Ghadar conspiracy, Indian National Army : Rash Behari Bose

Published: Saturday, Jan 21,2012, 09:45 IST
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Ghadar conspiracy, Indian National Army, Rash Behari Bose, Ghadr Party, Lord Hardinge, IBTL

Rash Behari Bose (1886-1945) was one of the great revolutionaries of the first half of the 20th century. Born on May 25, 1886 at Palarabighati (West Bengal), Bose joined the Revolutionary Party at an early age. He organised several clandestine activities in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Punjab. He came into limelight when he threw a bomb on Lord Hardinge's (the then Viceroy of India) procession in Chandni Chowk, Delhi on December 23, 1912.


After throwing the bomb, Bose managed to escape arrest and went in hiding in Varanasi. With the help of the members of the Ghadr Party, he planned a simultaneous rebellion which would rock the whole of north India. The British, however, foiled all attempts of Bose to create unrest and arrested several of Bose's confidants; of which twenty- eight were hanged after trials under what came to be known as the Lahore Conspiracy Case. Bose managed to escape from India in 1915 and went to Japan where he lived as a fugitive.
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Delhi-Lahore Conspiracy and Ghadar Conspiracy -Though interested in revolutionary activities early in his life, he left Bengal to shun the Alipore bomb case (1908). Dehradun he worked as a head clerk at the Forest Research Institute. There, through Amarendra Chatterjee of the Jugantar led by Jatin Mukherjee, he secretly got involved with the revolutionaries of Bengal and, thanks to Jatindra Nath Banerjee alias Niralamba Swami, the earliest political disciple of Sri Aurobindo, he came across eminent revolutionary members of the Arya Samaj in the United Provinces (currently Uttar Pradesh) and the Punjab.

Following the attempt to assassinate Lord Hardinge, Rash Behari was forced to go into hiding. He was hunted by the colonial police due to his active participation in the failed bomb throwing attempt directed at the Governor General and Viceroy Lord Charles Hardinge in Delhi (the bomb was actually thrown by Basanta Kumar Biswas, a disciple of Amarendra Chatterjee). He returned to Dehra Dun by the night train and joined the office the next day as though nothing had happened. Further, he organised a meeting of loyal citizens of Dehradun to condemn the dastardly attack on the Viceroy.

Lord Hardinge, in his My Indian Years, described the whole incident in an interesting way. During the flood relief work in Bengal in 1913, he came in contact with Jatin Mukherjee in whom he "discovered a real leader of men," who "added a new impulse" to Rash Behari's failing zeal. Thus, during World War I he became extensively involved as one of the leading figures of the Ghadar Conspiracy that attempted to trigger a mutiny in India in February 1915. Trusted and tried Ghadrites were sent to several cantonments to infiltrate into the army. The idea of the Jugantar leaders was that with the war raging in Europe most of the soldiers had gone out of India and the rest could be easily won over. The revolution failed and most of the revolutionaries were arrested. But Rash Behari managed to escape British intelligence and reached Japan in 1915.
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In March 1942, he organised a conference to set up an Indian Independence League, the first session of which was held in June 1942 at Bangkok. He was then elected President of the Council of Action for the formation of INA. He mobilised Indian soldiers taken as prisoners of war by the Japanese forces for an armed rebellion against the British rule. In 1943, he handed over the charge of INA to Subash Chandra Bose in Singapore. Bose died in Tokyo on January 21, 1945.

Source : Wiki & Presevedarticle

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