Love and revolution

The Indian independence movement saw a complex interplay between personal relationships and revolutionary ideals, with freedom fighters sometimes finding love within the context of their activism.

This is explored in historical accounts, novels and films that depict the lives of revolutionaries and their personal struggles alongside their political ones. Many freedom fighters made immense sacrifices, often leaving behind their families and loved ones to join the struggle. This love for family or for the dear one, while absent during their activism, further solidified their commitment to a cause they believed in. The love relationships of Indian revolutionaries were often complex and challenging. While some revolutionaries had fulfilling relationships, others faced difficulties in balancing their personal relationships with their revolutionary activities. Some, like Bhagat Singh, chose to forgo personal relationships in favour of their noble cause, while others, like Subhas Chandra Bose, had family but faced separation due to their political work.

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Another important case in point is the love relationship of Ullaskar Dutta (1885-1965), a firebrand revolutionary from Bengal, whose revolutionary activities and passionate love relationship are stuff that sagas are made of. Ullaskar joined the freedom struggle when he got inspired by a fiery speech delivered by the nationalist leader Bipin Chandra Pal criticizing the moderate approach of a section of Congress leaders towards the British rulers. Ironically, it is Bipin Pal’s vivacious daughter, Leela, with whom Ullaskar would fall madly in love a relationship that Pal supposedly found hard to approve of.

In the aftermath of the Alipore Bomb Case in 1908, Ullaskar was sent to Cellular Jail along with Barin Ghosh. When Ullaskar was in Alipore jail, Leela met the revolutionary and made the promise to wait for him till his release. The barbaric torture at the notorious prison made Ullaskar lose mental equilibrium and he even attempted suicide there. When he was at last released, Ullaskar searched desperately to get track of his beloved Leela. But Leela was by that time a widow. After Ullaskar’s imprisonment, Leela was somehow convinced that her love would never return from the far-off Anda – man. Yet, Ullaskar’s love was so passionate and so powerful that he did not hesitate to marry his widowed and paralysed beloved when he was finally released from jail. With their meagre resources, the couple now had real difficulties in getting shelter anywhere in Kolkata.

At last, they were allowed to stay under the stairs in the Brahmo Samaj building. Financial crunch, ailing wife and neglect and ridicule from a section of his acquaintances did not allow Ullaskar to lead a quiet and peaceful life in Kolkata. When his wife’s condition improved a bit, he went to Silchar with his wife and spent the rest of his life there. Love was never an impediment to Ullaskar’s revolutionary activities. Like his romantic life, his contribution to the freedom movement is scintillating. His is the saga that is part of the neglected narrative of gunpowder and gumption. He is among those brave young Bengalis who chose the path of armed resistance in ending British rule in this country.

To be brief, Ullaskar was a revolutionary associated with Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar, and was a close associate of Auro bindo Ghosh’s brother Barindra Nath Gh osh. He had expertise in bomb-making. When the British police arrested many members of the Jugantar Party like Khudiram Bose and Barin Ghosh, Ullaskar was also arrested for being involved in the Alipore Bomb case where an attempt was made to kill the ruthless British magistrate Douglas Kingsford. He was sentenced to death by hanging in 1909, but later the death sentence was reduced on appeal and he was deported to Cellular Jail for life. Ullaskar survived the excruciating tortures of the jail authorities and he lived till 1965. As for Ullaskar’s early life, he hailed from an affluent Baidya family in the village of Kalikachha in the present-day Bangladesh.

His father Dwijadas Duttagupta was a member of the Brahmo Samaj and had a Degree in agriculture from London University. Ullaskar was a meritorious student and had a great passion for Chemistry, but he could not complete his studies at Presidency College in Calcutta because he was rusticated from the college for hitting his British professor Russell who made derogatory remarks about Bengalis. It was the time when British citizens living in India did not respect any member of the Indian community and could speak contemptuously of Indians without any fear of being prosecuted.

Ullaskar was not the one who could keep calm before this insult and digest such insult. At that time, many young Indians were inspired by the personality and speeches of Bipin Chandra Pal and began to join the Swadeshi Movement in large numbers. Ullaskar was no exception. He gave up his foreign clothes and adopted traditional Bengali attire. He joined Anushilan Samiti in 1908 and later Jugantar group and acquired knowledge in bomb-making. Khudiram Bose used a bomb made by Ullaskar and He m chandra Kanungo to kill the dre – aded magistrate Kingsford. Previously, another bomb made by Dutta was used to bomb and kill Andrew Fraser, the then Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. Ullaskar was awarded a death sentence.

Though unwilling initially to sign an appeal against the order, he later filed the same on the advice of fellow revolutionaries like Barin Ghosh and his own parents. Ullaskar’s memoir Amar Karajiban (Twelve Years of Prison Life) chronicles the horrible days of his jail life and the barbarities inflicted by the British police on the prison inmates. In the Cellular Jail in the Andaman Islands, prisoners, instead of bullocks, were yoked to the handle of the turning wheel of the oil-mill for crushing oil from coconut and sesame. And they had to run round the oil-mill unremittingly from morning to evening with a brief interval for a bath and morning meal. If anybody was found relaxing at any point of time, he would be bludgeoned with a big stick. Ullaskar was once asked to glean three litres of oil in a day. When he refused, the prison keepers fettered his arms raised to the ceiling and feet to the ground. He stood motionless for three days as he could not move. When they untied him finally, he collapsed senseless.

He went insane when he woke up. Not only that, he was also given electric shocks in his semi-conscious state in the name of medical treatment and as a result, as Ullaskar recollected in his book, “Every nerve, fibre and muscle in the body seemed to be torn by it.” For years together Ullaskar went through such harrowing tasks without respite and without any diversity of work. An account of his prison life is also found in the books written by Savarkar and Barin Ghosh. Matching his name, Ullas – kar was a fun-loving person who was praised for his optimistic vision even by the trial judge. He had an intellectual bent of mind and in the jail he would often make his fellow inmates forget about their pain and desolation by regaling them with jokes and lighter verses. To keep alive the legacy of Ullaskar Dutta, the Ullaskar Dutta Academy, a research gro – up based in Kolkata, has been celebrating the revolutionary’s birthday in April every year in different locations in India and abroad. Their mission is not just to pay homage to the firebrand freedom fighter, but also to work towards achieving the goal of ensuring a dignified and significant place for Ullaskar and other armed revolutionaries in the history textbooks and public discourse.

A key feature of the birthday celebrations and other ev – ents of the Academy has been the choice of venues. The celeb – ra ted hideouts of revolutionaries or dens of revolutionary activities like Chittagong, Chandernagore and Muraripukur in Kolkata are selected for organizing conclaves, workshops and other events. The Academy now plans to open residential schools under Project Ekalavya in different parts of the country for underprivileged children where the young minds will be educated in such a way that they become cherished human assets of our country, while nurturing the treasured values of Ullaskar and other revolutionaries like dedication, selfless service and sacrifice for their motherland.

A huge plot of land in Nadia district in West Bengal has already been in the process of acquisition for this purpose. It is sad to see that today’s generation knows too little of the likes of Ullaskar Dutta who gave their all to get emancipation of their motherland from British rule. But no study or narrative of the freedom struggle can be called authentic or comprehensive if it, deliberately or inadvertently, excludes, negates or neglects the contributions of Ullas kar and countless other revolutionaries who staked their lives in search of freedom from colonial masters. Time has come for countrymen, especially historians and policy makers, to rectify this gross emission by accommodating the inspiring lives and great sacrifices of all the martyrs and bravehearts of India’s struggle for freedom

(The writer, a PhD in English, is a freelance contributor and teaches English at the Government-sponsored Sailendra Sircar Vidyalaya, Kolkata)