Bagha Jatin

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Bagha Jatin : biography

7 December 1879 – 10 September 1915

There were also attempts to organise expatriate Indian revolutionaries in Europe and the United States. Jatin’s influence was international. The Bengali best seller Dhan Gopal Mukerji, settled in New York and, at the summit of his glory, was to write : «Before 1914 we succeeded in disturbing the equilibrium of the government… Then extraordinary powers were given to the police, who called us anarchists in order to prejudice us forever in the eyes of the world… Dost thou remember Jyotin, our cousin – he that once killed a leopard with a dagger, putting his left elbow in the leopard’s mouth and with his right hand thrusting the knife through the brute’s eye deep into its brain ? He was a very great man and our first leader. He could think of God ten days at a stretch, but he was doomed when the Government found out that he was our head.” My Brother’s Face, E.P. Dutton & Co, New York, 7th Printing, 1927, pp 206–207. In order not to be taxed of exaggeration, Mukerji seems to have mentioned a "leopard", whereas it was a full grown Royal bengal tiger.

Right since 1907, Jatin’s emissary, Taraknath Das had been organising, with Guran Ditt Kumar and Surendramohan Bose, evening schools for Indian immigrants (a majority of them Hindus and Sikhs) between Vancouver and San Francisco, through Seattle and Portland : in addition to learning how to read and write simple English, they were informed about their rights in the USA and their duty towards Mother India : two periodicals – Free Hindustan (In English, sponsored by local Irish revolutionaries) and Swadesh Sevak (‘Servants of the Motherland’, in Gurumukhi) – became increasingly popular. In regular contact with Calcutta and London (where the organisation was managed by Shyamji Krishnavarma), Das wrote regularly to personalities throughout the world (like Leo Tolstoy and Éamon de Valera). In May 1913, Kumar left for Manilla to create a satellite linking Asia with the American West coast. Familiar with the doctrine of Sri Aurobindo and an erstwhile follower of Rasbehari Bose, in 1913, invited by Das, Har Dayal resigned from his teaching job at the University of Berkeley, coaxed by Jiten Lahiri (one of Jatin’s emissaries) of wasting his time in daydreaming, Har Dayal set out on a lecture tour covering the major centres of Indian immigrants; enlivened by their ardent patriotism, he preached open revolt against the English rulers of India. Welcomed by the Indian militants of San Francisco, in November, he founded his journal Ghadar (‘Revolt’) and the Yugantar Ashram, as a tribute to Sri Aurobindo. The Sikh community also became involved in the movement.

Photo gallery

Image:JATINDRANATH MUKHERJEE IN 1895.JPG|1895 shortly before joining the University of Calcutta. Image:BaghaJatin13.jpg|Bagha Jatin after the final battle. Balasore, 1915. Image:Bagha Jatin Statue.jpg|Statue of Bagha Jatin near Victoria Memorial, Kolkata Image:BaghaJatin12.jpg|Bagha Jatin at the age of 24, in Darjeeling, 1903

The Czech interlude

The plot leaked out through Czech revolutionaries who were in touch with their counterparts in the United States.Spy and Counter-Spy by E. V. Voska and W. Irwin, pp 98, 108, 120, 122–123, 126–127; The Making of a State by T. G. Masaryk, pp 50, 221, 242; Indian Revolutionaries Abroad by A.C. Bose, pp 232–233. In the beginning of World War I, in 1915, Emanuel Viktor Voska organised the minority of Czech patriots in USA into a network of counter-espionage, putting up to date the spying activity of the German and Austrian diplomats against USA and the Entente powers. (He described these events later in his book Spy and Counter-Spy.) American publicist of Czech origin Ross Hedvíček claims ("The Emigrant Who Returned to Czechia for Retirement") that had E. V. Voska not interfered in this history, today nobody would have heard about Mahatma Gandhi and the father of the Indian nation would have been Bagha Jatin.(italics added by Bob Clive). B. Jatin wanted to free India from the British hold but he had the idea of allying against them with the Germans from whom he expected to receive arms and other helps. Voska learnt it through his network and, as pro-American, pro-British and anti-German, he spoke of it to T. G. Masaryk.Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850–1937), the first President of Czechoslovakia that he co-founded in 1918. This latter rushed to keep the institutions informed about it. Thus, Voska transmitted it to Masaryk, Masaryk to the Americans, the Americans to the British. T. G. Masaryk mentions all these facts in the English version of the Making of a State.