The Chittagong armoury raid, also known as the Chittagong uprising, was an attempt on 18 April 1930 to raid the armoury of police and auxiliary forces from the
Chittagong
Chittagong ( /ˈtʃɪt əˌɡɒŋ/ ''chit-uh-gong''; ctg, চিটাং; bn, চিটাগং), officially Chattogram ( bn, চট্টগ্রাম), is the second-largest city in Bangladesh after Dhaka and third largest city in B ...
armoury in the
Bengal Presidency
The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William and later Bengal Province, was a subdivision of the British Empire in India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and ...
of
British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
(now in
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
) by
armed Indian independence fighters led by
Surya Sen.
The raiders
The raiders were members of
revolutionary Indian Republican Army, who favoured armed
uprisings as a means to achieve India's independence from
British colonial rule
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts est ...
. They were inspired by the 1916
Easter Rising
The Easter Rising ( ga, Éirí Amach na Cásca), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the a ...
in
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
and led by
Surya Sen. However, they were ideologically influenced more by the
Communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...
in
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. Many of these raiders later became
Communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...
. The group included
Ganesh Ghosh
Ganesh Ghosh (22 June 1900 – 16 October 1994)Sangshad Bangali Charitabhidhan, Editor: Anjali Basu, 2nd part, 4th Edition, Sahitya Sangshad, 2019, Kolkata was an Indian independence activist, revolutionary and politician.
Biography
Ganesh Gh ...
,
Lokenath Bal,
Ambika Chakrobarty,
Harigopal Bal
Harigopal Bal or Baul ( bn, হরিগোপাল বল) popularly called as Tegra (1915 — 22 April 1930) was a Bengali revolutionary who took part in revolutionary activities against British rule in India.
Bal was born in 1915, at the v ...
(Tegra),
Ananta Singh, Anand Prasad Gupta, Tripura Sen, Bilash Dey, Bidhubhusan Bhattacharya,
Pritilata Waddedar
Pritilata Waddedar (5 May 1911 – 24 September 1932) was an Indian revolutionary nationalist from the Indian subcontinent who was influential in the Indian independence movement. After completing her education in Chittagong and Dhaka, she att ...
,
Kalpana Dutta, Himangshu Sen,
Binod Bihari Chowdhury
Binod Bihari Chowdhury ( bn, বিনোদ বিহারী চৌধুরী; 10 January 1911 – 10 April 2013) was a Bangladeshi social worker and an anti-colonial revolutionary. He was influential in the Indian independence movement and ...
,
Subodh Roy,
Monoranjan Bhattacharya
Monoranjan Bhattacharya, nicknamed ''Mona'', is a retired Indian professional footballer and football manager. During his playing career, he represented the "Big Two" of Kolkata football, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. He also represented India ...
.
The plan
Sen devised a plan to capture the two main armouries in Chittagong, destroy the telegraph and telephone office, and take as hostages members of the European Club, the majority of whom also to be raided, while rail and communication lines were to be cut in order to sever Chittagong from
Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...
. Imperial banks at Chittagong were to be looted to gather money for further uprisings, and various jailed revolutionaries would be freed.
The raid
The plan was put into action at 10 p.m. on 18 April 1930. The police armoury was captured by a group of revolutionaries led by
Ganesh Ghosh
Ganesh Ghosh (22 June 1900 – 16 October 1994)Sangshad Bangali Charitabhidhan, Editor: Anjali Basu, 2nd part, 4th Edition, Sahitya Sangshad, 2019, Kolkata was an Indian independence activist, revolutionary and politician.
Biography
Ganesh Gh ...
, while another group of ten men led by
Lokenath Bal took the Auxiliary Forces armoury. Some 65 people took part in the raid, undertaken in the name of Indian Republican Army, Chittagong Branch. They failed to locate ammunition but did succeed in cutting telephone and telegraph wires and disrupting train movements.
About 16 of the group captured the European club's headquarters (in Pahartali, now the Railway Office next to Shahjahan Field) but there were few club members present because of it being
Good Friday
Good Friday is a Christian holiday commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus and his death at Calvary. It is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum. It is also known as Holy Friday, Great Friday, Great and Holy Friday (also Hol ...
. Upon learning of the situation, the Europeans were able to get the alarm out to troops, which the revolutionaries had not expected. After the raids, the revolutionaries gathered outside the police armoury, where Sen took a military salute, hoisted a national flag, and proclaimed a Provisional Revolutionary Government. The revolutionaries left Chittagong town before dawn and marched towards the Chittagong hill ranges, looking for a safe place to hide.
A few of the members including Ganesh Ghosh, Ananta Singh and the teenagers Ananda Gupta and Jeebon Ghoshal were elsewhere, and almost captured at Feni railway station but managed to escape. Later they stayed in hiding in a house in Chandannagar.
Aftermath
After a few days, the police traced some of the revolutionaries. They were surrounded by several thousand troops while they took shelter in Jalalabad hills near Chittagong Cantonment on the afternoon of 22 April 1930.
Over 80 troops and 12 revolutionaries were killed in the ensuing gunfight in the Battle of Jalalabad Hills. Sen dispersed his men to neighbouring villages in small groups and thus some escaped. A few fled to
Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...
while some were arrested. An intense crackdown on the resistance ensued. Ananta Singh gave himself up in Calcutta coming away from his hiding place in
Chandannagar
Chandannagar french: Chandernagor ), also known by its former name Chandernagore and French name Chandernagor, is a city in the Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is headquarter of the Chandannagore subdivision and is part ...
, to be close to the young teenagers captured and under trial in Chittagong. A few months later, Police Commissioner
Charles Tegart surrounded their hideout and in the ensuing exchange of fire,
Jiban Ghoshal
Jiban Ghoshal alias Makhanlal (26 June 1912 — 1 September 1930) was an Indian independence activist and a member of the armed resistance movement led by ''Masterda'' Surya Sen, which carried out the Chittagong armoury raid in 1930.
Revolutionar ...
was killed.
Some of the revolutionaries managed to reorganise. On 24 September 1932, Debi Prasad Gupta, Monoranjan Sen, Rajat Sen, Swadesh Roy, Phanindra Nandi and Subodh Chaudhary led by Pritilata Waddedar, attacked the Pahartali European Club, killing one woman and injuring several police officials. However, the plan was not entirely successful. The revolutionaries fled after the attack, but Pritilata, who got wounded, consumed cyanide to evade arrest and killed herself. The police searched the rest of the absconders. In Kalarpole encounter
Deba Gupta
Deba Gupta (December 1911 – 6 May 1930) alias Deba Prasad Gupta was a Bengali revolutionary who joined in the Chittagong armoury raid. He died in a Kalarpole encounter with the British police on 6 May 1930.
Revolutionary activities
Deba Gupta ...
,
Monoranjan Sen
Monoranjan Sen ( ? - May 5, 1930) was one of the martyred Bengali revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement in British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, wer ...
,
Rajat Sen
Rajat Sen (1913 ― 6 May 1930) alias Rajat Kumar Sen was a Bengali revolutionary who joined in the Chittagong armoury raid. He died in a Kalarpole encounter with the Indian Imperial Police.
Revolutionary activities
Rajat Sen was born in Briti ...
and Swadeshranjan Ray were killed while the other two, Subodh and Phani, were wounded and arrested. During 1930–1932, 22 officials and 220 others were killed by revolutionaries in separate incidents. Debi Prasad Gupta's brother was sentenced to transportation for life.
The armoury raid trial
The mass trial of those arrested during and after the raids concluded in January 1932 and the judgement was delivered on 1 March 1932. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to deportation for life, two received three-year prison sentences and the remaining 32 individuals were acquitted. The twelve deported to Andaman included Ganesh Ghosh, Lokenath Bal, sixteen-year-old Ananda Gupta, and Ananta Singh.
Capture and death of Surya Sen
The Chittagong revolutionary group suffered a fatal blow when Masterda Surya Sen was arrested on 16 February 1933 from Gairala village after a tip-off from an insider of the group. For the reward money, jealousy, or both, Netra Sen told the British Government that Surya Sen was at his house. But before Netra Sen was able to get his 10,000 rupee reward, he was assassinated by the revolutionaries.
Surya Sen was hanged by the British administration on 12 January 1934.
Film adaptations
A
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
movie ''Chattagram Astragar Lunthan'' was made on the Chittagong armoury raid in 1949. It was directed by Nirmal Chowdhury.
A
Hindi
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
movie, ''
Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey
''Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey'' () is an Indian Hindi-language historical action-adventure film directed by Ashutosh Gowariker and released on 3 December 2010. Starring Abhishek Bachchan, Deepika Padukone and Sikandar Kher, it was based on Manini ...
'' was made on the Chittagong armoury raid in 2010. It was directed by
Ashutosh Gowarikar
Ashutosh Gowariker (born 15 February 1964) is an Indian film director, actor, screenwriter and producer who works in Hindi cinema. He is known for directing films "set on a huge canvas while boasting of an opulent treatment".
His is particularl ...
starring
Abhishek Bachchan
Abhishek Bachchan (born 5 February 1976) is an Indian actor and film producer known for his work in Hindi films. Part of the Bachchan family, he is the son of actors Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan and the grandson of poet Harivansh Rai Bach ...
and supported by Deepika Padukone. It was based on the book ''Do and Die: The Chittagong Uprising 1930-34'' by Manini Chatterjee.
Another film, ''
Chittagong
Chittagong ( /ˈtʃɪt əˌɡɒŋ/ ''chit-uh-gong''; ctg, চিটাং; bn, চিটাগং), officially Chattogram ( bn, চট্টগ্রাম), is the second-largest city in Bangladesh after Dhaka and third largest city in B ...
'' was made in 2010 and released in October 2012. It was directed by Dr.
Bedabrata Pain, a former scientist in
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
who resigned from NASA to make this film.
Manoj Bajpai
Manoj Bajpayee (born 23 April 1969), also transliterated as Manoj Bajpai, is an Indian actor who predominantly works in Hindi cinema and has also done Telugu and Tamil language films. Regarded as one of the finest actors of Hindi cinema, he i ...
was the lead actor and played the role of Surya Sen.
References
Sources
*
Further reading
* Chatterjee, Manini (2000). ''Do and Die: The Chittagong Uprising 1930-34'', New Delhi: Penguin, .
* Bhattacharya, Manoshi (2012). ''Chittagong: Summer of 1930'', New Delhi: HarperCollins, .
* Roy, Subodh (2015). ''Chittagong Armoury Raid: A Memoir'', New Delhi: LeftWord Books, .
* Mukherjee, Piyul and Nivedita Patnaik (2016). ''The Last of the Rebels, Ananda and his Masterda. A teenager's Eyewitness Account of the Chittagong Uprising'', Kolkata, Bushfire Publishers and Surya Sen Bhavan,
{{Indian Revolutionary Movement
Easter Rising
Political uprisings in India
Anushilan Samiti
1930 in India
History of Chittagong
Military raids
Battles and conflicts without fatalities
Conflicts in 1930
April 1930 events
1930 crimes in India