Ashfaqullah and Bismil hanged 96 years ago: How young revolutionary leaders executed the Kakori Train Robbery

An act frequently invoked when the freedom movement is discussed, The Indian Express recounts the events at Kakori, and how the revolutionary HRA threatened British authority in the 1920s.

The founding of the Hindustan Republican Association

In 1920, Mahatma Gandhi declared the launch of the Non-Cooperation Movement, a campaign which asked Indians to revoke their support from any activity that “sustained the British government and economy in India.” Gandhi had envisioned this movement to be non-violent, using his methods of satyagraha to eventually attain self-governance.

However, an incident changed the movement’s trajectory in 1922. After police firing killed three protesting men in the town of Chauri Chaura in present-day Uttar Pradesh, a mob later set fire to the police station, burning 22 policemen to death. In his autobiography, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said this incident led to the “sudden” end of the Non-cooperation movement, with Gandhi calling it off despite significant internal disagreement within the Indian National Congress (INC).

The HRA was thus founded by a group of young men who were disillusioned by Gandhi’s tactics and what they felt was zealous preaching of “non-violence.”

Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqulla Khan, both of whom had a flair for poetry, were among the group’s founders. Others included Sachindra Nath Bakshi and trade unionist Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee. Figures such as Chandra Shekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh would also join the HRA. Their manifesto released on January 1, 1925, was titled Krantikari (Revolutionary).

It proclaimed, “The immediate object of the revolutionary party in the domain of politics is to establish a federal Republic of United States of India by an organized and armed revolution.” The manifesto looked at these revolutionaries as “neither terrorists nor anarchists… they do not want terrorism for terrorism’s sake although they may at times resort to this method as a very effective means of retaliation.”

Their envisioned republic would be based on universal suffrage and socialist principles, importantly, the “abolition of all systems which make the exploitation of man by man possible.”

What was the Kakori Train Action incident?

The train robbery at Kakori was the HRA’s first major action, in August 1925. The Number 8 Down Train ran between Shahjahanpur and Lucknow. On a fateful day, it carried treasury bags meant to be deposited in the British treasury in Lucknow.

The revolutionaries planned to rob this money, which they believed legitimately belonged to Indians anyway. Their objective was both to fund the HRA and garner public attention for their work and mission.

On August 9, 1925, as the train was passing the Kakori station, about 15 km from Lucknow, Rajendranath Lahiri, a member of the HRA who was already seated inside, pulled the chain and stopped the train. Subsequently, around ten revolutionaries, including Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqullah Khan, entered the train and overpowered the guard. They looted the treasury bags (containing approx Rs 4,600) and escaped to Lucknow.

Due to a misfiring Mauser gun, one passenger (a lawyer named Ahmad Ali) was killed during the robbery, harming the revolutionaries’ intentions to elicit a positive public reaction.

The British authorities were enraged, undertaking a violent crackdown and soon arresting many members of the HRA. Bismil was arrested in October, supposedly after two members of the HRA betrayed him. Ashfaqullah escaped to Nepal and then Daltonganj (in present-day Jharkhand). He would be arrested a year later. Out of the forty men arrested by the British, four were handed death sentences, while others received lengthy prison terms.

The only major leader of HRA at this time who evaded arrest was Chandrashekhar Azad.

What happened to the HRA afterwards?

In 1928, a year after the execution of the Kakori Conspiracy accused, the HRA merged with various other revolutionary groups that had emerged in Punjab, Bihar and Bengal and became the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA). Gradually it made its Marxist leanings more explicit, working with the Communist International and speaking of a revolution involving a struggle by the masses to establish “the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

By the 1930s, the HSRA had lost steam with many of its prominent leaders either dead or in prison. However, over the latter half of the 1920s, the group was key in carrying out various acts of resistance against British rule, participating in protests against the Simon Commission, the subsequent assassination of assistant police commissioner J.P Saunders, and the bombing of Viceroy Irwin’s train, among others. In the 1930s it broke down into various regional factions.

Why did the Kakori incident elicit such strong reactions?

The severity of the British response was somewhat surprising, especially the handing out of capital sentences.

One way to view the Kakori incident is to see the symbolic message that it sent to the British Raj. While the sum stolen was paltry, such an act was unprecedented in the Raj where specifically money meant for the British treasury was looted. The revolutionaries did not touch anything else. The British response to Kakori was to set an example for future revolutionaries and restore British authority in the minds of the people.

For Indians, the Kakori incident is remembered as one of many revolutionary activities that were undoubtedly brave but ended in tragedy.