Thousands of visitors and a group of freedom fighters from Orissa and West Bengal on Friday visited Chasakhand, a sleepy village in Orissa's Balasore district that sees a flurry of activity every year on September 10 - the death anniversary of freedom fighter Baghajatin and his four companions. Baghajatin, popularly known as Bengal Tiger, fell to British bullets on Sep 10, 1915, after his four-man army waged a courageous battle at Chasakhand. He continues to be an undying link between West Bengal and Orissa. Born as Jatindranath Mukherjee on December 7, 1889 in Koya village of Kushtia district of undivided Bengal, the revolutionary was known to have fought the British tooth and nail. Chasakhand is perhaps the only memorial place which binds the two states as every year tourists and freedom fighters from West Bengal throng the spot to pay tribute to the revolutionaries". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 20 July 2021. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
- ^ SNS (5 September 2018). "Bagha Jatin: The Unsung Hero". The Statesman. Archived from the original on 10 July 2023. Retrieved 10 July 2023.
- ^ a b Dictionary of Martyrs India's Freedom Struggle (1857-1947) Vol. 4. Indian Council of Historical Research. 2016. pp. 178–79.
- ISBN 978-0-674-72461-7. Archivedfrom the original on 18 September 2023. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
- ^ Paribarik Katha and Durgotsav, by Lalitkumar Chatterjee, Jatin's uncle and revolutionary colleague, who published also Jatin's biography, Biplabi Jatindranath in 1947.
- ^ Samanta, Vol. II, p. 393.
- OCLC 8793353.
Mr. Kennedy was ... Editor of the Tirhoot-cowríer [sic]
- ^ Mukherjee, pp. 167–168.
- ^ Dr Kumar Bagchi's Talks with Prithwindra Mukherjee, preserved at the Nehru Museum, New Delhi.
- ^ Samanta, Vol. I, p. 14.
- ^ Samanta, Vol. II, p. 509.
- ^ Samanta, Vol. V, p. 63.
- ^ Notes by Vinodebala Devi.
- ^ Das, M.N. (1964) India under Morley and Minto. George Allen and Unwin. p. 25.
- OCLC 1129475950.
- ^ Samanta, Vol. IV, "A Note on the Ramakrishna Mission" by Charles Tegart, pp. 1364–66.
- ^ Report by W. Sealy, "Connections with the Revolutionary organisation in Bihar and Odisha, 1906–16", quoted in Mukherjee, pp. 165–166.
- ^ Notes by Bhavabhûshan. Also, The Statesman, 28 January 1910.
- ^ Mukherjee, p. 166.
- ^ Handwritten Notes by Benodebala Devi, preserved at the Nehru Museum, New Delhi.
- ^ Guha, p. 161: "Workers of the Calcutta Anushilan Samiti started the Bengal Youngmen's Zamindari Co-operative Society ... The idea was to place revolutionary young men in the rural agricultural sector ... Organising small-scale cottage industries and swadeshi stores also engaged the attention of some of these workers."
- ^ Biplabi, pp. 282–283.
- ^ a b Guha, p.163.
- ^ a b Rowlatt, Sidney Arthur Taylor (1918) Sedition Committee Report 1918, §68-§69.
- ^ Minto Papers, M.1092, Viceroy's speech at First Meeting of Reformed Council, 25 January 1910
- ^ Das, M.N. (1964) India under Morley and Minto. George Allen and Unwin. p. 122.
- ^ Samanta, Vol. II, "Nixon's Report", p. 591.
- ^ Samanta, Vol. I, p. 60.
- ^ Samanta, Vol. II, p. 522.
- ^ Hardinge Papers, Book 117, No.5, preserved at the Cambridge University Archives.
- ^ Hardinge Papers, Book 81, Vol. II, No.231. (italics added).
- ^ Samanta, Vol. II, "Nixon Report", p. 625.
- ^ Mukherjee, pp. 119.
- ^ Mukherjee, p. 118-119, 177.
- ^ Amarendra Chatterjee's letter dated 4 August 1954 in Biplabi, p.535.
- ^ My Brother's Face, E.P. Dutton & Co, New York, 7th Printing, 1927, pp 206–207. In order not to be taxed of exaggeration, Mukerji seems to have mentioned a "leopard", whereas it was a full grown Royal bengal tiger.
- ^ "England's Indian Trouble" in the Berliner Tageblatt, 6 March 1914.
- ^ Samanta, Vol. III, p. 505
- OCLC 8793353.
[Satyen Sen] had as his fellow-travellers in the ship men like Vishnu Ganesh Pingle of Maharashtra and Kartar Singh of the Punjab. He introduced them to Jatin Miukherjee who sent them to Rash Behari Basu.
- ^ Mukherjee, p. 186.
- ^ Voska, Emanuel Victor; Irwin, Will (1940), Spy and Counterspy, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co, p. 141
- ^ ISBN 0-685-09575-4
- ISBN 0-7146-4580-X
- ^ Datta, Bhupendrakumar (1953). Biplaber padachinha. 2nd ed., p. 74.
- ^ Samanta, Vol. III, Introduction, p. viii
- ^ Tripathi, Amales (1991) Swadhinata Samgram'e Bharater Jatiya Congress (1885–1947). 2nd Edition. Ananda Publishers. pp. 77–78.
- ^ Roy, pp. 35–36.
- ^ The Statesman, Calcutta, 28 April 2009
- ^ "BAGHA JATIN". filmsdivision.org. Archived from the original on 3 December 2020. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
Cited sources
- Mukhopadhyay, Jadugopal (1982). Biplabi jîbaner smriti.
- Guha, Arun Chandra (1971). First spark of revolution: the early phase of India's struggle for independence, 1900–1920. Orient Longman. ISBN 9780883860380.
- Mukherjee, Uma (1966). Two Great Indian Revolutionaries (1st ed.). Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay.
- Roy, M. N. (1964) [First published 1960]. M.N. Roy's Memoirs. Allied Publisher.
- Samanta, A.K., ed. (1995). Terrorism in Bengal. Government of West Bengal, Calcutta.
Further reading
- Bhupendrakumar Datta, "Mukherjee, Jatindranath (1879–1915)" in Dictionary of National Biography volume III, ed. S.P. Sen (Calcutta: Institute of Historical Studies, 1974), pp 162–165.
- Saga of Patriotism article on Bagha Jatin by Sadhu Prof. V. Rangarajan and R. Vivekanandan.
- W. Sealy, Connections with the Revolutionary Organisation in Bihar and Orissa, 1906–1916.
- Report classified as Home Polit-Proceedings A, March 1910, nos 33–40 (cf Sumit Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1903–1908, New Delhi, 1977, p. 376
- Sisirkumar Mitra, Resurgent India, Allied Publishers, 1963, p. 367.
- J.C. Ker, ICS, Political Trouble in India, a Confidential Report, Delhi, 1973 (repr.), p. 120. Also (i) "Taraknath Das" by William A. Ellis, 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, pp 88–95; (iii) Les origines intellectuelles du mouvement d'indépendance de l'Inde (1893–1918), by Prithwindra Mukherjee, PhD Thesis, University of Paris, 1986.
- 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 (US National Archives, Washington DC, and Federal Archives, San Bruno).
- Amales Tripathi, svâdhînatâ samgrâmé bhâratér jâtiya congress (1885–1947), Ananda Publishers Pr. Ltd, Kolkâtâ, 1991, 2nd edition, pp 77–79.
- Bagha Jatin by Prithwindra Mukherjee in Challenge : A Saga of India's Struggle for Freedom, ed. Nisith Ranjan Ray et al., New Delhi, 1984, pp 264–273.
- Sedition Committee Report, 1918.
- Bagha Jatin by Prithwindra Mukherjee, Dey's Publishing, Calcutta, 2003 (4th Edition), 128p [in Bengali].
- Bagha Jatin: Life and Times of Jatindranath Mukherjee by Prithwindra Mukherjee, National Book Trust, New Delhi, 2010, First revised edition 2013, launched by H.E. Pranab Mukherjee
- Bagha Jatin, the Revolutionary Legacy, by Prithwindra Mukherjee, Indus Source Books, Mumbai, 2015
- The Intellectual Roots of India's Freedom Struggle (1893–1918), by Prithwindra Mukherjee, Manohar, New Delhi, 2017
- Samasamayiker chokhe Baghajatin, edited by Prithwindra Mukherjee and Pabitrakumar Gupta, Sahitya Samsad, Kolkata, 2014 ["Bagha Jatin in the Eyes of his Contemporaries"]
- Sâdhak biplabi jatîndranâth , by Prithwindra Mukherjee, West Bengal Books Board, kolkata, 1991
External links
- Jatindranath Mukherjee – Bhupendrakumar Datta.
- Great Indians.