How Rodda Company was fooled

 

The writer came across a T-shirt hanging in a rare garments stall in Kolkata Boimela, a couple of years ago. There had been inexpensive t-shirts alone being sold in the outlet. The items were having progressive, educative, and eye-catching prints mostly for youngsters starting from images of Che, Fidel, and Uncle Ho ranging up to the Agnijug Freedom Fighters. The picture printed with this article carries a print which especially attracted many. It carried the picture of one of the most charismatic leaders of the anti-British armed struggle of the subcontinent in the person of Masterda Surya Sen. But what was more pertinent was the message inscribed. As you may see (if of course, you read Bengali) it says," we have not looted anything rather established our right over our property." By this, of course, it was meant that the Indian Republican Army under Surya Sen had established the right of the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent by conquering the Armouries of Chittagong and taking control of the city, and not looted the arms. It may be mentioned here that many people till date refer to the historic feat by Chittagong youth as Chattogram Astragar Loonthon (Chittagong Armoury Loot). The writer personally has observed and corrected many such mistaking individuals. Fortunately, everyone accepted the flaw and got corrected immediately.

The British colonials siphoned trillions of pounds by exploiting our resources and got rich to develop their land at our expense. Even those arms were purchased with our money for use against us. So the message carried with the print was really strong and attracted many including yours truly. I took a snap and am sharing the same with you. The reason behind sharing this very picture today is to bring a similar incident to the notice of the readers. Many of the readers may have read about Rodda Arms Heist in 1914. This, like the Chittagong incident, was named derogatory to our Freedom Fighter youth by the British authorities as they instituted cases against our revolutionaries by such names. In fact, Rodda case was a sensational revolutionary act of the young enthusiasts of the Jugantor faction of Anushilan Samity. They believed in armed struggle as the only means to drive the colonial forces to free their Motherland. For that, they needed arms. Rodda Company was the biggest and most influential European Arms dealer (importer, wholesaler, and distributor) in the Bengal Presidency of the British Raj in those days. The Jugantor leadership targeted this company for being able to lay their hands on a big consignment of firearms. They saw success in 1914.

At the beginning of the twentieth-century youth were desperate to take revenge on British officials and their local collaborators who took an active part in the repression of the public in general and Revolutionaries in particular. Thus arose the famous Manicktala Case otherwise named as Alipore Bomb case. A host of revolutionaries including Arabinda Ghosh, his brother Barin Ghosh, famous youth Khudiram Basu, Ullaskar Dutta, and others were tried for the murder of two British ladies. In fact, Khudiram and Prafulla Chaki targetted judge Kingsford notorious for being unjust and harsh towards the Freedom Fighters. But due to the switching of vehicles, they mistook the other vehicle carrying the two women for the one carrying the judge. Ullaskar was the one who made the bombs. Arabinda and his brother were the planning leaders. As we know 16-year-old Khudiram who was not even a grown-up man (and was supposed to be tried in a juvenile court) was given a death sentence by the civilized law system of the British Raj. Many were sent to the Andamans for life. Others got RI for different terms. It was 1908.

There were several other killings of local collaborating Raj officers in the following years. Shamsul Alam an Intelligence Officer arresting and harassing some revolutionaries was killed. So was Naren Banerjee who arrested Khudiram. Naren Gosain, a comrade of the Revolutionaries who turned a crown witness was killed. So was his Advocate Ashutosh Biswas. All these killings came under a trial of Revolutionaries in 1910 known as the Howrah-Shibpur Conspiracy case. Meantime anger against the Raj was growing. Youth were motivated. Secret organizations sprang up. New leaders showed up on different fronts. Famous revolutionary leader Rash Behari Bose started organizing Indians living abroad in the USA, Canada, Japan, and other countries to rise to the occasion and support the freedom struggle. Jatindra Nath Mukherjee alias Bagha Jatin was then working in Dehradun Forest Research Institute. He spread revolutionary ideals in the North and Western parts of India and coordinated Bengal activities with the activities in Bihar, Orissa, and North India. He came in touch with Jugantor, Atmonnati Samity, and other radical factions of Anushilan Samity. He worked in collusion with Amarendra Chatterjee and Naren Bhattacharjee to find out ways to fight for India's freedom.

Naren organized several operations to take possession of British cash in different offices by force to create funds for action. Jatin and Naren managed to meet the Crown Prince of Germany during his Calcutta visit to negotiate arms supply from Germany to organize the Indian revolution to throw away British Raj. Jatin worked out bases in Sundarbans and Orissa jungles near the Bay of Bengal to be used for hideouts of Revolutionaries and landing points of German Arms. It is believed that Jatin and Rash Behari had contacts with Chatto an Indian firebrand leader working for India's freedom staying in Europe. In Germany, he was leading the Indians and having high connections with German leadership to be in a position to influence such developments.

The leader Rash Behari Bose had to go into hiding in 1912 after an attempt on the life of Lord Hardinge. While still in hiding he met Bagha Jatin in 1913 and they planned about keeping the onslaught on the colonials to keep spirits of revolutionary youth high. They wanted the general mass to come in support of the Freedom Fighters and with German help to organize an uprising in 1915. After that meeting, Bagha Jatin concentrated his attention on the Eastern part of India. Jatin and Naren Bhattacharjee went upto the stage of establishing some contact with the 10th Jat Regiment's native soldiers stationed in Fort Williams. This is the time when a group of energetic youth from Dhaka like Hem Chandra, Syed Alimuddin also came to Calcutta to get involved in the armed freedom movement. Some of them later worked closely with Deshabandhu Chittaranjan and Netaji Subhash and were members of Bengal Volunteers. Revolutionary youth worked under different banners like Attmonnoti Samity, Sramajeebi Samabaya, Jugantor, etc to deceive the colonial authorities.

 The boys were desperate at this stage to get arms for achieving their target of attacking the British authorities. A golden opportunity arose. Srish Chandra Mitra, a member of the underground group Attmonnoti Samity was working with the previously mentioned famous European arms dealer Rodda and Company. He came to know that in August 1914 a big consignment of arms would arrive at Calcutta en route to Tibet to fight the Chinese. He (Srish Mitra) would be assigned to clear the goods from Calcutta Customs House and carry the same to the company's godown. It took no time for the leadership of Jugantor to get this most valuable piece of information and a plan was chalked out accordingly. Mitra, Anukul Mukherjee, Khagendra Nath Das, Srish Pal, and Haridas Dutta were assigned to achieve the target of somehow intercepting the consignment and make away with as much arms and ammo as possible. Besides other boys were also on the reserve list for help, if necessary.

Srish Mitra made a flawless plan. He arranged 7 bullock carts for the transportation of the arms. For the seventh one, his comrade Haridas Dutta disguised as a Bihari cart driver was employed. Srish cleared the goods, loaded the carts, and started towards the godown. So far, all went smooth.

From somewhere on the way, the seventh cart driven by Haridas Dutta disappeared as planned and the cart made its way to a pre-assigned destination in Mononga Lane via Mission Row. It was unloaded in no time by the boys mentioned above and the cart with the driver was soon not in the vicinity.

Meantime, when at the godown Srish was supervising the unloading of the carts, it was observed that the seventh one was late in appearing. He showed his anger on the driver in the context that he was lazy and consequently late. So, he set out to find him, push the guy and rush back with goods quickly. Obviously, he was never seen in public after that.

The revolutionaries got 50 arms and 46000 rounds of ammunition which accounted for almost all political killings and actions on colonial oppressors until the early 20s of the twentieth century. It is presumed that these arms were used in 27 deaths of British officers and their associates and 44 armed actions. Even Bagha Jatin laid down his life on the bank of Buri Balam in the jungles of Orissa fighting with these arms. He went there to facilitate German Arms landing. Unfortunately, it was intercepted by the Brits and never arrived.

This great incident was described as the Greatest Daylight Robbery by the Daily newspaper Statesman. British police or intelligence had no clue and could not detect anything in the beginning. Later, of course, some of the participants including the cart driver Haridas Dutta were apprehended and tried. But the central figure Srish Chandra Mitra melted down in the crowd of his countrymen. There are some reports that he was in hiding in Rangpur for some time after which he made his way towards the Jaldapara jungles where he spent the rest of his life amongst the Rava Tribe and expired in due time unnoticed and not reported. Our highest regards go to him.

There is a statue still standing in Mononga Lane in Calcutta to remind us about the heroic deeds of these great achievers. In the Birthplace of Srish Mitra, a memorial structure has been erected beside a public library commemorating their achievement and showing deep respect to him.

Courtesy:

*Aishi Roy

*Utpal Kanti Dhar

*Shourin Dutta

*Wikipedia

The writer is a travel enthusiast
and history buff.