REVOLUTIONARIES

Rash Behari Bose, master revolutionary, master of disguise, the man who dared the British throughout but eluded their grasp ever to bring down their citadel of colonial power eventually. Spanning five decades and two World Wars, Bose operated from within and without India like none other to destabilise the Raj and bring about its downfall by setting up a Pan-Asia revolutionary structure in the India Independence League and later the Indian National Army. A forgotten hero in India now like so many others, Rash Behari Bose remains in historical terms one of the few effective architects of India's freedom. Honoured in Japan and remembered reverentially in the decades following the Second World War, Bose has not been recognised in his motherland for his seminal services to her freedom as India continues to vainly push the false narrative of Gandhian non-violent achievement of the same.

P.S. The master of disguise, Rash Behari Bose, who staged a dramatic escape to Japan in the guise of P.N. Tagore after engineering the bombing of Viceroy Lord Hardinge.

The dangerous duo---Rash Behari Bose and Subhas Chandra Bose---whose armed struggle across decades eventually helped free India.

The fire behind the revolutionary activity of early Bengal, the inspiration of the 'Agni Yug'.

The mantradrashta Rishi of Indian nationalism, author of 'Ananda Math' and giver of the svadesh mantra 'Vande Mataram'.

The redoubtable revolutionary Jatindranath Mukherjee, alias Bagha Jatin, who had received his initial inspiration into brahmacharya from Swami Vivekananda as also the first impetus to revolutionary activity.

Hemchandra Ghosh who had found fire in his form by touching the feet of the 'cyclonic monk' Swami Vivekananda and had been blessed and baptised into fire by the latter in Dhaka, 1901.

The founder of the revolutionary movement for freedom whose fiery pamphlets struck fear into the hearts of the British. His revolutionary activity, though, suddenly changed course post a spiritual illumination in incarceration at Alipore Jail in 1908. Thereafter, he blossomed into the prophet of the Sanatan Dharma with his ascetic activities and authorship having future consequences of inestimable value.

What can be said of him but that he was 'Condensed India', India incarnate in flesh and form to rescue her from her depraved condition and set her up as the future spiritual preceptor of the world? He was the power behind the freedom fighters. Swamiji is truly the maker of modern India.

The father of the Indian Renaissance. His manifold creative genius ushered the Modern Age in India. Rammohan Roy was the first modern Indian who synthesised in his being all that was best in Oriental and Occidental culture to emerge as the universal man. His seminal contributions in diverse fields laid the foundation for the emergence of modern India. Other than Swami Vivekananda none else would stand in favourable comparison with the Rajah who was literally a titan at a time when suppressed India had been dwarfed in comparison with sovereign Europe.

Bhupendranath Datta, revolutionary-scholar, communist leader, youngest brother of Swami Vivekananda, a man of erudition and character who has largely been forgotten by a sleeping polity. He met Lenin in Soviet Russia in 1921 who exhorted him to organise the peasants for prospective mass movement for the coming revolution.

Mother Jagadishwari, popularly known as Bhavatarini, who spearheaded the renaissance of India by incarnating in person as Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, apparent Her spiritual son but in effect Herself incarnated in flesh and form. The revolution of ideas began at Dakshineshwar and spread, permeating the consciousness of the Bengal revolutionaries. Vivekananda in especial carried forth the flame of revolution from the fiery feet of Kali and ignited the mind of sleeping India, then prostrate at the feet of the coloniser.

The fire and the force of revolution that Kali the Mother generated in the hearts and minds of revolutionary Bengal.

Written by Sugata Bose