Bagha Jatin

Bagha Jatin earned his nickname by killing a tiger with a dagger. He went on to lead the Jugantar party. He later planned one of the boldest revolutionary plots of the First World War: a German arms shipment meant to arm a Bengal uprising.

Must Know

• Bagha Jatin was born Jatindranath Mukherjee, on 7 December 1879. His birthplace was Kaya village in Kushtia, then part of Nadia district, now in Bangladesh.
• He killed a Royal Bengal tiger with a dagger in March 1906, after it attacked him in the countryside near his village. The Bengal government awarded him a silver shield, and the title “Bagha” (Tiger) stuck.
• He was among the early organisers of the Anushilan Samiti, from around 1902. He went on to become one of the principal leaders of the Jugantar party.
• Jugantar was the central revolutionary body coordinating armed resistance to British rule in Bengal.
• During the First World War, Jatin planned the Indo-German Conspiracy. It aimed to land German arms in Bengal to arm a wider uprising.
• The German ship SS Maverick was to deliver an estimated 30,000 rifles, ammunition, and funds to the Odisha coast, near Balasore.
• The plot was betrayed, and British forces intercepted Jatin’s group before the delivery. A 75-minute gun battle followed on 9 September 1915.
• Jatin died of his wounds at Balasore district hospital on 10 September 1915, at the age of 35.

Good to Know

• Jatin trained as a stenographer in Calcutta. He also fell under the influence of Swami Vivekananda, whom he visited often as a young man.
• He met Sri Aurobindo in 1903, through a common mentor, and the two began to collaborate on revolutionary work.
• Jatin and Barindra Kumar Ghosh worked together to recruit young revolutionaries across Bengal. Their network became known as the Maniktala group.
• He married Indubala Banerjee in 1900. They had four children, though their first son died young.
• A colonial police superintendent described Jatin’s standing in revolutionary circles. He credited it largely to Jatin’s personal discipline and single-minded focus on the cause.
• Barindra Kumar Ghosh, who had escaped the Cellular Jail earlier in 1915, was hiding near Puri at the time of the Battle of Balasore. He was recaptured shortly after.

Test Yourself

Please wait…

1. How did Jatindranath Mukherjee earn the nickname “Bagha” (Tiger)?

He led a raid disguised in a tiger-skin costume

He killed a Royal Bengal tiger with a dagger

He escaped a British ambush at a place called Bagha

His revolutionary code name was assigned by Jugantar

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Great to Know

• The funds behind the Indo-German Conspiracy came partly from a wave of “taxicab dacoities” and boat robberies, organised by the Jugantar party.
• Jatin’s revolutionary career shows a shift in tactics over time. Early Jugantar work relied on homemade bombs and assassination plots. By 1915, it had scaled up to organising an international arms shipment during a world war.
• Kolkata’s Beadon Street has a statue of Bagha Jatin. A locality in south Kolkata, Baghajatin, is also named after him.
• He is remembered as much for the manner of his death as for any single operation. He fought to the end in a losing gun battle.