Revolutionary Terrorism and Bhagat Singh

Revolutionary young men did not try to generate a mass revolution. Instead they followed the strategy of assassinating unpopular officials
1904: VD Savarkar organized Abhinav Bharat
Newspapers like The Sandhya and Yugaantar in Bengal and the Kal in Maharashtra advocated revolutionary ideology
Kingsford Incident: In 1908, Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki threw bomb at a carriage they believed was carrying Kingsford, the unpopular judge of Muzaffarpur.
Anushilan Samiti threw a bomb at the Viceroy Lord Hardinge
Centres abroad
- In London: led by VD Savarkar, Shyamaji Krishnavarma and Har Dayal
- In Europe: Madam Cama and Ajit Singh
They gradually petered out. It did not have any base among the people

The sudden suspension of the non-cooperation movement led many young people to question the very basis strategy of non-violence and began to look for alternatives.
All the major new revolutionary leaders had been enthusiastic participants in the non-violent non-cooperation movement.
Two separate strands of revolutionary terrorism developed – one in Punjab, UP and Bihar and the other in Bengal.
Ramprasad Bismil, Jogesh Chatterjea and Sachindranath Sanyal met in Kanpur in October 1924 and founded the Hindustan Republican Association to organize armed revolution.
In order to carry out their activities the HRA required funding. The most important action of the HRA was the Kakori Robbery.
On August 9, 1925, ten men held up the 8-Down train from Shahjahanpur to Lucknow at Kakori and looted its official railway cash.
The government arrested a large number of young men and tried them in the Kakori Conspiracy Case.
Ashfaqulla Khan, Ramprasadn Bismil, Roshan Singh and Rajendra Lahiri were hanged, four others were sent to Andaman while seventeen others were sentenced to long term imprisonment.
New revolutionaries joined the HRA. They met at Ferozshah Kotla Ground at Delhi on 9 and 10 September 1928, created a new collective leadership, adopted socialism as their official goal and changed the name of the party to the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association.
Lala Lajpat Rai dies in a lathi-charge when he was laeding an anti-Simon Commission demonstration at Lahore on 30 October 1928.
On 17 December 1928, Bhagat Singh, Azad and Rajguru assassinated, at Lahore, Saunders, a police official involved in the lathi-charge on Lala Lajpat Rai.
In order to let the people know about HSRA’s changed objectives Bhagat Singh and BK Dutt were asked to throw a bomb in the Central Legislative Assembly on 8 April 1929 against the passage of the Public Safety Bill and the Trade Disputes Bill.
He aim was not to kill but to let people know of their objectives through the leaflet they threw.
They were later arrested and tried.
The country was also stirred by the hunger strike the revolutionaries took as a protest against the horrible conditions in jails.
On 13^th September, the 64^th day of the epic fast, Jatin Das died.
Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were sentenced to be hanged. He sentence was carried out on 23 March, 1931.
Bhagat Singh was fully secular.
- The Punjab Naujawan Bharat Sabha organized by him acted on secular lines.
In Bengal, after the death of C R Das, the Congress leadership in Bengal got divided into two wings: one led by S C Bose and the other by J M Sengupta. The Yugantar group joined forces with the first while the Anushilan with the second.
Surya Sen had actively participated in the non-cooperation movement. He gathered around him a large band of revolutionary youth including Anant Singh, Ganesh Ghosh and Lokenath Baul.
Chittagong Armoury Raid

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