The Chapekar Brothers: India’s First Assassins of a British Official

On 22 June 1897, Pune was lit up for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. That night, a young man fired at a British plague officer.

He was Damodar Hari Chapekar. He and his two brothers are often described as the first Indians to kill a British official for political reasons. All three were hanged.

1Who were the Chapekar brothers?

They were three brothers from a small place near Pune.

• They came from Chapa, a hamlet near Pune.
• Damodar Hari Chapekar was the eldest.
• He was born on 25 June 1869.
• Balkrishna was born in 1873.
• Vasudeo was born in 1880.
• Their surname comes from the village of Chapa.
• All three grew up in Maharashtra under British rule.
• Maharashtra was then part of the Bombay Presidency.
• The brothers are often grouped with Vasudev Balwant Phadke as early armed rebels.
• Their story is a favourite topic for questions on early revolutionaries.
• Remember the order: Damodar, then Balkrishna, then Vasudeo, by age.

2Why was Pune angry in 1897?

Plague had reached Pune, and the cure felt worse than the disease.

• The government set up a Special Plague Committee.
• W. C. Rand was its chairman.
• More than 800 soldiers were brought in to enforce the rules.
• They entered homes to search for the sick.
• People were examined in public.
• Many Indians saw this as an insult to their dignity.
• Bal Gangadhar Tilak criticised the measures in his papers, Kesari and Maratha.
• Anger spread across the city.
• The plague had first struck Bombay in 1896.
• The Epidemic Diseases Act was passed in 1897 to give officials wide powers.
• Officials wanted to isolate patients and clean homes.
• Many families feared the soldiers more than the disease.
• Tilak was later arrested in 1897 on a charge of sedition.
• Tilak later supported vaccination, in 1906.

3What happened on 22 June 1897?

The brothers chose the night of a grand celebration.

• That day was Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.
• Officials had gone to a celebration at Government House.
• Damodar called out “Gondya ala re” as a signal.
• It means “Gondya has come”.
• Shots were fired at the carriages of the officers.
• Lt. Ayerst died on the spot.
• Rand was wounded.
• Rand died of his wounds on 3 July at Sassoon Hospital.
• The killing shocked the colonial government.
• The attack came near the end of the Jubilee celebrations.
• The event is also called the Rand murder case.
• It was one of the first political killings of its kind in British India.
• The brothers hoped the act would shake British confidence.

4How was Damodar caught?

Two informers gave the police the lead.

• The Dravid brothers gave information to the police.
• Damodar’s statement was recorded on 8 October 1897.
• He was sentenced to death.
• He was hanged on 18 April 1898.
• He was 28 years old.
• He is often named as the first of the three to die.
• The informers were two brothers named Ganesh Shankar Dravid and Ramchandra Shankar Dravid.
• Their information led the police to the Chapekar family.
• Damodar was tried in Bombay Presidency courts.
• His younger brothers were still free at the time.

5What happened to the other brothers?

The younger brothers took revenge on the informers.

• Balkrishna was found in January 1899.
• A friend betrayed him.
• On 9 February 1899, the Dravid brothers were shot dead.
• The killers were Vasudeo, Mahadev Vinayak Ranade and Khando Vishnu Sathe.
• The three were arrested that same evening.
• They had tried to shoot Chief Constable Rama Pandu.
• They were convicted on 8 March 1899.
• Vasudeo was hanged on 8 May 1899.
• Ranade was hanged on 10 May.
• Balkrishna was hanged on 12 May.
• Sathe was a juvenile, so he got ten years of rigorous imprisonment.
• The Dravid killings were revenge for the informing.
• So the brothers killed two British-linked targets and two informers in all.
• Ranade, Vasudeo and Sathe were close friends and fellow conspirators.
• The story was filmed in 22 June 1897 (1979) and Chapekar Brothers (2016).
• A web series, Gondya Ala Re, came out in 2019.

6What are the exam traps?

Exams mix up the dates, the names and the targets.

• The killing was in 1897, not 1857 or 1905.
• The target was Rand, the plague chairman, not a Governor.
• Lt. Ayerst was shot the same night.
• The place was Pune, in Bombay Presidency.
• Damodar was hanged first, in 1898.
• Vasudeo and Balkrishna were hanged in May 1899.
• Tilak did not order the killing.
• The Dravid brothers were informers, not officers.
• Rand was an officer, while Ayerst was his military escort.
• Three brothers were hanged, but four men died on the gallows in all, counting Ranade.
• Do not mix this case with the Alipore bomb case of 1908.
• Compare them with Vasudev Balwant Phadke, who rose in 1879.
• Read about Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
• Later armed groups include Surya Sen‘s and Bhagat Singh‘s.