Barindra Kumar Ghosh

Barindra Ghosh or Barindranath Ghose, or, popularly, Barin Ghosh (5 January 1880 – 18 April 1959) was an Indian revolutionary and journalist. He was one of the founding members of Jugantar, a revolutionary outfit in Bengal. Barindra Ghosh was a younger brother of Sri Aurobindo.

Early life

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.

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.

Revolutionary activities

Barin came back to Kolkata in 1902 and started organizing 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 revolutionary activities.

Barin and 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 2 revolutionaries Khudiram and Prafulla on 30 April 1908, the police intensified its investigation which led to the arrest of Barin Ghosh on 2 May 1908, along with many of his comrades. The trial (known as the Alipore Bomb Case) initially sentenced Barin Ghosh to death. However, the sentence was reduced to life imprisonment, and Barin was deported to the Cellular Jail in Andaman in 1909 (released in 1920).

Release and later activities

Barin was released during a general amnesty in 1920 and returned to Kolkata and started a career in journalism. Soon he left journalism and formed an ashram in Kolkata. In 1923, he left for Pondicherry where his elder brother Aurobindo Ghosh had formed the famous Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He was influenced by Aurobindo towards spirituality and sadhana, but Barin Ghosh was a disciple of Sree Sree Thakur Anukulchandra. Sree Sree Thakur had guided his followers to help secure release of Barin who was using the code name 'Golghar' (after a monument in Patna) for his revolutionary activities. 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. He died on 18 April 1959.

Works

The following are books by Barindra Ghosh:

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