The Bomb, Bhadralok, Bhagavad Gita, and Dan Breen: Terrorism in Bengal and Its Relation to the European Experience

Abstract

This article will analyze several issues relating to terrorism in colonial India, focusing on the province of Bengal from the early 1900s to the mid-1930s. First, I will analyze the composition of Bengali revolutionary organizations. Although Bengali revolutionary terrorism was not a mass movement, I argue that there was greater diversity in the movement's social and religious composition, and in the outlook of its members, than is often assumed. Second, I will examine the question of indigenous versus foreign influences on Indian terrorism. Terrorism in Bengal and elsewhere in colonial India was diverse in its inspirations, drawing upon indigenous resistance to colonial rule, and Hindu religious imagery, as well as European anarchist, nationalist, and socialist movements. Lastly, I will consider some of the ways in which the revolutionary movement changed over its thirty-year history and conclude with a brief discussion of the colonial response to Bengali terrorism. Bengali terrorists' adaptation and re-fashioning of ideas and tactics in a colonial context illustrate the widespread networks of exchange within the British Empire.