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Jatin Bagha, the Commander-in-chief of armed revolution in Bengal-I
“Amra morbo, jagat jagbe”- A tribute to the forgotten revolutionary!
#revolutionary
Long thread!
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“Amra morbo, jagat jagbe”- A tribute to the forgotten revolutionary!
#revolutionary
Long thread!
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Jatin Bagha, under the advice of Aurobindo, formed a ‘secret society’ named ‘Jugantar’ ’which inspired thousands of youth to join the freedom struggle through armed revolution.
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Aurobindo perhaps wanted someone who would organize systematically a pan India revolutionary movement through contacts with different revolutionary organizations for which Jatin Bagha was the entrusted one who later became the commanding-in-chief of Jugantar!
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The famous Howrah case involving 46 accused along with Jatin Bagha were divided into 12 following groups; SIbpur group, Kuruchi group, Haludbari group, Kidderpore group, Jugantar group, Chhatra Bandar group etc. this indicates the wide ramifications...
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and the different revolutionary groups that rallied around Jatin Bagha. Another charge in this case was ‘tampering with the loyalty of soldiers’ in Fort William, Calcutta.
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It was he who asked the Chhatra Bandar group to connect with the Jat regiment stationed in the Fort, however, later it turned out to be inconvenient. Hence, he asked the Chhatra Bandar group to be in connect with the soldiers via the Kidderpore group.
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Hence, it is significant to note that in the first decade of the 1900s Jatin had an idea of having an armed rising through connect with different groups and to be actively supported by the mutiny of Indian Soldiers.
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Bagha did not like individual revolutionary attacks but he had to occasionally encourage individual actions to do so, for mass awakening the supreme considerations. He did not like dacoity on innocent men for money but circumstances compelled him.
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The dacoity compulsions and the courting deaths revivified the dormant life of the nation and resurrected the goal of a coordinated armed rising on which Jatin Bagha had set his eyes long ago!
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The Howrah case against Jatin however did not stand resulting in acquittance on 21st February,1911. After the release, with new vigor, Jatin Bagha continued his idea of armed rising by meeting Swami Niarlamba in Vrindavan also known as Jatin Banerjee in pre-sanyas days.
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Jatin Banerjee had pioneered work in building the revolutionary movement to which Jaitn Bagha gave a definite shape. Around the same time, Rashbehari was also called upon and three of them chalked out a plan of action anticipating the Anglo-German War.
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Around September 1914, the war came up with an opening to Indian revolutionaries to try for an armed rising, by that time the Indian revolutionaries were more or less organized which consisted of the Calcutta group under the commander-in-chief,
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Jatin Mukherjee connected with the Barisal group of Swami Prajanada Saraswati, Faridpur group of Purna Das, etc.
Jatin felt the time had come at last for the realization of his long-cherished idea of an armed revolt. It was decided that with help of German Arms and money,
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Jatin felt the time had come at last for the realization of his long-cherished idea of an armed revolt. It was decided that with help of German Arms and money,
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the Indian revolutionaries in Bengal and Punjab with the help of mutiny of soldiers in the Indian regiment would organize an armed uprising. Jatin Bagha with the point of collecting arms and distributing it among the revolutionaries reached Orissa coast.
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Earlier, the British government had foiled such plans of Indo-German conspiracy as they had received information through the Czech revolutionary exiles who were in conflict with the Indian revolutionaries in the USA.
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The Czechs aimed to secure the British-French support in their struggle against Austria(the ally of German) and hence the leakage of the information.
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According to the Rowlett Committee about 33,000 Rs. reached Bengal revolutionaries which came through the small business of Hari Chakravarty named, Harry & Sons.
Coming back to Jatin Bagha’s role in this conspiracy,
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Coming back to Jatin Bagha’s role in this conspiracy,
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there was no local revolutionary unit in Orissa hence for arms collection a subsidiary office of Harry and Sons was opened at Balasore. A police party headed by Denham, Tegart and Birt received information in a raid at Harry and Sons which led them to Balasore.
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The European police officers had highly sophisticated rifles while Jatin and his associates had Mauser pistols which led to Jatin Bagha being seriously wounded and on the next day at Balasore hospital Jati Bagha left his mortal body on this day of 10th September, 1915.
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