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Muraripukur - II
Now. I come to the last phase of our life at Manicktolla Gardens, that is when we turned towards terroristic activities like the manufacture of bombs, collecting pistols and rifles and making good use of them. The first chapter had already begun with the Yugantar newspaper. As
we took up these revolutionary activities, we discovered that it was not easy
to carryon this kind of secret work unless there was common in the country as a
whole a keen desire I and hope for freedom. What was needed was a favourable atmosphere
from which the revolutionaries could get the desired sympathy and support. One
could not expect anything but opposition from a people cowed down by fear,
shut up within its narrow selfishnesses and wholly preoccupied with its dull
routine. That is why Sri Aurobindo started his daily newspaper, Bandemataram,
which was the first to declare in clear language that what we wanted was
the freedom of Even so, Bandemataram had to keep within the letter of the law; its advocacy of freedom had to follow as far as possible the lines of peace, its path had to be that of Passive Resistance. Page – 356 But Yugantar shed off all the masks. It was the first to declare openly for an armed revolt and
spoke in terms of regular warfare. It
wrote out its message in words of fire and spread it to the four
corners of the land. Balthazar, the king of A word about Manoranjan Guhathakurta will not be out Page – 357 of place here. In that epoch Aswinikumar Dutt and Manoranjan Guhathakurta of Barisal were two of the mighty pillars of nationalism. But whatever their achievements as political leaders and selfless patriots, as writers and orators, it was their greatness of character that mattered more. By a great character I mean one in whom there has awakened in a certain measure and manifested to some extent the inner being and the indwelling spirit; this is what Vivekananda used to call the awakening of the Brahman in the individual. I had come to know Sri Manoranjan Guhathakurta personally and I had been to his house in Giridih and stayed with him more than once. Giridih being not very far from Deoghar, he was aware that we dabbled in the bomb. He was not only aware of it, he also gave us all his help and sympathy. It had even been suggested that a factory for the making of bombs might be tried somewhere around the mica pits he owned in that region. His eldest son Satyendra had been a schoolmate and friend of Barin and the two were practically co-workers. This family had helped Barin a good deal by their offers of money and advice. But what I had in mind was not these external things but an inner life. Manoranjan Guhathakurta had an inner life, a life of sadhana. His wife in particular was known for her sadhana. In his eyes the service of the country was an occasion and a means for the service of God. But his saintliness or sadhana did not stand in the way of his strength of character. In him there was a fine blend of strength and sweetness. Manoranjan's
son Chittaranjan became for a time a centre of great excitement and violent
agitation in those days. There was a session of the Bengal Provincial
Conference at Page – 358 "Bande Mataram". This raised a furious storm of protest throughout the country, which gave an opening to the terrorists too. This
shining example of non-violent resistance occurred long before the Gandhian
era. To us who were in favour of armed resistance this kind of forbearance
seemed intolerable. When, after this incident, the journalists and the poets
began to sing in chorus, of " I
have said that Sri Aurobindo came to occupy with Mrinalini a portion of the
house in Now let me come to the story of this final rounding up. For some time past almost all of us had been noticing one thing. Whenever we went out on whatever business, for shopping or to visit people, somebody seemed to be following us, from a little distance no doubt but it was clear enough that we were being watched. When we stopped, he too would stop; if we tarried a little, he too kept himself occupied on some pretext or other. We talked about this among ourselves and made the great discovery that this must be what they called spying, and that we must henceforth take extra precautions. So far, we had never had this kind of trouble. Ours had been a secret society only in name, for the whole thing was out in the open. Anybody could enter the Gardens from anywhere at any time and move about the place, for it was all open compound without any fencing or walls. That is why on the morning of our arrest, a couple of boys from the neighbourhood also found themselves under Page – 359 arrest along with us. In piteous tones they implored the policemen, "We are innocent, sirs; we came here only for a morning stroll." The poor innocents! The evening before our arrest, it was already getting dark and we were thinking of retiring for the night, when some voices came to our ears in a rather peculiar way, and lanterns were seen moving about in the dark. "Who are you? What do you do here?" the voices said. We did our best to give evasive replies. "Very well, then, we come again tomorrow morning and will know more about it." With these words, the strangers seemed to make their exit. Were these warning voices? In spite of our dull wits, we could understand at least this much that things were now getting rather serious and that we must take our precautions. The first thing we decided upon was that we should leave the place before daybreak and disperse. Upen told us later that he had wanted us to disperse immediately and make no further delay. But that was obviously not to be, for it was destined that we should pass through the experience of jail. Nevertheless, we did start doing something at once; that was to remove all traces, by burning or hiding away or whatever other means, of anyhting that might raise a suspicion against us. The very first thing that came to our heads was this. There were two or three rifles in the house where Sri Aurobindo lived. They were in the custody of. Abinash (Abinash Bhattacharya) who lived with him and looked after Sri Aurobindo's affairs. Those rifles must be removed at once, they could on no account be left there. Had the police found them on Sri Aurobindo's premises, it might have been more difficult to secure his release. The rifles were brought back, they were packed in two boxes bound with iron hoops, together with the few revolvers we had and all the materials for the making of bombs, and hidden away underground. Next, getting hold of all our papers that might contain names and addresses and plans, we set fire to them. This went on far into the night. We could not Page – 360 We went to bed after doing away with all we could, in the hope that we might run away by daybreak. But the running away did not materialise. In the early hours of the morning, – it was not yet light, – we were awakened by an eerie sort of noise. We sat up in bed. But what was all this going on? Shadowy forms were moving about the place, there was a clatter and a creaking of boots. Suddenly out of the dark silence, a conversation arose: "You are under arrest. Your name?" "Barindra Kumar Ghose." "Arabinda Ghose?" "No, Barindra Kumar Ghose." "Well, we'll see." The next thing I knew was a hand clapping on my shoulders. "Come," said a voice. Several people have expressed great surprise at this facile surrender on our part, as though we were goody-goody boys innocent as lambs. Why, it has been asked, did we not give them fight and take a few lives before we surrendered? But our aims were of another kind, our path, our very policy was of another character. Our goal was not to die a martyr's death. We wanted to be soldiers. The martyr is happy if he can give up his life. But the duty of the soldier is not to give his life but to take the lives of others. The soldier seeks the maximum protection for himself, he goes under cover, and he seeks to kill as many of the enemy as he can. He does not think it enough that he should only sacrifice himself. No doubt there comes a time when it is no longer possible Page – 361 to find a shelter or go under cover, it may not even be desirable. Then one throws off one's masks, one comes out in the open and acts in the way so vividly described in these lines of Rabindranath:
There began a scramble As to who should be the first to give up his life; That was the only hurry.
Or else, the way the Light
Brigade of England acted at
Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell, Rode the six hundred.
The Japanese soldiers too in one of their encounters with the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War did not wait to build a bridge over the ramparts of a ditch; they made a solid bridge with the pile of their dead as they jumped in one after the other and let the army march over their bodies. To save oneself does not mean that one should, like Nandalal of the comic skit, take a vow to "keep oneself alive at any cost, for the good of the country and all", or live by the bourgeois doctrine that one should always save oneself anyhow, even by the sacrifice of one's wife, atmanam satatam rakset darairapi dhanairapi. That is why we used to tease Paresh Mallick and called him a descendant of Nandalal. Have I told you the story? He was once deputed to present Kingsford, the Presidency Magistrate, with a live bomb packed in the form of a book; the bomb was to explode as soon as the book was opened. Paresh went in the garb of an Englishman's bearer. We looked out every day for an account in the papers of some serious accident to Kingsford. But nothing happened. He seemed to be attending court regularly and was apparently Page – 362 quite safe and sound. So we had to ask Paresh at last if he had in fact reached the bomb to its destination or whether he had thrown it away somewhere to save his own skin. However, the bomb was found later among a pile of books belonging to the Magistrate. It had been lying there safely and caused no harm. The people were demanding vengeance upon Kingsford because he had sentenced a young student, Sushil, to flogging, simply because the boy was involved in a tussle with the police. That was an occasion for us terrorists. Sushil later on joined the revolutionary group at Manicktolla. The police had on more than one occasion suggested to Sri Aurobindo, in order that he might feel flattered or perhaps even get excited and be moved to act according to their wishes, that a strong and truthful and straightforward man like him could certainly not adopt a false pose or act in secret; that he had the courage to do openly whatever he considered to be his duty or the right thing to do; that he would never care to run away and hide himself; and that whatever he did he would frankly acknowledge and say without hesitation, "Yes, it is I who have done it." But Sri Aurobindo was not to be trapped like that: He held that far more important than any question of personal honour or indignities, or a parading of one's capacity or virtue, was the work to be done and its success. He would cite the example of Sri Krishna in the Mahabharata story; Sri Krishna had no intention of being caught by Jarasandha and he fled to Dwarka in order to make ready for the adversary. That is why Sri Aurobindo did not consider a retreat to be a bad thing always. "We live to fight another day": this should be the motto of the soldier. That is why he left standing instructions with Barin and his group that they were not to admit anything immediately they were caught by the police. They should keep their mouths shut and make whatever statements were necessary only when the time came at a later stage. It is however true that Barin and some of the senior members of the group did Page – 363 make a full confession soon after their arrest. But they did that purposely, with a view to save the party by the sacrifice of some of its members. They had hoped that by taking on themselves all the responsibility, the others might be proved to have been innocent, so that instead of all of us dying together, some might still live on to carry the work forward. Nevertheless,
we were all arrested in a body. The police made us stand in a line under the
strict watch of an armed guard. They kept us standing the whole day with hardly
anything to eat. Only towards the evening, some of them were kind enough to get
us some fried stuff from the market. Our throats were so dry by the time that
we would have gladly taken a sip out of that famous pond of ours. In the evening, the order came,
"Follow us." But follow where? I somehow had the feeling that here
was the end - "Remember, 0 soul, the day of the
Great Departure." I could not conceive at the moment that a case would
have to be framed against us, that there must take place a trial and there
might be a counsel to defend us. I thought on the contrary that they would take
us straight to Page – 364 |
