JATINDRANATH MUKHARJI

Bagha Jatin , born Jatindranath Mukherjee (7 December 1879–10 September 1915) was a Bengali Indian revolutionary philosopher against British rule. He was the principal leader of the Yugantar party that was the central association of revolutionaries in Bengal, and was responsible for the planned German Plot during World War I.

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; he grew up in his ancestral home at Sadhuhati, P.S. Rishkhali Jhenaidah till his father's death when Jatin was five years old. His mother settled in her parents' home in Kayagram with him and his elder sister Benodebala. As he grew older, Jatin gained a reputation for physical bravery and great strength; charitable and cheerful by temperament, he was fond of enacting mythological plays and playing the roles of god-loving characters like Prahlad, Dhruva, Hanuman, Râja Harish Chandra.[1] The name by which he came to be known ("Bagha Jatin, pronounced "Jotin", — Tiger Jatin) derived from an incident in which he killed a tiger with a Darjeeling dagger. The then leading surgeon of Kolkata, Dr Suresh Prasad Sarbadhikari who operated upon Jatin, "took upon himself the responsibility for curing that fatally wounded patient (...) coming twice to his house daily to dress his wounds personally..."

After passing the Entrance examination in 1895, Jatin joined the Calcutta Central College (now Khudiram Bose College), for his First Arts. Soon he started visiting Swami Vivekananda, whose social thought, and especially his vision of a politically independent India, had a great influence on Jatin. As a mission from the monk, he raised a batch of volunteers to serve the miserable compatriots during famines, epidemics and floods, and running clubs for "man-making" in the context of a nation under foreign domination. He often joined Sister Nivedita, the Swami's Irish disciple, in this venture. In 1899, while working as the Barrister Kennedy's secretary at Muzaffarpur, Jatin realised how urgent it was to have an Indian National Army and to react against the British squandering Indian budget to safeguard their interests in China and elsewhere. In this context one can better appraise why Jatin's exemplary heroism inspired Dr Sarbadhikari's organisation of the Bengal Regiment sent to the Mesopotamian battle-field in 1916.[2]

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).

Revolutionary activities

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."[3] Several similar sources mention Jatin as being among the founders of the Anushilan Samiti in 1900, and as a pioneer in creating its branches in the districts. 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, a clerk in the Financial Department in the Bengal Secretariat".[4] Nixon reported further : "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 was leader."[5] Bhavabhushan Mitra's written notes precise his presence along with Jatindra Nath during the first meeting. A branch of this organisation (Anushilan Samiti), was to be inaugurated in Dacca. In 1903, on meeting Sri Aurobindo at Yogendra Vidyabhushan's place, Jatin decided to collaborate with him and is said to have added to his programme the clause of winning over the Indian soldiers of the British regiments in favour of an insurrection. W. Sealy in his report on "Connections with Bihar and Orissa" notes that Jatin Mukherjee "worked directly under the orders of Sri Aurobindo."[6]

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 Indian and British officers serving the Crown. In 1908 Jatin was not one of over thirty revolutionaries accused in the Alipore bomb case following the Muzaffarpur bombing.
During the Alipore Bomb Case, Jatin took over the leadership of the Yugantar Party, and revitalised the links between the central organisation in Calcutta and its several branches spread all over Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and several places in U.P.[7]. Through Justice Sarada Charan Mitra, Jatin leased from Sir Daniel Hamilton lands in the Sundarbans to shelter revolutionaries not yet arrested. They 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..[8]

The Howrah-Sibpur conspiracy case

On 24 January 1910, as part of a Yugantar 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-Sibpur conspiracy case, popularly known as the Howrah Gang 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 .[9] 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.[10]


A New Perspective

Jatin was acquitted in 1911 and released. Immediately, he suspended terrorism. This lull proved Jatin's full command of violence as an antidote, contrary to the Chauri Chaura fiasco after him. During the German Crown Prince's visit to Calcutta, Jatin met him and received a promise about arms supply.[14] Having lost his government job, he started a contract business constructing the Jessore–Jhenaidah railway line. This provided with a valid pretext and an ample scope to move about on horse-back to consolidate not only the district units in Bengal, but also revitalise those in other provinces. Jatin with his family went on a pilgrimage, and at Haridwar visited Bholananda Giri who, approving fully Jatin's patriotic scheme, had given him spiritual instruction in 1906. He went on to Brindavan where he met Swami Niralamba (who, before becoming a sanyasi, had been Jatindra Nath Banerjee), a renowned revolutionary who continued preaching in North India Sri Aurobindo's doctrine of a revolution.

Niralamba gave Jatin complementary 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 Rash Behari Bose and Lala Hardayal. On return from his pilgrimage, Jatin started reorganising Yugantar. During the flooding of the Damodar mainly in the districts of Burdwan and Midnapore, relief work brought together the leaders of various of these groups, and they chose to work under Jatin and Rasbehari Bose as leaders in Bengal and northern India respectively.

There were also attempts to organise expatriate Indian revolutionaries in Europe (Virendranath Chattopadhyay) and the United States (Taraknath Das, G.D. Kumar, Surendramohan Bose); later, a Yugantar Ashram was set up by Har Dayal 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.

During World War I

In September 1914, an International Pro-India Committee was formed at Zurich. Later it was merged into a bigger body, the Berlin Committee, led by Chatto, alias Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, which had as members prominent Indian revolutionaries abroad, including the leaders of the Ghadar Party. Many members of the Gadhar party arrived in India, and joined the revolutionaries in an uprising inside India during World War I, with the help of arms, ammunition, and funds promised by the German government. Advised by Berlin, Ambassador Bernstorff arranged with Von Papen, his Military attaché, to send cargo consignments from California to the coast of the Bay of Bengal, via Far East. [15]

These efforts were directly connected with the Yugantar, 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 the Punjab. This international chain work conceived by Jatin came to be known as the German Plot, the Indo-German Conspiracy, or the Zimmermann Plan. Yugantar started to collect funds by organising a series of dacoities (armed robberies) known as "Taxicab dacoities" and "Boat dacoities".

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 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, he sent Naren to Batavia, following instructions from Chatto, in order to make a deal with the German authorities concerning financial aid and the supply of arms.


Jatin's death

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 dispatched to Balasore. Jatin was kept informed and was 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 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 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 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. It ended with an unrecorded number of casualties on the Government side; on the revolutionary side, Chittapriya Ray Chaudhuri died, Jatin and Jatish were seriously wounded, and Manoranjan Sengupta and Niren were captured after their ammunition ran out. Bagha Jatin died, killed by police bullets, in Balasore hospital on 10 September, 1915. And India had to wait for another thirty years to have her democracy,