Humanitarian Aspects of Revolutionary Movement

Bharat Dogra

The revolutionary stream of the freedom movement in India is generally identified in public perception with various violent actions taken up with the larger aim of securing the freedom of the country from colonial rule. However, this is a narrow view as this ignores the several organisational and mobilisational activities with which the revolutionary movement was associated, particularly in its later phase.

Another aspect which we should not ignore is that several revolutionaries inspired by the ideal of a more just and equal society had strong humanitarian tendencies which manifested themselves time and again in the course of their various actions.

Here we give some examples of this from the autobiography of a senior revolutionary leader of Uttar Pradesh (then United Provinces) Ram Prasad Bismil. This autobiography was written in jail and smuggled out with great difficulty in instalments.

Ram Prasad who was also a great poet and penned many books, has written that the biggest inspiration for him was his mother. She led a very noble and hard-working life. Although married as a child, she later educated herself and started taking a keen interest in social affairs. She often discussed social issues with her son Ram Prasad.

When Ram Prasad started stepping into wider social life, they discussed this and when he was less inclined to accept her advice, she only said with affection that my only duty is to guide you regarding the likely effects of your action, otherwise you are free to decide what you want to do in your life. Time and again she would arrange financial help for him, no matter how difficult it was for her.

However, she made him take one vow - that he'll never take the life of others not even of enemies. It was very difficult for Ram Prasad to adhere to this vow in the course of all the activities he had to take up as activist and leader of a revolutionary party but he always remembered this vow and honoured it is the sense of never taking the first action to kill anyone and always trying to avoid the loss of a life. When one of his colleagues accidentally fired a shot which led to the lose of a life in the Kakori dacoity, he was very angry with his colleagues and went on questioning why his strict instructions to try to avoid any killing were not fully observed.

Another very interesting aspect of the life of Ram Prasad Bismil was that after he was arrested, he had some opportunities when he could escape. Once this was due to carelessness of police. However, the person who had been careless was also known to him as a kind person and a relative of a revolutionary. Ram Prasad deliberately gaveup this easy chance to escape as this would have led to the punishment of the kind police official! On another action a policeman who respected and trusted him gave him so much space that he could escape, but running away would have led to very strong punishment for the policeman. Ram Prasad decided not to escape.

When he was imprisoned (first phase) in Lucknow Jail he made preparations for a jailbreak and some iron rods were successfully removed. But he could not forget that the jailor Rao Champalal had gone out of his way to be kind to him and his colleagues. The jailor sincerely and deeply respected these freedom fighters and as a result of his respect other jail officials were often in the service of Ram Prasad and his comrades instead of punishing and harassing them.

Some of the staff respected Ram Prasad to such an extent that when he performed a havan (he was a devout arya samaji) they would take the ash of the fire home as something that will protect them from harm. The guards were so respectful that they ignored the strict rules, and this was partly the reason why prisoners had succeeded in breaking the rods and keeping this hidden.

When the time for jailbreak came Ram Prasad had second thoughts. For the government he was a very high value prisoner and if he escaped the elderly jailor, about to earn his pension, would be badly victimized and punished and his family would have suffered greatly. Other officials who were kind towards them will always suffer. Finally, after a lot of thinking Ram Prasad decided to give up this plan of escaping from this particular jail. Later he kept looking for opportunities to escape from other jails but he could not bring himself to betray the trust of those who had been kind and respectful towards him.

During his last days while waiting for his death sentence Ram Prasad wrote that his only regret was that he could not find the time and opportunity to serve at the feet of his mother for a prolonged time. So soft and kind were the feelings of the great freedom fighter who was very unjustly sentenced to death by the colonial government after a farcical trial.

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Frontier
Mar 15, 2020