100 years ago, when a train robbery shook the empire
By: Kanchan Basu
On August 9, 1925, a railway station nearly 20 km from Lucknow witnessed one of the most daring events of the Indian freedom movement. That day, 10 men boarded the Saharanpur-Lucknow passenger train at Kakori station and, minutes into the journey, pulled the chain. The train stopped nearly 2 km from Kakori, at a village called Bajnagar. The revolutionaries acted as they had planned, and looted money meant for the British treasury that was being transported by rail.
The act, famously known as the Kakori train robbery conspiracy case, shook the British government and accelerated the freedom movement. This year marks the 100th year of the incident on August 9; Yogi Adityanath the Chief Minister (CM) of Uttar Pradesh (UP) launched the centenary celebrations.
The Kakori case was the first major action executed by the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), a revolutionary outfit set up in 1924 by, among others, Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqullah Khan and Sachindra Nath Bakshi. Bismil, the mastermind, was joined in its execution by Ashfaqullah, Bakshi, Rajendra Lahiri, Chandrashekhar Azad, Keshab Chakravarthy, Manmathnath Gupta, Murari Sharma, Mukundi Lal and Banwari Lal. While the revolutionaries only intended to rattle the British, the accidental death of a passenger hurt their cause.
Of the accused who stood trial at the Special Sessions Court of Justice Archibald Hamilton, 19 persons were convicted. Bismil, Roshan, Rajendra and Ashfaqullah were sentenced to death, while the others got varying jail terms, including five of them was getting deported to the infamous Kala Pani (Cellular Jail in Port Blair, Andaman).
Bismil was arrested in October 1925, supposedly after two members of the HRA betrayed him. While being taken to the gallows, Bismil is said to have famously sung “Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil mein hai; Dekhna hai zor kitna baju-e katil mein hai”, the ghazal that went on to become an immortal war cry for freedom fighters.
Ashfaqullah escaped to Nepal and then Daltonganj (Jharkhand). He was arrested a year later. Chandrashekhar was the only major revolutionary associated with the HRA who evaded arrest (he shot himself dead when surrounded by police in a park in Allahabad on February 27, 1931). The park is now named Chandrashekhar Azad Park.
I visited Kakori station and Shaheed Smarak, a memorial dedicated to the revolutionaries. The road between the station and Bajnagar, two key signposts in the freedom movement, is in poor shape. The old railway office at Kakori still exists and has been developed into a museum. A notice board near the building details the incident and mentions that a total of Rs 4,679, one aana and 6 pai was looted. While the sum stolen was paltry, the act was an audacious snook at the British Raj, whose response to Kakori was to set an example for future revolutionaries and restore British authority in the minds of the people.
The Kakori case had its ramifications on the country in the days after Independence. The first and third CMs of UP – Govind Ballabh Pant and Chandra Bhanu Gupta – were defence advocates in the case, while Jagat Narain Mulla, a Congress member who was appointed minister in 1921 in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, represented the prosecution side. Mulla, who quit the Congress and joined the Liberal Party, died in 1938.
His son Anand Narain Mulla, also part of his legal team in the case, was in August 1954 elevated as judge of the Allahabad High Court. He went on to have a political career – he was elected to the Lok Sabha as an Independent candidate in 1967 from Lucknow and was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1972 as a Congress nominee. The Opposition was quick to attack the Congress for its proximity to A. N. Mulla, reminding the ruling party that he had worked to defend the British state in the Kakori trial.
On April 8, 1973, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi released A. N. Mulla’s book of poetry, ‘Siyahi Ki Boond’. A particular couplet in the book- “Khoon-e-shaheed se bhi hai keemat mein kuchh siva; Fankar ke kalam ki siyahi ki ek boond (A drop of ink from the pen of poet is more worthy than the blood of martyr)” – would go on to rock the UP Assembly on April 18, 1973. An adjournment motion was moved by Rajendra Pratap Singh (Congress-OMLA from Sataon, Rae Bareli), who alleged that Mulla had been awarded for acting against freedom fighters. CM Kamalapati Tripathi, however, defended Mulla, “He was an advocate, he practised law. He was general secretary of the Congress and was in the Liberal Party as well. He should not be termed a traitor because of his legal practice.”
Speaking in the House, Bakshi, one of the convicts in the train robbery case who was elected MLA of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh from Varanasi South in 1969, narrated an incident related to the Kakori trial. “One day the special judge was at lunch and Ashfaqullah and I were present in the court. J. N. Mulla (senior defence lawyer in the case) came there and I was talking to him. Ashfaqullah sahib didn’t recognise him (Mulla).
I introduced them and requested Ashfaqullah to sing a couplet. Ashfaq responded with: ‘Chalo yaron ek Rig Theatre dikhayen tumko naya liberal, jo chand sim- o-jar ke tukdon par, naya tamasha dikha raha hai (Friends, let us visit Rig Theatre; I will show you a new Liberal who will regale you for a small amount of money).” The trial was held at Rig Theatre in Lucknow.
Bakshi said the couplet was a reference to the high legal fee that Mulla charged during the trial – Rs 500 a day and Rs 100 a day for his son – and that the senior Mulla, angered by the taunt, left the court.
The Opposition kept demanding a ban on A. N. Mulla’s book, with some of them walking out in protest. Amid slogans of ‘Inquilab Zindabad’, the adjournment motion was not accepted. Finally, CM Tripathi brought some peace when he promised to look into the issue. However, two months later, his government was dismissed by the Congress’s own Central government due to a mutiny in the Provincial Armed Constabulary.
(The author hails from Kolkata. He wrotes for several newspapers)
