The Bal of Harigopal

After getting shot by the British, this young revolutionary from Bengal succumbed to his injuries today. His most significant contribution to the freedom movement was the Chittagong Armoury Raid.

Young revolutionary- Harigopal Bal; Source: Wikimedia Commons

Resistance to oppression requires an attack on the ideology and the symbols of oppression. What more is an explicit symbol of such coercion than weapons and the armoury. With this political consciousness and a vision of sovereignty, a group of armed revolutionaries marched on their mission.

Surya Kumar Sen was leading the Chittagong division of the Indian Republican Army. The revolutionaries Nirmal Sen, Ganesh Ghosh, Ambika Chakraborty, Ananta Singh, Subodh Roy and the brothers Lokenath and Harigopal Bal were also a part of this group amongst many others.

Their plan was to attack the Chittagong armoury, raid it, make the British troops station their incommunicado and take them down.

In the darkness of the night of 18 April 1930, with their hand on their sleeves, they executed the plan. The revolutionaries were in such high spirits- making a dash to liberty or death- the British thought that a crowd of natives had rained down upon them. These freedom fighters came with the mission to defeat the Britishers and in no way, were they going back without doing it. With their courage and conviction, they uprooted colonial control from the land of Chittagong. While they were successful in this initial stage, a long fight was still to be fought.

This final clash took place in the nearby Jalalabad Hills where the revolutionaries were taking refuge. With the goal of revenge, British reinforcements began clamping down on them.  The battle was fierce as the British armed with machine guns stood against a few people with rifles.

Such a disproportionate number would have made anyone surrender but not Harigopal Bal, the hero of our story and his comrades. Together, they formed a barrier with their loaded muskets and stood in the face of the adversary with conviction.

The British were raining bullets on them but they did not give up even though many of them were badly wounded. Harigopal Bal too got shot and his wound was too deep.

By the end of the day, the improbable was made possible as the soldiers with muskets defeated a larger army with machine guns. This victory was historic but it came at a huge cost- many members of the Chittagong division lost their lives.

Bal somehow managed to get out of this but his wound was only becoming worse. After fighting for his life for four days, Bal succumbed to his wound. He was around 15 years of age when he was martyred in the war against colonialism. He died today in 1930.

The freedom that we enjoy today required the sacrifice of many. It’s our obligation to recognise and raise alarm if anything or anyone is trying to deprive us of it. Justice is an old one and it’s going to continue for a long.