Today, eighty nine years ago, was a glorious day in the history of the nationalist movement. A small band of brave and idealistic patriots took on the might of the British Raj and in doing so hastened the acceptance of the nationalist goal from dominion status or self rule or swaraj to poorna swaraj or full independence. Few in India care to remember it, let alone celebrate it. The Modi government is no exception. The RSS, incidentally, established in the same year (1925) refused to be drawn into the nationalist movement, while the Congress took four more years to make independence its goal. The Kakori Case, was a train robbery that took place between Kakori and Alamnagar, near Lucknow, on 9 August 1925 during the Indian Independence Movement against the British Indian Government. The robbery was organised by the Hindustan Republican Association. The robbery was conceived by Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqullah Khan who belonged to the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), which became later the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. This organisation was established to carry out revolutionary activities against the British Empire in India with the objective of achieving independence. Since the organization needed money for purchase of weaponry, Bismil and group decided to plunder a train on one of the Northern Railway lines.The robbery plan was executed by Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan, Rajendra Lahiri, Chandrashekhar Azad, Sachindra Bakshi, Keshab Chakravarty, Manmathnath Gupta, Murari Sharma, Mukundi Lal Gupta and Banwari Lal. On August 9, 1925, the Number 8 Down Train travelling from Saharanpur to Lucknow was approaching the town of Kakori, when one of the revolutionaries pulled the chain to stop the train and overpowered the guard. It is believed that they looted that specific train because the train was supposed to carry the money-bags belonging to the British Government Treasury in the guards cabin. One passenger was killed by an accidental shot, making it a murder case. They looted only these bags containing some 8,000 Rupees and escaped to Lucknow while not a single Indian was looted, because the targets of the mission were: To get money for the organization from the British colonial government itself. To get public attention by creating a positive image of the HRA among Indians to negate the propoganda against the HRA by the British. To shock the British by striking against them in a dramatic way. Following the incident, an intense manhunt led to the arrest of several of the revolutionaries involved in the HRA. Their leader Ram Prasad Bismil was arrested at Saharanpur on September 26, 1925, and his lieutenant Ashfaqullah Khan was arrested ten months later at Delhi. Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqullah Khan, Rajendra Nath Lahiri and Roshan Singh, were sentenced to death and hanged on December 19, 1927. While in jail, awaiting his inevitable sentence, Bismil wrote the immortal exhortation Sarfaroshi ki tammanna, a soul stirring song. Listen. youtu.be/jzphhG_ndBM
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 01:57:39 +0000