Jadu Gopal Mukherjee (18 September 1886 – 30 August 1976) was 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 ...
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
n revolutionary who, as the successor of
Jatindranath Mukherjee
Bagha Jatin (; ) or Baghajatin, born Jatindranath Mukherjee (); 7 December 1879 – 10 September 1915) was an Indian independence activist.
He was the principal leader of the Jugantar party that was the central association of revolutionary i ...
or
Bagha Jatin
Bagha Jatin (; ) or Baghajatin, born Jatindranath Mukherjee (); 7 December 1879 – 10 September 1915) was an Indian independence activist.
He was the principal leader of the Jugantar party that was the central association of revolutionary i ...
, led the
Jugantar
Jugantar or Yugantar ( bn, যুগান্তর ''Jugantor''; lit. ''New Era'' or ''Transition of an Epoch'') was one of the two main secret revolutionary trends operating in Bengal for Indian independence. This association, like Anushi ...
members to recognise and accept
Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
's movement as the culmination of their own aspiration.
Early life
Jadugopal or Jadu was born at
Tamluk
Tamluk () is a town and a municipality in the Indian States and territories of India, state of West Bengal. It is the headquarters of the Purba Medinipur district. Though there is some controversy, scholars have generally agreed that present ...
in the district of
Medinipur
Medinipur or Midnapore (Pron: med̪iːniːpur) is a city known for its history in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the headquarters of the West Medinipur district. It is situated on the banks of the Kangsabati River (variously known as '' ...
on the bank of the
Rupnarayan River
The Rupnarayan River is a river in India. It begins as the Dhaleswari (Dhalkisor) in the Chhota Nagpur plateau foothills northeast of the town of Purulia. It then follows a tortuous southeasterly course past the town of Bankura, where it is ...
in West Bengal, where his father Kishorilal practised law and distinguished himself as a
Kheyal
Khyal or Khayal (ख़याल / خیال) is a major form of Hindustani classical music in the Indian subcontinent. Its name comes from a Persian/Arabic word meaning "imagination". Khyal is associated with romantic poetry, and allows the perfor ...
singer. The family came from Beniatola in north
Kolkata
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...
. Jadu's mother Bhubanmohini hailed from a
Vaishnava
Vaishnavism ( sa, वैष्णवसम्प्रदायः, Vaiṣṇavasampradāyaḥ) is one of the major Hindu denominations along with Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism. It is also called Vishnuism since it considers Vishnu as the ...
family and transmitted in her children a spirit of devotion. Jadu's younger brother was to settle in the US and to be known in the West the famous writer and cultural scholar
Dhan Gopal Mukerji
Dhan Gopal Mukerji ( bn, ধন গোপাল মুখোপাধ্যায়; ''Dhan Gōpāl Mukhōpādhyāy'') (6 July 1890 – 14 July 1936) was the first successful Indian man of letters in the United States and won a Newbery Med ...
. As an upper class student of the
Duff School in Kolkata, Jadu learnt to think patriotically, thanks to one of his teachers. He became a member of the Kolkata
Anushilan
Anushilan Samiti ( bn, অনুশীলন সমিতি, , bodybuilding society) was an Indian fitness club, which was actually used as an underground society for anti-British revolutionaries. In the first quarter of the 20th century it su ...
Party in 1905, attracted by its physical culture and, on the foil of the Partition, by its political climate. He writes in his autobiography that the single-handed fight of
Bagha Jatin
Bagha Jatin (; ) or Baghajatin, born Jatindranath Mukherjee (); 7 December 1879 – 10 September 1915) was an Indian independence activist.
He was the principal leader of the Jugantar party that was the central association of revolutionary i ...
with a Royal Bengal tiger thrilled him and his friends in 1906, and he had an impression of belonging to a heroic epoch. After the F.A. examination, in 1908, Jadu entered the
Calcutta Medical College
Calcutta Medical College, officially Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, is a public medical school and hospital in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It is the oldest existing hospital in Asia. The institute was established on 28 January 1835 by L ...
. Fond of observing and analysing the rising tide of patriotism and the Government measures to repress them, Jadu preferred remaining aloof, confining himself to a couple of close friends.
First World War
Relief work during the 1913
Damodar floods brought Jadu close to
Bagha Jatin
Bagha Jatin (; ) or Baghajatin, born Jatindranath Mukherjee (); 7 December 1879 – 10 September 1915) was an Indian independence activist.
He was the principal leader of the Jugantar party that was the central association of revolutionary i ...
and the latter's important associates. Busy cementing the regional units for organising an armed insurrection during the forthcoming War, Jatin designated
Rash Behari Bose
Rash Behari Bose (; 25 May 1886 – 21 January 1945) was an Indian revolutionary leader against the British Raj. He was one of the key organisers of the Ghadar Mutiny and founded the First Indian National Army during World War 2. The Indian N ...
as the responsible for Upper India. Though jealous of
Naren Bhattacharya
Manabendra Nath Roy (born Narendra Nath Bhattacharya, better known as M. N. Roy; 21 March 1887 – 25 January 1954) was an Indian revolutionary, radical activist and political theorist, as well as a noted philosopher in the 20th century. Roy ...
's proximity with Jatin, Jadu received the charge of developing the external links, mainly with
Taraknath Das
Taraknath Das (or Tarak Nath Das; 15 June 1884 – 22 December 1958) was an Indian revolutionary and internationalist scholar. He was a pioneering immigrant in the west coast of North America and discussed his plans with Tolstoy, while organi ...
in California and
Virendranath Chattopadhyay
Virendranath Chattopadhyaya ( bn, বীরেন্দ্রনাথ চট্টোপাধ্যায়), alias Chatto, (31 October 1880 – 2 September 1937, Moscow), also known by his pseudonym Chatto, was a prominent Indian revolutiona ...
in Germany. With the failure of the
Indo-German Plan German-Indian, Indian-German or Indo-German may refer to:
*Indo-German languages, alternative name for the Indo-European languages
*As an adjective, anything pertaining to Germany–India relations
* Indians in Germany
*Germans in India
There i ...
and Bagha Jatin's sudden death in 1915, finding
Atulkrishna Ghosh
Atulkrishna Ghosh ( bn, অতুলকৃষ্ণ ঘোষ; 1890 – 4 May 1966) was an Indian revolutionary, member of the Anushilan Samiti, and a leader of the Jugantar movement involved in Hindu German Conspiracy during World War I.
Early ...
, the legitimate right-hand man of Jatin, plunged in a momentary despair, Jadu replaced him and asked the revolutionaries to disperse. During Jadu's absence,
Bhupendra Kumar Datta
Bhupendra Kumar Dutta ( bn, ভূপেন্দ্র কুমার দত্ত; 8 October 1892 – 29 December 1979) was an Indian freedom fighter and a revolutionary who fought for Indian independence from British rule. In addition to ...
maintained the leadership till his arrest in 1917.
Absconding leader comes home
Hiding in the hilly forests of Assam-Burma and Tibeto-Bhutan frontiers, Jadu was informed about the impact of the revolutionaries' activities on the Imperialists and about the question of a possible concession of constitutional reforms with the Rowlatt Act at the end of World War I. Returning home in 1921, Jadu obtained a special permission to sit for the Medical degree Examination and passed it with record results in 1922. After Gandhi's first failure, according to their initial contract, the
Jugantar
Jugantar or Yugantar ( bn, যুগান্তর ''Jugantor''; lit. ''New Era'' or ''Transition of an Epoch'') was one of the two main secret revolutionary trends operating in Bengal for Indian independence. This association, like Anushi ...
members worked under Deshbandhu
Chittaranjan Das
Chittaranjan Das (5 November 1870 – 16 June 1925), popularly called ''Deshbandhu'' (Friend of the Nation), was an Indian freedom fighter, political activist and lawyer during the Indian independence movement and founder-leader of the Swar ...
and
Satyendra Chandra Mitra
Satyendra Chandra Mitra (23 December 1888 – 27 October 1942) was an Indian freedom fighter, who started his political career as a revolutionary and got associated with the Jugantar Party. He was arrested and interned at Janjira Char in the ...
to form the alternative
Swaraj
Swarāj ( sa, स्वराज, translit=Svarāja '' sva-'' "self", '' raj'' "rule") can mean generally self-governance or "self-rule". It was first used by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj to attain self rule from the Mughal Empire and the Adil ...
movement and they declared their new programme by celebrating the 8th anniversary of
Bagha Jatin
Bagha Jatin (; ) or Baghajatin, born Jatindranath Mukherjee (); 7 December 1879 – 10 September 1915) was an Indian independence activist.
He was the principal leader of the Jugantar party that was the central association of revolutionary i ...
's self-giving on 9 September 1923, from Bengal to Punjab.
After receiving a message from
Lala Har Dayal
Lala Har Dayal Mathur ( Punjabi: ਲਾਲਾ ਹਰਦਿਆਲ; 14 October 1884 – 4 March 1939) was an Indian nationalist revolutionary and freedom fighter. He was a polymath who turned down a career in the Indian Civil Service. His simp ...
, Pandit
Ram Prasad Bismil
Ram Prasad Bismil ( Hindi: राम प्रसाद "बिस्मिल") (11 June 1897 — 19 December 1927) was an Indian poet, writer, revolutionary and an Indian freedom fighter who participated in the Mainpuri Conspiracy of 1918, a ...
went to
Allahabad
Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrat ...
where he drafted the constitution of
Hindustan Republican Association
Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), previously known as the Hindustan Republican Army and Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), was an Indian revolutionary organisation founded by Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan, Sachindr ...
in the winter season of 1923 with the help of Dr. Jadugopal Mukherjee and
Sachindra Nath Sanyal
Sachindra Nath Sanyal (3 April 1890 — 7 February 1942) was an Indian revolutionary and co-founder of the Hindustan Republican Army (HRA, which after 1928 became the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association) that was created to carry out ...
both of these revolutionaries were from
Bengal
Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
. The basic name and aims of the organisation were typed on a ''Yellow Paper'' in Allahabad.
Alerted by this, the British authorities immediately arrested the radicals; arrested for the first time, Jadu was detained under the State Prisoners' Regulation for four years. Released in 1927, he was externed from Bengal. Settled in Ranchi, he earned an outstanding reputation in TB treatment. He married Amiyarani Chaudhuri in 1934 and had two sons. At this juncture, he succeeded in bringing together the
Jugantar
Jugantar or Yugantar ( bn, যুগান্তর ''Jugantor''; lit. ''New Era'' or ''Transition of an Epoch'') was one of the two main secret revolutionary trends operating in Bengal for Indian independence. This association, like Anushi ...
and the
Anushilan
Anushilan Samiti ( bn, অনুশীলন সমিতি, , bodybuilding society) was an Indian fitness club, which was actually used as an underground society for anti-British revolutionaries. In the first quarter of the 20th century it su ...
radicals, creating the short-lived federated Karmi-Sangha; under the pretext that
Subhas Chandra Bose
Subhas Chandra Bose ( ; 23 January 1897 – 18 August 1945
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*) was an Indian nationalist whose defiance of British authority in India made him a hero among Indians, but his wartime alliances with Nazi Germany and Imperia ...
and the
Jugantar
Jugantar or Yugantar ( bn, যুগান্তর ''Jugantor''; lit. ''New Era'' or ''Transition of an Epoch'') was one of the two main secret revolutionary trends operating in Bengal for Indian independence. This association, like Anushi ...
leaders were indifferent to their efficiency, the members of the
Anushilan
Anushilan Samiti ( bn, অনুশীলন সমিতি, , bodybuilding society) was an Indian fitness club, which was actually used as an underground society for anti-British revolutionaries. In the first quarter of the 20th century it su ...
put an end to this fusion.
Jadu took the initiative, in 1938, and announced that the
Jugantar
Jugantar or Yugantar ( bn, যুগান্তর ''Jugantor''; lit. ''New Era'' or ''Transition of an Epoch'') was one of the two main secret revolutionary trends operating in Bengal for Indian independence. This association, like Anushi ...
stopped existing as a Party distinct from the Congress, extending its full support to Gandhi. Arrested again for helping Gandhi to organise the
Quit India
The Quit India Movement, also known as the August Kranti Movement, was a movement launched at the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee by Mahatma Gandhi on 8th August 1942, during World War II, demanding an end to British rule i ...
movement, in 1942, he was released two years later. He disagreed with the Congress compromise on vital issues such as complete independence and partition of India, and he resigned in 1947. He died in 1976.
[''Sadhak-biplabi jatindranath'' by ]Prithwindra Mukherjee
Prithwindra Mukherjee ( bn, পৃথ্বীন্দ্রনাথ মুখোপাধ্যায়; born 1936), who retired in 2003 from his career as a researcher in the Human and Social Sciences Department (Ethnomusicology) of the Fr ...
, West Bengal State Book Board, Calcutta
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mukherjee, Jadugopal
Anushilan Samiti
Bengali politicians
1886 births
1976 deaths
Hindu–German Conspiracy
Scottish Church College alumni
University of Calcutta alumni
Bengali Hindus
Hindustan Socialist Republican Association
Indian independence activists from West Bengal