Atulkrishna Ghosh - The Last Phase

The Last Phase

After the end of the War, Surendranath Banerjee, followed by Barin Ghose and Motilal Roy, successfully negotiated the withdrawal of warrants against the fugitives accused of the Indo-German plot. Atul was adamant in obtaining a promise on these points : (a) there would be no question of surrendering arms; (b) no questions would be raised on their past activities; (c) no parole would be demanded concerning their future conducts. Atul came out in 1921. But his Dada’s (Jatin Mukherjee’s) heroic death, “had knocked out his revolutionary ardour and he gave up active politics.” Yet, in January 1924, when Gopinath Saha killed an Englishman, mistaking him to be Tegart, the much-hated Commissioner of Kolkata Police (reputed to have shot Jatin Mukherjee dead), Atul was made a state-prisoner, to be released in 1926. The same year he married Menokarani Rakshit of Majilpur, 24 Parganas and took to business, dissociating himself completely from politics. They had no issues. In an interview with Prithwindra Mukherjee (Bagha Jatin's grandson), on 27 October 1963 - shortly before his death -, Atul sighed: “Dada was a magnet; we all, iron scraps, received our energy from him. When he was no more, we all became iron scraps. I still do not know whether my first allegiance went to Dada, or to the Motherland.” Asked about the source of Jatindranath's tremendous force, Atul replied: "He was a very well trained wrestler and an all-round sportsman. But what characterised him was his soul force and his power of concentration. He could pin-point all his energy to a single part of his body, for instance his fist. A single blow from that fist was equivalent to an electric charge of God knows how many volts!"

Atul died peacefully in his Kolkata residence, on 4 May 1966.