The time has come for you,sir,to consider your judgment and for you,gentlemen,to consider your verdict...''\""}},"i":0}}]}" id="mwAQY">.mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 32px}.mw-parser-output .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;margin-top:0}@media(min-width:500px){.mw-parser-output .templatequotecite{padding-left:1.6em}}
"My appeal to you is this, that long after the controversy will be hushed in silence, long after this turmoil, the agitation will have ceased, long after he is dead and gone, he will be looked upon as the poet of patriotism, as the prophet of nationalism and the lover of humanity. Long after he is dead and gone, his words will be echoed and re-echoed, not only in India but across distant seas and lands. Therefore, I say that the man in his position is not only standing before the bar of this Court, but before the bar of the High Court of History.
The time has come for you, sir, to consider your judgment and for you, gentlemen, to consider your verdict..."
Beachcroft delivered his verdicts on 6 May 1909, [1] amidst tight security in Calcutta to prevent outbreak of nationalist violence. Observing the popular supports following the executions of Khudiram Bose, Kanailal Dutta and Satyen Bose, the day of the verdict was kept closely guarded. Additional security measures were put in place, with a reserve force of European officers held ready in case of an outbreak of violence and disorder in the streets of Calcutta. Sessions Judge Charles Porten Beachcroft delivered his verdicts on 6 May 1909, amidst tight security in Calcutta. [1]
Regarding Sri Aurobindo, he said:
"I now come to the case of Arabinda Ghose, the most important accused in the case. He is the accused, whom more than any other the prosecution are anxious to have convicted and but for his presence in the dock there is no doubt that the case would have been finished long ago. It is partly for that reason that I have left his case till last of all and partly because the case against him depends to a very great extent, in fact almost entirely, upon association with other accused persons... The point is whether his writings & speeches, which in themselves seem to advocate nothing more than the regeneration of his country, taken with the facts proved against him in this case are sufficient to show that he was a member of the conspiracy. And taking all the evidence together I am of opinion that it falls short of such proof as would justify me in finding him guilty of so serious a charge."
In his verdict, Barin Ghosh and Ullaskar Dutt were found guilty, and sentenced to death by hanging (later commuted to life imprisonment). Thirteen others, Upendra Nath Banerjee, Bibhuti Bhusan Sarkar, Hrishikesh Kanjilal, Birendra Sen, Sudhir Sarkar, Indra Nundy, Abinash Bhattacharjee, Soilendra Bose, Hemchandra Kanungo, Indu Bhusan Roy, Poresh Mullick, Sishir Ghosh, Nirapado Roy were sentenced to transportation for life and forfeiture of all property. Three others, Poresh Mullick, Sishir Ghosh, Nirapado Roy were sentenced to ten years incarceration along with forfeiture of property. A further three Asoke Nundy, Balkrishna Kane, Susil Sen were sentenced to seven years jail terms. Seventeen, including Aurobindo, were found not guilty. One defendant, Krishna Jiban Sanyal, was sentenced to one-year rigorous imprisonment. [1] Two of the 17 acquitted, Dharaninath Gupta & Nagendranath Gupta, were already undergoing a 7-year sentence for conviction in the Harrison Road case, so they were not released. [1] Probash Chunder Dey was re-arrested on a sedition charge under Section 124A, in connection with the publication of the book "Desh Acharjya". [1] The verdict on Aurobindo was passed last. Beachcroft highlighted the lack of concrete evidence linking Aurobindo to the conspiracy in the lack of crown-witness Naren Goswami. [15]
The verdict was disappointing to the Government of India, who had hoped to obtain a conviction against Aurobindo. Further fears were raised that those acquitted may have already received instructions from Hem on constructing the bombs. Aurobindo further was seen as the most dangerous adversary to the Raj whilst he remained free. [16] Consulted on the prospects of a successful appeal against the verdict on Aurobindo, the advocate general of Bombay the chance of obtaining a conviction "fair", but was unable to provide more reassuring prospects. In August 1909, the government took the decision not to launch an appeal.
Of the two sentenced to death by hanging (but released in 1920), Ullaskar Dutt, a young man of 22, described his occupation as a cow keeper. [17] Barindra Kumar Ghosh, younger brother of Aurobindo Ghosh, was a key player in the Alipore trial. It was in their house that the revolutionaries carried out their activities. Barindra had been born in England and came to India at the age of one. According to British Indian law, he was asked whether he preferred being tried as a British citizen. Barin, as a nationalist, refused. Those two were sentenced to death, with the sentence later commuted to life imprisonment in the Cellular Jail in Andamans, where they remained until a general amnesty, in 1920. [17]
The trial was considered sensational at the time, and generated an enormous amount of interest in both the British and Indian press. In India, journals such as The Empire ran editorials calling for harsh punishments for the undertrials. The Times published a number of reports, reflecting on Aurobindo's career, Aurobindo's monologues and essays, published in Karmayogin, Jugantar, and other publications.
In the aftermath of the trial, the power of native Indian press in promoting nationalist messages were severely curtailed, with the Indian Press act of 1910 allowing provincial governments to demand punitive deposits from journals deemed hostile to the Raj. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who had close ties with Aurobindo, was arrested and charged with sedition, subsequently found guilty despite publicly dissociating himself from the Muzzafarpur bombings. In the aftermath of these events, moderates in the Indian National Congress came to be a more prominent force within the organisation, and developed a closer working relationship with the Raj. The Minto-Morley reforms were passed in 1910. Historians like Peter Heehs argue that although these had been planned as early as 1906, the popular impact of the trials hastened, or were perceived to hasten, the passage. In the view of the larger population, the actions of Aurobindo and his group took credit for this.
Aurobindo Ghosh was acquitted of the charges (among 17 acquitted) [1] and came out of the affair with a new outlook on life and spirituality (see final conversion). He recused himself from active politics, ultimately settling to his ashram in Pondicherry. Barin was interred till 1920, and after being released from jail he worked as a journalist, including The Statesman . He died in 1959.[ citation needed ] Aurobindo retired from active politics after he was acquitted. [18] This was followed by a 1909 Dhaka conspiracy case, which brought 44 members of the Dhaka Anushilan to trial. [19] [20]
In the aftermath of the Manicktala conspiracy, the western Anushilan Samiti found a more-prominent leader in Bagha Jatin and emerged as the Jugantar. Jatin revitalised links between the central organisation in Calcutta and its branches in Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh, establishing hideouts in the Sunderbans for members who had gone underground. [21] The group slowly reorganised, aided by Amarendra Chatterjee, Naren Bhattacharya and other younger leaders. Some of its younger members, including Taraknath Das, left India. Between 1909 and 1914, the group continued its campaign against the interests, making a number of attempts on the lives of Raj officials with variable successes. In a concerted attempt of revenge, Ashutosh Biswas, an advocate of Calcutta High Court in charge of the prosecution of the Narendranath Goswami murder case, was shot dead within Calcutta High Court in 1909. In 1910, Shamsul Alam, Deputy Superintendent of Bengal Police responsible for investigating the Alipore Bomb case, was shot dead on the steps of Calcutta High Court. Naren Bannerjee, the police officer who arrested Khudiram Bose, was murdered in 1910. These assassinations led up to the uncovering of Jatin's network, precipitating the Howrah-Sibpur Conspiracy case. Undeterred, the Samiti's networks continued the attempts on political violence and assassinations, using its base in Chandernagore. The most notable was the attempt on the life of Viceroy of India in 1912 in a conspiracy headed by Rash Behari Bose. However, the most serious threat organised by the Samiti arose in 1914 when, with the clouds of war gathering in Europe in 1914, the Samiti began liaising with revolutionary groups abroad and with Imperial Germany to overthrow the British Raj with a Pan-Indian Mutiny.
Several convicts of Maniktala Bomb Case wrote memoirs after their release from British captivity. Following is a brief list:
Khudiram Bose was an Indian nationalist from Bengal Presidency who opposed British rule of India. For his role in the Muzaffarpur Conspiracy Case, along with Prafulla Chaki, he was sentenced to death, for the attempted assassination of a British judge, Magistrate Douglas Kingsford, by throwing bombs on the carriage they suspected the man was in. Magistrate Kingsford, however, was seated in a different carriage, and the throwing of bombs resulted in the deaths of two British women. Prafulla fatally shot himself before the arrest. Khudiram was arrested and trialed for the murder of the two women, ultimately being sentenced to death. He was one of the first Indian revolutionaries in Bengal to be executed by the British.
Anushilan Samiti was an Indian fitness club, which was actually used as an underground society for anti-British revolutionaries. In the first quarter of the 20th century it supported revolutionary violence as the means for ending British rule in India. The organisation arose from a conglomeration of local youth groups and gyms (akhara) in Bengal in 1902. It had two prominent, somewhat independent, arms in East and West Bengal, Dhaka Anushilan Samiti, and the Jugantar group.
The Revolutionary movement for Indian Independence was part of the Indian independence movement comprising the actions of violent underground revolutionary factions. Groups believing in armed revolution against the ruling British fall into this category, as opposed to the generally peaceful civil disobedience movement spearheaded by Mahatma Gandhi.
Jugantar or Yugantar was one of the two main secret revolutionary trends operating in Bengal for Indian independence. This association, like Anushilan 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 the Cellular Jail in Andaman and many of them joined the Communist Consolidation in the Cellular Jail.
Bipin Behari Ganguly was a member of Indian independence movement and a politician. He was born in Halisahar, Bengal Presidency, on 5 November 1887. His father's name was Akshaynath Ganguly.
Ullaskar Dutta was an Indian revolutionary associated with Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar of Bengal, and was a close associate of Barindra Ghosh. He was the principal bomb maker of the Jugantar group until Hemchandra Kanungo returned from Paris learning political theory and explosive chemistry.
Prafulla Chandra Chaki was an Indian revolutionary associated with the Jugantar group of revolutionaries who carried out assassination attempt against British colonial official in an attempt to secure Indian independence.
Barindra Kumar Ghosh or Barindra Ghosh, or, popularly, Barin Ghosh was an Indian revolutionary and journalist. He was one of the founding members of Jugantar Bengali weekly, a revolutionary outfit in Bengal. Ghosh was a younger brother of Sri Aurobindo.
Bhavabhushan Mitra, or Bhaba Bhusan Mitter, alias Swami Satyananda Puri was a Bengali Indian freedom fighter and an influential social worker.
Atulkrishna Ghosh was an Indian revolutionary, member of the Anushilan Samiti, and a leader of the Jugantar movement involved in Hindu German Conspiracy during World War I.
Pandit Mokshada Charan Samadhyayi (1874–?) was a leading figure of the Jugantar movement.
Kanailal Dutta was an Indian nationalist involved in the Indian Independence Movement belonging to the Jugantar group. He was born in Chandannagar, West Bengal. He, along with Satyendranath Bose, was convicted by the British for the assassination of Narendranath Goswami, an approver of the British, in the Jail hospital of Alipore Central Jail on 31 August 1908. Satyendranath Bose was hanged till death on 21 November 1908.
The first Christmas Day plot was a conspiracy made by the Indian revolutionary movement in 1909: during the year-ending holidays, the Governor of Bengal organised a ball at his residence in the presence of the Viceroy, the Commander-in-Chief and all the high-ranking officers and officials of the Capital (Calcutta). The 10th Jat Regiment was in charge of the security. Followers of Jatindranath Mukherjee, its soldiers decided to blow up the ballroom and take advantage of destroying the colonial Government. In keeping with his predecessor Otto von Klemm, a friend of Lokmanya Tilak, on 6 February 1910, M. Arsenyev, the Russian Consul-General, wrote to St Petersburg that it had been intended to "arouse in the country a general perturbation of minds and, thereby, afford the revolutionaries an opportunity to take the power in their hands." According to R. C. Majumdar, "The police had suspected nothing and it is hard to say what the outcome would have been had the soldiers not been betrayed by one of their comrades who informed the authorities about the impending coup".
Hemchandra Das Kanungo was an Indian nationalist and a member of the Anushilan Samiti. Kanungo travelled to Paris in 1907, where he learnt the technique of assembling picric acid bombs from exiled Russian revolutionaries. Kanungo's knowledge was disseminated throughout Indian nationalist organisations in the Raj and abroad. In 1908, Kanungo was one of the principal co-accused with Aurobindo Ghosh in the Alipore Bomb Case (1908–09). He was sentenced to transportation for life in the Andamans, but was released in 1921.
Jugantar Patrika was a Bengali revolutionary newspaper founded in 1906 in Calcutta by Barindra Kumar Ghosh, Abhinash Bhattacharya and Bhupendranath Dutt. A political weekly, it was founded in March 1906 and served as the propaganda organ for the nascent revolutionary organisation Anushilan Samiti that was taking shape in Bengal at the time. The journal derived its name 'Jugantar' from a political novel of the same name by Bengali author Sivanath Shastri. The journal went on to lend its name to the Western Bengal wing of the Anushilan Samiti, which came to be known as the Jugantar group. The journal expounded and justified revolutionary violence against the British Raj as a political tool for independence, and denounced the right and legitimacy of the British rule in India. It was also critical of the Indian National Congress and its moderate methods which was viewed as aiding the Raj. Its target audience was the young, literate and politically motivated youth of Bengal, and was priced at one paisa.
Pramathanath Mitra, known widely as P. Mitra, was a Bengali Indian barrister and Indian nationalist who was among the earliest founding members of the Indian revolutionary organisation, Anushilan Samiti.
Sri Aurobindo's political career lasted only four years, from 1906 to 1910. Though he had been active behind the scene surveying, organizing and supporting the nationalist cause, ever since his return to India, especially during his excursions to Bengal. This period of his activity from 1906-1910 saw a complete transformation of India's political scene. Before Sri Aurobindo began publishing his views, the Congress was an annual debating society whose rare victories had been instances of the empire taking a favourable view to its petitions. By the time Aurobindo left the field, the ideal of political independence had been firmly ingrained into the minds of people, and nineteen years later, it became the official raison d'être of the Congress.
The history of the Anushilan Samiti stretches from its beginning in 1902 to 1930. The Samiti began in the first decade of the 20th century in Calcutta as conglomeration of local youth groups and gyms(Akhra). However, its focus was both physical education and proposed moral development of its members. From its inception it sought to promote what it perceived as Indian values and to focus on Indian sports e.g. Lathi and Sword play. It also encouraged its members to study Indian history as well as those of European liberalism including the French Revolution, Russian Nihilism and Italian unification. Soon after its inception it became a radical organisation that sought to end British Raj in India through revolutionary violence. After World War I, it declined steadily as its members identified closely with leftist ideologies and with the Indian National Congress. It briefly rose to prominence in the late second and third decade, being involved in some notable incidents in Calcutta, Chittagong and in the United Provinces. The samiti dissolved into the Revolutionary Socialist Party in 1930.
Satyendra Nath Bosu was an Indian nationalist of the Anushilan Samiti. Bosu, while held in Alipore Jail hospital as an under-trial in the Alipore Bomb Case, shot dead the Crown witness Narendranath Goswami with the help of fellow prisoner Kanailal Dutta, leading to the collapse of the case against prime suspect Aurobindo. Bosu gave himself up on the jail premises and was subsequently put on trial. Along with Dutta, he was found guilty and executed by hanging on 21 November 1908 for the murder of Goswami.
Krishna (Kristo) Jiban Sanyal participated in the Indian Independence Movement. He was an Indian revolutionary and member of the Jugantar group who carried out assassinations against British colonial officials in an attempt to secure Indian independence.
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