Between 1906 and 1908, ten ‘actions’ were undertaken by the al-Qaeda-like (non-centralised) Maniktola Secret Society

Home Views Editorials Offtrack Blowing up a silly question Red herring Indrajit Hazra, Hindustan Times June 22, 2008

The first decade of the 20th century has been considered the most ‘terroristic’ in the history of India’s struggle for independence. And if one goes by inspiration, the Bengal Bombers — led by the revolutionary-turned-proto-Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Aurobindo Ghose — were the closest we ever came to Balasaheb’s ‘Hindu fidayeen squad’. Even with iconic chaps like Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki, both romanticised by Bengalis to this day — and replicated in their own heads by bomb-throwing cadres of West Bengal political parties — the record is abysmal. Between 1906 and 1908, ten ‘actions’ were undertaken by the al-Qaeda-like (non-centralised) Maniktola Secret Society. Not one was successful. Five were aborted because of failure of nerves or lack of planning; four were failures because the explosives wouldn’t work; and one killed the wrong target. Not totally unlike Balasaheb, Aurobindo Ghose — full of Garibaldi-sh notions and Hindu nationalistic-religious ideas inspired by reading Bankimchandra — wanted terrorist actions “to prepare the young men to have some sort of military training, to kill and get killed” before the imminent “open armed revolution”. It didn’t happen.

So, as far as Balasaheb’s desire to see local Hindu boys blowing themselves up into smithereens by picking up tips from the existing (?) fidayeen go, I think all this is the result of the Chief Shiv Sainik being extremely bored. As am I, too lazy to paint the town outside my hotel red, but knowing that Subhas Chandra Bose was dead right when he wrote in his ‘Prison Diaries’: “Those who are considered good boys in society are in fact nothing but eunuchs... The Bengali will never become manly unless the so-called good boys are totally uprooted from the West End Hotel.” Oh, all right. I made up that bit about the hotel.