In September 2022, jailed activist Umar Khalid wrote a letter addressing educator Rohit Kumar, which was published by The Wire. Khalid raised a subtle question in the letter: “Do people not see any similarity between the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act – under which we are languishing in jail – and the Rowlatt Act, which the British used against our freedom fighters?”
Khalid’s assessment of the situation was spot on. The way he, Sharjeel Imam and many others have spent years inside those cells with the distant hope of redemption is indeed reminiscent of our revolutionary freedom fighters.
Sacrificing a bright career, a generation of young men and women simply chased the dream of a free India and then vanished – this understanding is enough to make us feel the necessity of re-reading history and interpreting it in today’s context.
However, there are many shades of this narrative, with some sacrifices having received much wider attention than others.
Likewise, when it comes to martyrs from Bengal who were hanged for their valiant efforts, Bhabani Prasad Bhattacharjee may not sound as familiar as Khudiram Bose, Kanai Lal Dutta or Surya Sen alias ‘Masterda’. This is so despite the fact that a high-level administrative building in Kolkata (Bhabani Bhawan, the West Bengal police headquarters) is named after him – a recognition no hanged martyr has ever got in Bengal.
Early life and lead-up to governor Anderson’s tenure
Born in Dacca (today Dhaka) in 1914, Bhattacharjee belonged to a generation that was younger than Bose or Dutta’s. He was a meritorious student and received scholarships during his schooldays – a common quality shared by revolutionaries active in the interwar period.
After World War I, advancements in media and communication technology provided Indian revolutionaries with access to world literature. ‘Bengal Volunteers’ (BV), formerly the ‘Mukti Sangha’, a revolutionary association that Bhattacharjee would come to join, started publishing a teenagers’ magazine named Benu in 1926, to spread revolutionary ideals. This magazine extensively covered global events like the Irish, Russian and Chinese revolutions.
Bhattacharjee was a keen reader of Benu, his favourite issue being the one in which prison letters written by Dinesh Gupta (one of the three revolutionaries involved in the 1930 ‘Writers’ Building Raid’) were published.
The year he passed his matriculation (1932), a 20-year-old Bina Das made headlines after firing five shots at the then-governor of Bengal, Sir Francis Stanley Jackson, at the Senate Hall on the convocation day of the University of Calcutta. Even though Das’s bullets did not hit Jackson and he escaped unhurt, the incident created a stir among young minds.
Jackson, having served as governor for about five years since 1927, was succeeded by Sir John Anderson – who was revered among his peers for his ruthlessness in dealing with rebels.
This photograph of Sir Stanley Jackson welcoming his successor, Sir John Anderson, was published in The Statesman on March 30, 1932. Photo: National Library of India, Kolkata.
By the time Anderson assumed office (1932), a fresh surge of revolutionary activity had been taking place across the province for nearly two years.
Revolutionaries line up ducks as Anderson moves to quell rebels
It all started with the Chittagong Armoury raids on April 18, 1930. Over the next few years, revolutionaries, including both men and women, would target top-ranked British and Indian bureaucrats directly responsible for the persecution of innocent civilians and helpless detenus, often succeeding.
The government did not sit idle, either. From engineering communal riots in Chittagong and tracking down the mastermind of the Armoury raids Surya Sen, to the Hijli jail firings in September 1931, the government tried everything in its capacity to quell the rebellion. But even after that, the revolutionary spirit was alive enough to send chills down the state’s spine.
An efficient administrator with a formidable reputation, Anderson wasted no time in proving his worth. During his service in Ireland during the Irish War of Independence, he’d overseen the recruitment of unemployed WWI veterans as constables known as the ‘Black and Tans’, hired to curb the rebels. He implemented the same tactics in Bengal. Local ruffians and anti-socials were hired as police informers.
In addition, three draconian laws were introduced in 1932, namely the Bengal Suppression of Terrorist Outrages Act, the Bengal Special Powers Ordinance, and the Bengal Criminal Law (Arms and Explosives) Act. The most powerful of the three was the last law – it gave the government a free hand to sentence a person to life imprisonment for possessing illegal arms and even to death if found with arms kept for murdering a British official.
Headlines like ‘Five Years Hard Labour Confirmed for Possessing a Revolver’ or ‘Accused Persons Discharged and Re-Arrested’ would frequently appear in the newspapers.
Anderson’s policies did lift the morale of the British armed forces, resulting in a number of successes. The biggest achievement was undeniably the capture of Sen (who, ironically, was inspired by the Irish struggle) after an intense three-year cat-and-mouse chase, although not without the ‘help’ of a fellow villager.
He was captured in February 1933 and hanged on January 12, 1934 along with his comrade, Tarakeswar Dastidar. Before execution, the two revolutionaries were subject to bestial torture in jail.
All things together, the revolutionaries finally decided to silence Anderson.
Bhattacharjee handpicked for Darjeeling mission
Meanwhile, underground organisations also faced heavy setbacks, losing some of their brightest members in the process, which led to their disbandment. By 1934, BV was the only group still active, but most of its members were either in jail or dead. Benu had been forcefully shut down in 1933, its editors having faced imprisonment terms.
In spite of this, revolutionaries Sukumar Ghosh, Jatish Guha, Manoranjan Banerjee and Madhusudan Banerjee, who possessed fine leadership qualities, were still active. Bhattacharjee, along with his childhood pal Rabindranath Banerjee, were handpicked by Ghosh and Guha to assassinate Anderson. They were joined by Ujjwala Majumdar, the only daughter of Suresh Chandra Majumdar, a businessman and a patron of BV.
It was the summer of 1934. The governor’s office was shifted to the hill station of Darjeeling, the province’s summer capital. As planned, Bhattacharjee and Rabindranath were given a guided tour of Darjeeling by Manoranjan and Sushil Chakraborty, another senior BV leader. Manoranjan and Majumdar had the task of supplying revolvers and taking the two to the spot of the assassination.
On May 8, 1934, Anderson, along with his daughter Mary, was enjoying the Governor’s Cup at the Lebong Race Course, constructed in a valley eight kilometres from the iconic Mall. The race was over and His Highness was about to present the trophy to the winning jockey. Suddenly, a young spectator, dressed in smart European attire, fired shots at him from the close range of nine feet.
He missed. In quick response, district police superintendent E.E. English fired at the assailant, and Charles William Tandy-Green, a public works department engineer, wrestled him to the ground. The assailant turned out to be Bhattacharjee.
Meanwhile, Rabindranath moved forward and fired from the much closer range of five feet, but failed too. He was also subsequently disarmed, courtesy Babu Bhupendra Narayan Singh, the zamindar of Garh Barwari, Bhagalpur, Bihar.
Forward reports on the attempt on Anderson’s life. Photo: National Library of India, Kolkata.
The two were captured and taken into custody. Manoranjan and Majumdar did manage to escape that day, but were arrested not long after.
A special tribunal was set up. Unlike Das, who after firing at Jackson stated that she felt glad that Jackson was alive, Bhattacharjee declared in court, unapologetically that “I came to assassinate the governor. My object [sic] was to murder him.”
Expectedly, he and his friend were sentenced to death by the tribunal and also the high court. But in the end, it was only Bhattacharjee who was sent to the gallows. Constant efforts by Rabindranath’s influential family and missionaries saved his life at the last minute.
Bhattacharjee hanged – but when?
Bhattacharjee was hanged in the Rajshahi Central Jail in early 1935. With his execution ended a significant chapter of armed guerrilla struggle – a four-year chapter marred with terrible loss but etched in glory.
As his younger brother Durga Prasad Bhattacharjee later lamented, the British authorities did not bother informing the family about the hanging, and they found out from the newspapers.
Well, unbeknownst to the family, the British did something more.
Bhattacharjee’s execution day was widely publicised as February 3, 1935. Till date, February 3 is considered the day of his martyrdom. Every year on this day, a commemoration is held at the Bhabani Bhavan (formerly Anderson House and renamed after Bhattacharjee on September 12, 1969).
But almost one-and-a-half years ago, when I was the researcher in a documentary project for Doordarshan Bangla, we came across a ‘confidential’ letter written by the superintendent of the Rajshahi’s central jail at the Intelligence Branch archive.
Dated January 29, 1935 and addressed to the inspector general of prisons, Bengal, the letter clearly reads:
“… I have the honour to inform you that condemned prisoner – Bhawani Prasad Bhattacharjee was executed in this jail on the 28th January at 12-5 A.M. and the body was after Post Mortem examination, made over to the charge of the superintendent of Police, Rajshahi, for cremation.”
More interesting is the final sentence – “the Government may be informed, if necessary.”
It is unclear if the higher authority really considered it unnecessary to inform the government about the execution and whether this ignorance ultimately resulted in the misinformation that Bhattacharjee was hanged on February 3. But this is a clear distortion of history that deserves an official correction.
And, given what the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief recently stated about ‘true independence’, a delicate preservation of this ‘saga of sacrifice’ seems more necessary than ever, not just for inspiration to fight against oppression, but for our survival as a nation.
Soham Das is a Kolkata-based independent researcher and bilingual author who takes special interest in history, politics and culture.
This article was edited at 6:11 pm on January 29 to say that it was the superintendent of the Rajshahi central jail and not the Rajshahi superintendent of police who wrote to Bengal’s inspector general of prisons.
