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Jugantar orYugantar (Bengali:যুগান্তরJugantor;lit.New Era orTransition of an Epoch) was one of the two main secret revolutionary trends operating inBengal forIndian independence. This association, likeAnushilan Samiti, started in the guise of a suburban health and fitness club while secretly nurturing revolutionaries. Several Jugantar members were arrested, hanged, or deported for life to theCellular Jail inAndaman and many of them joined theCommunist Consolidation in theCellular Jail.
The Jugantar party was established in April 1906 by leaders likeAurobindo Ghosh, his brotherBarin Ghosh,Hemchandra Kanungo, and Upen Banerjee.[2] Along with 21 revolutionaries, they started to collect arms, explosives and manufactured bombs. The headquarters of Jugantar were located at 27 Kanai Dhar Lane then 41 Champatola 1st Lane inKolkata.[3]
Some senior members of the group were sent abroad. One of the first batches includedSurendra Mohan Bose,Tarak Nath Das andGuran Ditt Kumar, who, since 1907, were extremely active among the Hindu and Sikh immigrants on the Western coast of North America. These units were to compose the futureGhadar Party.[4] In ParisHemchandra Kanungo aliasHem Das, along withPandurang M. Bapat, obtained training in explosives from the Russian anarchist Nicholas Safranski.[5] After returning to Kolkata, he joined the combined school of 'self-culture' (anushilan) and bomb factory run by Barin Ghosh at a garden house inManiktala, a suburb of Calcutta. However, the attempted murder of Kingsford, the-then district Judge ofMuzaffarpur byKhudiram Bose andPrafulla Chaki (30 April 1908) initiated a police investigation that led to the arrest of many of the revolutionaries. The prisoners were tried in the famousAlipore bomb conspiracy case in which several activists were deported for life to theCellular Jail in Andaman.
In 1908, as a next step, Jugantar chose to censure persons connected with the arrest and trial of revolutionaries involved in the Alipore Bomb Case. On 10 February 1909, Ashutosh Biswas, who conducted the prosecution of Kanai and Satyen for the murder of Naren Gosain (a revolutionary turned approver), was shot dead by Charu Basu in the Calcutta High Court premises. Samsul Alam, Deputy Superintendent of Police, who conducted the Alipore Case was shot and killed by Biren Dutta Gupta on the stairs of Calcutta High Court building on 24 January 1910. Charu Basu and Biren Dutta Gupta were later hanged.[6]
Several includingJatindra Nath Mukherjee were arrested in connection with the murder of Police inspector Samsul Alam on 24 January 1910 inCalcutta and other charges. Thus started theHowrah-Sibpur Conspiracy case that tried the prisoners for treason, waging war against the Crown and tampering with the loyalty of Indian soldiers, such as those belonging to theJat Regiment posted inFort William, and soldiers in Upper Indian Cantonments.[7]
Nixon's Report corroborates that Jugantar underJatindra Nath Mukherjee counted a good deal on the ensuingWorld War to organise an armed uprising with the Indian soldiers in various regiments.[8] DuringWorld War I the Jugantar Party arranged importation of German arms and ammunitions[9] (notably the 32 bore German automatic pistols) viaVirendranath Chattopadhyay aliasChatto and other revolutionaries residing in Germany. They had contacted Indian revolutionaries active in the United States, as well as Jugantar leaders in Kolkata. Jatindra Nath Mukherjee informedRash Behari Bose to take charge of Upper India, aiming at an All-Indian Insurrection with the collaboration of native soldiers in different cantonments. History refers to it as the Hindu German Conspiracy. To raise fund, the Jugantar party organized a series of dacoities which came to be known asTaxicab dacoities andBoat dacoities, in order to procure funds to prepare the ground for working out theIndo-German Conspiracy.
The first of the Taxicab dacoities took place atGarden Reach,Kolkata on 12 February 1915, by a group of armed revolutionaries under the leadership of Narendra Bhattacharya under the direct supervision of Jatindranath Mukherjee. Similar dacoities were organized on different occasions and in various parts of Calcutta. Dacoities were accompanied by political murders in which the victims were mostly zealous police officers investigating into the cases, or approvers who helped the police.
On receiving instructions from Berlin, Jatindra Nath Mukherjee selected Naren Bhattacharya (aliasM. N. Roy) and Phani Chakravarti (alias Pyne) to meet the German legation at Batavia. The Berlin committee had decided that the German arms were to be delivered at two or three places like Hatia onChittagong coast, Raimangal in theSunderbans andBalasore inOrissa. The plan was to organize aguerrilla force to start an uprising in the country, backed by a mutiny among the Indian Armed Force.The whole plot leaked out locally owing to a native traitor and,[citation needed] internationally, throughCzech revolutionaries in the United States.[10][11] As soon as the information reached the British authorities, they alerted the police, particularly in the delta region of theGanges, and sealed all the sea approaches on the eastern coast fromNoakhali-Chittagong side to Orissa. Sramajibi Samabaya and Harry & Sons of Calcutta, the two business concerns run respectively byAmarendra Chatterjee andHarikumar Chakrabarti which were taking an active part in the Indo-German Conspiracy were searched.The police learned that Bagha Jatin was in Balasore awaiting a German arms delivery. Police went on to find out the hiding places of Bagha Jatin and associates and after a gun-fight, the revolutionaries were either killed or arrested.[citation needed] The German plot thus failed.
Following these major setbacks, and in the new circumstances of the colonial powers practising their divide and rule policy, there was an attempt to unify the revolutionary factions in Bengal. Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar were brought close by the joint leadership ofNarendra Mohan Sen of Anushilan, andJadugopal Mukherjee of Jugantar. However, this merger failed to revive the revolutionary activities up to the expected level.[12]
| Background |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Ghadar | ||
| Berlin Committee | ||
| Indian figures | ||
| German figures | ||
| Conspiracy | ||
| Counter-intelligence | ||
| Related topics | ||
