Bhagwati Charan Vohra (4 July 1904 - 28 May 1930)

Bhagwati Charan Vohra  was an associated with Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. He was an ideologue, organiser, orator and a campaigner.

 

 Bhagwati Charan Vohra in consultation with Chandra Shekar Azad, wrote an article entitled "The Philosophy of Bomb" It appealed to youths to come forward and join them.

He was born on 4 July 1904 in Lahore in a Brahmin family of Gujarat. His father, Shiv Charan Vohra, was a railway official who later bequeathed several homes to him. Bhagwati married Durgavati Devi at a young age. Durga was popularly known as Bhabhi and also became an activist in the movement.

Vohra left college to join the satyagraha movement in 1921, and after the movement was called off, joined National College, Lahore where he got a BA degree. It was there that he was initiated into the revolutionary movement. He along with Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev started a study circle on the model of Russian Socialist Revolution.

Vohra was an avid reader. He played a key role in infusing intellectual ideology in the functioning roots of the organizations he worked with. He was not influenced by caste prejudices and worked for Hindu-Muslim unity as well as the upliftment of the poor by use of socialist principles.

In 1926, when the Naujawan Bharat Sabha revolutionary organization was formed by his comrades, he was appointed the propaganda secretary of the organization. On 6 April 1928, Vohra and his comrade Bhagat Singh prepared the manifesto of Naujwan Bharat Sabha and urged the young Indians to have the triple motto "service, suffering, sacrifice", as their sole guide to achieve the goal of independence.

In September 1928, many young revolutionaries met at Ferozshah Kotla ground in Delhi and reorganized the Hindustan Republican Association into the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) under the leadership Chandrashekhar Azad.^{[citation needed]} Vohra was appointed Propaganda Secretary and prepared the HSRA manifesto that was widely distributed at the time of the Lahore Session of the Congress. He was also party to murder of J. P. Saunders and the throwing of bombs in Central Assembly Hall by Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt.

Philosophy of Bomb

In 1929 he rented room No. 69, Kashmir Building, Lahore and used it as a bomb factory. He planned and executed the 23 December 1929 bomb blast under the train of Viceroy Lord Irwin on the Delhi-Agra railway line. The viceroy escaped unhurt and Mahatma Gandhi thanked God for the narrow escape, condemning the revolutionary act through his article The Cult of Bomb.

In response to Gandhi's article, Vohra, in consultation with Azad, wrote an article entitled The Philosophy of Bomb. It appealed to youths to come forward and join them.

The concluding paragraph of the article reads

There is no crime that Britain has not committed in India. Deliberate misrule has reduced us to paupers, has ‘bled us white’. As a race and a people we stand dishonoured and outraged. Do people still expect us to forget and to forgive? We shall have our revenge – a people’s righteous revenge on the tyrant. Let cowards fall back and cringe for compromise and peace. We ask not for mercy and we give no quarter. Ours is a war to the end – to Victory or Death.

 

Vohra with his son, Sachindra, and wife, Durgawati Devi

Vohra died in Lahore on 28 May 1930 while testing a bomb on the banks of the Ravi. The device was required for the proposed rescue of Singh and others under trial in the Lahore Conspiracy Case but it exploded during the test and he was severely wounded. His last words mark the depth of his emotional involvement in the freedom struggle

Had this death been late by two days I would have attained more success before dying. Now that desire of mine remained unfulfilled."