Ram Prasad Bismil

• 12 Jun 2021

Why in News

Recently, the Ministry of Culture organised a special ceremony at Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh to mark the birth anniversary of freedom fighter Ram Prasad Bismil.

Key Points

• Birth:
  • Was born on 11^th June, 1897, in a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Shahjahanpur district to Murlidhar and Moolmati.
• About:
  
  • Was among the most noteworthy Indian freedom fighters who resisted British colonial forces till his last breath.
  • Joined the Arya Samaj founded by Dayananda Saraswati in 1875. This had a profound influence on him, he often employed poetry as his weapon of choice in the fight against the imperialist forces.
  • The ideals of a revolution first took root in his mind when he read about the death sentence awarded to Bhai Parmanand, an Indian nationalist and Arya Samaj missionary.
    
    • He was all of 18 then and vented his anguish through his poem ‘Mera Janm’.
  • Believed that freedom cannot be achieved without violence, bloodshed, which meant his views were in stark contrast to Mahatma Gandhi’s ideals of ‘ahimsa’.
• Contributions:
  
  • Organizations:
    
    • Formed organisation Matrivedi and got in touch with Genda Lal Dixit, a school teacher.
      
      • Both shared revolutionary ideas and wanted to organise the youth of the country to fight the British government.
    • Bismil was one of the chief founders of the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) along with Sachindra Nath Sanyal and Jadugopal Mukherjee.
      
      • HRA was founded in 1924 and its constitution was drafted chiefly by Bismil.
  • Major Cases:
    
    • Was involved in the Mainpuri Conspiracy of 1918 in which police found a few young people including Bismil selling books that were not prescribed by the government.
      
      • Published a pamphlet titled ‘Deshwasiyo ke Naam’ and distributed it along with his poem ‘Mainpuri ki Pratigya’. To collect funds for the parties, they looted government coffers.
      • He escaped arrest by jumping into the Yamuna River.
    • In 1925, Bismil and his companions Chandrasekhar Azad and Ashfaqulla Khan decided to loot a train in Kakori near Lucknow.
      
      • They were successful in their attempt but were arrested alongside a dozen other HRA members within a month of the attack and tried under the Kakori Conspiracy Case.
      • The legal process lasted 18 months. Bismil, Lahiri, Khan and Thakur Roshan Singh were awarded death sentences.
  • Others:
    
    • Attended the 1921 session of the Indian National Congress at Ahmedabad.
    • While lodged in Gorakhpur Central Jail, Bismil went on a hunger strike demanding to be treated as a political prisoner.
    • In Lucknow Central Jail, Bismil wrote his autobiography, considered as one of the finest works in Hindi literature and also the cult song “Mera rang de Basanti chola”.
• Death:
  
  • Hanged on 19^th December 1927 at Gorakhpur Jail.
  • Was cremated on the banks of river Rapti and the site was rechristened as Raj Ghat later.

Source: PIB