· Ram Prasad Bismil was born on June 11, 1897 in a nondescript village in
the United Provinces’ (now Uttar Pradesh) Shahjahanpur district.
· Fighting against the British Raj, he was involved in the Mainpuri Conspiracy of 1918 as well as
the more famous Kakori Train Action of 1925.
· He founded the Hindustan
Republican Association (HRA, later Hindustan Socialist Republican
Association) and was hanged for his revolutionary activities in 1927.
Early life and Arya Samaj connections:
· During his childhood, Arya Samaj was becoming an influential organisation
in north India. He joined the Arya Samaj and became a prolific writer and poet,
penning patriotic verses in Hindi and Urdu under pen names like ‘Agyat’, ‘Ram’, and the one that is
most known – ‘Bismil’ (meaning
‘wounded’, ‘restless’).
· At the age of only 18, he penned the poem MeraJanm (My
Birth), venting out his anger over the death sentence handed out to Arya
Samaj missionary Bhai Parmanand.
The Mainpuri Conspiracy
· After graduating from school, Bismil got involved in politics. However,
he would soon be disillusioned by the so-called moderate wing of the Congress
Party. Bismil was not willing to “negotiate” or “beg” for his country’s freedom
– if the British did not accede, he was willing to take it by force, as one of
his most famous poems, GhulamiMita
Do illustrates.
“Duniya se
ghulami ka main naam mita doonga,
Ek baa rzamaane ko azaad bana doonga.”
· To achieve his ends, he started a revolutionary organisation
called Matrivedi (The
Altar of the Motherland) and joined forces with fellow revolutionary
GendaLal Dixit. Dixit was well-connected with dacoits of the state and wanted
to utilise them in the armed struggle against the British.
· In 1918, Bismil wrote arguably his most famous poem, MainpurikiPratigya, which was
distributed across the United Provinces in pamphlets, bringing him adulation of
nationalist locals and notoriety with the British. That year, in order to
collect funds for his fledgling organisation, her carried out at least three
instances of looting at government offices in Mainpuri district.
· A massive manhunt was launched and Bismil was located. What followed was
a dramatic shootout at the end of which Bismil jumped into the Yamuna river and
swam underwater to escape.
Founding the Hindustan Republican Association
· After his escape, Bismil would remain underground for the next few
years, writing avidly but not undertaking any major revolutionary activity.
During this time, he released a collection of poems called Man ki Lahar and also
translated works such as BolshevikonkiKartoot (from
Bengali).
· In February 1920, when all the prisoners in the Manipuri conspiracy case
were freed, Bismil returned home to Shahjahanpur. There he initially worked
gathering support for the Congress-led Non-Cooperation Movement but after
Gandhi called it off post the incident at ChauriChaura in 1922,
Bismil decided to start his own party.
· Thus the Hindustan Republican
Association was formed with Bismil,
Ashfaqullah Khan, SachindraNathBakshi and Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee as
founding members. Figures such as Chandra
Shekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh would also later join the HRA.
· Their manifesto, largely penned down by Bismil, was officially released
on January 1, 1925 and titled Krantikari (Revolutionary).
· It proclaimed, “The immediate object of the revolutionary party in the
domain of politics is to establish a federal
Republic of United States of India by an organized and armed revolution.”
The manifesto looked at these revolutionaries as “neither terrorists nor
anarchists… they do not want terrorism for terrorism’s sake although they may
at times resort to this method as a very effective means of retaliation.”
· Their envisioned republic would be based on universal suffrage and
socialist principles, importantly, the “abolition of all systems which make the
exploitation of man by man possible.”
· The train robbery at Kakori in August 1925 was HRA’s first major action.
Revolutionaries planned to rob the train between Shahjahanpur and Lucknow, which often
carried treasury bags meant to be deposited in the British treasury in Lucknow.
They believed that the money belonged to Indians anyway, and would fund their
activities as well as generate publicity through this action.
· On August 9, 1925, as the
train was passing the Kakori station, about 15 km from Lucknow, RajendranathLahiri, a member of the HRA
who was already seated inside, pulled the chain and stopped the train.
Subsequently, around ten revolutionaries, including Ram Prasad Bismil and
Ashfaqullah Khan, entered the train and overpowered the guard. They looted the
treasury bags (containing approxRs 4,600) and escaped to Lucknow.
· However, the robbery both enraged the British and upset the Indian
public. Due to a misfiring Mauser gun, one passenger (a lawyer named Ahmad Ali)
was killed during the robbery – dampening the response to it from the public at
large.
· What followed was a violent crackdown with almost everyone (with the
exception of Chandrashekhar Azad) involved in the Kakori Train Action arrested.
Bismil was picked up in October.
· After an eighteen month long trial, Bismil,
Ashfaqullah and Rajendra nath Lahiri were sentenced to death. The sentence
was carried out on December 19, 1927. Ram Prasad Bismil was just 30 years old
when he died.
· But his legacy lives on, mainly through his poetry. Ram Prasad Bismil
was an extremely prolific writer. His poems were not only meant to inspire
fellow Indians to join the freedom struggle, they also reflected a deep concern
for society and universal principles of equality and human dignity.
· In Ghulami Mita Do, Bismil says:
“Jo log
gareebon par karte hai sitam nahak,
Gar dam hai mera kayam, gin gin ke saza doonga.”
· Today, Ram Prasad Bismil has also become a symbol of communal harmony
due to his close friendship with fellow revolutionary poet Ashfaqullah Khan. In his last
letter, written just before his hanging, Bismil made an enduring call for
Hindu-Muslim unity in the service of the nation.
· He wrote (translated here): “If a
devoted Muslim like Ashfaq could be the right-hand man of an Arya Samaji like
Ram Prasad in the revolutionary movement, then why can’t other Hindus and
Muslims unite forgetting their petty interests?