Revolutionaries Case

This article chronicles the activities of Revolutionaries through the first three decades of the twentieth century. The merit of the article lies in the fact that author attempts to string together several instances of revolutionaries and leaves to the reader to cull out the common ideological themes that pervade the revolutionary activates that spread the North and Eastern parts of the country. It is intriguing to learn that a common ideology can exist independent of a mass movement having a common object.

However, such a common ideology could not be found when the revolutionalist Movement was in its incipient stages. The first phase of Revolutionalism from 1897-1910 witnessed the membership to the movement being based on existing social identities and was confined only the educated middle class Hindus. Emphasis was laid on ritualism and other quintessential Hindu traits. The inability to create a new identity of their own effectively excluded non Hindus from becoming an integral part of the Movement.

The Second Phase of the Revolutionalist movement coincided with the onslaught of the First World War and inspiration the Indian Revolutionaries received from counterparts from different parts of the World. However, the problem of want for internal identity of Revolutionaries still persisted. It was only in the third phase of the Revolution prompted by the failure of the Non Cooperation Movement. Around this time the people of India were now faced with common problems that cut across religious, cultural and regional differences. The Revolutionaries too, saw merit in working on the premise of an Egalitarian Society and became an important component of their Ideology. It was only then that Revolutionary Movements such as Indian Republican Army, Hindustan Republican Association and Hindustan Socialistic Republican Army could be effectively organised at a national level.

The Revolutionaries possessed the capability of transforming and channelling the hatred evoked by an individual belonging to the system against the system itself and work against a broader back drop. It was the ability to use a public platform to connect with people on a personal level that enabled them to incite the kind of emotions that they did. This was exemplified through the monumental trials of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru as well as the Meerut and Post Office conspiracies. Further, it was the sentimental attachment to these heroes that allowed anger to spew and serve as another reason for people to unite against the British. The development of Revolutionary activities over time demonstrates their ability to operate on both, individualistic and nationwide levels. Rudimentary forms of Revolutionary activities such as small scale secret societies were succeeded by organisations with a formal structure that endorsed ideologies such as socialism that had to be propagated at the Pan Indian level.