11 August: Remembering Khudiram Bose on his Punya Tithi

OV Digital Desk
3 Min Read
Khudiram Bose

Khudiram Bose (3 December 1889 – 11 August 1908) was a revolutionary who was hanged for the freedom of India at the age of 19. The history of the Indian freedom struggle is full of adventures of hundreds of revolutionaries. One name on the list of such revolutionaries is Khudiram Bose.

Early Life

He was born on 3 December 1889, in West Bengal, India. Khudiram was his parents’ fourth child. Before he was born, his parents had two sons, but they both died before he was born. In his culture, newborns were symbolically sold for three handfuls of grains to their eldest sisters. This was called Khud and it kept the newborn from dying too young. Khudiram comes from the cultural custom ‘Khud’.

Khudiram lost his mother when he was 6 and his dad when he was 7. His older sister Aparupa Roy and her husband Amritlal Roy raised him. In Tamluk, he went to Hamilton High School.

Revolutionary Activities

During 1902 and 1903, Sri Aurobindo and Sister Nivedita spoke at various public events and had private sessions with Indian revolutionaries. Khudiram was an active participant at the time. When he was 15, he joined Anushilan Samiti and became a volunteer.

After the partition of Bengal in 1905, Khudiram Bose jumped into the country’s liberation movement. Khudiram Bose started his revolutionary life under the leadership of Satyen Bose. He became a member of the Revolutionary Party and was instrumental in distributing the Vande Mataram pamphlet. He also actively participated in the movement against the partition of Bengal in 1905.

His associate Hemchandra Kanungo learned bomb-making techniques from Nicholas Safranski, a Russian exile in Paris, in 1907.

The revolutionary had a fearless spirit, and they tried to kill Muzaffarpur’s district magistrate, Douglas Kingsford. Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki planned to assassinate Kingsford on 30th April 1908. It was known that the magistrate gave blatant judgments against the freedom fighters. Rather than killing him, they erroneously killed two women by throwing a bomb at the carriage. The district magistrate escaped. Later Prafulla committed suicide and Khudiram was arrested.

Death

Khudiram Bose was hanged to death on 11 August 1908 after being charged with bomb attacks.

Read More: 13 August: Remembering Romesh Chundra Dutt on his Birth Anniversary.

Share This Article