Chittagong Summer of 1930

by Manoshi Bhattacharya

  Suresh huddled in the boat shivering, trying to squeeze his shoulders between knees that stuck up straight and knobbly into the air. Ram Krishna-da smiled. ‘Tomorrow we will go for a dip in the sea.’

  SIR CHARLES AND LADY KATHLEEN TEGART

  Sir Charles looked up from the table where he had been jotting notes in his personal diary for the day. He smiled quizzically. Kathleen was still busy scribbling in hers. The vacation was coming to an end. The initial hectic round of socializing had just about come to an end and it would be but a few days before the rounds of farewell parties started off and then they would be India-bound once again. These were their few precious days together.

  ‘Not yet finished.’ Carefully covering the freshly written page with a sheet of blotting paper, she smiled mischievously.

  ‘Well,’ said Sir Charles, ‘let’s see what I have here. Seely! This is my personal favourite. “Britain acquired her Empire in a fit of absence of mind …” Gladstone writing to his wife: “Ireland, Ireland! That cloud in the west, that coming storm, the minister of God’s retribution upon cruel, inveterate and but half-atoned injustice. Ireland forces upon us these great social and religious questions.”’ He smiled as Kathleen laughed aloud. ‘… Peele’s admission: “The creation of a police force has given me more trouble than anything I ever undertook in my life!”’ He snapped the diary shut and came across to lean over the top of her head. ‘Nothing intimate, nothing personal I hope.’

  ‘None whatsoever, Mike,’ said Kathleen. ‘Would I tell the world about the great personal happiness I enjoy?’ Her eyes gleamed with playful delight as she resisted the deep blue of his eyes that willed her to say all. The blotting paper had slipped.

  ‘The bagh!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘All I know is the scraps I have picked up from the newspapers,’ said Kathleen defensively.

  ‘I have no time for fiction,’ groaned Sir Charles as he went to stand by the window. ‘Like those detective stories I picked up at the store … the legal impossibilities; the chancy detection; the inexplicable behaviour of the police … disgusting!’

  ‘Then tell me the story your way.’

  ‘Old history,’ he said meditatively as he lit a cigarette. ‘But so vital to the tale of the Empire.’ Sir Charles inhaled deeply and began. ‘I had been refused permission to serve king and country. David Petrie, who had wound up his investigation on the bomb attack on Lord Hardinge earlier that year, had been injured in gun battle with Sikh revolutionists in September at Budge Budge and had gone home to recuperate. The War was going badly for Britain and she could certainly spare no extra troops to quell rebellions.’

  ‘And everyone dominated by Britain seized the opportunity to strike a blow.’ Kathleen picked up her pen.

  Sir Charles’s face was obscured in a cloud of blue smoke. ‘For some time I had my eye on a certain cloth shop in Calcutta which specialized in Indian-made goods. I had a tip-off that the owners were planning to keep a large arms dump on the premises. Money was comparatively easy to obtain and it was merely a question of planning one or two important dacoities. One plotted in a Bengal district in January 1915 failed but another succeeded and brought in Rs 11,000/-. The next month the gang received wind of a sum of Rs 18,000/- which was being taken to Messrs Bird & Co by three employees in a hired cab. That was grabbed and within the month two taxi-loads of young men of the educated class committed a dacoity in the Calcutta suburbs and raked in another 22,000/- for the fund.

  ‘The party was now anxious to hear what Germany had up her sleeve, for Jitendra Nath Lahiri had returned from Europe bringing offers of help in general terms from the Germans.

  ‘An emissary needed to be despatched to Batavia to discuss concrete proposals and Narendranath Bhattacharya, adopting the nom-deguerre of C. Martin, set off. Bhola Nath Chatterji left for Bangkok to get in touch with the German Consul and Abani Mukherji for Japan. Contact was established with the revolutionaries in America. There were three points on the agenda:

  ‘The Andaman Islands were to be captured, for a number of political prisoners including Barin Ghose, the owner of the Maniktala Bomb Garden, were there serving their time. A German disguised as a merchant was to land, get in touch with the released prisoners and persuade them to destroy the wireless station on a particular night when the German ships were due to arrive. These would carry a fighting crew on board and arms and ammunition picked up from a dump on the Nicobars. The islands were to be taken by storm and convicts, willing to serve under German leadership, would be taken off to join an army training camp near the Burma border. Germans of military age, stationed in Thailand and the Dutch East Indies, would be conscripted; Burma would be occupied and an invading force would then enter Bengal. But, before all this, the Burma Military Police would first have to be corrupted and persuaded to join the army of insurrection. In the meantime the Bengal revolutionaries would have, with the help of German arms, taken possession of the province.

  ‘There was a second scheme for the North-West Frontier, and a third for the disaffected Mutiny Party Sikhs returning from South America to Punjab to raise a revolt there.

  ‘It was all planned with typical German thoroughness and attention to detail. On paper it looked as though it might only be a question of months before India became the property of the Fatherland. But in making their calculations, the Germans showed their national tendency to disregard the human element and to underrate the intelligence of the enemy, which in this case, was the police.

  ‘C. Martin of Chingripota, 24-Parganas, was no prentice hand. His hometown had the distinction of having been the first scene of a political dacoity, and evidence pointed to him having been connected with it. One of his co-villagers was the manager of Harry & Sons, which far from being a respectable English firm was merely a cover name for the rebel group. Martin was introduced, in Batavia, to Theodore Helfferich. Helfferich appeared to have everything organized down to the last button: The ‘Maverick’, carrying 30,000 rifles, ammunition and money was already making its way from California via Java; more money could be remitted to Harry & Sons … the sender would be named C. Martin and the money would be transmitted through a genuine trading firm. Martin suggested the ship be diverted to a little known place called Rai Mangal in the maze of waterways – the Sundarbans. Satisfied, Martin returned.

  ‘The Big Five: that is Martin, Joteen Mookerjee, Jadu Gopal Mukherji, Bhola Nath Chatterji and Atul Ghose decided that the arms, when they arrived, were to be divided into three parts and distributed to eastern Bengal, Balasore and Calcutta; the three main railway lines into Bengal were to be sabotaged; a force would be raised which would first occupy eastern Bengal and then march onto Calcutta; the German officers would remain behind in eastern Bengal and continue to raise and train the army. Calcutta would be attacked and held by a separate party until the main group could come down from eastern Bengal.

  ‘Joteen was to be in charge of the sabotage party, which was to blow up the chief bridge on the Madras Railway; others were detailed to take care of the Bengal Nagpur and the East Indian Railways. Jadu Gopal Mukherji was to take charge of the cargo landing of the ‘Maverick’ and Martin reserved for himself the big plum – Calcutta.

  ‘I had a particular interest in Joteen-the-bagh, or Bagha Joteen as they call him. He was an energetic devil-may-care member who exercised a stiffening effect on any group he came into contact with. He and his gang had been responsible for the big arms theft from Messrs Rodda & Co, and he had personally instigated young B.N. Dutt to murder Deputy Superintendent Shamsul Alam in the high court some five years before. I had had a long talk with the boy before his execution.

  ‘The other members of the group were not desperadoes like Joteen but pretty much of his calibre. Martin had planned to attack all the arsenals in town, collect all arms available and storm Fort William before the civil or military authorities realized the extent of the rebellion.’

  ‘One cannot help but admire the bold concept of this venture,’ murmured Kathleen
as she put down her pen and shook her aching fingers.

  Sir Charles nodded. He came to sit by her side and reached out to take her hand, massaging it gently. ‘Open warfare! Almost refreshing,’ he said. ‘The DCI had become concerned about what was going on in neutral Siam. Petrie was due back in August 1915, after his convalescence. He was moved instead to Bangkok for six months and attached to the British legation. His reports convinced the Government of India that it needed its own overseas intelligence network. Petrie was ordered to set one up and he recruited agents during a tour of Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China, and Japan, and subsequently directed their operations from August 1916 to November 1919, while ostensibly the vice consul in Shanghai. Getting back to the story, we, in India, spent months piecing together disconnected facts, following up clues and carrying out detective work. Preparations in India had begun in right earnest. Harry & Sons sent a cable to Batavia asking for another remittance while Jadu Gopal Mukherji enlisted the help of a landowner near Rai Mangal who was persuaded to provide men and the necessary small craft to unload the ‘Maverick’s’ special cargo. The ship should have arrived by the end of June. The German signal to be given on any ship carrying arms was three horizontal white lights. The conspirators waited to acknowledge it by two horizontal red lights from the shore. A week went by and then another. They waited until July. Could the German genius for organization have side-slipped somewhere? Then a messenger arrived from Thailand: the German Consul in Bangkok was sending five thousand rifles, ammunition and a lakh of rupees to Rai Mangal in an unnamed vessel. What seemed to be good news at first, on reflection gave them little satisfaction. It appeared that the Germans had decided not to send the ‘Maverick’ after all and had arranged with the consul in Bangkok to substitute another vessel and cargo.’

  Sir Charles lit a second cigarette and waited for Kathleen to finish writing. ‘It was a shabby trick that Germany seemed to be playing. From the point of view of the recipients it was not at all an adequate exchange: half the money, one-sixth the amount of arms promised. It would inevitably delay the big day they were all looking forward to. They decided to despatch an urgent message to Helfferich begging him to stand by the original agreement. Of course, they could not send a letter or a telegram. The issue was far too delicate to be worded comprehensively keeping it, at the same time, innocent on the surface. The only way out was to persuade the Bengali messenger to return to Bangkok, calling at Batavia on the way.’ Sir Charles caught the sharp look in Kathleen’s eye and smiled. ‘The message was that while they would rather not accept any substitute for the ‘Maverick’s’ cargo they were only too willing to accept any addition to it. The other vessels would have to land their cargo at Batia in eastern Bengal and Balasore on the shores of the Bay of Bengal.’

  ‘And all this while you were indulging your passion for automobiles driving unescorted in an open car through the city!’ Kathleen pressed both her hands to her heart.

  ‘Well, Tim’s predecessor was always with me, my brave little Straffordshire Bull Terrier. There were a couple of telegrams that I scrutinized … all very innocent, and made enquiries of one or two trusted agents … who may have got wind of the trend. We instructed the bank to freeze the last 10,000/- that may arrive for Harry & Sons and paid the company premises a visit on 7th August. We had also planned a warm welcome for the ‘Maverick’ should she arrive at Rai Mangal, one far warmer than the revolutionaries had in mind.

  ‘The revolutionaries kept their heads, though there must have been some consternation at the turn of events. A warning telegram was sent to the Germans at Java: MARKET LOW POSTPONE TRANSACTION TILL INFORMATION. C. MARTIN. Martin left for Batavia taking with him Phonindra Nath Chakraborty alias W.A. Payne.

  ‘Acting on a clue, enquiries were made at Balasore and it was discovered that a brother of the manager at Harry & Sons had started a shop which bore the modest title of Universal Emporium. Oh! It sold gramophones and gramophone records and took in a little bicycle repairing on the side. But what was of interest to us was that the manager was a friend of the energetic Mr C. Martin in whose company he had made a journey to a remote habitation in the jungles. Some seditious literature was also found which the manager was unable to connect either with commercial activity or a love of music.

  ‘Accordingly, the district magistrate and the police officers in charge thought it desirable to pay the jungle retreat a visit. They made their way to the remote village of Kabtipada and then followed a mile-long track through the jungles to a lonely house. The birds had flown but not without leaving traces of their sojourn: a map of the Sundarbans, a newspaper cutting about the ‘Maverick’ and a few other documents they had been unable to destroy. The trees in the vicinity were scored by bullet marks – the result of firing practice.

  ‘The raiding party now worked out a plan to watch all lines of escape and before long, news was brought that the rebels had taken cover in a patch of jungle surrounded by open fields. They hurried to the spot and encircling the area advanced over open ground in extended order. They were met by Mauser fire but continued to advance while returning fire. Eventually, two Bengalis emerged from the wood and surrendered. It was then discovered that during the fire, Joteen Mookerjee had been killed and two others had been wounded.’1

  ‘But Gopi Nath Saha, who had tried to kill you, said during his trial that it was a bullet from your gun that had killed Joteen!’

  Sir Charles pretended not to have heard and continued. ‘The discovery that the police knew so much shook up the group. The Germans developed cold feet and backed off, and as a result Martin received a severe snub when he reached Batavia. As regards the ‘Maverick’, she waited in vain at an island off Mexico for a rendezvous with the schooner ‘Annie Larsen’ and her cargo of arms. The schooner failed to make an appearance and instead on the horizon appeared two British warships, the ‘Kent’ and the ‘Rainbow’. Search parties boarded the ‘Maverick’ but found nothing on her, for the five passengers, Sikhs of the Mutiny Party, had hurriedly burnt the contents of their four suitcases and four sacks. Meanwhile the ‘Maverick’s’ crew bored by their inactivity, had turned garrulous and a secret destination was revealed in one of the war telegram slips. Germany was furious and recalled the ship. Another ship the ‘Henry S.’ which had been loaded with arms, destined for Bangkok, was caught by the Customs before leaving Manila and forced to disgorge her cargo. Martin still managed to work his way around Helfferich and the German consul to consider some plan, any plan. First, they were adamant in their refusal, but later agreed that the German consul at Shanghai would arrange for two shipments. Payne was instructed to make his way to Shanghai and finalize the details. He reached after a hazardous journey but Petrie was waiting. And Payne was promptly arrested. The same fate befell the Chinese messenger carrying money to Bengal. The grand German plan had fallen through. Martin decided against returning to Calcutta and left to join the Mutiny Party in America. He reached San Francisco, after a long circuitous journey, in the summer of 1916, where he was arrested on a charge that proved to be false. On his release he escaped to Mexico and, subsequently, made his way to Russia after the Revolution and became leader of the Communist International under the name he had assumed in the USA – M.N. Roy.’

  The story had all the makings of a great spy thriller. Kathleen closed her diary but remained lost in thought. The grand German plan had been unravelled chiefly by David and it had taken a toll on his health. It had brought him the OBE in1918; the CBE in 1919 and with it an offer to become the new director of Central Intelligence. But he had turned it down on grounds of exhaustion and had gone home and got married. When Cecil Kaye retired in 1924, David eventually consented to becoming director2 and changed the name of the department to the Intelligence Bureau. David Petrie and M.N. Roy continued with their cat-and-mouse games, the latter never giving up his attempts at establishing communist cells in India and the former constantly monitoring and thwarting his every effort.


  Many questions had been left unanswered but Kathleen refrained from pushing her husband. Had he really rushed to Joteen’s side3 as he lay dying, acknowledging a brave man that fought from the trenches; did he really once say that had the man been born in England his statue would surely have stood in Trafalgar Square by Nelson’s side? He would only laugh away her queries. But the one thing she could be sure about was that he viewed the moves of his opponents with disinterested appreciation but appreciation nevertheless.4

  ANANTA LAL SINGH

  The fund collection drive was on. Rajat Sen had been summoned. He was from a middle-class family but the rules were strict. ‘No less than Rs 100/- and no more than Rs 200/-. You have two days’ time but getting caught is not an option.’

  Rajat came back dejected after two days. There was no way he could break into the family strong box.

  Ananta sat him down. ‘If I say let’s go loot the Imperial Bank, you will be ready, won’t you?’ The boy nodded. ‘This is the same thing. Remember Napoleon’s words: Necessity knows no law. When I had to first do it I had drawn my dada and didi into my plans. Didi had opened the family strong box, for which she was responsible. “Tell Baba,” I had said to her, “I am helping myself to my share of inheritance and no more.”’

  Within six hours Rajat brought his first instalment. He soon returned with more. His mother had handed over all the jewellery she had inherited from his Thakur-ma. His little sisters had come forward with their necklaces, earrings and bangles.

  Lokenath came in that day to hand over a gold chain. ‘Baba!’ he said. ‘That little sister of mine can scream … Maaa Shona Bhai niye gelo!’ He mimicked in a high-pitched nasal tone. Another chain that came in that day was brought by Ananda. He had picked it up from the bathroom where his sister had left it. Ananta called for Debu.

  ‘Now that he has brought it,’ said Debu, ‘keep it.’