Revolutionaries of UP: Kakori, Azad, Bismil

On the evening of 9 August 1925, a train travelling from Shahjahanpur to Lucknow was stopped near Kakori, a small station outside Lucknow. A group of young men forced open the guard's van and took the government treasury bags it carried. They were members of the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), and the money was meant to fund an armed struggle for independence. The Kakori action — and the trial and executions that followed — made its leaders national heroes.

Early revolutionary activity

• The Mainpuri conspiracy (1918), organised by Genda Lal Dixit with Ram Prasad Bismil and others, sought to raise funds and weapons for revolution; it was uncovered by the police.

The Hindustan Republican Association (1924)

• Founded in 1924 by Sachindra Nath Sanyal, Ram Prasad Bismil, Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee and others.
• Aim: an armed revolution to establish a federal republic — the "United States of India".
• Its manifesto, The Revolutionary, set out these goals.

The Kakori train action (1925)

The trial and executions

• Many members were arrested and tried in the Kakori conspiracy case.
• Four were hanged in December 1927:
  • Ram Prasad Bismil (Gorakhpur jail);
  • Ashfaqulla Khan (Faizabad jail);
  • Rajendra Lahiri (Gonda jail);
  • Thakur Roshan Singh (Allahabad/Naini jail).
• Others received long sentences.
• Chandrashekhar Azad escaped arrest.

Bismil and Ashfaqulla: a friendship

• Ram Prasad Bismil was a poet as well as a revolutionary; he popularised the song "Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil mein hai" (whose authorship is attributed to the poet Bismil Azimabadi).
• Ashfaqulla Khan, a Muslim from Shahjahanpur, was Bismil's close friend and comrade. Their friendship is remembered as a symbol of Hindu–Muslim unity in the freedom struggle.

Chandrashekhar Azad and the HSRA

• Chandrashekhar Azad, who had declared that he would never be captured alive, reorganised the movement.
• In 1928, at a meeting at Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi, the HRA became the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), with Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and others — adding socialism to its goals.
• HSRA actions included the killing of Saunders in Lahore (1928) and the bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly (1929).

Azad's death

• On 27 February 1931, Azad was surrounded by police in Alfred Park, Allahabad. After a gunfight, he used his last bullet on himself rather than be captured.
• The park is now Chandrashekhar Azad Park.

Ideas of the revolutionaries

Legacy

• Their courage inspired a generation of young Indians.
• Their ideas — republic, socialism, secularism — anticipated values later enshrined in the Constitution.
• Monuments and memorials: the Kakori memorial, Azad Park, memorials in Shahjahanpur and Gorakhpur.

Practice

Prelims-style:

1. When and where did the Kakori action take place?
2. Name the four revolutionaries hanged in the Kakori case.
3. When was the HRA renamed HSRA, and where?
4. Where did Chandrashekhar Azad die?
5. Who organised the Mainpuri conspiracy?

Mains-style:

• "The revolutionaries of UP combined courage with a clear vision of a free India." Discuss.
• Examine the contribution of the Kakori martyrs to the national movement.