Like many other emotionally charged agitations, the anti-partition agitation was also initially peaceful. But as it became clear that the desired results would not be forthcoming, the reins passed into the hands of leaders who believed that a combination of boycott and terrorism could make their mission successful. Magnetised by the fiery urge to fight for their motherland, the younger generation picked up pistols and bombs. Of course, with this the anti-partition movement also entered a phase marked by violence and gradual disorder.

Less than a decade ago, British Viceroy Lord Elgin had said, “India was conquered by the sword and by the sword it shall be held!” Now, in an ironical turn of events, the youth of Bengal seemed to be returning Elgin’s comment. Many genuinely felt that violence was the only language the foreigners understood. Armed terrorism thus became closely intertwined with the fight for swaraj. In 1907, Aurobindo’s brother Barindra Ghose, began using his family home in Maniktola (then a suburb of Calcutta) as an arsenal-cum-school for revolutionaries. His compatriot, Hem Chandra Das from Midnapore, went to Paris to learn bomb making and understand revolutionary politics. As Bipin Chandra Pal, Ashwini Kumar Dutta, Aurobindo Ghose and others took control of the militant movement, the police files of the British became thicker and thicker with the names of young ‘suspects’ and ‘preventive detainees’. The same files now also had a name for this movement—’Bengal Terrorism’!

‘Bengal Terrorism’ was at its peak between 1908 and 1910. It was an organised movement that did not approve of individually motivated acts and secret murders. The objective was to stage a popular uprising and revolution that could bring down the edifice of British imperialism. This they hoped to do by forming secret societies that could enthuse the youth with higher values of bold action and sacrifice for the country, train them in the manufacture of bombs and explosive devices and the use of arms and also arm them for the fight.

Through the assassination of British officials they hoped to demoralise the British, paralyse the administration and uproot all enemies of India’s freedom—Indians or foreigners! Guerrilla warfare, inciting the army to revolt, arranging arms supplies from nations hostile to Britain—these revolutionaries were open to following many paths.

An official report of the time mentions about 210 revolutionary outrages and 101 attempts involving hundreds of revolutionaries in the decade between 1906 and 1917 in Bengal. This includes several failed and aborted attempts on the lives of high officials between the announcement of partition in 1905 and the Muzaffarpur bombing carried out by the Jugantar revolutionaries Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki in April 1908.

These were times when the Criminal Intelligence Department (CID) could hardly afford to lean back and take a moment’s rest. Swamped with work, all its attention was now focused on tracing the web-like threads of revolutionary activity to their points of origin. All attempts to force a breakthrough had proved futile. On a more specific note, the CID was also aware of an assassination plot building up against the former Calcutta Presidency Chief Magistrate, Douglas Kingsford (now posted as District Judge in Muzaffarpur), but had not been able to unearth it. And then suddenly, the Muzaffarpur bombing happened!

A turning point in India’s revolutionary history, the incident created a sensation in British India. The blast was followed by deafening silence in stunned British circles. Young, impassioned, 18-year-old Khudiram Bose was arrested for the bombing. Through the incident and the investigations that followed, the British were able to unravel the functioning of a wellspread network of secret societies and the people associated with it. The Muzaffarpur bombing became the starting point of the famous trial known as the Alipore Bomb Case or the Alipore Bomb Conspiracy. The Muzaffarpur incident was the first real eruption of a volcano that had made many attempts to surface in the recent past. Before the bombing, several unsuccessful attempts had been made on the lives of high-profile British officials. In 1906, Bampfylde Fuller, the Lieutenant Governor of the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, was trailed from Guwahati to Rangpur, but no attempt was made. On the night of 6 December 1907 an attempt was made near Narayangarh in the Midnapur district to blow up the train in which Andrew Fraser, the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, was travelling. Another attempt was planned on the Lieutenant Governer’s train near Chandernagore in which Barindra Ghose was accompanied by his close associate Ullaskar Dutt and Prafulla Chaki. The attempt failed because the special train did not come that way on the appointed night. December 1907 also saw a group led by Narendranath Bhattacharya carry out a dacoity in Chingripota (24 Parganas) and the shooting of B.C. Allen (District Magistrate, Dhaka) by members of the Dhaka Anushilan Samiti. On the night of 11 April 1908 an attempt had been made on the life of the Mayor of Chandernagore who had incurred the wrath of the revolutionaries for stopping a swadeshi meeting from taking place. The police, therefore, had enough reasons to keep a close watch on the activities of some people in Calcutta, whom they suspected of having links with the revolutionaries.

Events had been in motion for a while, but deep in their hearts the revolutionaries were getting impatient for that one big bang that could shake the British to their foundations. It is in this context that the Muzaffarpur bombing assumes great historical importance. When Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki threw a bomb at what they presumed to be the carriage carrying Douglas Kingsford on 30 April 1908 in Muzaffarpur in Bihar, they brought matters to a head. Instead of assassinating Kingsford, the bomb, however, killed his bridge partners Mrs. Kennedy and Miss Grace Kennedy, the wife and daughter of Mr. Pringle Kennedy, Advocate-at-Bar at Muzaffarpur. But even though it missed the desired target, the bomb that was hurled that fateful evening blasted the myth of British invincibility and shook the empire at its roots. Indeed, even a century later, the modest bomb remains one of the loudest explosions in Indian history.

[Niyogi Books has given Fair Observer permission to publish this excerpt from The Alipore Bomb Case: A Historic Pre-Independence Trial, Noorul Hoda, Niyogi Books, 2008.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.