Land of Two Rivers: A History of Bengal from the Mahabharata to Mujib by Sengupta Nitish

Author:Sengupta, Nitish [Sengupta, Nitish]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788184755305
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2011-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

Of these, the swadeshi and political dacoities all along remained a controversial issue with strong opinions of the people, both in favour of and against it. While we need not narrate the individual events, some of them did stir the country due to the daredevil nature of the revolutionaries and their courage and heroism. Contemporary evidence also points to the care with which the targeted people were selected, how the funds seized were used and accounts maintained, and the honour of women protected during dacoities. But there were some revolutionaries who had conscientiously objected to this method both because it could antagonize wide sections of people and because it carried the potential to degenerate into plain antisocial activities masquerading as swadeshi action. Revolvers and guns were procured either by theft and snatching or purchased from seamen and junior officers of foreign ships. In a sensational case of theft of pistols belonging to Roda Company in Calcutta seven carts full of pistols were to be taken to the warehouse on 26 August 1914, but the seventh cart was hijacked and the contents seized by the revolutionaries. Lastly, there is at least one recorded instance of attempt to motivate the members of the armed forces in the cult of revolution.

The Bengalees constituted a tiny percentage of the Indian armed forces. Hence this aspect of the revolutionary programme was on a low key in sharp contrast to the activities, to say, of the US-based Ghadar party in Punjab. Russian sources record3 that there was a ball in the house of the lieutenant governor on Christmas night in 1908. Among the guests were the Governor General, the commander-in-chief and other high officials. The 10th Jat Regiment was to do guard duty in the lt governor’s house. But one of the soldiers betrayed the conspiracy to the authorities. A Russian journal published a news item about the trial that followed, in the course of which the accused soldiers admitted that they had joined a secret society in Bengal whose object was the destruction of British sovereignty in India. Moreover, to try to infuse revolutionary spirit in their comrades, one of the accused was reported to have told the judge, ‘Do you think that the number of rebellious sepoys is confined to twenty-five? There are many more involved in the matter.’ The Jat soldiers found involved in the conspiracy were heavily punished.

There was a good deal of hesitation, argument and discussion among revolutionaries as to the propriety of dacoity as a form of the struggle for freedom. There were those whose conscientious objection to it led them away from the path of revolution. But gradually it came to be realized by all that money was needed to keep the revolutionary party active and dacoity was the only way in which money could be obtained. In a few instances, the owners of the houses raided were intimated in writing that the amount of money seized had been credited in the accounts as loan received from them and that the money would be paid back on attainment of independence.

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