Ashfaqulla Khan: Poet of the Kakori Conspiracy

Ashfaqulla Khan was a poet and a revolutionary. He was hanged at 27 for the Kakori train robbery.

His friendship with Ram Prasad Bismil became a symbol of Hindu-Muslim unity. This lesson covers his life, the Kakori robbery, his betrayal, the trial and the exam traps.

1Who was Ashfaqulla Khan?

He was a poet from a Pathan family who joined the revolutionaries.

• He was born on 22 October 1900 in Shahjahanpur.
• That town was then in the United Provinces.
• He came from a Pathan family. He was the youngest of five children.
• He wrote Urdu poetry under the pen name Hasrat.
• In 1918, when he was in the seventh standard, police raided his school.
• They arrested a fellow student, Rajaram Bhartiya, in the Mainpuri Conspiracy case.
• That arrest pushed him toward revolutionary politics.
• Ram Prasad Bismil, also from Shahjahanpur, became his closest friend.
• Bismil was a poet too. See Ram Prasad Bismil.
• Both joined the Hindustan Republican Association.
• The HRA had been founded in October 1924 at Kanpur.
• Khan was one of its younger members.

2What happened at Kakori?

The HRA needed money, so it decided to seize government cash.

• The HRA had no steady funds for weapons or travel.
• Its members planned to take cash from a government train.
• Khan is said to have opposed the plan at first.
• He feared it was too risky and would draw a harsh crackdown.
• He agreed to join once the others backed it.
• Kakori is a small town near Lucknow.
• On 9 August 1925, a group stopped a train there.
• Bismil, Khan, Rajendra Lahiri and Chandrashekhar Azad took part.
• They took the government cash bags from the train.
• The robbery became known as the Kakori Conspiracy.
• The government answered with a huge hunt for the robbers.

3How was he betrayed?

He escaped at first, but a friend gave him away.

• Police caught Bismil on 26 October 1925.
• Khan fled to Nepal.
• From Nepal he went to Kanpur, then to Daltonganj in Bihar.
• In Daltonganj he worked as a clerk in an engineering firm.
• He used an assumed name there.
• He later travelled to Delhi to continue his work.
• A Pathan friend from Shahjahanpur met him there.
• That friend secretly told the police where he was.
• Police arrested him in Delhi on 7 December 1926.
• He had avoided arrest for over a year.
• His arrest came through a personal betrayal, not through police detective work.

4What was the Kakori trial?

The trial ended with four death sentences.

• The case was heard in Lucknow.
• The court sentenced four men to death.
• They were Bismil, Khan, Rajendra Lahiri and Roshan Singh.
• Other accused received long prison terms.
• Lawyers linked to the Congress, such as Govind Ballabh Pant, helped defend the accused.
• The defence could not win mercy.
• Lahiri was hanged first, two days early, on 17 December 1927.
• Khan was hanged on 19 December 1927 at Faizabad Jail.
• Bismil and Roshan Singh were hanged the same day, at other jails.
• For the other two, see Rajendra Nath Lahiri and Thakur Roshan Singh.
• Khan is reported to have said his hands were free of any murder.

5Why is he remembered?

His life is told as a story of friendship and courage.

• He and Bismil were from different faiths.
• Yet they worked and died together for one cause.
• Khan was 27 when he died. Bismil was 30.
• Their bond is a standard example of Hindu-Muslim unity in the freedom struggle.
• The British are said to have kept the two friends in separate cells.
• Even so, they are said to have sung patriotic songs in defiance.
• Chandrashekhar Azad also took part in Kakori but was never caught. See Chandrashekhar Azad.
• Azad later rebuilt the HRA as the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association.

6What are the exam traps?

Exams mix up Kakori with other revolutionary events.

• Kakori was in 1925. The Chittagong Armoury Raid was in 1930.
• Surya Sen led Chittagong. He had nothing to do with Kakori. See Surya Sen.
• The group behind Kakori was the HRA. The HSRA came later, in 1928.
• Four men were sentenced to death at Kakori.
• Lahiri was hanged two days before the other three.
• Khan evaded arrest for over a year. Azad was never arrested.
• Khan was arrested in Delhi, not in Nepal.
• The poem Sarfaroshi ki tamanna is linked to Bismil. Its author was Bismil Azimabadi.
• Do not mix up Ram Prasad Bismil with Bismil Azimabadi.