First Phase of Revolutionary Activity (1909-19)

 Surge of Revolutionary Activities (Reasons for emergence)

• Started as a by product of the growth of militant nationalism.
• First phase acquired a more activist form as a fallout of the Swadeshi and Boycott Movement and continued till 1917.
• Disillusioned by the failure of the leadership, even the Extremists.
• New forms of struggle to bring into practice the new militant trends.
• Youth, finding all avenues of peaceful political protest closed to them under government repression, thought that if nationalist goals of independence were to be met, the British must be expelled physically by force.
• Government repression left no peaceful avenues open for protest.

Ideology (The Revolutionary Programme)

• Not find it practical at that stage to implement.
• Thus strike terror in hearts of rulers and arouse people to expel the British with force
• Opted to follow in the footsteps of Russian nihilists or the Irish nationalists not a mass-based countrywide struggle.
• Individual heroic actions & assassinations of unpopular officials.
• Raise funds for revolutionary activities. Organising military conspiracies with expectation of help from the enemies of Britain.
• idealistic youth who would finally drive the British out.
• Extremist leaders failed to ideologically counter the revolutionaries.

A Survey of Revolutionary Activities

Bengal

• 1870s, Calcutta’s student community form secret societies, not very active
• 1902, First revolutionary groups in Midnapore and Calcutta (The Anushilan Samiti).
• Giving physical and moral training to the members and remained insignificant till 1907-08.
• April 1906, inner circle within Anushilan, started the weekly Yugantar and conducted a few abortive ‘actions’.
• 1905-06, several newspapers had started advocating revolutionary violence.
• Severe police brutalities on participants of the Barisal Conference (April 1906).
• Yugantar wrote: Force must be stopped by force.
• Rashbehari Bose and Sachin Sanyal organise secret society in areas of Punjab, Delhi and United Provinces & other like Hemachandra Kanungo went abroad for military and political training.
• 1907 December, Attempt on life of the former Lt. governor of East Bengal and Assam.
• 1908 - Prafulla Chaki and Khudiram Bose attempt to murder Muzaffarpur Magistrate, Kingsford. threw bomb but tow women died.
• Whole Anushilan group was arrested including the Ghosh brothers, Aurobindo and Barindra, who were tried in the Alipore conspiracy case, variously called Manicktolla bomb conspiracy or Muraripukur conspiracy.
• Barindra Ghosh, as the head of the secret society of revolutionaries and Ullaskar Dutt, maker of bombs. Narendra Gosain turned approver & Crown witness.
• 1908 - Burrah dacoity organised by Dacca Anushilan, raise fund for revolutionary.
• 1909 February,  public prosecutor was shot dead in Calcutta.
• 1910 February,  deputy superintendent of police met the same fate while leaving the Calcutta High Court.
• 1912 - Bomb thrown at Viceroy Hardinge by Rashbehari Bose and Sachin Sanyal.
• Basant Kumar Biswas, Amir Chand and Avadh Behari were convicted and executed for their roles in the conspiracy.
• Western Anushilan Samiti found a good leader in Jatindranath Mukherjee or Bagha Jatin and emerged as the Jugantar (or Yugantar).
• Jugantar party import German arms, Jatin asked Rashbehari Bose to take charge of Upper India bring all india insurrection - 'German Plot' or the 'Zimmerman Plan' - guerrilla force would be organised.
• Plot was leaked out by a traitor, German plot thus failed
• Newspapers and journals advocating revolutionary activity included Sandhya and Yugantar in Bengal, and Kal in Maharashtra.
• Encouraged quixotic heroism,
• No involvement of the masses was envisaged
• Coupled with the narrow upper caste social base of the movement in Bengal,
• Severely limited the scope of the revolutionary activity
• End, failed to withstand the weight of State repression.

Maharashtra

• 1879, Ramosi Peasant Force by Vasudev Balwant Phadke in 1879.
• Armed revolt by disrupting communication lines, fund by dacoities, suppressed prematurely.
• 1890s, Tilak propagated a spirit of militant nationalism, use of violence, through Ganapati and Shivaji festivals and his journals Kesari and Maharatta.
• 1897, Chapekar brothers (Damodar & Balkrishna) kill Rand, the plague commissioner of Poona and Lt. Ayerst.
• 1899, Mitra Mela—a secret society organised by Savarkar and his brother.
• 1904, Mitra Mela merged with Abhinav Bharat (after Mazzinni’s ‘Young Italy’).
• 1909, District Magistrate of Nasik, Jackson killed by member of Abhinav Bharat.
• Killing was part of a conspiracy to overthrow the British government in India by means of armed revolution.

Punjab

• Extremism was fuelled by famines coupled with rise in land revenue and irrigation tax, practice of ‘begar’ by zamindars.
• Lala Lajpat Rai who brought out Punjabee (with its motto of self-help at any cost) and Ajit Punjabee (with its motto of self-help at any cost) and Ajit Singh (Bhagat Singh’s uncle) who organised the extremist Anjuman-i-Mohisban-i-Watan in Lahore with its journal, Bharat Mata.
• Extremism in the Punjab died down quickly after the government struck in May 1907 with a ban on political meetings and the deportation of Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh.
• Other - Sufi Ambaprasad, Lalchand, Bhai Parmanand, Lala Hardayal - developed into full-scale revolutionaries.

Rashbehari Bose

• First World War, Rashbehari Bose was involved as one of the leading figures of the Ghadr Revolution worked in cooperation with Bagha Jatin.
• Revolution did not succeed, Rashbehari Bose escaped to Japan in 1915.
• Play an important part in the founding of the Indian National Army.

Revolutionary Activities Abroad

• 1905, Shyamji Krishnavarma set up Indian Home Rule Society and India House and brought out journal The Sociologist in London.
• 1909, Madan Lal Dhingra murdered Curzon-Wyllie;
• Madame Bhikaji Cama operated from Paris and Geneva, contacts with French socialists and brought out journal Bande Mataram.
• After 1909 when Anglo-German relations deteriorated, Berlin Committee for Indian Independence established by Virendranath Chattopadhyay and others, Berlin as his base.

The Ghadr Programme

• Revolutionary group organised around  weekly newspaper The Ghadr with its headquarters at San Francisco and branches along the US coast and in the Far East.
• Ex-soldiers and peasants, migrated from the Punjab to the USA and Canada.
• Pre-Ghadr revolutionary activity had been carried on by Ramdas Puri, G.D. Kumar, Taraknath Das, Sohan Singh Bhakna and Lala Hardayal who reached there in 1911.
• In North America, the Ghadr was organised by Lala Hardayal, Ramchandra, Bhawan Singh, Kartar Singh Saraba, Barkatullah, Bhai Parmanand.
• Set up a ‘Swadesh Sevak Home’ at Vancouver and ‘United India House’ at Seattle. Finally in 1913, the Ghadr was established.
• Work among Indian troops abroad and raise funds. Bring about a simultaneous revolt in all colonies of Britain.
• Attempt to bring about an armed revolt in India on February 21, 1915 . Plan encouraged by two events in 1914 - the Komagata Maru incident and the outbreak of the First World War.
• Komagata Maru Incident and the Ghadr
• Komagata Maru was the name of a ship which was carrying 370 passengers, mainly Sikh and Punjabi Muslim would-be immigrants, from Singapore to Vancouver.
• Inmates refused to board the Punjab bound train. In the ensuing conflict with the police at Budge Budge near Calcutta, 22 persons died.
• Outbreak of the First World War, the Ghadr leaders decided to launch a violent attack to oust British rule in India.
• Bengal revolutionaries were contacted.
• Rashbehari Bose and Sachin Sanyal were asked to lead the movement.
• Political dacoities were committed to raise funds (targeted the moneylenders and the debt records before decamping with the cash).
• Ghadrites fixed February 21, 1915, an armed revolt in Ferozepur, Lahore and Rawalpindi garrisons. plan was foiled at the last moment due to treachery.
• Authorities took immediate action, Defence of India Rules,
• 1915, Rebellious regiments were disbanded, leaders arrested and deported and 45 of them hanged.
• Defence of India Act, 1915 passed primarily to deal with the Ghadrites (Ghadr Movement) - large-scale detentions without trial, special courts giving extremely severe sentences, numerous court-martials of armymen.
• Evaluation of Ghadr
• Achievement lay on realm of ideology.
• Preached militant nationalism with a completely secular approach, But politically and militarily, it failed to achieve.

Revolutionaries in Europe

• Berlin Committee for Indian Independence was established in 1915 by Virendranath Chattopadhyay, Bhupendranath Dutta, Lala Hardayal & help of the German foreign office under "Zimmerman Plan".
• Mobilise the Indian settlers abroad to send volunteers and arms to India to incite rebellion among Indian troops.
• Indian revolutionaries in Europe sent missions to Baghdad, Persia, Turkey and Kabul to work among Indian troops and the Indian prisoners of war (POWs) and to incite anti-British feelings among the people of these countries.
• One mission under Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh, Barkatullah and Obaidullah Sindhi went to Kabul to organise a ‘provisional Indian government’ there with the help of the crown prince, Amanullah.

Mutiny in Singapore

• On February 15, 1915 by Punjabi Muslim 5th Light Infantry and the 36th Sikh battalion under Jamadar Chisti Khan, Jamadar Abdul Gani and Subedar Daud Khan.
• Crushed after a fierce battle in which many were killed.

Decline

• Temporary respite in revolutionary activity like release of war prisoners.
• Atmosphere of conciliation after Montagu’s August 1917 statement and the talk of constitutional reforms.
• Coming of Gandhi: non-violent non-cooperation promised new hope.