India’s struggle for independence was accompanied by many revolutionary activities that had been raised from different parts of the country. Revolutionaries are those people who believed in overthrowing the British Government by means of mass movements. Several internal and external influences worked on the minds of the youth in India during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, resulting in the emergence of revolutionary ideology. The revolutionary movement in India began in Bengal, Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar, and Madras provinces, but it was primarily active in Bengal, Maharashtra, and Punjab because these regions were more politically active than the rest of the country. In this article, we will discuss the Revolutionaries Activities which will be helpful for UPSC exam preparation.

Reasons for Emergence of Revolutionary Activities

• The activities of revolutionary heroism started as a by-product of the growth of militant nationalism. The first phase acquired a more activist form as a fallout of the Swadeshi and Boycott movement and continued till 1917.
• The second phase began as a result of the fallout of the Non-cooperation Movement.
• After the open movement's demise, the younger nationalists who had been a part of it found it impossible to drop out and fade into the background.
• The 1905 Bengal Partition was forced in the teeth of moderate protest. A group of nationalism had now realized the futility of prayer and petition to the Government.
• They were convinced with the extremist’s critique of moderate politics and sneered at the political mendicancy of Congress moderates.
• The extremist had rightly emphasized the need to go beyond prayer and petition and advocate the need for a more militant program. They had put forward the ideas of boycott and passive resistance. They had aroused the youth for direct and self-sacrifice.
• The extremists were unable to give a practical expression to these ideas. They had also failed to organize any effective body that could direct the revolutionary energies of the youth in a positive direction.
• Moreover, the youth had participated actively in the Swadeshi Movement in the hope that the extremist's methods of boycott, swadeshi and passive resistance would lead the country to Swaraj.
  • Instead, the Swadeshi Movement not only failed in achieving the goal of Swaraj, but it could also even reverse the partition of Bengal.
• Another factor that contributed to the rise of revolutionary terrorism was the brutal repression of the Swadeshi by the government. The Congress split in 1907 facilitated this further and the government launched an all-out attack on the extremists.
• Since all avenues of peaceful political protest were closed to them due to government repression, the youth believed that in order to achieve nationalist goals of independence, the British had to be physically expelled.

Revolutionary Activities - Ideology

• The activities, writings, and speeches of this period's revolutionaries reveal a strong religious bias, romanticism, and emotionalism.
• Many of them were convinced that "pure political propaganda would not suffice for the country, and that people needed to be spiritually prepared to face dangers." However, their religion was not the same as that of the majority of the country's people.
• There were flaws in the early revolutionaries' ideology, as well as flaws in their reliance on religious teachings to advance the cause of revolution, but it is also beyond doubt that the emancipation of India through armed struggle was the supreme goal for the staunch revolutionaries.
• This aspect should not be overlooked or undervalued when evaluating the early stages of the revolutionary movement.
• Individual heroic actions such as organizing assassinations of unpopular officials as well as traitors and informers among the revolutionaries themselves; conducting swadeshi dacoities to raise funds for revolutionary activities; and (during the First World War) organizing military conspiracies with the expectation of assistance from Britain's enemies were all part of the revolutionary methodology.
• The plan was to instill fear in the rulers' hearts, rouse the people, and remove their fear of authority.
• The revolutionaries hoped to inspire the populace by appealing to patriotism, particularly among the idealistic youth who would eventually drive the British out.
• They began the search for a revolutionary ideology and a revolutionary program by drawing lessons from our own history as well as the histories of other countries' revolutions.
• They did not preach social reform, but rather broke down the barriers of time-honored customs. They revolted against anything that attempted to obstruct the revolutionary movement's onward march.

Revolutionary Activities in Bengal

• The first revolutionary organizations were formed in 1902 in Midnapore (under Jnanendra Nath Basu) and Calcutta (under Promotha Mitter and including Jatindranath Banerjee, Barindra Kumar Ghosh, and others).
• In April 1906, Anushilan's inner circle (Barindra Kumar Ghosh, Bhupendranath Dutta) launched the weekly Yugantar and staged a few ill-fated 'actions.' By 1905-06, a number of newspapers were advocating revolutionary violence.
• Sandhya and Yugantar in Bengal, and Kal in Maharashtra, were among the newspapers and journals advocating revolutionary activity.
• The Yugantar group made an abortive attempt on the life of a very unpopular British official, Sir Fuller (the first Lieutenant Governor of the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, though he had resigned from the post on August 20, 1906).
• There were attempts to derail the train carrying the lieutenant-governor, Sri Andrew Fraser, in December 1907.
• Prafulla Chaki and Khudiram Bose threw a bomb at a carriage carrying a particularly sadistic white judge, Kingsford, in Muzaffarpur in 1908.
  • There was no sign of Kingsford in the carriage. Instead, two British ladies were assassinated.
  • Prafulla Chaki committed suicide, while Khudiram Bose was tried and executed.
• The entire Anushilan group was apprehended, including the Ghosh brothers, Aurobindo and Barindra, who were tried in the Alipore conspiracy case, which was also known as the Manicktolla bomb conspiracy or the Muraripukur conspiracy.
• Barrah dacoity was founded in 1908 by Dacca Anushilan under the leadership of Pulin Das to raise funds for revolutionary activities.
• In December 1912, Rashbehari Bose and Sachin Sanyal staged a spectacular bomb attack on Viceroy Hardinge as he made his official entry into the new capital of Delhi in a procession through Chandni Chowk.
• The western Anushilan Samiti found a good leader in Jatindranath Mukherjee, also known as Bagha Jatin, and rose to prominence as the Jugantar (or Yugantar).
• Jatin revitalized connections between the central organization in Calcutta and other locations in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa.
• During World War I, the Jugantar party arranged for the import of German arms and ammunition through sympathizers and revolutionaries in other countries.
• In what has come to be known as the 'German Plot' or the 'Zimmerman Plan,' Jatin asked Rashbehari Bose to take command of Upper India in order to foment an all-India insurgency.

Revolutionary Activities in Maharashtra

• The first of the revolutionary activities in Maharashtra was the organization of the Ramosi Peasant Force by Vasudev Balwant Phadke in 1879, which aimed to rid the country of the British by instigating an armed revolt by disrupting the communication lines.
• Bal Gangadhar Tilak spread a spirit of militant nationalism, including the use of violence, through Ganpati and Shivaji festivals, as well as his journals Kesari and Mahratta, during the 1890s.
  • In 1897, two of his disciples, the Chapekar brothers, Damodar and Balkrishna, murdered the Poona Plague Commissioner, Rand, and one Lt. Ayerst.
• Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and his brother Ganesh Damodar Savarkar founded the Abhinav Bharat Society (Young India Society) in 1904.
  • It was founded as "Mitra Mela" in Nasik while Vinayak Savarkar was still a student at Fergusson College in Pune.
  • The society grew to include several hundred revolutionaries and political activists with branches in various parts of India, eventually extending to London after Savarkar went to study law.
• Following a few assassinations of British officials, the Savarkar brothers were convicted and imprisoned. In 1952, the society was formally disbanded.
• Madanlal Dhingra assassinated Lt. Col. William Curzon-Wyllie, the political aide-de-camp to the Secretary of State for India, on the evening of 1 July 1909, at a meeting of Indian students at the Imperial Institute in London. Dhingra was arrested, tried, and executed.
• Anant Laxman Kanhare assassinated AMT Jackson, the district magistrate of Nasik, in India in the historic "Nasik Conspiracy Case" in 1909.

Revolutionary Activities in Punjab

• Extremism in Punjab was fueled by issues such as frequent famines combined with an increase in land revenue and irrigation tax, zamindars' practice of 'begar,' and events in Bengal.
• Lala Lajpat Rai, who brought out Punjabi, and Ajit Singh (Bhagat Singh's uncle), who organized the extremist Anjuman-i-Mohisban-i-Watan in Lahore with its journal, Bharat Mata, were among those active here.
• Extremism in Punjab died down quickly after the governments struck in May 1907 with a ban on political meetings and the deportation of Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh.
• After this, Ajit Singh and a few others associates- Sufi Ambaprasad, Lalchand, Bhai Parmanand, Lala Hardayal developed into full-scale revolutionaries.

Decline of Revolutionary Activities

After 1918, the Revolutionary Activities came to a temporary halt due to several reasons:

• Stern Government repression along with a series of draconian laws.
• Lack of popular response.
• World War-I ended and the government released all political prisoners arrested under the Defense of India Act.
• The discussion began on the new Constitutional Reforms (Government of India Act 1919) which generated an atmosphere of compromise.
• Gandhi arrived on the national scene and emphasized non-violent means which also halted the place of revolutionary activities.

*For detailed notes on this topic, click on the link Decline Of Revolutionary Activities

Conclusion

Revolutionary activities emerged as the most significant legacy of Swadeshi Bengal, having an impact on educated youth for a generation or more. However, an overemphasis on Hinduism kept Muslims at bay. Furthermore, it fostered irrational heroism. The lack of mass participation, combined with the movement's narrow upper-caste social base in Bengal, severely limited the scope of revolutionary activity. In the end, it crumbled under the weight of state repression.

FAQs

MCQs

1. Which revolutionary group was founded by Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad?

A. Anushilan Samiti
B. Jugantar
C. Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA)
D. Ghadar Party

2. Who was responsible for the bombing of the Central Legislative Assembly in 1929?

A. Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt
B. Surya Sen and Ashfaqulla Khan
C. Chandrashekhar Azad and Rajguru
D. Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki

3. What was the objective of the Ghadar Party in the Indian freedom struggle?

A. To promote swadeshi goods
B. To propagate revolutionary nationalism
C. To conduct peaceful protests
D. To support the Indian National Congress

4. Which revolutionary leader led the Chittagong Armoury Raid in 1930?

A. Bhagat Singh
B. Chandrashekhar Azad
C. Surya Sen
D. Rajguru

5. Who was the first revolutionary to be martyred in the Indian freedom struggle?

A. Bhagat Singh
B. Khudiram Bose
C. Chandrashekhar Azad
D. Rajguru

GS Mains Questions and Model Answers

1. Discuss the significance of revolutionary movements in the broader context of the Indian freedom struggle.

Answer: The revolutionary movements played a critical role in the Indian freedom struggle by providing an alternative method of resistance to British rule. While the mainstream Congress-led movement largely adhered to non-violence, revolutionaries believed that armed rebellion was necessary to expel the British. Their actions, such as bombings, assassinations, and raids, instilled fear in the colonial administration and kept the spirit of resistance alive. Revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh became national heroes, inspiring the youth and challenging British authority. Despite their often-violent methods, these movements contributed to the overall momentum of the freedom struggle.

2. Analyze the role of revolutionary organizations such as the HSRA and Ghadar Party in the fight for India's independence.

Answer: The Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) and Ghadar Party played pivotal roles in promoting the cause of independence through armed resistance. The HSRA, led by figures like Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad, sought to inspire a socialist revolution, combining nationalism with a vision for an egalitarian society. The Ghadar Party, formed by Indian expatriates in the USA, aimed to incite rebellion against British rule from abroad, particularly among Indian soldiers. These organizations helped internationalize the Indian struggle for independence and demonstrated the willingness of Indians to fight for their freedom using all means available.

3. Evaluate the impact of Bhagat Singh's ideas and actions on the Indian independence movement.

Answer: Bhagat Singh's ideas and actions had a profound impact on the Indian independence movement. He represented a new wave of youthful, revolutionary fervor that emphasized direct action against British rule. His involvement in the Saunders assassination, the Assembly bombing, and his writings, such as his essay "Why I am an Atheist," inspired a generation of Indians to embrace the ideals of socialism and secularism. Bhagat Singh's martyrdom at the young age of 23 turned him into a national symbol of resistance, and his legacy continues to inspire Indians today. His contributions helped expand the scope of the freedom movement, especially among the youth.

Previous Year Questions on Revolutionary Activities

1. UPSC CSE Prelims 2021

Question: Which revolutionary leader was associated with the Kakori Conspiracy Case?
A. Bhagat Singh
B. Chandrashekhar Azad
C. Rajguru
D. Ram Prasad Bismil

Answer: D

Explanation: Ram Prasad Bismil was one of the key leaders associated with the Kakori Conspiracy Case of 1925, where a train carrying British government money was robbed by Indian revolutionaries.

2. UPSC CSE Mains 2018 (GS Paper 1)

Question: "The revolutionary activities in India's freedom struggle provided an alternative approach to the mainstream Congress-led movement." Examine the role of revolutionaries in the larger framework of the Indian independence movement.

Answer: The revolutionary activities provided a stark contrast to the non-violent approach advocated by the Indian National Congress. Revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, and Surya Sen believed that armed rebellion was necessary to challenge British rule. While their methods were often violent, they brought attention to the brutalities of British repression and inspired a sense of urgency in the freedom struggle. Their contributions kept the flame of resistance alive during periods when the mainstream movement was less active, and their sacrifices turned them into national icons. These activities ultimately added momentum to India's quest for independence.