Mother bid me farewell once, I will be back soon. Whole of India will watch me While I wear the noose smiling With me I had a bomb I’d made Waiting by the roadside O Mother I went to kill the Governor But killed some other poor Englander Had I had a dagger on me You think they could have caught me? Would have made a blood bath And the world would have watched how to fight … .. …. One would be moved to tears when we understand that this is in memory of the youngest revolutionary of this mother land who was just 18 years 8 months and 8 days old ~ and he was hanged 109 years ago !
Khudiram Bose was
born on 3.12. 1889 in the village of Mohoboni at Keshpur Block in Paschim
Midnapore district of West Bengal. In 1902 and 1903, when Sri Aurobindo) and
Sister Niveditarespectively visited Medinipur and held a series of public
lectures along with secret planning sessions with the revolutionary groups;
Khudiram was among the teenage student community of the town which was fired up
with a burning inspiration of revolution. It was from then that Khudiram took
his first steps towards choosing the path that would make him a boy-martyr. At
the young age of sixteen, Bose planted bombs near police stations and targeted
government officials. He was arrested three years later on charges of
conducting a series of bomb attacks.
In 1908, Bose and
Prafulla Chaki were appointed to kill Muzzaffarpur district magistrate
Kingsford. Douglas Kingsford was the
Chief Magistrate of the Presidency court of Alipore, and had overseen the
trials of Bhupendranath Dutta and other editors of Jugantar, sentencing them to
rigorous imprisonment. The defiance of Jugantar saw it face five more
prosecutions that left it in financial ruins by 1908. Kingsford also earned
notoriety among nationalists when he ordered the whipping of a young Bengali
boy by the name of Sushil Sen for participating in the protests that followed
the Jugantar trial.
On 30th April 1908, Khudiram threw a bomb at a
carriage believed to be carrying Kingsford right outside the European club. But
instead of Kingford, the carriage was occupied by the wife and daughter of
barrister Pringle Kennedy, a leading pleader.
A bounty of Rs 1,000 was also announced for
anyone who could provide any information on Khudiram who walked throughout the
night trying to flee, but was arrested in a railway station nearly 25 miles
away.
His partner,
Prafullka Chaki had split up from Khudiram soon after the attack. On being
intercepted by the police, he shot himself dead before he could be put inside a
jail. Khudiram was unaware of Prafulla’s death at the time of his trial. Khudiram
was eventually hanged to death on 11 August 1908. The morning after, Anandabazar Patrika reported
how Bose died ‘cheerful and smiling’. To honor the 18 year old’s death, poet
Pitambar Das wrote and composed the popular Bengali song Ek Baar Bidaye De Ma –
a song that resonates the passion the young boy had for his motherland. It is
also a song that always manages to bring a lump in one’s throat because of its
sad, haunting words.
The historical
trial started on 21 May 1908. Along with Khudiram, two others were tried for
assisting the boys in their mission—Mrityunjay Chakraborty and Kishorimohan
Bandopadhyay, who had accommodated Khudiram and Prafulla in his dharmashala for
their mission. The first man died during the trial, and subsequently the trail
of Sri Kishorimohan was separated from that of Khudiram. Unlike the case of Vanchinathan, whose family
was abandoned, eminent lawyers Kalidas Basu, Upendranath Sen and Kshetranath
Bandopadhyay took up Khudiram's defense. They were joined later in the trial by
Kulkamal Sen, Nagendra Lal Lahiri and Satischandra Chakraborty—all of them
fighting the case without any fees, fighting for their country.
Only during the
later part of the trial Kudiram could know the death of his friend. He smilingly accepted the death sentence for the
Nation. As per the legal system, Kudiram
had 7 days time to appeal to the High Court. Khudiram refused to make appeal. On that day in August, Kolkata erupted in
intense protest from the entire student community. The streets of Kolkata
started to be choked up with processions all at the same time, for several
days. The Amrita Bazar Patrika, one of the prominent dailies of that era,
carried the story of the hanging the next day, on 12 August. Under the headline
"Khudiram's End: Died cheerful and smiling" the newspaper wrote:
"Khudiram's execution took place at 6 a.m. this morning. He walked to the
gallows firmly and cheerfully – an established British newspaper, The Empire,
wrote: "Khudiram Bose was executed this morning...It is stated that he
mounted the scaffold with his body erect.
Akin to Vanchi
Maniyachi, Khudiram Bose Pusa station is a two platform station located in
Samastipur district, Bihar, India with zero originating trains. It is 72
kilometres (45 mi) away from Patna Airport and 13 km (8.1 mi) from Samastipur
Junction. A station named after the
great martyr, who died so young !
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
11th Aug
2017
Collated from a few sources on web – primarily Wikipedia.
