New Delhi: India needed the sacrifice of numerous freedom fighters to achieve Independence from British colonial rule. One of them was Shivaram Hari Rajguru, the independence activist from Maharashtra who was involved in the assassination of John Saunders, a British police officer. In March 1931, the British government hanged him along with Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev Thapar who were his associates. Today, on his birth anniversary, we will learn more about Rajguru in this article.
Rajguru: The man who fought against the British Raj with Bhagat Singh
Born on August 24, 1908, at Khed in Maharashtra, Rajguru belonged to a Marathi Deshastha Brahmin family and lost his father when he was only six years old. His elder brother Dinkar took up the family’s responsibility and Rajguru himself was educated at Khed and later studied at Pune’s New English High School.
Rajguru and his fight against the British Raj
Rajguru was a member of the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA). It was a radical left-wing Indian revolutionary organization which was not hesitant to pick up arms against the British Raj for the freedom of their motherland. It was due to those armed crusades that Rajguru would come into the spotlight of the British Raj.
Rajguru and the Kakori Conspiracy
Rajguru was a member of the Kakori Conspiracy which was a daring act to rob the British. It was a train robbery that took place on August 9, 1925, at Kakori, a village near Lucknow, and it was the HRA who pulled it off. Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqullah Khan came up with the idea to rob a train which was carrying the money bags (taxes) belonging to the Indians and were being transferred to the treasury of the British government. The HRA needed money to buy weapons and hence, its members including Rajguru robbed the train.
The assassination of John Saunders
It was the assassination of John Saunders, a British police officer that would put Rajguru on the wanted list of the government. In 1928, the Simon Commission came to India to study constitutional reform in the country’s British government. It was composed of Britishers and hence, the Congress and the Muslim League opposed it. Lala Lajpat Rai, the famous Indian nationalist, led a protest in Lahore against the Commission and was brutally hit by the police. On November 17, 1928, he succumbed to his injuries.
The HRA decided to avenge the death of Lala Lajpat Rai. By then, Rajgurua had become a colleague of Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev Thapar. On December 17, 1928, just a month after Rai’s death, the trio assassinated John Saunders in Lahore. Originally, they planned to kill James A. Scott, the police superintendent in Lahore who ordered the police to lathi charge the protesters and assaulted Rai himself. But Rajguru and Singh had mistakenly shot Saunders. They were later caught and charged for this assassination, and on March 23, 1931, he was hanged along with Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev Thapar.
Rajguru was a member of the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA). It was a radical left-wing Indian revolutionary organization which was not hesitant to pick up arms against the British Raj for the freedom of their motherland. knowledge Knowledge News, Photos and Videos on General Knowledge
