01 December,2010 08:02 AM IST | | Sudeshna Chowdhury
With Ashutosh Gowariker's movie Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey based on the Chittagong Armoury raid, to hit cinema screens on Friday, MiD DAY speaks to 100-year-old Binod Bihari Chowdhury, the only living revolutionary of the armoury raid
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It was a night to remember. An extraordinary act of valour unfolded on April 18, 1930. In the stillness of the night an uprising was about to begin in Chittagong (now in Bangladesh), which involved ordinary men and women.
Sixty-five young revolutionaries, equipped with unflinching determination took the mighty British Empire by storm under the leadership of the legendary Surjya Sen. Their aim was to liberate Chittagong, from the clutches of the British Empire.
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Binod Bihari Chowdhury celebrates his 100th birthday
The day went down in history as the Chittagong Armoury raid. But as the Independence movement progressed, the event was largely forgotten and now it is a footnote in our history textbooks.
HISTORY
Now, though, Bollywood seems poised to give this story its rightful place in history. What better way to do it than on celluloid? Encouraged by the mega success of Lagaan, its director Ashutosh Gowariker, has rekindled the glorious Chittagong Armoury raid in his latest flick, Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey, to be released on December 3.
Abhishek Bachchan is playing the role of Surjya Sen. Another movie by director Shonali Bose is in the making. Manoj Bajpai will be playing Sen in this movie.
CHANGE
In recent years, Bollywood has made a few movies, with varying success, on freedom fighters and the Indian independence movement. Is it an attempt to cash in on patriotism or is there a genuine desire to highlight the forgotten but glorious moments of the freedom struggle?
Gowariker responds, "The message is that youth can bring about a change. These teenagers at that time could strongly participate in the movement against the British Raj. If you look at it in the modern context we don't have any oppressor any more in terms of anyone ruling us but there is an oppression of a different kind. It is a social evil.
Collectively, I think that youth can get motivated to overcome these social evils at least think in that direction which will be nationalistic. So in a contemporary sense what you take away should be nationalistic in approach."
Manini Chatterjee (currently based in Delhi), the author of Do and Die, the book on which Gowariker's movie is based, told MiD DAY in an e-mail interview, "I do hope Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey will ignite an interest in many other forgotten or unknown stories from our past for other writers and filmmakers to explore."
ONLY SURVIVINGu00a0 REVOLUTIONARY
Gowariker was fortunate to find Binod Bihari Chowdhury, the only living revolutionary of the armoury raid, who was 19 then and now is 100-years-old, to tell the tale of that momentous occasion.
When the filmmaker was doing research for his movie, his team went to Chittagong (now in Bangladesh) to meet Chowdhury for a first-hand account of a little-known chapter in India's history.
u00a0MiD Day called Chowdhury, who spoke on the phone, recalling the moment when he was inducted in the raid plan by Surjya Sen or Masterda (he was fondly called, as he was a school teacher).
Chowdhury said over the phone from Bangladesh, "I was barely out of my teens then but at the same time I was hell bent on actively participating in the revolutionary movement.
One of my friends had asked me to wait at a cemetery. I was told that Masterda will come and meet me there. After waiting for almost two hours he arrived."
One could detect a childlike enthusiasm in him as he continued, "Masterda was initially not ready to take me into the revolutionary movement.
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You can do much for society so I wouldn't advise you to join the movement, Masterda told me. But I was determined and I kept arguing with him."
Finally Masterda had to give in to Chowdhury's undaunted determination.
"He hugged me and asked me if I was angry with him. I told him that yes initially I was a bit disheartened because he was not ready to make me a part of this freedom struggle but now I am elated," adds Chowdhury.
Chowdhury from that day onward became an integral part of the Indian Republican Army, Chittagong branch.
"Liberation was our aim," says the centenarian in a voice that defies his age.u00a0
Chowdhury's memoirs, called Ognijhora Dingulo (The Flaming Days), captures the true spirit of valour and the courage of the young revolutionaries.
Chapters like My favourite village and My growing-up days give us an insight into 1930s undivided Bengal. The British rulers at the time had declared a reward ofu00a0 500 taka on Chowdhury's head. He served a seven-year jail term first under the British rule and then the Pakistani government.
Despite taking part in the uprising as a teenager and spending seven years in jail, Chowdhury did his post-graduation in English literature and a Bachelors degree in Law.
THE RAID
The raid plan, under Surjya Sen's leadership, was executed to perfection. He and his young charges attacked the two armouries in Chittagong and captured them.
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The telegraph and the telephone offices were destroyed. The members of the European Club, which mainly included military officials, were assassinated. Railway lines were also disrupted.
Chowdhury says that the aim was to paralyse the British administration in the city. For two days, Chittagong was liberated from the colonial power before the revolt was brutally crushed.
AFTERMATH
When asked what happened after the raid Binod Bihari Chowdhury answers after a slight pause. "After the raid we broke up into small groups and took refuge in the Jalalabad hills in Chittagong. The police were on the lookout for us and suddenly one day we were surrounded by them. In the gunfight that followed I was shot in the throat."
"It was painful, very painful. My throat had a bullet-hole. It was bleeding non-stop. My friends and I had to take a decision.
Seeing me in so much pain one of them told me, let me shoot you and relieve you of the pain. Another friend stopped him. He said, Binod will be able to overcome this pain. He will live, he will live," Chowdhury further adds.
Chowdhury and his companions managed to escape through a tunnel. He was taken to a hospital where he was treated.
Many revolutionaries who participated in the raid managed to escape by leaving Chittagong or indulging in guerilla warfare. "But Surjya Sen's relative gave him away for a princely sum of Rs 10,000, informing the British about Sen's whereabouts. However, the traitor was killed by our companions," recalls Chowdhury.
Surjya Sen was tried and hanged on January 12, 1934. Some say that his body was then thrown into the Bay of Bengal.
LIKE A PHOENIX
The raid was one of the few uprisings, which saw women participating shoulder-to-shoulder with the men. Two such women who were part of the Chittagong Armoury raid were Kalpana Dutta and Pritilata Wadeddar.
Two years after the attack, eight young rebels led by Waddedar attacked the European club and assassinated many military officials.
For many, these revolutionaries who had decided to risk their own lives to liberate themselves from British rule, are local heroes, who have become part of folklore.
"I had heard from my parents that Waddedar was ambidextrous. She could shoot using both her hands.
Lokenath Baul, another revolutionary was so strong that he could break huge iron locks with bare hands," says Malati Dutta who was just a five-year-old girl then.
DO AND DIE
Manini Chatterjee, author of, Do and Die is the daughter-in-law of Kalpana Dutta and Subodh Roy who is her uncle. Dutta was one of the revolutionaries and Roy (known popularly by his pet-name Jhunku) was the youngest revolutionary who joined Surjya Sen in the raid.
In fact, Roy was just 14-years-old when he participated in the uprising. A student of Std VIII then, he stole his father's gun and joined the other revolutionaries. Roy died at the age of 90.
"My main objective in writing the book was to bring alive a forgotten chapter of India's freedom struggle, an incredible story of courage and sacrifice which is little known today even in Bengal," explains Chatterjee.
Tale of valour
Excerpts from an interview with Ashutosh Gowariker
Indian history is replete with references to revolutionary movements, why did you specially choose this over say any other famous revolutionary movement or mutinies?
One of the first reasons was that in other freedom struggles, attempts have been very individualistic. The Chittagong uprising involved 65 people. So it was such a large thing to carry out this operation. I almost felt this is one of the biggest revolutions that had happened and we don't know much about it.
What fascinated me also were these kids. Why were they so drawn for fighting for a revolution and willing to give up their lives? I decided that this was definitely a story of valour of a different kind.
Don't you think the title of the movie, Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey sounds frivolous and belittles the sacrifice of these youngsters?
I don't think it belittles it. In fact, it celebrates their boisterousness from a teenager's perspective. The teenagers are literally playing with their lives so it reflects their mindset, their deeds, what they have done. And Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey is not frivolous at all.
How difficult was it for you to research and find out more about the revolutionary leader given that people know so little about him?
The challenge for me was always recreating the period, recreating behaviours and patterns, lifestyles.u00a0 In Do and Die, I found all the details that I needed about the revolution.
Do you think that the young generation lacks that sort of passion that the reel life character in your movie has portrayed?
No I don't think so. All the passion is there, it only needs a trigger each time, it needs awareness, it needs knowledge and knowledge is empowering.
Pages of history
Excerpts from an interview with Manini Chatterjee.
As an author were you a bit afraid that the essence of the whole book would be lost in the movie?
I was aware that a mainstream film has its own compulsions and has to take some creative liberties and some changes in time line etc -- especially since my book is very long and detailed. But one reason I agreed to give the film rights was that Ashutosh Gowariker was making it. Having seen Lagaan, Swades, and Jodha Akbar, I felt that he was a director who made meaningful cinema within the mainstream format and managed to convey important issues to a mass audience (as opposed to a rarefied festival circuit) without making it either boring on one hand or trivial/sensational on the other.
How difficult was it for you to write this book in the first place, Given Kalpana Dutta was your mother-in-law. did you have to be extra careful in giving out information or you were detached when you wrote the book?
The fact that my mother-in-law was Kalpana Dutta gave immediacy to the story but I started researching the book a few years after she passed away. So I did use some anecdotes from memory but the bulk of my book was based on hitherto untapped primary sources, which I found in the National Archives and from writings of some of the participants. Apart from Kalpana, her cousin Subodh Roy (Jhunku) was also in the movement and was the youngest participant in the uprising. In fact, he had a far greater involvement and had participated in the armoury raid as well as the battle in the Jalalabad hills. Fortunately for me Jhunku Mama was alive when I was working on the book (he passed away in 2006) and looking back, his help was invaluable. Apart from talking to me several times, he gave me his vivid unpublished memoir and that helped me enormously in giving a flesh and blood feel to the dry bones of history.
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What do you feel after watching this movie?
The film is not just a rendition of my book, it is not a documentary, and does make some departures from the book. But on the whole it captures the spirit of the Chittagong uprisingu00a0 -- a tale of courage and sacrifice, of love and loss, of friendship and camaraderie, of passion and pathos very well.
The uprising
Excerpts from an interview with Abhishek Bachchan.
Were you slightly apprehensive when you listened to the script for the first time?
No, not at all, I was very eager to do it because I thought it was definitely going to be a very memorable character. A story which I really felt very strongly about and I thought that it needed to be told. I feel that Surjya da and Chittagong uprising have literally been lost somewhere in the pages of history and is not spoken about as often as the other great freedom fighters.
Was it the director or the character or the concept, which attracted you to the role?
All three. Ashu is one of the most celebrated directors of our generation. He is somebody I have been keen to work with a very long time coupled with the opportunity to play Surjya da and the story of Chittagong uprising.
How easy or difficult was to play Surya Sen?
It is relatively easier than a fictional character. There is a story, which is already there. The film based on the book Do and Die. So we have got that detailed account. Whatever information was available was sufficient to give the foundation of the character.
As an actor what is that one thing that you thought you had achieved by playing the role?
Just a story of what happened on April 18, 1930 . The entire story of the uprising. Who did it? How they did it?u00a0 As an actor I wanted to portray all of these.
Aamir Khan chose Mangal Pandey because he is part of the folklore of the Indian freedom struggle. Surya Sen is so little known in the Indian pantheon of freedom fighters. Did you think it was risky to essay the role?
No, I never think like that. For me, I have to emotionally connect to a film or a story. If I do then I will be a part of it. As a creative person as an actor you have to emotionally invest in a film and the story of Chittagong was an interesting story and a story which I wanted to tell.u00a0
Are you happy with your performance?
I am never happy with my performance. You always revisit a film and feel that, I could have done that
better.
MOVIES ON OTHER REVOLUTIONARIES
Bose: The Forgotten Hero was a film made by Shyam Benegal in 2005. The movie is based on the life of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.
Bhagat Singh: The Legend of Bhagat Singh was based on revolutionary Bhagat Singh's life where Ajay Devgn played the role of Singh.u00a0
Mangal Pandey played by Aamir Khan was based on the 1857 Mutiny.
Lagaan: Another movie where Aamir Khan plays the role of an oppressed farmer went for the Oscars. Lagaan, a movie directed by Ashutosh Gowariker revolved around the Indian peasants who were oppressed by exorbitant taxes imposed by the British government.
