Yukteswar Giri - A Revolutionary Interlude

A Revolutionary Interlude

"Priyanath Karar" has been mentioned by James Campbell Ker in the Bihar and Orissa History Sheet (p. 498) of his Political Trouble in India, A Confidential Report, 1917, First Reprint 1973. Arun Chandra Guha writes that when Bankimchandra Chatterjee was a Deputy Magistrate at Chinsura, patriotic literary figures like Yogendra Vidyabhushan, Bhudev Mukherjee, Nabin Chandra Sen, Hemchandra Banerjee used to meet in his house. Under their inspiration and advice, Tincowri Chatterjee started physical culture centres at Chandernagore, Chinsura and Serampore. Professor Charu Chandra Roy organised them into revolutionary groups during the agitations against the Partition of Bengal in 1905. The famous Tantric saint Tarapada Banerjee, alias Tara Khepa, openly advocated rebellion against British rule while holding classes on the Gita and the Chandi. Preonath Karar was a member of those centres.

In 1900, Priyanath Karar founded the Priyadham at Serampore, an ashram where “Hrishikesh, one of the accused in the Alipore Bomb Case has his gymnasium.” Preonath and Mokshada soon shifted to Benares where they contacted Suranath Bhaduri and founded a revolutionary centre. Since Tilak’s visit to Benares in 1900, the revolutionaries found it a congenial spot for secret activity.

“A few months before the session of the Surat Congress, Suranath traveled in the guise of a Tantric priest all over Bengal (…) preaching sedition… went Calcutta and stayed there for a month at the Sandhya office… He then formed a central committee (…), Mokshada, Shyamsundar Chakravarti, Arabinda Ghose, Tara Khepa, Annada Kaviraj and others as members.” A few days before the publication of the Yugantar, at Benares, Preonath with Hrishikesh and Suranath “convened a public meeting as well as a meeting of the pundits wherein it was settled by quotations from the Hindu Astrology and Astronomy and announced firmly that the sinful Iron Age was now over…”