"SHED TWO TEARS IF YOU HAVE"
FOR THE FORGOTTEN MARTYR
SRI JATINDER NATH DAS

The story of Jatin Das who became a martyr after 63 days of fast-unto-death on September 13, 1929, at Lahore Central Jail, at the age of 25 is too deep for tears. Words are too weak to convey his wail. He is one of those names where communication fails to describe his tragedy. If India lives today it is because of sacrificed their lives for the sake of their Motherland. Although martyrs cannot be graded yet Jatin Das was martyrs with a difference.

'He died slowly, inch by inch', says M.R. Jayakar who visited him in jail: 'one hand gone paralysed for want of sustenance, another hand atrophied for want of nourishment, one foot gone, another foot gone, and the last of men's precious gifts, eyesight gone, the fire of those orbs slowly quenched, inch by inch, not by sudden and merciful death of the guillotine but with the salowness with which nature builds or destroys. Jatin Das died the most non-violent death, unparalleled in history.

'You can't treat us as criminals, we are freedom fighters. You can't deny the essential facilities to us human beings', shouted Jatin Das when asked why he had undertaken the fast. Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru and B.K. Dutt also went on fast and converted the jail into a platform for propogating their revolutionary programmes. The jail authorities decided to force-feed them but they refused. Jatin Das used to take only water but when the jail doctor mixed some invisible medicine in his water to give him strength, Das stopped taking water. Then the doctor gave him some injection, but Das resisted. The jail authorities employed some hefty Pathans to force-feed him but that also failed.

Jatin Das never returned the food-thali. 'Let the "Thali' (Food plate made of brass) remain there. It cannot allure me'. Then the Government resorted to another strategem. A rubber tube was inserted into the nostril of the huger strikers but in the case of Jatin Das that also failed. The doctor came to the conclusion that if Das that also failed. The doctors came to the conclusion that if Das was force-fed he would die. So they let him die a natural death, according to them.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who met the hunger strikes in jail issued the following statement thereafter: 'The condition of Jatin Das is very bad. He can speak only slowly. He is inching toward death. I was very much painted to see the distress of the heroes. They have staked their lives in the struggle. They want that political prisoners should be treated as political prisoners and not as criminals. I am quite hopeful that their self-sacrifice will be crowned with success;.

In his autography he wrote : 'I saw Bhagat Singh for the first time and Jatinder Nath Das and others. They were all very weak and bed-ridden. Jatin Das looked milder still, soft and gentle like a girl. He was in considerable pain when I saw him'.

Jatin Das was born on October 27, 1904 at Shyambazar, Calcutta and was educated at Vidyasagar College, Calcutta. In 1925 he was arrested in connection with bomb-making and sent to Mymensingh Central Jail, Now in Bangladesh. There he underwent a 20-day hunger strike to get human facilities. He was released in 1928 after three years. He acted as a volunteer in Calcutta Congress in 1928. It is there he met Bhagat Singh who attended the Congress in cognito. Bhagat Singh was much impressed and took him to Kanpur and later to Lahore Das taught him bomb-making and also taught him Bengali. Das was arrested for throwing bombs at the newly appointed British Superintendent of Police, Mr. Lawrence Gordon and sent to Lahore Central jail where he met Bhagat Singh again transferred from Delhi jail. Das had established bomb factories at Agra, Kanpur, Meerut and Lahore.

The Home Department of the Government of India had anticipated that Das would die in the first week of September and had asked for the views of the Bengal Government was not in favour of bringing the body to Calcutta. They were also not in favour of giving the body to his relatives, particularly Kiran Das who was also a revolutionary. The Government however, decided to send the body to Calcutta. The Department of Railways was approached, who replied that booking of a dead body from Lahore to Calcutta was not covered by their rules. It was later decided to send the body by a special, coach but who will pay for the coach?

When Subhash Chandra Bose came to know about it he sent rupees six hundred for the coach. It was ironic that when Jatin Das died in the afternoon of September 13th, the Punjab Government gave a Garden Party at Lahore the same evening. The Congress leaders boycotted it. Moving an adjournment motion the same day Motilal Nehru said: 'It is said, Sir, that Nero fiddled while Rome was burning Government has gone step further. It is fiddling on the death-beds of these young men'.

Even Mohammed Ali Jinnah was moved. Addressing Sir B.L. Mitter, the Law Members in the Central Assembly he said : 'It is not a joke, I ask the Law Member, to realize that it is not everybody who can go on a hunger strike has a soul. He is moved by that soul. He believes in the justice of his cause. I regret, rightly or wrongly, that the youth today in India is stirred up……………And remember there are thousands of young men outside.

The Special Coach of the East India Railway halted at many stations where thousands paid their last respects to the martyr. Jawaharlal Nehru came to see the martyr with his family at Allahabad Railway Station. At Howrah Railway Station six lakh people waited to see the corpse of the martyr. The coach was not allowed to return, it remained on the tracks for several weeks reminiscent of the cruiser,Aurora,flying the red flag of insurrection which lay at anchor on the river Neva, at Leningrad on the eve of Russian Revolution, aiming its cannons on the winter palace of the Czars on 25th October 1917.

As darkness descended on Calcutta that evening the skies registered a star rising towards the heavens. A boy threw a stone at an English club breaking its window and spilling the wine cups of drinkers. When police ran after the boy to catch him, he threw another stone and shouted : 'Inquillab, Zindabad'. (Long Live Revolution).
Courtesy : K.K.KHULLAR
(The Author is former Director, Dept of Education, Govt. of India)