Shashibhushan Raychaudhury - Revolutionary Organisation

Revolutionary Organisation

In 1900, P. Mitter asked Shashida to send him some young men of character. It was the moment when Mitter was busy founding the Kolkata Anushilan Samiti and knew Shashida’s popularity among the college students. Shashida sent him Satish Mukherjee, Nibaran Bhattacharya, Indranath Nandi, Nikhileshvar Ray Maulik. And he personally introduced Jatindranath Mukherjee alias Bagha Jatin, who had already known Mitter during a meeting around Kakuzo Okakura at Surendranath Tagore’s house. Meanwhile, invited by Brahmabandhav, on 6 January 1902, Shashida joined the first batch of teachers at the new boarding school established by Rabindranath Tagore at Santiniketan, along with Jagadananda Ray, Revachand Makhijani, Shivadhan Vidyarnav, Subodhchandra Majumdar and Manoranjan Banerjee. In March 1902, Shashida had to return to Kolkata for the inauguration of the Anushilan Samiti. Soon, with the coming of Jatin Banerjee alias Niralamba, Mitter was under the impression that the organisation was taking too much of a military turn, while Banerjee disagreed with Barin Ghose’s untimely terrorist enterprise. In the midst of this tension, Shashida and Bagha Jatin served as mediators. Coming from Baroda, in 1903, Sri Aurobindo at Yogendra Vidyabhushan’s place, tried to settle the disputes, and discussed with Bagha Jatin and Banerjee his programme for Bengal. Very soon, Banerjee chose to set out for Upper India, where he continued his work as a revolutionary missionary. The Anushilan Samiti, under Shashida’s guidance, opened in Kolkata the Shramajivi Vidyalay or “Working Men’s Institution” where evening classes attracted people who had no means to be educated. Many poor students, too, received there supplementary coaching in various subjects. The Samiti also recruited volunteers for social services such as nursing the sick; cremating; sell handmade soaps, padlocks from Shashida’s village and cottage industry products, on a cooperative basis; organise significant public functions as the Shivaji, Pratapaditya and Sitaram festivals. This was the prototype of the well-known Chatra-bhandar or “Students’ Store” and, later, of the Shramajivi Samavaya run by Amarendranath Chatterjee and other associates of Bagha Jatin. Probably as the Party’s emissary, Shashida went to Mungheyr in Bihar towards the end of 1904 and, encouraged by Nimdhari Singh and other regional leaders, he opened a model school. Then, in 1905, he went to Orissa, and inspired Utkalamani Gopabandhu Das to start a physical culture centre at Bhubaneswar, in collaboration with Nilakantha Das, Krupasindhu Misra, Acharya Harihar Das and Godavarish Misra. This was the beginning of the Satyavadi Vidyalaya, founded near Puri in 1909. Alerted by Shashida about the terrible flood in Orissa, in 1908, P. Mitter sent a relief delegation headed by Naren Bhattacharya alias M.N. Roy and Harikumar Chakravarti, two direct recruits of the restless Vedic scholar and radical leader Mokshada Charan Samadhyai.