The sinn féin of India: Irish nationalism and the policing of revolutionary terrorism in Bengal

Journal of British Studies

Volumn 39, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 454-486

  Silvestri, Michael ^a  

^a CLEMSON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84949116490     PISSN: 00219371     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/386228     Document Type: Review

References (99)

1. Sharmila Basu, "Bidrohi Bondhon: Ireland O Bharat " (Revolutionary bond: Ireland and India), Desk 62 (6 May 1995): 37-49.
2. According to AsYiis Nandv, for colonial India, Ireland signified a " Western nation whose culture was " non-dominant" and more accessible to Indians and whose people wer e "a co-victim of British imperialism." See Ashis Nandy, The Illegitimacy of Nationalism (New Delhi, 1994), p. 43. For surveys of the various connections between Ireland and India within the British Empire, see Ganesh Devi, "India and Ireland: Literary Relations," in The Internationalism of Irish Literature and Drama, ed. Joseph McMinn (Gerrard's Cross, 1992), pp. 294-308
3. T. G. Fraser, "Ireland and India, " in An Irish Empire? Aspects of Ireland and the British Empire, ed . Keith Jeffery (New York and Manchester, 1996), pp. 77-93
4. Narinder Kapur, The Irish Raj: Illustrated Stones about Irish in India and Indians in Ireland (Antrim, Northern Ireland, 1997
5. and Nicholas Mans ergh, The Prelude to Partition: Concepts and Aims in Ireland and India (Cambridge, 1978).
6. For a critique of Chatterjee along these lines, see Sugata Bose, " Nation as Mother: Representations and Contestations of 'India' in Bengali Literature and Culture," in Nationalism, Democracy and Development: State and Politics in India, ed. Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal (Delhi, 1997), pp. 50-75.
7. and P. J. Marshall, "Introduction: The World Shaped by Empire, " in The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire, ed. P. J. Marshall (C ambridge, 1995), p. 9.
8. See Scott B. Cook, " The Irish Raj: Social Origins and Careers of Irishmen in the Indian Civil Service, 1855-1914," Journal of Social History 20, no. 3 (Spring 1987): 507-29
9. and Keith Jeffery, "The Irish Military Tradition and the British Empire, " in Jeffery, ed., An Irish Empire? pp. 94-122.
10. R. F. Foster writes, "The Irish occupied administrative and legislative roles in the imperial hierarchy that would never be allotted to Africans or Indians
11. See R. F. Foster, "Marginal Men and Micks on the Make: The Uses of Irish Exile, c. 1840-1922," in his Paddy and Mr. Punch: Connections in Irish and English History (Londo n, 1993), p. 287.
12. Jeffery, "Introduction, " p. 8.
13. There is a substantial literature on the connections between Irish and Indian nationalism before the First World War, most of which focuses on constitutional nationalists in both countries. See H. V. Brasted, "Indian Nationalist Development and the Influence of Irish Home Rule, 1870-1886," Modem Asian Studies 14, no. 1 (February 1980): 37-63
14. Irish Nationalism and the British Empire in the Late Nineteenth Century," in Irish Culture and Nationalism, 1750-1950, ed. Oliver MacDonagh, W. F. Mandle, and Pauric Travers (London, 1986), pp. 83-103
15. Richard P. Davis, "India in Irish Revolutionary Propaganda, 1905-1922, " Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh 22, no. 1 (January 19 77): 66-89
16. and ' "The Influence of the Irish Revolution on Indian Nationalism: The Evidence of the Indian Press, 1916-1922," South Asia, n.s., 9, no. 2 (1986): 55-68.
17. Brasted, "Indian Nationalist Development, " p. 47.
18. Brasted, "Irish Nationalism and the British Empire, " p. 95.
19. Brasted, "Indian Nationalist Development, " p.
20. Davis, "India in Irish Revolutionary Propaganda, " p. 66
21. and Brasted, "Indian Nationalist Development, " p. 48.
22. ""Bangali (8 February 1920), in Report on the Native Papers in Bengal (BRNP) (Calcutta, 1920), p. 96. For the relevance of Amritsar to contemporary debates about British policy in Ireland, see Derek Sayer, "British Reaction to the Amritsar Massacre, 1919-1920, " Past and Present, no. 131 (May 1991): 130-64.
23. John Gallagher, "Nationalisms and the Crisis of Empire, 1919-1922," Modern Asian Studies 15, no. 3 (July 1981): 355.
24. Eamon de Valera, India and Ireland (New York, 1920), pp. 23-24.
25. W. K. Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs: Problems of Nationality, 1918-1936 (London, 1937), 1:92.
26. D. W. Harkness, The Restless Dominion: The Irish Free State and the British Commonwealth of Nations, 1921-31 (London, 1969
27. and R. F. Holland, Britain and the Commonwealth A lliance, 1918-1939 (London, 1981), p. 153.
28. Holland, Britain and the Commonwealth Alliance, chap. 9
29. and Deirdre McMahon, Republicans and Imperialists: Anglo-Irish Relations in the 1930s (New Haven, Conn., and London, 1984).
30. Brasted, "Irish Models, " p. 36.
31. John W. Wheeler-Bennett, John Anderson: Viscount Waverly (London, 1962), p. 126.
32. Peter Heehs, The Bomb in Bengal: The Rise of Revolutionary Terrorism in India (Delhi, 1993
33. David M. Laushey, Bengal Terrorism and the Marxist Left (Calcutta, 1975
34. and Rajat Kanta Ray, Social Conflict and Political Unrest in Bengal, 1875-1927 (Delhi, 1984).
35. H. W. Hale, Terrorism in India, 1917-1936 (1937
36. Heehs, Bomb in Bengal, p. xi.
37. Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: The ' 'Manly Englishman" and the ' 'Effeminate Bengali" in the Late Nineteenth Century (New York and Manchester, 1995
38. and John Rosselli, " The Self-image of Effeteness: Physical Education and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Bengal," Past and Present, no. 86 (February 1980): 121-48.
39. Richard J. Popplewell, Int elligence and Imperial Defense: British Intelligence and the Defense of the Indian Empire, 1904-1924 (London, 1995), p. 5.
40. H. J. Twynham and R. E. A. Ray, Enquiry into Temporary Establishments of the Central and District Intelligence Branches of the Bengal Police (Alipore, 1936), pp. 9-10
41. and Marcus F. Franda, Radical Politics in West Bengal (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1971), p. 16.
42. Rajat Kanta Ray writes, " In the grim battle between the police and the revolutionaries, the sympathy of large sections of Bengali society lay with the latter. " Ray, Social Conflict and Political Unrest, p. 182.
43. R. E. A. Ray, "Brief Note on the Alliance of Congress with Terrorism in Bengal, " in Terrorism in Bengal: A Collection of Documents, ed. Amiya K. Samanta, 6 vols. (Calcutta, 1995), 3:933.
44. Leonard A. Gordon, Brothers against the Raj: A Biography of the Indian Nationalists Subhas and Sarat Chandra Bose (New York, 1989), p. 229.
45. Ray, Social Conflict and Political Unrest, pp. 324-25.
46. Notes by H. LeMesurier, Inspector General of Police, Eastern Bengal and Assam, 5 July 1908 and 15 June 1908, Calcutta, West Bengal State Archives (WBSA), Government of Bengal Home (Political) Confidential file (GOB Home [Pol.] Conf.) no. 390/C of 1909.
47. Nirad C. Chaudhuri, The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (London, 1951), p. 224.
48. Sir Percival Philips, "The Firm Hand in Bengal, " Daily Mail (12 February 1926), Tegart Papers, Centre of South Asian Studies Archive (CSAS), University of Cambridge.
49. "Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Thy Hand Great Anar ch! India, 1921-1952 (London, 1987), pp. 292 and 298.
50. Ray, Social Conflict and Political Unrest, pp. 185 and 376.
51. Tanika Sarkar, " Bengali Middle-Class Nationalism and Literature: A Study of Saratchandra's 'Pather Dabi' and Rabindranath's 'Char Adhyay,' " in Economy, Society and Pel/tics//i Modern India, ed D. N. Panigrahi (New Delhi, )9B5),p. 451.
52. Charles Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars: Counter-insurgency in the Twentieth Century (London, 1986), p. 146.
53. The Calcutta nationalist newspaper Forward carried a weekly column on Irish affairs during the 1920s. See Leonard A. Gordon, Bengal: The Nationalist Movement, 1876-1940 (New York, 1974), p. 338.
54. Foster, Modern Ireland: 1600 to 1972 (New York, 1988), p. 535.
55. Surendra Mohan Ghose, Oral History Transcript, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), New Delhi. One revolutionary deported to the Andaman Islands before the First World War, Hrishikesh Kunji Lai, was kno wn among the prison staff as
56. and Gordon, Brothers against the Raj, pp. 417-18.
57. Dan Breen, My Fight for Irish Freedom, rev. ed. (Dublin, 1964), pp. 75 and 83.
58. R. E. A. Ray, " Report on the Activities of Terrorists in Bengal during the Period April to December 1930," in Samanta, ed., Terrorism in Bengal, 1:603.
59. Gordon, Brothers against the Raj, p. 103
60. and Kalpana Dutt, Chittagong Armoury Raiders: Reminiscences, rev. ed. (Delhi, 1979), p. 13.
61. Robert Reid, Years of Change in Bengal and Assam (London, 1966), p. 53.
62. For Breen's influence among the Chittagong revolutionaries, see I. Mallikarjuna Sharma, Easter Rebellion in India: The Chittagong Uprising (Hyderabad, 1993), pp. 82, 111, 128, and 132.
63. Ray, "Report on the Activities of Terrorists in Bengal, " p. 607.
64. Ray, "Report on the Activities of Terrorists in Bengal, " p. 608.
65. Dutt, Chittagong Armoury Raiders, p. 13.
66. Bhupati Mazumdar, Oral History Transcript, NMML
67. and R. C. Majumdar, History of Modern Bengal, Part 2 (1905-1947): Freedom Movement (Calcutta, 1981), p. 263.
68. J. R. Johnson, Superintendent of Police, Chittagong, to F. J. Lowman, Inspector General, Bengal Police, 24 April 1930, NAI, GOI Home (Pol.) no. 335 of 1930.
69. H. R. Wilkinson, District Magistrate , Chittagong, to H. Tufnell-Barrett, Pol. Dept., GOB, 10 October 1930, WBSA, GOB Home (Pol.) Conf. no. 749 of 1930.
70. Ray, "Report on the Activities of Terrorists in Bengal, " pp. 608-9.
71. Dutt, Chittagong Armoury Raiders, p. ix.
72. Sharma, Easter Rebellion in India, p. 17
73. a nd Dutt, Chittagong Armoury Raiders, p. ix.
74. Hale, Terrorism in India, p. 23
75. and J. C. Farmer, Bengal Police Intelligence Branch, to T. J. A. Craig, Inspector General, Bengal Police, 5 May 1931, WBSA, GOB Home (Pol.) Conf. no. 296 of 1931.
76. and N. G. Barrier, Banned: Controversial Literature and Political Control in British India (Columbus, Mo., 1971).
77. Davis, "The Influence of the Irish Revolution on Indian Nationalism, " p. 55
78. H. R. Wilkinson, District Magistrate, Chittagong, to H. Tufnell-Barrett, Second Additional Sec. to GOB, 10 October 1930, WBSA, GOB Home (Pol.) Conf. no. 749 of 1930.
79. S. B. Cook, Imperial Affinities: Nineteenth-Century Analogies and Exchanges between India and Ireland (New Delhi, London, and Newbury Park, Calif., 1993
80. Clive Dewey, "Celtic Agrarian Legislation and the Celtic Revival: Hist oricist Implications of Gladstone's Irish and Scottish Land Acts, 1870-1886," Past and Present, no. 64 (August 1974): 30-70
81. "Images of the Village Community: A Study in Anglo-Indian Ideology," Modern Asian Studies 6, no. 3 (July 1972): 291-328.
82. Kent Fedorowich, "The Problems of Disbandment: The Royal Irish Constabulary and Imperial Migration, 1919-1929," Irish Historical Studies 30, no. 117 (May 1996): 88-110.
83. Lionel Curtis, Colonial Office, to Sir William Duke, India Office, 25 August 1922, OIOC, P&J no. 2092 of 1922, L/P&J/6/1800.
84. m As Charles Townshend observes, that result was not achieved. Charles Townshend, The British Campaign in Ireland, 1919-1921 (Oxford, 1975), p. 73.
85. Lothian to Anderson, 12 March 1932
86. Anderson to Findlater Stewart, 17 November 1932
87. and John Anderson, "The Situation in Bengal, " June 1932, Anderson Col lection, OIOC, MSS Eur. F 207/14.
88. For a brief discussion of the Indian Army's involvement in the campaign against terrorism in Bengal, see David Omissi, The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian Army, 1860-1940 (London, 1994), pp. 223-25.
89. R. N. Reid, "Bomb and Pistol in a Bengal District, " Reid Collection, OIOC, MSS Eur. E 278/2.
90. John Hunt, Life Is Meeting (London, 1978), pp. 21-22.
91. and George Gilmore, The Irish Republican Congress, rev. ed. (Cork, 1978), p. 30.
92. Charles Townshend, "The IRA and the De velopment of Guerilla Warfare, 1916-21," English Historical Review 94, no. 371 (April 1979): 344.
93. see J. C. Curry, Tegart of the Indian Police (Tunbridge Wells, 1960
94. and Michael Silvestri, " 'A n Irishman Is Specially Suited to Be a Policeman': Sir Charles Tegart and the Revolutionary Terrorist Movement in Bengal," History Ireland (in press).
95. Sean T. O'Ceallaigh, India and Ireland (New York, 1925), p. 9.
96. Devi, "India and Ireland, " 299
97. Kapur, The Irish Raj, p. 45
98. and S. M. Mitra, Anglo-Indian Studies (New York, Bombay, and Calcutta, 1913), p. 464.
99. Cook, Imperial Affinities, p. 136.