KAKORI TRAIN ROBBERY - MODERN HISTORY
News:
Remembering the 1925 Kakori Train Action and its young revolutionary leaders
What's in the news?
● Four revolutionaries of
the Indian independence movement were hanged on December 17 (Rajendranath
Lahiri) and December 19 (Ashfaqullah Khan, Ram Prasad Bismil, Thakur Roshan
Singh) in 1927.
● This
came two years after the Kakori Train Robbery, in which members of the
Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) had looted a train transporting money to
the British treasury.
● After
the event, the British authorities launched an intense manhunt, leading to the
eventual arrest of several members of the HRA.
HRA and Kakori Train Robbery:
Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) - Backdrop:
● In
1920, Mahatma Gandhi declared the launch of the Non-Cooperation Movement, a campaign which asked Indians to revoke
their support from any activity that “sustained the British Government and Economy
in India.”
● Gandhi
had envisioned this movement to be non-violent, using his methods of satyagraha
to eventually attain self-governance.
● However,
an incident changed the movement’s trajectory in 1922. After police firing
killed three protesting men in the town of Chauri
Chaura in present-day Uttar Pradesh, a mob later set fire to the police
station, burning 22 policemen to death.
● In
his autobiography, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said this incident led to the
“sudden” end of the Non-cooperation movement, with Gandhi calling it off despite
significant internal disagreement within the Indian National Congress (INC).
● Among
the many, the HRA was thus founded by a group of young men who were disillusioned by Gandhi’s tactics of
non-violence.
Important leaders in HRA:
● Ram Prasad Bismil and
Ashfaqulla Khan, both of whom had a flair for poetry,
were among the group’s founders.
● Others included Sachindra
Nath Bakshi, trade unionist Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee, Chandra Shekhar Azad and
Bhagat Singh also joined the HRA.
● The
manifesto of HRA was released on January 1, 1925 and was titled as Krantikari (Revolutionary).
Objective:
● It
proclaimed, “The immediate object of the revolutionary party in the domain of
politics is to establish a federal
Republic of the 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.”
Kakori Train Robbery:
● The
train robbery at Kakori was the HRA’s first major action, in August 1925.
● The
Number 8 Down Train ran between Shahjahanpur and Lucknow. On a fateful day, it
carried treasury bags meant to be deposited in the British treasury in Lucknow.
● The
revolutionaries planned to rob this money, which they believed legitimately
belonged to Indians anyway. Their objective was both to fund the HRA and garner
public attention for their work and mission.
● Due
to a misfiring Mauser gun, one passenger (a lawyer named Ahmad Ali) was killed
during the robbery, harming the revolutionaries intentions to elicit a positive
public reaction.
Response of British:
● The
British authorities were enraged, undertaking a violent crackdown and soon
arresting many members of the HRA.
● Out
of the forty men arrested by the British, four were handed death sentences,
while others received lengthy prison terms.
● The
only major leader of HRA at this time who evaded arrest was Chandrashekhar
Azad.
● The
British response to Kakori was to set an example for future revolutionaries and
restore British authority in the minds of the people.
What happened to the HRA afterwards?
● In
1928, a year after the execution of the Kakori Conspiracy accused, the HRA
merged with various other revolutionary groups that had emerged in Punjab,
Bihar and Bengal and became the Hindustan
Socialist Republican Association (HSRA).
● Gradually
it made its Marxist leanings more
explicit, working with the Communist International and speaking of a
revolution involving a struggle by the masses to establish “the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
● By
the 1930s, the HSRA had lost steam with many of its prominent leaders either
dead or in prison. In the 1930s, it broke down into various regional factions.
Major actions of HRA:
● Over
the latter half of the 1920s, the group was key in carrying out various acts of
resistance against British rule, participating in protests against the Simon
Commission, the subsequent assassination of assistant police commissioner J.P
Saunders, and the bombing of Viceroy Irwin’s train, among others.
For
Indians, the Kakori incident is remembered as one of many revolutionary
activities that were undoubtedly brave but ended in tragedy.