History of Armed revolution - List of Revolutionaries

[edit] Notable revolutionaries

• Amarendra Chatterjee
• Ambika Chakrabarti
• Ananta Singh
• Ashfaqulla Khan
• Atulkrishna Ghosh
• Aurobindo Ghosh
• Badal Gupta
• Bal Gangadhar Tilak
• Barindra Kumar Ghosh
• Batukeshwar Dutt
• Bagha Jatin
• Baikuntha Shukla
• Basawon Singh (Sinha)
• Benoy Basu
• Bhagat Singh
• Bhavabhushan Mitra
• Bhupendranath Datta
• Bhupendra Nath Sanyal
• Bhupendra Kumar Datta
• Bina Das
• Bipin Behari Ganguli
• Chandrasekhar Azad
• Dinesh Gupta
• Durga Bhabhi
• Ganesh Ghosh
• Guran Ditt Kumar
• Hem Chandra Das
• Hemchandra Qanungo
• Jatindra Nath Sanyal
• Jatindra Nath Das
• Kalyani Das
• Khudiram Bose
• Lokenath Bal
• Matangini Hazra
• Prafulla Chaki
• Pritilata Waddedar
• Pulin Behari Das
• Rajguru
• Rasbihari Bose
• Sachindra Nath Sanyal
• Sukhdev
• Surya Sen
• Taraknath Das
• Trailokya Nath Chakraborty
• Udham Singh
• Ullaskar Dutta
• Upendranath Banerjee
• Vinayak Damodar Savarkar
• Virendranath Chattopadhyay
• Yogendra Shukla
• Shyamji Krishna Varma

History of Armed revolution- Women particiption-Bimalaprativa

Bimalpratibha: Bimalpratibha Devi, wife of Dr.Charuchandra Banerjee, a physician, belonged to a very conservative and aristocratic Brahmin family in Calcutta.  She had to get over a lot of hurdles to come out in the streets to serve the country’s cause and actually left her husband and her in-laws’ family in the process.
Bimalpratibha joined the Non Cooperation movement before marriage under her father’s influence and later
acted as volunteer during the Calcutta Congress (1928). She also became close to Subhas Chandra Bose during this time. Defying her in-laws’ objections she actively joined politics and became the leading organiser of Nari Satyagraha Samiti in Calcutta during 1930. On June 22, 1930 the Samiti took out a historic procession in the Calcutta streets in defiance of Section 144 and took the police by surprise. Bimalpratibha was arrested and put behind bars for about six months. On October 2, 1931, she was arrested again in connection with a ‘dacoity’ at a farm at Canal West Road in East Calcutta. She accompanied five revolutionary activists in her family car and sped off with them after the dacoity.
But on the way they all got arrested and were later tried by a special tribunal. The deputy commissioner of police, Special Branch, dubbed Bimalpratibha as the “brain of the party.” She was however acquitted of the charge but rearrested and held as a ‘detenue’ for six years. According to one of her colleagues,
she confronted a lot of public criticism.

History of Armed Revolution -- Pritilata Waddeder

1. Pritilata Waddeder,

Pritilata Waddedar
Native name	প্রীতিলতা ওয়াদ্দেদার
Born	5 May 1911(1911-05-05) Chittagong, Bangladesh; erstwhile Bengal, British India
Died	23 September 1932(1932-09-23) (aged 21) Chittagong, Bangladesh; erstwhile Bengal, British India

Pritilata Waddedar  (5 May 1911 – 23 September 1932) was a Bengali anti-British revolutionary from what is now Bangladesh, who became a martyr for the liberation of her motherland.
Born in Chittagong on 5 May 1911, she was a meritorious student at the Dr. Khastagir Government Girls' School of Chittagong and passed the matriculation examination in the first division in 1928. She continued her education in Eden College, Dhaka and in 1929, she passed the Intermediate examinations securing the fifth place among all the candidates from Dhaka Board. Two years later, Pritilata graduated in Philosophy with distinction from Bethune College of Kolkata. In her college days, Pritilata used to visit Ramkrishna Biswas, a rebel who later was hanged. Pritilata received combat training from Nirmal Sen. He died on 10/11 June 1932.
In early 1930s, Pritilata joined Surya Sen's armed resistance movement. In 1932, Surya Sen planned an attack on the Pahartali European Club, which bore the notorious sign ‘Dogs and Indians not allowed’. He assigned Pritilata to lead a team of 10-12 men that would attack the Club on September 23, 1932. Members of the team were instructed to carry potassium cyanide with them so that in case they were caught by police they could swallow it before the arrest. Kalpana Datta, a fellow revolutionary of Pritilata said, "Surya Sen told us he does not support suiciding. But he took Potassium Cyanide from me before he went".^[1] The raid was successful but Pritilata, dressed as a man was trapped without a way of escape on that fateful night. She committed suicide by swallowing cyanide, thus ending her short endeavor in fighting for freedom of her country. Some say that Pritilata committed suicide voluntarily to convey the message that women can, and have to, sacrifice their lives for securing the freedom of India from British Colonial Rule

Shanti Ghosh (Das) devotes a whole chapter to her dilemmas concerning God which would disturb her in jail.

Though Barisal was called the "Venice of the East" and "Crop House of Bengal", the town's education sector was not strong, as it was geographically far from both Dhaka and Calcutta. Barisal Zilla School was established in 1854, but the school was not large enough to serve the rapidly growing numbers of students. To solve the problem, Mahatma Ashwini Kumar Dutta started a new school in 1884. As there was no facility of higher education, the district magistrate at that time, Ramesh Chandra Dutta, requested Mahatma Ashwini Kumar Dutta to establish a college. On June 14, 1889, Aswini Kumar Dutta founded Brojo Mohan College.
The first principal of the college was Babu Gyan Chandra Chowdhury. While Ashwini Kumar Dutta taught English and Logic, Kali Prasanna Ghosh taught History and Kamini Kumar BidyaRatna taught Sanskrit and Bengali. In 1898, BM College was transformed into a "First Grade College" from a "Second Grade College". In 1912, the college went to the Govt. management from personal management strategy. From 1889 to 1917 the regular activities of the college took place in BM School campus. The college was relocated to its own present complex in 1917.
From the very beginning the college was so dynamic and the results were very good. The teachers of that time were skilled, so Calcutta University started an Honors course in English and Philosophy in 1922, Sanskrit and Mathematics in 1925, Chemistry in 1928, and Economics in 1929. In 1928, Shirimoti Shanti Sudha Ghosh stood First class First in Honors in Mathematics from Calcutta University.
The time from 1922 to 1948 is called the "Golden Period" of the college. The governor of Bengal at that time, Sir Udbarn, once commented on BM College, "The college promises some day to challenge the supremacy of the metropolitan (Presidency) College."

The poet Jibanananda Das taught at BM College

History of Armed Revolution - Women's partiipation;

Women participation increased in the second phase of the movement in the late 1920s. Young girls mostly from well off families, now took part in 'actions ' and began to stir the nationwith their exploits. They participated in large scale in Non-Cooperation (1921) and Civil Disobedience movemnets.
 Wife of Benimadhab Das, Sarala Devi was daughter of Madhusudan Sen, who after serving as secretary of Sadharan Brahmo Samaj at Kolkata shifted his base to Dhaka on retirement. She was actively involved in social welfare activities. He used to assist in the functioning of Sarala Punyashram an organisation she had set up for the assistance of destitute and helpless women.
Kalyani Das (Bhattacharya) and Bina Das (Bhaumik) were their daughters. Kalyani Das (1907-1983) was a leading social activist and revolutionary worker. She was one of the organisers of Chhatri Sangha and was secretary of Students’ Association. Apart from her political activities for which she went to jail, she was associated with Sarala Punyashram all her life.^] Bina Das (1911-1986) shot into prominence when she fired her pistol at the governor of Bengal, Stanley Jackson, in 1932, at the annual convocation meeting of Calcutta University. The attempt failed but she was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment.
Girls in Action :
Until the beginning of the 1930s women did not take part in any revolutionary actions.Young girls was not satisfied with their studies only. They began to establish contact with secret groups.

Imagine Kalpana is a documentary on the eminent freedom fighter Kalpana Dutta. The film traces her life and her achievements in the decade of the thirties, when Kalpana Dutta was a part of a revolutionary brigade based in Chittagong (now in Bangladesh) that defied and led an armed struggle against the British government between 1930 and 1934.
In May 1931, however, Santi Ghosh and Suniti Choudhry, two Coomilla girls , flatly asked Subhas Chandra when he came to address a students' conference whether he would like girls in action. Subhas Chandra answered in the affirmative.

History of armed Revolution;Women Participation (Nanibala- Dukaribala)

Reverence and Distance

The first phase of the Bengal revolutionary movement (1902-15) was generally marked by an absence of

women’s participation even though the ideological foundation of the movement was embodied in the image of a mother goddess, as found in the celebrated

Bande Mataram composed in 1881 by novelist Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Later, Aurobindo also contributed to this concept. His Bhawani Mandir

pamphlet (1905) enjoined: “We cannot get strength unless we adore the mother of strength.” And Bhawani for him was “the embodiment of Infinite Energy.”4 Reverence for women permeated the entire ideology of the movement. But alongside it, male celibacy (brahmacharyaism) was also prescribed as the ideal of a revolutionary’s life. The leaders would

discourage young cadres from mixing with women. Aurobindo expelled Jatin Banerjee, his follower and one of the chief organisers of the movement, from the party on the charge of having a relation with a woman.5 According to Trailokyanath Chakravarty, a leader of the Dhaka Anushilan Samiti, there were

some attempts to recruit young girls at the initial stage but later the plan was dropped.

Nanibala - Dukaribala

Nanibala Devi, widowed in her early life, dared to communicate information to a political prisoner by meeting him in jail posing as his wife in 1915. She later sheltered some young activists connected with the celebrated German Plot mooted by Jyotindranath Mukherjee (Bagha Jyotin), the

legendary martyr in the Balasore battle (September 1915). Nanibala was finally

arrested and in jail she had to suffer inhuman physical torture (powdered third co-wife all along.

Another housewife who also suffered imprisonment during 1917 was Sindhubala Devi. She was arrested

following a police raid on her house in search of her husband. In some cases women discarded by

society as ‘fallen’ also helped the activists in one way or another. In 1907,

when the police mercilessly attacked a group of Swadeshi volunteers in a north Calcutta street, prostitutes retaliated by throwing stones at the police from rooftops.9 Kshudiram Basu, one of the first Bengal martyrs, being deserted by his family received shelter in one such woman’s house.10 Numerous other incidents of this sort remain undocumented.

History of armed Revolution-Women Revolutionaries - Sarala Devi

Sarala Devi

Often introduced as Rabindranath’s niece, Sarala deserves attention in herown right. Her mother, Swarnakumari

Devi, was the first woman delegate to a Congress session (1899). Swarnakumarialso edited the Bengali monthly,

Bharati; Sarala also was its editor for awhile.In 1902, the year which saw the birthof Anushilan Samiti, Bengal’s earliest

revolutionary group, Sarala set up agymnasium at 26 Ballyganj CircularRoad in South Calcutta. The movement

was preceded by the formation ofgymnasiums and other centres of

physical training (lathi and dagger play) at several places. These centreslater developed into secret revolutionary groups.

Sarala’s centre must have attractedwide attention because Jatin Banerjee, Aurobindo’s emissary from Baroda, met

her on his arrival in Calcutta. Aurobindo,then settled in Baroda, had sent Banerjee with the object of forming asecret group in Bengal.

In 1902 Sarala Devi also introduced Birastami, a ritualistic initiation ceremony with religious overtones, and

started Pratapaditya Utsav in 1903 onthe lines of Shivaji Utsav introduced

by B. G. Tilak in Maharastra. She also played an instrumental role in the formation of Suhrid Samiti in 1900. This was a new revolutionary organisation based at Mymensingh (now in Bangladesh).

Sarala, however, differed with Jatin Banerjee and other organisers over the question of dacoity as a fundraising means and kept away from Anushilan Samiti.1 This is probably the reason why

intelligence reports on secret societies during this period make little mention of her role. One list of clubs and samitis connected with the Swadeshi movement (1905-11) includes Sarala Devi’s “Fencing Club”, obviously a reference to her Ballyganj gymnasium. Sarala’s association with the movement actually ended with her marriage in 1905 to Rambhaj Dutta, a Punjabi Arya Samajist. After marriage Sarala left

Bengal; however, she continued with her social activities and set up Bharat Stri Maha Mandal around 1910-11 to spread education among women. One reason for Sarala’s interest in revolutionary politics is revealed in a quote from her memoir Jivaner Jharapata. What pained her most was the “cowardice- the blot on Bengal’s forehead”. Hers was an attempt to “wipe it off” (p. 136). Sarala during this time

wrote a hard-hitting article Bilati Ghusi Banam Deshi Kil (Foreign Blows vs Native Fists, Bharati/ Asar 13lOb, June- July 1903). In the article she gave an account of various cases of Indians’

History of Armed Revolution --Nivedita and Aurobindo (contd-12)

Sister Nivedita's Story
Swami Vivekananda expired in 1902. Vagini Nivedita, on that year, happened to meet Aurobindo in Baroda. Nivedita helped the Freedom struggle of India in different forms. She also actively participated  in the secret organisation of Aurobindo.

How a fiery Irish school teacher, inspired by Swami Vivekananda, helped liberate India.

"When a great man has prepared his workers, he must go to another place, for he cannot make them free in his own presence. I am nothing more for you. I have handed over to you the power that I possessed; now I am only a wandering monk."

With these stirring words, the mighty colossus, Swami Vivekananda, sent his great disciple, Sister Nivedita, into the battlefield of India's freedom struggle. She was to seek not only political freedom, but freedom of the spirit as well.
Born on October 28, 1867, at Dungannon in Ireland, Miss Margaret Noble, as she was known in her youth, belonged to a family of Irish freedom fighters. A school teacher by profession, she came under the spell of Swami Vivekananda following his epoch making appearance at the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions at Chicago.
Five years later, she traveled with him to India. There she was initiated on March 25, 1898, and given the name Nivedita, "the dedicated." While touring India with Vivekananda, Sister Nivedita, as she was known, saw with her own eyes the appalling conditions of ignorance, poverty and disease into which India was pushed by the alien rule. Her Irish blood boiled. As her first and foremost task in awakening the Hindu nation, she took up the cause of women's education and, with the blessings of Mother Sarada Devi, opened her school for girls in Calcutta in 1898.
In 1899, Nivedita accompanied Vivekananda to England and America to raise funds for her school. When she returned to England, she found the agents of British imperialism engaged in a vile propaganda campaign against Swami and her. On her return to India in 1902, she addressed a meeting of youth in Madras and gave her rousing call to them to fight for freedom. The British government immediately blacklisted her. Though she plunged into nationalist activities with the blessings of Vivekananda, her action created anxiety in the Ramakrishna Mission circle.
Immediately after the passing of Swami Vivekananda in 1902, she was asked to leave the mission. Soon she undertook a tour of the country to give shape to her plans. Nivedita met Sri Aurobindo at Baroda and persuaded him to come to Calcutta and take up the leadership of the nationalist and revolutionary forces in Bengal. Her school became a haven for patriots, revolutionaries, scientists, artists and journalists inspired by her thoughts and actions. "If the dry bones are beginning to stir, it is because Sister Nivedita breathed the breath of life into them," said Dr. Rash Bihari Ghosh, about her influence on the young patriots in India's freedom struggle. Her powerful pen stirred the hearts of Indian youth through her stories and editorials in patriotic journals.
When Sri Aurobindo fell to the wrath of the British, it was Sister Nivedita who persuaded him to go into safe exile in Pondicherry, a French territory.
Nivedita was not merely a patriot and revolutionary, but also a visionary and saint. She wrote on "Aggressive Hinduism," but not as that of a bully over a weakling. She spoke of the aggression and victory of character and spiritual power over human frailties and mundane interests, making the world a better place to live in. Her Cradle Tales of Hinduism is a gentle, nonviolent rendering of Hinduism's classic stories. In her vision, she saw Mother India guiding the destiny of a world to be full of peace and harmony.
The enormous strain of her work affected her health. She suffered an attack of blood dysentery in October, 1911. Sensing her end, she wrote her will and left her possessions to the Ramakrishna Mission to be used for her school.
On October 13, at about 7:00 am, Nivedita chanted the Upanishads, "Lead us from the unreal to the Real. Lead us from darkness to Light. Lead us from death to Immortality," and breathed her last.
Today, in distant Darjeeling, there stands a memorial inscribed with these
words: "Here repose the ashes of Sister Nivedita, who gave her all to India."
Sister Nivedita , Indian Freedom Fighter
Sister Nivedita was an Anglo-Irish social worker, writer, teacher and disciple of Swami Vivekananda. It was he who gave her the name Nivedita that means `one who is dedicated to God`. She was not satisfied in the faith she was born and brought up but was influenced by the culture of India. So she found that her mission in life was to serve India through the emancipation of women through education. She worked to improve the lives of women of all castes. Her position as a westerner with Hindu credentials enabled her to say and do many things for Indians.
Margaret Noble was the childhood name of Sister Nivedita. She was known by that name before she was taken into the Ramakrishna order. She was born in Dungannon in Co-Tyrone on 28 October 1867. Her father, John Noble was a distinguished preacher and the minister of the Weslyan Church. She was her father`s favorite child and accompanied him when he visited the poor. Both her parents were associated with the Irish Home Rule Movement and were active participants. After her father`s death, she and her sister were sent to Halifax College for their education. She was deeply interested in music and natural sciences. She took up to teaching at the age of seventeen. She was deeply influenced by the new ideas of education of Pestalozzi and Froebel.
Nivedita was a multi faceted woman. She was interested in arts, literature and in humanity. Her important literary works are The Master as I saw him, Travel Tales, Cradle Tales of Hindus-tan and many other writings. She was a prolific writer and kept a diary. She was a regular contributor to Modern Review and other journals. She promoted pan-Indian nationalist views both in her writings and in public meetings. She worked selflessly and with dedication and her name can never be forgotten by Indians. As a youngster she was full of doubts and uncertainties about certain fundamental ideas in her religion. Though an Irish born, she loved India. It was then that she heard of Swami Vivekananda`s arrival in London. It was at Lady Margesson`s home that she met him for the first time. She was invited to attend a talk by the Swami and was spellbound by his personality. She admired his eloquent speech and deep knowledge in Vedas. His mission to redeem his people from poverty and misery attracted her. She desired to join in Swami`s mission.
At first Vivekananda was doubtful whether she could face the problems she has to encounter once she comes to India in the midst of the superstitious mass of half naked men and women who hated the whites. He wrote to her all the difficulties she has to face once she comes to India. Knowing all these difficulties she was ready to come to India. She came in 1896 with the mission to enlighten the people of India and persuade them to understand India and how they are exploited by foreign domination and tyranny.

Her first days in Calcutta were spent in sight-seeing and meeting English friends and making acquaintance of Sir Jagadish `and Lady Bose and Sir Jagadish`s sister Lavan-yaprabha Bose, Aurobindo Ghosh, Sarala Ghosal and the Tagores. Bose`s method of encouraging girls` education in both rural and urban Calcutta appealed to her very much. Nivedita, also had to encounter finan-cial difficulty. Her friend, Mrs. Bull helped her from time to time, solved this difficulty. She was dauntless in her service of the sick during the plague and cholera epidemics in Calcutta. Her vast circle of friends, English and Indian, included journalists like Nevinson, Ramananda Chatterjee, Radcliffe; artists like Nandalal Bose, Abanindaranath Tagore; poets` like R.abindranath Tagore; archaelogists like Havell; scholars like Ananda Coomaraswamy and many other names well known in our history. They sought her advice on various subjects and found her an intelligent, widely read person whose advice always stimulated their enthusiasm and inspired them.

She was hopeful that India and England would work together jointly and achieve harmonious development. She was thoroughly disheartened seeing the conditions under which people lived and the wrongs done to them by the British rulers. It was at the stage when her sympathies were being gradually identified with the political aspirations of the people of India, she felt, that she should leave the Rama Krishna order formally and continue only as of the Rama Krishna (not the order). Her friends in the order allowed it and so she continued without being a formal member. She was unhappy at the treatment meted out to Jagdish Chandra Bose and his scientific discoveries. There was an anti-Bose atmosphere in England among the scientists. Nivedita deplored this tendency.

The Bose`s were her great friends. She travelled with them in England, India and the Continent. In fact she died when she was spending her holidays with them in Darjeeling. She left her mortal remains on 7 October 1957 to be cremated according to Hindu rites. Sister Nivedita`s contribution towards India is unforgettable and she will eternally live in the heart of all Indians.