Chittagong Summer of 1930
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Stevenson (captain): The military intelligence officer (MIO) posted to Chittagong: responsible for Payaj Kanti Choudhury’s death; assumed full control of jail on the day of Surjya Sen and Tarakeshwar Dastidar’s hanging.
Stork H.C. (judge): Was judge in Chittagong in 1923–24; tried the Suluk Bahar Arms Collection Case; with N.K. Bose and L.B. Das as part of the tribunal pronounced Dinesh Majumdar guilty; was president of the tribunal that tried Dr Narain Roy and, with his colleagues Ashutosh Ghose and Adiluzzaman Khan, found him and one Dr B.C. Bose to be the most culpable.
Suhrawardy Hassan (lieutenant colonel): Knighted for saving the life of Sir Stanley Jackson during the Calcutta University convocation of 1931.
Taitt (captain): the adjutant of the auxiliary force of the Assam Bengal Railways during the armoury raids.
Taylor: Police officer.
Tegart Charles Augustus (b. 5 October 1881, d. 6 April 1946): Started service as an assistant superintendent of police of Patna city; moved to Calcutta in 1906, as acting deputy commissioner; was posted in 1913 as deputy commissioner to the political branch of the Bengal CID which by then had been renamed the Intelligence Branch; granted a commission in the Army Service Corps in 1917 to serve in the War but was recalled to India to give evidence before the Rowlatt Committee; received the CIE later that year and joined Royal Flying Corps in France; remained behind with the army of occupation for nearly a year before being seconded for special intelligence duties in Britain; served as police commissioner of Bengal from 1923 to 15 December 1931; served on the council of the Secretary of State for India till 1937; was made a KCIE during the coronation honours in May 1937; refused the appointment as inspector general of police in Palestine and agreed to work in a freelance capacity with Sir David Petrie; reorganized the CID, created the Rural Mounted Police force, the barbed-wire entanglement in the form of a fence running the length of the frontier road with an electrified detector wire throughout and concrete pillboxes placed at strategic points along the fence – the Tegart Wall and the Tegart Forts; returned to Britain and personally appealed to the Irish to support Britain in WW II; accepted a job in the ministry of supply and worked along with Sir John Nixon during the War; took charge of the ministry of food’s anti-black-market campaign during the War and found himself disgusted at the low standards of honesty generally prevailing in the country; created an intelligence bureau and selected his own personal staff which included Lionel Colson and targeted the big conspiracies that were robbing the nation of food; went on sick leave some weeks after VE Day, suffered the first of a series of heart attacks which eventually proved fatal, still looked forward to complete recovery and resigned two months before his death only because the bureau could not be left without a head.
Tegart Edward: Sir Charles’ Augustus Tegart’s brother.
Tegart Kathleen Francis: Wife of Police Commissioner Sir Charles Augustus Tegart.
Tegart Robert: Sir Charles’ Augustus Tegart’s brother.
Thapa Birman: District Magistrate Wilkinson’s driver.
Thomas: A civilian who helped douse the fire at the AFI.
Todd R.D. (sergeant of the Calcutta Mounted Police): Gave evidence on the Chandannagar case in court.
Tyers: A civilian who helped douse the fire at the AFI.
Victor Sassoon: Gifted a gypsy moth to the Bengal Flying Club.
Villiers Edward: President, European Association, India; shot at by Bimal Dasgupta.
Wasid Abdul Mohammad Fazal (Inspector): Police inspector who caught Ananta Lal Singh, Ganesh Ghosh, Jibon Ghoshal and Ananda Prasad Gupta at Feni railway station.
Waterworth: Police officer who went to Chandannagar with Tegart.
Waumsley T.H.: Captain of the 2/9 Gurkhas; captured Surjya Sen.
Weale: Police officer who went to Chandannagar with Tegart.
Wedgewood Benn: Secretary of State for India.
Weldon (Dr): Civil surgeon of Chittagong.
West: A civilian who helped douse the fire at the AFI.
White: Head of the PWD.
Wighton: A civilian in Chittagong.
Wigram Kenneth: Chief of general staff of the British Indian Army.
Wilkinson H.R.: Collector and district magistrate of Chittagong during the CAR.
Williams A.deC.: District and sessions judge of Chittagong who succeeded John Younie; tried Ambika Chakraborty.
Williamson H.: Intelligence Bureau chief in 1933.
Willingdon Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of Willingdon: Viceroy of India, 18 April 1931–18 April 1936; Lord Irwin’s successor to the post of viceroy of India.
Woods (major): Helped Colonel Buckland maintain order in Chittagong after the CAR.
Wright (police superintendent): Who relieved Johnson; committed suicide soon thereafter.
Wright: The European warder who helped smuggle explosives and material into jail for the Dynamite Conspiracy.
Yates (captain of Assam Rifles): Was a part of the attack on Chittagong as part of revenge for Ahsanulla’s murder.
Younie Dorothy: Wife of John Younie and a doctor by profession.
Younie Elspet Margaret: Daughter of John and Dorothy Younie.
Younie Helen: Daughter of John and Dorothy Younie.
Younie John (5 April 1893–9 Sept 42): District and sessions judge of Chittagong and the president of the tribunal trying the CAR Case; posted to Darjeeling where he tried the Lebong Case; posted as district and sessions judge of Jessore, Sylhet and Assam; decided to retire from India and settle in Scotland in 1937 but found it difficult to find employment and agreed to return to India to complete the remaining two years of his Indian service; was posted as additional district and sessions judge of 24 Parganas, Alipore, Calcutta in 1939; district and sessions judge, Komilla and Dhaka in 1941; became secretary, judicial department and remembrancer of legal affairs, Kolkata, in 1942; died in Kolkata of dengue fever after a full day at work.
Younie Mary: Daughter of John and Dorothy Younie.
Photographic Inserts
TIMELINE
9 September 1915: Battle of Balasore. Joteen Mookerjee is martyred.
1919: Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar.
1921: Gandhi’s Non-cooperation Movement
1919–1924: Khilafat Movement – a pan-Islamic movement is launched by the Ottomans. Gandhi supports the movement in India.
1923: Charles Tegart accepts the post of police commissioner of Bengal.
1923: Paraikora dacoity takes place.
December 1923: AB Railway dacoity followed by the Nagarkhana Hill battle. Surjya Sen and Ambika Chakraborty are arrested from the site and charged with the Suluk Bahar House Collection of Arms Case and the Nagarkhana Hill Battle Case. Ananta Lal Singh escapes. He is charged with the AB Railway Dacoity Case.
12 January 1924: Gopi Nath Saha shoots Earnest Day in Calcutta mistaking him for Tegart.
Early 1924: Ananta Lal Singh is arrested by sub-inspector Prafulla Roy.
24 May 1924: Chattogram sub-inspector Prafulla Roy is murdered by Premananda.
1924: Surjya Sen, Ambika Chakraborty and Ananta Lal Singh are acquitted.
1 October 1924: The Secret Ordinance comes into affect. Ananta Lal Singh, Ganesh Ghosh and Ambika Chakraborty are amongst those (Subhas Bose in Kolkata is also amongst the lot) that are picked up from home and thrown into jail. Nirmal Sen is arrested in July 1925.
25 June 1925: Gandhi and Tegart hold a private meeting.
1926: Tegart receives knighthood.
8 October 1926: Surjya Sen is arrested and moved around between jails on the west coast of India.
1928: Surjya Sen, Ambika Charan Chakraborty, Nirmal Sen, Ananta Lal Singh, Ganesh Ghosh and Charu Bikash Dutt are released from jail.
30 October 1928: Protest march against the Simon Commission in Lahore.
17 November 1928: Lala Lajpat Rai dies after being beaten up by Superintendent of Police J.A. Scott during the protest march of 30 October 1928.
17 December 1928: Murder of Deputy Superin
tendent of Police J.P. Saunders.
29 December 1928: The 44th session of the Indian National Congress is held.
2 February 1929: Sir Stanley Jackson inaugurates the Bengal Flying Club.
February 1929: A Congress committee is formed in Chattogram with Mohim Chandra Das as president and Surjya Sen as secretary. A Youth Congress is formed with Ganesh Ghosh as secretary; a Students’ Union with Lokenath Bal as secretary. Ananta Lal Singh is appointed instructor to various gymnasiums.
8 April 1929: Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt throw harmless bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly.
April 1929: Tegarts and Jacksons holiday in Darjeeling. Tegarts go to Britain for a long holiday soon after.
11–13 May 1929: Congress Assembly, Youth Assembly and Student Women’s Assembly are held. The Chattogram Volunteer Vahini puts up a show. Subhas Chandra Bose meets Ananta Lal Singh, Ganesh Ghosh and Tripura Sen secretly. On the last day there is a fight and a police complaint is filed against Ananta Lal Singh, Lokenath Bal, Naresh Ray and Tripura Sen under Section 147 of the IPC. It is scheduled to be heard on 23 October 1929.
12 June 1929: Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt are sentenced to transportation for life for throwing bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly. The breaking news is that Bhagat Singh is being implicated in the murder of Superintendent of Police J.P. Saunders and a new trial is about to begin. Jatin Das is arrested in the next couple of days.
13 September 1929: Jatin Das dies.
21 September 1929: Elections are held in Chittagong. Sukhendu is stabbed by goons on the day the results are declared. Surjya Sen and his boys leave for Kolkata to prepare for the BPCC elections.
23 October 1929: Ananta Lal Singh returns from Kolkata to attend the hearing in Chittagong. He is sentenced to four months in jail and has six months time to present himself at the jail. He returns to Kolkata and appeals to the Calcutta High Court.
November: BPCC elections are held in Kolkata. Subhas Bose wins by a narrow margin defeating J.M. Sengupta as Congress chief. Motilal Nehru orders a detailed inquiry. BPCC elections have to be held again and completed before the AICC meeting on 21 March 1930.
15 October 1929: Pledge taken – DO AND DIE.
December 1929: Tegarts are back in India.
22 February 1930: A fight with Karunamoy Dutt of Municipal School takes place. The police name Tegra, Tripura and Bidhu Bhattacharya as conspirators. Ananta Lal Singh and Ganesh Ghosh force the boys to turn themselves in.
7 March 1930: Ananta Lal Singh reports to jail. His appeal to the Calcutta High Court comes through and he is released on 14 March 1930.
12 March 1930: Gandhi begins his Satyagraha Movement.
14 March 1930: Ram Krishna Biswas suffers extensive burns and goes into hiding. On 25 March 1930 he is sent off to a hideout in the interiors. On 26 March a case is registered on his name under the Explosive Substances Act but he is not to be found.
24–26 March 1930: Colson spends this time in Chittagong reorganizing the Detective Branch schedule. From 2 April 1930, Johnson is scheduled to institute the revised system.
8 April 1930: A police patrol appears to be hunting for Tarakeshwar Dastidar (Phutu) and Ardhendu Dastidar who have suffered burn injuries one or two days before.
11 April 1930: The date of action, i.e., 18 April 1930 is finalized.
18 April 1930: The Younies embark for Chittagong.
18 April 1930: The Chittagong Armoury Raid takes place.
19 April 1930: Alexander Burnett arrives in Chittagong as a member of the SVLH.
22 April 1930: John Younie arrives at Chittagong Circuit House having left the family at Barisal.
22 April 1930: The Battle of Jalalabad takes place.
22 April 1930: The Feni incident takes place.
24 April 1930: Amarendra Nandi is shot dead at Chittagong.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Chittagong: Summer of 1930 owes a great debt to Ananta Lal Singh, Ananda Prasad Gupta, Suresh De, Pritilata Waddadar, Kalpana Dutt and Charu Bikash Dutt who left behind graphic first-hand impressions of the times; to Ananda Prasad Gupta’s niece Manju Mohanty who first told me the story the day Ananda Prasad Gupta passed away in London and then very promptly arranged for the family copy of Chattogram Bidroher Kahini to be sent to me; to Sunanda Gupta, wife of Ananda Prasad Gupta, and Sunanda’s sister Krishna Dutt who enthusiastically filled me in on the details of young Ananda’s life, the stories of the family and his Thakur-Ma and Gobindo-da; to Sanhita Nag, librarian at New Delhi Kali Bari, who helped search for relevant material and kept the books of Ananta Lal Singh ready for me to borrow; to Arati Sarker, Geeta Sinha and Ajit Sinha, the children of Nand Lal Singh (Sinha) and Sucharita Sarker, the granddaughter of Nand Lal Singh, for their inputs on the family; to Surajit Ghatak for the many introductions he was responsible for, especially the one with Himadri Bal, son of Lokenath Bal, which resulted in the collection of several details about Lokenath and Tegra; to Suvagatha for his encouragement and help with locating police documents; to Chandreyee Bhattacharya and Swapna Mitra who helped with locating several important documents from the archives at Shaheed Surjya Sen Bhavan, Kolkata, run by the Biplab Tirtha Chattagram Smriti Sangstha; to Dr Dorothy Younie who carefully preserved the correspondence between John Younie and herself and to Elspet Norton for permission to rummage through and use the collection of letters preserved at the archives in the British Library, London; to Lady Kathleen Tegart who wrote an account of Sir Charles Tegart’s life and deposited his papers to the care of the University of Cambridge; to Kevin Greenbank, curator at the University of Cambridge; to James Tegart and Robert Tegart who, by way of sharing the name, have been interested in Sir Charles Tegart and sent me their collection of newspaper clippings and photographs; to Malcolm Kennedy for his The Diaries of Captain Malcolm Duncan Kennedy, 1917–1946, which I found on the Internet; to Subrata Bose, the son of Sarat Chandra Bose, for the details on his father; to the National Library of Australia that has made its newspaper archives available on the Internet.
I owe a great debt to the following institutions: Biplab Tirtha Chattagram Smriti Sangstha; British Library, London; and the University of Cambridge.
Photo credits: revolutionaries – Biplab Tirtha Chattagram Smriti Sangstha; John Younie – British Library, London; Tegart Collection of crime scene photographs – Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge; Sarat Bose – Sarat Bose Academy Calcutta.
For their support and assistance I owe many thanks to Nirmal Bernadette Kumar, Pramada Menon, Brinda Bose, Sujata Raghubir, Kaushik Chatterjee, Ranabir and Medhavi Majumdar; to Dr Chittaranjan Sengupta and Dr Santana Sengupta for their painstaking editing; to Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, Labanya Unni, Antony Thomas, Shuka Jain and Amrita Chakravorty of HarperCollins India and last but not least to my mother, Jayashri Bhattacharya, who read the rather difficult Bengali texts out to me, laughed and wept as she shared with me the dreams and experiences of the young people that set out to free India.
About the Author
Manoshi Bhattacharya is a former Indian Navy physician. Having discovered her passion for history and storytelling, she has to her credit Charting the Deep: A History of the Indian Naval Hydrographic Department and The Royal Rajputs: Strange Tales Stranger Truths. She currently works as a general physician in Gurgaon.
First published in India in 2012 by
HarperCollins Publishers India
Copyright © Manoshi Bhattacharya 2012
ISBN: 978-93-5029-212-9
Epub Edition (c) June 2012 ISBN: 978-93-5029-467-3
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Manoshi Bhattacharya asserts the moral right to be identified
as the author of this work.
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