Barindra Kumar Ghosh

Barindra Ghosh was born at Croydon, near London on 5 January 1880. His father, Dr. Krishnadhan Ghosh, was a physician and district surgeon. His mother Swarnalata was the daughter of the Brahmo religious and social reformer, scholar Rajnarayan Basu. Revolutionary and a spiritualist in later life, Aurobindo Ghosh was Barindranath's third elder brother. His second elder brother, Manmohan Ghose, was a scholar of English literature, a poet and professor of English at Presidency College, Calcutta and at Dhaka University. He also had an elder sister named Sarojini Ghosh.

Barindranath attended school in Deoghar, and after passing the entrance examination in 1901, joined Patna College. He received military training in Baroda. During this time, (late 19th century – early 20th century) Barin was influenced by Aurobindo and drawn towards the revolutionary movement.

Barin came back to Kolkata in 1902 and started organising several revolutionary groups in Bengal with the help of Jatindranath Mukherjee. In 1906, he started publishing Jugantar, a Bengali weekly and a revolutionary organization named Jugantar soon followed. Jugantar was formed from the inner circle of Anushilan Samiti and it started preparation for armed militancy activities to oust British from Indian soil.

Barin and Jatindranath Mukherjee alias Bagha Jatin were instrumental in the recruitment of many young revolutionaries from across Bengal. The revolutionaries formed the Maniktala group in Maniktala, Kolkata. It was a secret place where they started manufacturing bombs and collected arms and ammunition.

Following the attempted killing of Kingsford by two revolutionaries Khudiram and Prafulla on 30 April 1908, the police intensified its investigation which led to the arrest of Barin and Aurobindo Ghosh on 2 May 1908, along with many of his comrades. The trial (known as the Alipore Bomb Case) initially sentenced Barin Ghosh and Ullaskar Datta to death. However, the sentence was reduced to life imprisonment, by Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das and Barin was deported to the Cellular Jail in Andaman in 1909 along with other convicts.

Barin was released during a general amnesty in 1920 and returned to Kolkata to start a career in journalism. Soon he left journalism and formed an ashram in Kolkata. He published his memoirs "The tale of my exile - twelve years in Andamans"[1]. In 1923, he left for Pondicherry where his elder brother Aurobindo Ghosh had formed the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He was influenced by Aurobindo towards spirituality and Sadhana. Barin returned to Kolkata in 1929 and again took up journalism. In 1933 he started an English weekly, The Dawn of India. He was associated with the newspaper The Statesman, and in 1950, he became the editor of the Bengali daily Dainik Basumati. This time he got married. He died on 18 April 1959.

The following are books by Barindra Ghosh:

• Dvipantarer Banshi
• Pather Ingit
• Amar Atmakatha
• Agnijug
• Rishi Rajnarayan
• The Tale of My Exile
• Sri Aurobindo

Other books

• Barindrakumar Ghosh, Pather Ingit, Calcutta, 1337 (Bengali year).
• Upendra Nath Bandyopadhyaya, Nirbasiter Atmakatha, Calcutta, 1352 (Bengali year).
• RC Majumdar, History of the Freedom Movement in India, II, Calcutta, 1963.

• Works by or about Barindra Kumar Ghosh at Internet Archive

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