INDIA, THE UPRISING

India’s path to free dom was not entirely nonviolent.There were violent outbursts against the British across the country. And, many of them were led not by kings or rulers, but by ordinary people

- R. PRASANNAN

Reckoned from Plassey, the British ruled and looted India for 190 years. Counting from Warren Hastings, 42 governors-general and viceroys–a few acting– ruled India. Much as Indians resented their rule and their plunder, none of them was assassinated.

For the sake of a blood-soaked record, Lord Mayo, remembered thanks to a college in Ajmer, was knifed by a loony convict while the viceroy was visiting the Andamans. The man had no political motive; so Mayo’s murder is not counted as an assassination.

Left-leaning revolutionaries had thrown bombs at viceroys—at Lord Hardinge while he was entering the new capital, Delhi, in 1912; and at Irwin’s train while he was traveling from Calcutta to inaugurate New Delhi in 1929. But historians have wondered whether the assailants intended to kill the principals, or only wanted to scare the empire. Even Bhagat Singh’s intended target was Superintendent James Scott, who had baton-charged Lajpat Rai to death; it was by mistake that he killed young John Saunders. He did not intend to kill anyone when he hurled pamphlets and what were no more lethal than smoke bombs in the central legislature.

Such individual incidents of violence were acts of individual revenge perpetrated on individual officers who had acted unjustly or vindictively—Udham Singh’s murder of Michael O’Dwyer, the butcher of Amritsar; Khudiram Bose’s bid on Magistrate Douglas Kingsford, and so on. Often they killed the wrong persons—Khudiram’s bomb spared Kingsford, but killed two women; the bomb hurled at Hardinge killed an Indian servant, and Bhagat killed Saunders instead of Scott. A few other killings, such as at Kakori or Chittagong, happened during raids on armories or treasure trains. There was no intent to kill.