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 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 ...

for Indian independence. This association, like

Anushilan Samiti 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 ...

, started in the guise of suburban fitness club. Several Jugantar members were arrested, hanged, or deported for life to the

Cellular Jail The Cellular Jail, also known as Kālā Pānī (), was a British colonial prison in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The prison was used by the colonial government of India for the purpose of exiling criminals and political prisoners. Many ...

in Andaman and many of them joined the

Communist Consolidation Communist Consolidation (19351938) was an Indian revolutionary and communist organization, founded by Hare Krishna Konar among with other prisoners of the Cellular Jail with the ideology of Marx and Lenin's theory Marxism–Leninism. It was t ...

in the

Notable members

* Abinash Chandra Bhattacharya (1882-1962) *

Basanta Kumar Biswas Basanta Kumar Biswas (6 February 1895 – 11 May 1915) was an Indian pro-independence activist involved in the Jugantar group who, in December 1912, played a role in the bombing of the Viceroy's parade in what came to be known as the Delhi-La ...

(1895-1915) * Khudiram Bose * Satyendranath Bosu (1882-1908) *

Prafulla Chaki Prafulla Chandra Chaki ( bn, প্রফুল্ল চাকী, ''Prafulla Chaki'' alias Dinesh Chandra Roy) (10 December 1888 – 1 May 1908) was an Indian revolutionary associated with the Jugantar group of revolutionaries who carried ...

* Ambika Chakrobarty (1891-1962) * Amarendra Chatterjee (1880-1957) * Taraknath Das (1884-1958) *

Tarakeswar Dastidar Tarakeswar Dastidar (1909 – 12 January 1934) was an Indian independence activist. He participated in the Chittagong armoury raid, along with Surya Sen and others on 18 April 1930. Revolutionary activities Dastidar was born in a Vaidya fami ...

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 t ...

(1894-1979) * Kanailal Dutta (1888-1908) * Ullaskar Dutta *

Bipin Behari Ganguli Bipin Behari Ganguly (5 November 1887 – 14 January 1954) was a member of Indian independence movement and a politician. He was born in Halisahar, Bengal Presidency (now in West Bengal), on 5 November 1887. His father's name was Akshaynat ...

(1887-1954) * Santi Ghose (1916-1989) * Surendra Mohan Ghose alias Madhu Ghosh (1893-1976) * Barin Ghosh * Ganesh Ghosh (b. 1900 ) * Arun Chandra Guha (b. 1892) *

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 ...

alias Jatindra Nath Mukherjee (1879-1915) * Hare Krishna Konar (1915–1974) * Bhavabhushan Mitra * Santosh Kumar Mitra (1901-1931) * Satyendra Chandra Mitra (1888-1942) * Mohit Moitra * Jadugopal Mukherjee (1866-1976) * Subodh Chandra Mullick *

Surya Sen Surya Sen, also called Surya Kumar Sen (22 March 189412 January 1934), was an Indian revolutionary who was influential in the Indian independence movement against British rule in India and is best known for leading the 1930 Chittagong armour ...

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 at ...

(1911-1932)

The beginning

The jugantar party was established in April 1906 by leaders like

Aurobindo Ghosh Sri Aurobindo (born Aurobindo Ghose; 15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950) was an Indian philosopher, yogi, maharishi, poet, and Indian nationalist. He was also a journalist, editing newspapers such as ''Vande Mataram''. He joined the ...

, his brother Barin Ghosh,

Bhupendranath Datta Bhupendranath Datta (4 September 1880 – 25 December 1961) was an Indian revolutionary and later a noted sociologist and anthropologist. He associated Rishi Aurobindo in his political works. In his youth, he was closely associated with the J ...

, Raja Subodh Mallik. Barin Ghosh and

were the main leaders. Along with 21 revolutionaries, they started to collect arms, explosives and manufactured bombs. The headquarters of Jugantar were located at 27 Kanai Dhar Lane then 41 Champatola 1st Lane in

Kolkata 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 ...

Activities

Jugantar Possessed Cast Iron Bomb Shells - 1930 CE - Kolkata 2017-02-05 5145

Some senior members of the group were sent abroad for political and military training. One of the first batches included

Surendra Mohan Bose Surendra is an Indian masculine given name. Notable people with this name include: * Surendra (actor/singer) * Surendra Bhave * Surendra Chaturvedi * Surendra Dubey * Surendra Gambhir * Surendra Hiranandani * Surendra Jain * Surendra Jha 'Suman' * ...

, Tarak Nath Das and Guran Ditt Kumar, who, since 1907, were extremely active among the Hindu and Sikh immigrants on the Western coast of North America. These units were to compose the future

Ghadar Party The Ghadar Movement was an early 20th century, international political movement founded by expatriate Indians to overthrow British rule in India. The early movement was created by conspirators who lived and worked on the West Coast of the United ...

. In Paris Hemchandra Kanungo alias

Hem Das Hemchandra Das Kanungo (4 August 1871 – 8 April 1951) was an Indian nationalist and a member of the Anushilan Samiti. Kanungo travelled to Paris in 1907, where he learnt the technique of assembling picric acid bombs from exiled Russian revol ...

, along with Pandurang M. Bapat, obtained training in explosives from the Russian anarchist Nicholas Safranski. (Source: Ker, p397.) After returning to Kolkata, he joined the combined school of 'self-culture' (''anushilan'') and bomb factory run by Barin Ghosh at a garden house in

Maniktala Maniktala is a residential area of North Kolkata, in Kolkata district, West Bengal, India. Etymology The tomb of Manik Pir is located in lane near Maniktala crossing. Some people say, the neighbourhood is named after Manik Pir. Others say, ...

, a suburb of Calcutta. However, the attempted murder of Kingsford, the-then district Judge of

Muzaffarpur Muzaffarpur () is a city located in Muzaffarpur district in the Tirhut region of the Indian state of Bihar. It serves as the headquarters of the Tirhut division, the Muzaffarpur district and the Muzaffarpur Railway District. It is the fourth ...

by Khudiram Bose and

(30 April 1908) initiated a police investigation that led to the arrest of many of the revolutionaries. The prisoners were tried in the famous Alipore bomb conspiracy case in which several activists were deported for life to the

in Andaman. In 1908, as a next step, Jugantar chose to censure persons connected with the arrest and trial of revolutionaries involved in the Alipore Bomb Case. On 10 February 1909, Ashutosh Biswas, who conducted the prosecution of Kanai and Satyen for the murder of Naren Gosain (a revolutionary turned approver), was shot dead by Charu Basu in the Calcutta High Court premises. Samsul Alam, Deputy Superintendent of Police, who conducted the Alipore Case was shot and killed by Biren Dutta Gupta on the stairs of Calcutta High Court building on 24 January 1910. Charu Basu and Biren Dutta Gupta were later hanged. Several including Jatindra Nath Mukherjee were arrested in connection with the murder of Police inspector Samsul Alam on 24 January 1910 in

Calcutta 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, comm ...

and other charges. Thus started the Howrah-Sibpur Conspiracy case that tried the prisoners for treason, waging war against the Crown and tampering with the loyalty of Indian soldiers, such as those belonging to the

Jat Regiment The Jat Regiment is an infantry regiment of the Indian Army, of which it is one of the longest-serving regiments.Fort William, and soldiers in Upper Indian Cantonments.

The German plot

''Nixon's Report'' corroborates that Jugantar under Jatindra Nath Mukherjee counted a good deal on the ensuing

World War A world war is an international conflict which involves all or most of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century, World War I, Worl ...

to organise an armed uprising with the Indian soldiers in various regiments. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

the Jugantar Party arranged importation of German arms and ammunitions (notably the 32 bore German automatic pistols) via Virendranath Chattopadhyay alias Chatto and other revolutionaries residing in Germany. They had contacted Indian revolutionaries active in the United States, as well as Jugantar leaders in Kolkata. Jatindra Nath Mukherjee informed

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 ...

to take charge of Upper India, aiming at an All-Indian Insurrection with the collaboration of native soldiers in different cantonments. History refers to it as the Hindu German Conspiracy. To raise fund, the Jugantar party organized a series of dacoities which came to be known as ''Taxicab dacoities'' and ''Boat dacoities'', in order to procure funds to prepare the ground for working out the ''Indo-German Conspiracy''. The first of the Taxicab dacoities took place at

Garden Reach Garden Reach is a neighbourhood of the city of Kolkata in West Bengal, India. It is situated in the south-western part of Kolkata near the bank of the Hooghly River.

on 12 February 1915, by a group of armed revolutionaries under the leadership of Narendra Bhattacharya under the direct supervision of Jatindranath Mukherjee. Similar dacoities were organized on different occasions and in various parts of Calcutta. Dacoities were accompanied by political murders in which the victims were mostly zealous police officers investigating into the cases, or approvers who helped the police.

Failure of the German plot

On receiving instructions from Berlin, Jatindra Nath Mukherjee selected Naren Bhattacharya (alias

M. N. Roy 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 w ...

) and Phani Chakravarti (alias Pyne) to meet the German legation at Batavia. The Berlin committee had decided that the German arms were to be delivered at two or three places like Hatia on

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 ...

coast, Raimangal in the

Sunderbans Sundarbans (pronounced ) is a mangrove area in the delta formed by the confluence of the Padma, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal. It spans the area from the Baleswar River in Bangladesh's division of Khulna to the Hooghly Ri ...

and

Balasore Balasore or Baleswara is a city in the state of Odisha, about north of the state capital Bhubaneswar and from Kolkata, in eastern India. It is the largest town of northern Odisha and the administrative headquarters of Balasore district. It ...

Orissa Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of S ...

. The plan was to organize a guerrilla force to start an uprising in the country, backed by a mutiny among the Indian Armed Force. The whole plot leaked out locally owing to a native traitor and, internationally, through Czech revolutionaries in the United States. As soon as the information reached the British authorities, they alerted the police, particularly in the delta region of the

Ganges The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...

, and sealed all the sea approaches on the eastern coast from

Noakhali Noakhali ( bn, নোয়াখালী, , New canal), historically known as Bhulua ( bn, ভুলুয়া), is a district in southeastern Bangladesh, located in the Chittagong Division. It was established as district in 1821, and officia ...

side to Orissa. Sramajibi Samabaya and Harry & Sons of Calcutta, the two business concerns run respectively by Amarendra Chatterjee and

Harikumar Chakrabarti Harikumar may refer to: *Harikumar (actor), actor in Tamil movies * Hari Kumar (director), Indian film script writer and director in Malayalam movies *E. Harikumar, Malayalam novelist and short story writer *N. Harikumar, sound editor and recordis ...

which were taking an active part in the Indo-German Conspiracy were searched. The police learned that Bagha Jatin was in Balasore awaiting a German arms delivery. Police went on to find out the hiding places of Bagha Jatin and associates and after a gun-fight, the revolutionaries were either killed or arrested. The German plot thus failed.

Unification and failure

Following these major setbacks, and in the new circumstances of the colonial powers practising their divide and rule policy, there was an attempt to unify the revolutionary factions in Bengal. Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar were brought close by the joint leadership of

Narendra Mohan Sen Narendra Mohan Sen (1887–1963) was an Indian freedom fighter and revolutionary involved with Anushilan Samiti. Short biography Narendra joined the revolutionary outfit that was known as Anushilan Samiti. He played a major role in unifying J ...

of Anushilan, represented by Rabindra Mohan Sen and Jadugopal Mukherjee of Jugantar, represented by

. However, this merger failed to revive the revolutionary activities up to the expected level.

References

{{West Bengal Hindu–German Conspiracy Revolutionary movement for Indian independence Bengal Presidency Organisations of Indian independence movement