A Mistaken Assassination
The Bombmaker of Lahore
An Explosion on Banks of Ravi
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A bit of Rang De Basanti in #Lahore
New Year Special ...
Inspired By Muhammad Imran Saeed
On December 17, 1928 at 4:20 PM outside District Police Office Lahore a shot rang out, followed by multiple bullets emptied onto a fallen European
Soon after a poster would appear on Lahore's walls
"J.P. Sauders is dead! Lala Lajpatrai is avenged!"
It would say, but .... was it so?
John Poyntz Saunders, 21 was on probation in Lahore when killed
Saunders in fact was innocent. It was Superintendent of Police James Scott who revolutionaries were looking for and mistook Saunders for him
Scott was responsible for Lala Lajpat Rai’s death about a month earlier
Scandal Point in Shimla, India hosts a statue. A majestic figure with index finger raised as if convincingly addressing an audience
The podium introduces him as Lala Lajpat Rai, "The Great Patriot of Punjab"
The statue once stood in Gol Bagh near Lower Mall Lahore before it got smuggled
Lower Mall’s Gol Bagh remember the roaring speeches of Lalaji as the walls of Rettigon Road’s Bradlaugh Hall
Lala Lajpat Rai, an anti-colonial leader, is remembered as Lion of Punjab
One of his gifts to Lahore is Gulab Devi Hospital, but for now we shall focus on ‘the revolution’
In November of 1928 a political rally left Mochi Gate of Lahore towards Railway Station
They were protesting the Simon Commission shouting that iconic slogan “Simon Go Back”
Lalaji was in this procession when it was intercepted by a police contingent led by James A.Scott
What happened next is aptly covered in a scene from Indian movie Rang de Basanti (attached to this post's gallery)
Shot in the movie at Lahore Railway Station the incident actually happened outside Delhi Gate
‘Lathi Charge’ on Scott's orders inflicted injuries that proved fatal for Lalaji who later expired in a hospital two weeks later
In avenging Lala Lajpat Rai’s death, Bhagat Singh would find his rise to fame in our popular history of freedom struggle
That December evening it was Bhagat Singh with his accomplices Jai Gopal and Rajguru and Chandra Shekhar Azad who took on Saunders
A.G. Noorani in his book on Trial of Bhagat Singh has included a Site Plan of 'the murder' based onto which the team at http://lums.edu.pk has made a nice animation (link at the end of this post)
For my readers I have attached a Google Earth animation covering the initial escape after Saunders' murder (please see photo gallery of this post)
The group had escaped taking Dev Samaj road on the back of present day Islamia College Civil Lines
From Dev Samaj road what happened next is brought to us by Majid Sheikh the teller of the tales of old Lahore
Having attained a clean run the group disappeared in Krishan Nagar, the next night they came to Lakshmi Chowk and went to Bhagwati Charan’s House on Nisbet Road
Now Bhagwati Charan was another revolutionary in Lahore but we shall come to him in a bit
First the story of the great escape of Bhagat Singh
Assisted by the genius of Durgawati Devi who posed as his wife with her 3 years old son, 'the couple' managed to flee to Calcutta
Bhagat Singh would be caught later upon his arrival back to Lahore but that, dear reader, is a different story
We shall come back to Bhagwati Charan who along with his wife Durgawati Devi resided in Lahore while actively working under Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA)
Other than being a gifted orator, Bhagwati’s expertise was in bomb making
How extreme and radical were young revolutionaries of their time we can sense in Bhagwati Vohra’s ‘Philosophy of the Bomb’ an article he co-authored in reply to Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘The Cult of the Bomb”. (for my readers, the article is attached to the photo gallery of this post)
Our bomb maker of Lahore was onto something
As the events took a new turn and Bhagat Singh with his compatriots faced trial in the court, Bhagwati planned of bombing Lahore Jail at a time when Bhagat was being escorted to a court hearing with an aim to help him flee
But then, lady luck had other plans
Bhagwati and his friends had taken a boat on Ravi to reach a wooded patch in between the stream to test the efficacy of the bomb
A loose trigger caused a premature explosion that proved fatal for Bhagwati and injured Sukhdev
Here Majid Sheikh tells us that his wife Durgawati was also present on the scene where a profusely bleeding Bhagwati forcing everyone to leave let himself to the deadly depths of Ravi to avoid a capture by police
Some accounts state that his dead body was cremated beside Ravi
Of all the characters of this socialist revolution, our Durgawati Devi outlived all
After her husband’s death she actively continued the struggle
During late 1930s she settled in Lucknow
An educator in her later life our ‘Durga Bhabhi’ breathed her last in Ghaziabad in Oct of 99
Thus, dear reader, concludes our tale on "Young Revolutionaries of Lahore"
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The link to a presentation on Bhagat Singh by http://lums.edu.pk (referred to above in the write up) can be reached here
https://archive.lums.edu.pk/interactives/bhagat-singh/chapter1
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