Christmas Day Plot - Pre-war Developments

Pre-war Developments

While incarcerated during the Howrah-Sibpur conspiracy trial, a nucleus emerged within the party comprising the most militant of the nationalists. These developed from early ideas initially mooted by Barin Ghosh. This nucleus foresaw the possibilities of an Anglo-German war in the near-future, and around this the revolutionaries intended to launch a guerilla war with assistance from Germany. The trial brought to attention the direction the group headed, moving away from the efforts of the early revolutionaries which aimed to merely terrorise the British administration. The nucleus that arose during the trial held deeper political motives and aspirations, and built on this nucleus to develop an organisational network throughout Bengal and other parts of India. The Howrah-Sibpur case ultimately collapsed due to lack of evidence. Released in February 1911, Jatin Mukherjee suspended all overtly violent activities. Suspended from his government job, Jatin began a business, working in contractor for the railway network in Bengal, a work which allowed him to roam the Bengal countryside identifying suitable spots for the revolutionary projects he was planning. In 1906, an early Anushilan member Jatindranath Banerjee (known as Niralamba Swami) had left Bengal in the guise of a Sanyasi, making his way to the United Provinces and subsequently Punjab. At Punjab, Niralamba established links with Sardar Ajit Singh and Bhai Kishen Singh (father of Bhagat Singh). Through Kishen Singh, the Bengal revolutionary cell was introduced to Lala Har Dayal when the latter visited India briefly in 1908. Har Dayal himself was associated with the India House, a revolutionary organisation in London then under V.D. Savarkar; Dayal was proud that by 1910, he had worked closely with Rash Behari Bose. Bose was a Jugantar member employed at the Forest institute at Dehra Dun, who worked, possibly independent of Jatin Mukherjee, on the revolutionary movement in UP and Punjab since October 1910. The India House itself was liquidated in 1910 in the aftermath of Sir W.H. Curzon Wyllie's assassination in the hands of Madanlal Dhingra, a member of the London group. Among the India House group who fled Britain was V.N. Chetterjee, who left for Germany. Har Dayal himself moved to San Francisco after working briefly with the Paris Indian Society. In the United States, nationalism among Indian immigrants, particularly students and working classes, was gaining grounds. Taraknath Das, who had left Bengal for the United States in 1907, was among the noted Indian leaders who engaged in political work, maintaining contact with Sri Aurobindo and Jatin Mukherjee. In California, Har Dayal's arrival bridged a gap between the intellectual agitators in the west coast and the lower classes in the Pacific coast. Welcomed by Taranath Das, he emerged a leading organiser of Indian nationalism amongst the predominantly immigrant labour workers from India, founding the Ghadar movement.

Meanwhile, in 1912, Jatin met in the company of Naren Bhattacharya the Crown Prince of Germany during the latter's visit to Calcutta in 1912, and obtained an assurance that arms and ammunition would be supplied to them. The October of the same year, Rash Behari visited Lahore, rallying Har Dayal's group and beginning a campaign of revolutionary violence marked most dramatically by an attempt on the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge in December 1912. Rash Behari's associate Basanta Biswas - sent by Amarendra Chatterjee, had belonged to Jatin Mukherjee's cirle of followers. Niralamba Swami informed Jatin Mukherjee further about the activities in North India when they met, on a pilgrimage to the holy Hindu city of Brindavan. Returning to Bengal,in 1913, Jatin began organising a grand scale relief in the flood-stricken areas around the Damodar. Rash Behari had gone into hiding in Benares after the 1912 attempt on Hardinge, but he joined Jatin Mukherjee on this occasion. Acknowledging in Jatin Mukherjee the true leader of the people, Bose met him several times towards the end of 1913, outlining the prospects of a pan-Indian revolution of 1857 style.