A century in motion

Vasudev Balwant Phadke

1845–1883

Chitpawan Brahmin clerk turned rebel; started as a GIPR audit-office clerk, then worked in the military finance office; founded the first non-government school in Poona (1874); radicalised after the 1876-77 Deccan famine and after being denied leave to see his dying mother, who died before he reached her. Formed a four-tier secret organisation (schoolboy meetings, patriotic processions, satirical street singers, and an armed cadre) trained in sword exercise near Pune's Narsimha temple; organised the Ramoshi, Koli and Dhangar communities into an armed band and funded the movement through political robberies, including the May 1879 Konkan expedition netting roughly Rs 150,000; declared a double bounty on the Bombay governor's head under the title 'the new Pradhan of the Peshwa' and warned of a fresh 1857-style uprising.

Maulana Barkatullah

1854–1927

Fiery pan-Islamist preacher with old Ghadarite links in North America and Japan; accompanied Mahendra Pratap on the Kabul Mission as Prime Minister of the Provisional Government of India in exile.

Bal Gangadhar Tilak

1856–1920

Used the newspaper Kesari and the Ganapati and Shivaji festivals to build mass nationalist consciousness in Maharashtra; wrote a recommendation letter for Savarkar's scholarship application.

Shyamji Krishna Varma

1857–1930

Became an Oxford-based Sanskrit scholar and barrister before moving to Europe in 1897; founded India House hostel in London in 1905 and the journal The Indian Sociologist; instituted the Shivaji/Pratap/Akbar scholarships that brought Savarkar to London.

Bhikaji Cama

1861–1936

Worked as Dadabhai Naoroji's secretary in London before radicalising under Shyamji and Savarkar's influence; moved to Paris in 1907; unfurled an early Indian tricolour flag at the 1907 International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart; part of the failed rescue attempt at Marseilles in 1910.

S.R. Rana

1870–1957

Successful Paris-based jeweller who co-instituted scholarships with Shyamji and hosted the Paris revolutionary group, including Savarkar during his 1910 exile, at his apartment on Rue Blanche.

Hemchandra Das

1871–1951

Sent to Paris in late 1906 by Barin Ghosh to acquire bomb-making skills; obtained a Russian-language bomb manual from a Russian anarchist and had it translated; returned to Calcutta with the manual, which was later found both at Maniktola and at Babarao Savarkar's house in Nashik.

Sri Aurobindo

1872-08-15–1950

Educated in England from age five; stood first in the ICS entrance exam but refused the mandatory riding test and was disqualified; served the Gaekwad of Baroda; helped expand Anushilan Samiti into a wider Bengal network from 1902; wrote the tract Bhawani Mandir; edited Bande Mataram and Karmayogin; acquitted in the 1908-09 Alipore Bomb Trial; fled to Pondicherry in 1910.

Bhai Parmanand

1876–1947

India House member; later co-founded National College Lahore with Lala Lajpat Rai, an important recruiting ground for the next revolutionary generation including Bhagat Singh.

Virendranath Chattopadhyay

1880–1937

Member of the India House network who led the Berlin India Committee's wartime diplomatic activity with German support.

Jyotindra Nath Mukherjee

1880-12–1915-09-10

Earned his nickname after killing a tiger bare-handed in 1906; joined Anushilan Samiti under Aurobindo in 1903; rebuilt the shattered post-Alipore Bengal network into the disciplined Jugantar group; convened the 1913 Panchavati meeting with Rashbehari Bose to plan a mass uprising; coordinated the failed German arms shipment plan of 1915.

V.V.S. Aiyar

1881–1925

Practised law in Rangoon before moving to London in 1907 and joining India House; became Savarkar's effective second-in-command; translated The Indian War of Independence 1857 into English; used a master key and a revolver to expose the Scotland Yard mole Kiritkar.

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar

1883-05-28–1966

Founded Mitra Mela and Abhinav Bharat; central recruiter and de facto leader of the India House network in London; author of The Indian War of Independence 1857; sentenced to fifty years transportation to the Cellular Jail in 1911.

Madan Lal Dhingra

1883–1909-08-17

Came from an upper-middle-class Punjabi family with no prior political leanings; radicalised by Savarkar at India House; assassinated Sir William Curzon Wyllie with a Colt pistol at the Imperial Institute on 1 July 1909.

Lala Har Dayal

1884–1939

Topped his degrees at St Stephen's College and Punjab University; became an Oxford scholar and active India House member; founded the Ghadar movement and its weekly The Ghadar in San Francisco in 1913; later printed a third edition of Savarkar's 1857 book in the United States.

Taraknath Das

1884–1958

Active Dacca Anushilan Samiti member who escaped to the United States and organised protests against racist Canadian immigration laws; published the periodical Free Hindustan.

Rashbehari Bose

1886–1945-01-21

Worked as a laboratory assistant at the Forest Research Institute Dehradun while secretly running a revolutionary network; planned and helped execute the 1912 Chandni Chowk bombing of Viceroy Hardinge; organised the failed 1915 pan-India army uprising with Sachindra Nath Sanyal; escaped to Japan disguised as a Tagore relative; became a Japanese citizen; corresponded with Savarkar from the late 1930s and founded a Japan branch of the Hindu Mahasabha at Savarkar's suggestion; convened the conferences that founded the Indian Independence League and the Indian National Army; formally handed over leadership of the IIL and INA to Subhas Chandra Bose at Singapore's Cathay Theatre on 4 July 1943, describing it as passing on the baton of the revolutionary movement.

Manabendra Nath Roy

1887–?

Joined Anushilan Samiti in 1905; was part of the group that planned the 1914 Rodda arms heist but opted out; sent by Bagha Jatin to Batavia to coordinate a 1915 German arms shipment; fled to the US then Mexico, co-founded the Communist Party of Mexico in 1919, then founded the Communist Party of India in Tashkent in 1920 on Lenin's instruction.

Narayan Damodar Savarkar

1888–1948 or 1949

Arrested and tortured during the investigations following the Jackson assassination; present on stage at the 1920 Nagpur Congress when Sanyal spoke on Cellular Jail prisoners.

Vishnu Ganesh Pingle

1888–1915

Regular visitor to Sachindra Nath Sanyal and Rashbehari Bose's Varanasi headquarters; assigned to organise army barracks in Meerut for the planned 1915 uprising.

Keshav Baliram Hedgewar

1889–1940-06

Orphaned at thirteen; initiated into Anushilan Samiti and given the code name 'Cocaine' while studying medicine in Calcutta; returned to Nagpur to found the local unit Kranti Dal; imprisoned for sedition in 1921 after the Nagpur Congress; founded the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Vijaya Dashami in September 1925 as an apolitical Hindu cultural organisation, deliberately modelled on the akhada network.

Sachindra Nath Sanyal

1893–1942-02-06

Descended from a family of Vedic scholars settled in Varanasi; founded a Varanasi branch of Anushilan Samiti in 1908; became Rashbehari Bose's chief lieutenant in the 1915 uprising plan; twice sent to the Cellular Jail, in 1915 and 1925; founded the Hindustan Republican Association in 1923-24; wrote the memoir Bandi Jeevan; corresponded with Rashbehari Bose in Japan into the late 1930s.

Surya Sen

1894–1934

Mathematics teacher at National High School Chittagong; part of the east Bengal Anushilan Samiti network; inspired by the Irish Easter Rising; led the Indian Republican Army, Chittagong Branch, in the 18 April 1930 Chittagong Armoury Raid and subsequent guerrilla resistance at Jalalabad hill.

Kartar Singh Sarabha

1896–1915

Hardayal's teenage assistant at Yugantar Ashram in San Francisco; became the trusted point person for the Lahore-Amritsar area during the 1915 uprising plan; led seventy armed men to Ferozepore military camp on the planned revolt night.

Ram Prasad Bismil

1897–1927-12-18

Early Congress nationalist-faction organiser; joined the revolutionaries and was put in charge of the HRA's armed wing; conceived and led the Kakori train robbery of 9 August 1925; wrote the autobiography The Revolutionary on death row and composed the anthem Mera Rang De Basanti Chola in prison.

Subhas Chandra Bose

1897-01-23–1945-08-18

Discovered Vivekananda's writings as a teenager; opted out of the ICS in 1921 after placing fourth, following Aurobindo's earlier example; mentored by Chittaranjan Das; twice elected INC President, winning a contested 1939 election before being forced to resign amid a leadership standoff; escaped house arrest in disguise in January 1941, travelled via Kabul, Moscow and Berlin to Germany; met Hitler in 1942 without securing a clear independence declaration; travelled by submarine to Southeast Asia in 1943; took over the Indian Independence League and INA from Rashbehari Bose at Singapore's Cathay Theatre on 4 July 1943; declared the Provisional Government of Free India on 21 October 1943; led the INA's failed Imphal-Kohima campaign in 1944.

Udham Singh

1899-12–1940-07-30

Orphaned young and raised in an Amritsar orphanage; present in Amritsar during the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and swore revenge at the Golden Temple; met Bhagat Singh in his youth; travelled the world before settling in London; assassinated Michael O'Dwyer at Caxton Hall on 13 March 1940, the same venue where Savarkar had once defended Dhingra.

Nalinaksha Sanyal

1899–?

Sixteen-year-old local Ghadar-era organiser in the Nadia-Murshidabad belt in 1915; later earned a PhD in economics in London while organising Simon Commission protests; became a leading figure of the Bengal Volunteers; barred from a Calcutta University post on suspicion of revolutionary links; later a leading transportation economist and Chief Whip of the INC in the Bengal provincial assembly; worked with Syamaprasad Mookerjee to secure the retention of key railway lines and river systems for India during the 1947 Partition of Bengal.

Ashfaqullah Khan

1900–1927-12-19

Bismil's closest friend and chief lieutenant; initially opposed the risky Kakori robbery plan but went along with it; evaded arrest longest among the accused before being caught.

Rajendra Lahiri

1901–1927-12-17

Asked by Sanyal to move from Varanasi to Bengal to set up a bomb factory near Dakshineshwar; arranged for a large Mauser pistol consignment to be handed over at sea; arrested with a live bomb and revolvers found at his hideout.

Bhagwati Charan Vohra

1903–1930

HSRA's chief operational planner; hosted the meeting deciding to kill Superintendent Scott after Lajpat Rai's death; wrote the pamphlet 'The Philosophy of the Bomb' defending revolutionary violence as a legitimate political strategy; planned a failed bombing of the viceroy's train and a jail-break attempt for Bhagat Singh.

Jatindra Nath Das

1904–1929-09-13

Sachindra Nath Sanyal's key lieutenant and explosives expert in Calcutta during the HRA years; later joined the HSRA base in Agra.

Chandrashekhar Azad

1906–1931-02-27

Ran away from home as a teenager; adopted the name 'Azad' after defiantly declaring himself 'free' before a magistrate; recruited by Rajendra Lahiri into the HRA in Varanasi; unanimously elected head of the armed wing at the 1928 Ferozshah Kotla meeting, making him the senior-most leader of his generation; met Savarkar for guidance in 1927.

Bhagat Singh

1907–1931-03-23

Nephew of Ajit Singh; educated at National College Lahore; founded the Naujawan Bharat Sabha before joining the HRA/HSRA; proposed and won the renaming to Hindustan Socialist Republican Association in 1928; shot John Saunders, mistaken for Superintendent Scott, to avenge Lala Lajpat Rai's death; threw non-lethal bombs into the Central Legislative Assembly on 8 April 1929 and courted arrest; grew increasingly Marxist in his final years.

Sukhdev Thapar

1907–1931-03-23

Planned the Saunders-killing operation and assigned roles to Rajguru, Bhagat Singh, Azad and Jai Gopal; accused Bhagat Singh of cowardice, provoking him to lead the Assembly bombing personally.