AGENTS-PROVOCATEUR IN REVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZATIONS :

- I. Mallikarjuna Sharma.
Revolutions mark the periods of leap in the history of societies when the existing
order of things gives place to a new one. They connote sudden and far-reaching changes,
radical transformations, which are major breaks in the continuity of societal
development.1 Such revolutions cannot be made to order by any individuals or
organizations however revolutionary they may be. But at the same time they cannot be
thought of as spontaneous upheavals either. They are always the result of associative
agitation that originates in certain coordination of ideas and doctrines. These ideas must
have been hammered patiently and hard upon the anvil of the national soul by
imaginative, daring and dedicated personalities to produce the keen-edged and swiftstriking blade of revolution.2 Such personalities have been, and generally are, able to do
all this by associating themselves in various types of revolutionary organizations,
generally so many secret societies and working with a lot of inspiration and perspiration,
coupled with considerable courage and self-sacrifice.
Revolutionary organizations and Terrorism :
We find in history that all such revolutionary organizations, mostly the secret
societies with (or without) their various initiation ceremonies and utopian ideals, resort to
terrorism against the established order, at least in the initial stages of the movements
launched by them. They generally strike at the agents or representatives of authority, and
try to create terror in the hearts of the persons in power by a spate of political
assassinations. This coupled with various acts of destruction of property and machinery is
aimed at paralyzing the administration, protecting their own organizations in that course,
and also awakening the masses from stupor showing them that, after all, the enemy is not
so invulnerable. However, all revolutionary organizations only expect these acts of
terrorism to act as nothing but preludes to the coming mass upheavals - mass
insurrections or full-fledged peoples revolutions.
However mere terrorism was or is never sufficient to achieve the purpose. The will
to revolution always required a stronger force than the heroism of isolated individuals or
even of small, well-organized groups. And governments, whether conservative or
revolutionary, are not inclined to beat a retreat panicked by acts of terror against key
persons. The will to power is not weakened by the elimination of persons in power and
positions made vacant through the explosion of bombs are readily filled.3
Counter-terrorist measures of Governments :
The governments in power also devise umpteen measures to ward off or counter the
danger of terrorism. They generally find it hard to cope with the situation when the
assaults are from a powerful mass-based organization but not so when the secret societies
wreaking terrorism are merely associations of a few or many dedicated young men fired
by utopian ideals but with no considerable mass base. These young men divorced from
the general will and way of the masses, and deprived of the sound common sense and
native acumen of the people, are prone to be easily led away and cheated by more
firebrand-looking impostors. As a result, such societies become easy targets for
infiltration by their enemies i.e. by the forces of the governments of the day. And
infiltration of such revolutionary secret societies by their select agents has been one of the
most effective and time-tested methods employed by the governments in the conduct of
their counter-terrorist campaigns.
The governments of the day, or to be more precise their police, crime investigation
or intelligence departments, carry out this infiltration in a number of ways, and mainly
1

Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences, Vol. 13, New York, 1957, p. 367.

Una Birch, Secret Societies and the French Revolution, London, 1911, pp. 10-13.

Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences, Vol. 13, New York, 1957, p. 579.

Contd 2

-2through two sets of agents: 1. Informers; 2. Agents Provocateur. Informers galore for any
government but the category of agents-provocateur is somewhat a rare species. However
it is the most dangerous sort. Only a very talented and versatile person, who can study
thoroughly and understand well the ways and techniques of both the police and the
revolutionary organization, succeeds in the role of an agent provocateur. That person
must be able to inculcate utmost confidence on himself among the revolutionary
colleagues of the organization into which he worms his way. Moreover he has to impress
them with an imaginative programme and make them so confident and dependent on
himself that they could even be lulled into a carefree slumber leaving the main burden of
affairs on himself. Then he would execute his master-plan at the right time and trap all or
most of them. In the process of execution of such a difficult task, several among such
category easily develop their own independent ambitions. They are often elated at the
sight of the enormous powers and potentialities devolving to their hands from the media
of both the organizations i.e. the police and the secret society and not infrequently embark
on a course of action which does incalculable harm to the interests of both the enemy
and the revolutionary. The history of the Russian Anti-Czarist underground movement
is replete with many such examples and it would be worthwhile here to have a brief look
at some of those examples before coming to look for such illustrations in our own
national movement.
Okhrana against the Russian Revolutionaries:
The secret police department, Okhrana, of Czarist Russia was formed in 1880 with
the main task of combating the terrorist danger posed by the revolutionaries of
Narodnaya Volya (Peoples Will). Later on, the task of infiltrating and subverting the
incipient revolutionary working class movement and the social democratic parties
espousing that movement was also entrusted to it. The Okhrana for its part had borrowed
almost wholesale the methods adopted by the French secret police under Napoleon III
who developed the tradition of agents-provocateur and paid informers to a new
sophistication. Baltic German disciplinarians like V.K. Plehve, who had later become the
Russian Minister of the Interior and then assassinated, were at the helm of affairs in
Okhrana and rapidly developed the techniques of penetration and provocation. The
government with its striking arm of Okhrana resorted to widespread counter-violence in
Southern Russia in the 1880s to contain the rampant revolutionary terrorism prevalent
there. In avenging response to that bloody programme Stephan Khalturin, who had
previously made an unsuccessful attempt to blow up the Winter Palace along with the
Czar, assassinated General Strelinkov, the commander of that counter-terrorist campaign.
The Okhrana thereafter tried to counter this method of secret assassinations by infiltrating
the revolutionary society. Lt. Col. Gregory Sudeikin of the St. Petersburg Okhrana began
recruiting political prisoners to act as double agents, as in the case of Sergei Degaev who
became a police agent inside the surviving leadership of the Peoples Will (Narodnaya
Volya). Though at a later period Degaev tried to make atonement for his sin by
assassinating Sudeikin himself, the damage had already been done. A precedent was
established for the confusion of identities between the rival clandestine outfits of the
Right and the Left within the Russian Empire. However, this process of seduction worked
both the ways, since it proved difficult to involve oneself with the left without entering
into its ideals and aspirations. Consequently in the later Russian imperial period a twilight
world of uncertain allegiances and identities had developed. This complex process
worked in such a peculiar and startling way that Vladimir Burtsev could form his
remarkable revolutionary police and detective bureau to combat Okhrana in Paris only
with the collaboration of some important Okhrana officials like Michael Bakai and
Leonid Merishchikov. Burtsev had also adopted the Okhranas own tactics of surveillance
and penetration to work his revolutionary detective organization.1
Sergei Zubatov and Yevno Azev were the two most famous Okhrana leaders who
had penetrated the revolutionary movement. Zubatov infiltrated - nay, virtually led - the
incipient working class movement in Russia and formed a pro-monarchic workers
association. His main aim was to wean away the workers from the politically surcharged
1

James H. Billington, Fire in the minds of Men, London, 1980, pp. 471-473.

Contd

-3intelligentsia. But to his dismay his movement was in turn infiltrated by many a social
democrat. Ultimately even the purely economic strikes organized by Zubatov became a
thorn in the armpit for the authorities and he was dismissed from Okhrana subsequent to
the general strike in Odessa that took place in 1903 due to the fear that his organization
was doing more to advance the revolutionary cause than to impede it. But the Zubatov
legacy lingered on for a longer time. Father Gapon, who was recruited by Zubatov into
Okhrana, was to organize the massive demonstrations of the workers on the Bloody
Sunday {9 January 1905}, which was to set off a spate of protest strikes and uprisings
that went to make the Great 1905 Russian Revolution.1
As regards Yevno Azev, it was Okhranas greatest coup when it succeeded placing
him, a former revolutionary, as head of the Fighting Section of the Socialist
Revolutionary Party in 1903. Though working for Okhrana, Azev made no effort to
prevent the assassination of his nominal chief, Minister of the Interior, Mr. Plehve, in
1904. He became a member of the central committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party
in the following year and helped Okhrana make its two largest mass-arrests of the
revolutionary era: of almost all the delegates to the first Socialist Revolutionary Party
Congress at Imatra in January 1906 and of the fighting section of the party in March 1906
in St. Petersburg. Azev was finally exposed by Burtsev and formally denounced in late
1908 or early 1909.2
Even the Bolshevik Communist Party of Russia was not an exception to this
process. The Bolshevik members of the Second Duma were all arrested at one blow by
the Okhrana and this drove Lenin and his party underground. In the period of Lenins
exile, two Okhrana agents, David Zhitomirsky and Roman Malinovsky, wormed their
way into the Bolshevik party and gained his confidence. Malinovsky was elevated in
1912 to the Bolshevik Central Committee even. However, when Malinovsky was
exposed, denounced and summarily executed after the 1917 October Revolution, Lenin
refused to intervene to save him. Of course it is not yet clear whether Malinovsky can be
classed as an agent provocateur or should only be deemed as a top-level informer. Miron
Chernomazov, who succeeded Stalin in 1913 as the Editor of the Bolshevik journal,
Pravda, was yet another agent of the Okhrana. And then, some sources say that strong
suspicions were raised, and not yet allayed, that Stalin himself had collaborated to some
degree with Okhrana during his earlier days of political activity.3 Of course even they do
not accuse or suspect Stalin of being an agent provocateur.
Such is the brief but sensational account of the agents-provocateur in the land of
October Revolution. But even our country is not devoid of this miserable species. When
the British rulers in India were adopting the Russian methods of repression, and the
various groups of national revolutionaries in this country tried to fight back with Russian
revolutionary methods of agitation and assassination, the government at the helm and the
all-knowing and all-powerful British Intelligence Department at its command, could not
be expected to sit with folded hands to merely watch the show. They also tried to best
emulate the Okhrana here and to honeycomb the revolutionary secret societies in this land
with their informers and agents-provocateur. We come across certain glaring examples of
this process in the heroic annals of the national revolutionaries of our country. Though
our attempt would mainly be to spot the abhorrent and fearsome species of the agentsprovocateur, in that course we would come across and deal with the species of informers
too. Let us go into them in some detail.
Chandrasekhar Azad and his traitorous friends :
Dharmendra Goud, a former intelligence officer of the C.I.D. and I.B., took lot of
pains to delve into the secret intelligence records of the period of Azad, Yashpal and other
revolutionaries of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army and unearthed some startling
1

Ibid., p. 474.

Ibid., p. 477.

Ibid., p. 476-477.

Contd

-4facts. He contends that some prominent members of Azads organization collaborated

with the C.I.D. to bring about the death of their leader. According to Dharmendra Gouds
version, Chandrasekhar Azad, a lion of a revolutionary, who courageously led an
underground life for more than six years evading all attempts at arrest with his ingenuous
skills, was given over to the police by the jackal - Virbhadra Tiwari, with the connivance
of Yashpal, and probably of Sukhdev Raj too, and all of them revelled at the death of this
much-lauded, but by them much-hated, revolutionary. He even published some photostat
copies from the secret intelligence records to substantiate his contentions. 1 We are
presently in a position to assert that at least the identity of Virbhadra Tiwari as a police
informer has been established beyond doubt and that at least two attempts on his life were
made by the irate cadres of the H.S.R.A. within ten months of the shooting down of Azad
at Alfred Park, Allahabad, on 27 February 1931. One of the assailants, Ramesh Chandra
Gupta, who made the second attempt on the life of Tiwari, had been sentenced to, and did
undergo, 10 years rigorous imprisonment even.2 Mathuradas Thapar, brother of the
martyr Sukhdev, expresses his wonder at the attempts made by Yashpal in his
Simhavalokan to screen Virbhadra Tiwari, who could not possibly be shielded in any
manner. This he attributes to the unholy and covert comradeship developing between the
two after the same Virbhadra Tiwari, who was earlier entrusted with the task of shooting
down Yashpal for his anti-party and treacherous activities, had defied the command of
Chandrasekhar Azad, the Commander-in-Chief of the H.S.R.A., and managed to inform
about it to and save the life of Yashpal. Perhaps Yashpal tried to repay this unredeemable
debt to Tiwari by coming in his support and trying to whitewash his misdeeds. 3 All this
happened in spite of the fact that Virbhadra Tiwari, first included in the list of the accused
in the Kakori Conspiracy Case of 1925, was later released on the recommendation of
Shambhunath, D.S.P., C.I.D., without being prosecuted. This Shambhunath, D.S.P., had
all along acted as the mentor and supporter of Tiwari. The Kakori comrades in prison did
suspect the bona fides of Tiwari and duly warned their comrades outside about his
unreliability. Yet, despite all that, Tiwari could somehow worm his way into Azads inner
circle. This lay bare the inherent weakness and looseness of the revolutionary
organization - H.S.R.A. Later on, after the death of Azad, this Tiwari, due to the good
efforts and through the good offices of Shambhunath, D.S.P., managed to get a handsome
salary of Rs. 200/- p.m. plus T.A., D.A., etc. from the C.I.D., U.P., for acting as a source
for them.4
Sukhdev Raj was the person who was present by the side of Azad in the Alfred Park
Encounter and he miraculously escaped, that too unhurt, in the shootout. Earlier on 21
May 1930 in the forest on the bank of Ravi near Lahore when Bhagawati Charan Vohra
died in a bomb explosion, Sukhdev Raj was by his side and escaped with minor injuries.
In fact it was Sukhdev Raj who had provoked Bhagawati Charan to test-throw that bomb
with a loose cap when Bhagawati Charan was hesitating whether to use it or abandon it.
Later in period to this Alfred Park encounter, on 3 May 1931 in Shalimar Gardens,
Lahore, when Jagadish Bahl courted martyrdom in a shootout with the police, Sukhdev
Raj was again there on the scene quite nearby, escaped unhurt but was caught. 5 And then
on . Thus on all these three (or four) occasions
Sukhdev Raj was fortunate enough to survive and always the other man in his company
died. Later, after his arrest he was said to have been convicted and sentenced to a short
term of imprisonment (2 or 3 years) only. Of course none of these events and manners by
itself is sufficient to suggest or accuse him of unreliability and treachery; but all these
read together, and if the unfavourable impressions he created on his contemporaries is
also taken into account, raise some serious suspicions about him. Likewise Yashpals
execution of the act of exploding a bomb under the Viceroys train even after
Chandrasekhar Azad, the Commander-in-Chief, had expressly forbidden him, his failure
1

Dharmendra Goud, Azad ke gaddhaar saathi.

Terrorism in India : 1917-1936, I.B., Home Department, G.O.I., Simla, 1937, Ch. III, p. 88.

Mathura Das Thapar, Amar Shaheed Sukhdev, Delhi, 1980, pp. 166-167.

Ibid., p. 169.

Mrityunjayi, vol. I & II.

Contd

-5to fight against the police courageously but meekly surrender at the time of his arrest and
the relatively lighter term of 7 years R.I. he was awarded all these raise suspicions on
Yashpals reliability also. And moreover Dharmender Goud had published a photostat
copy of a document showing his (Yashpals) links with the C.I.D.! However, nothing can
be definitely said against these two persons [Sukhdev Raj and Yashpal]until all or most of
the secret intelligence records of the period become available to scholars. But who knows
what portion of those records still survives and what portion is already destroyed? For
even in the National Archives of India, even among the indexed files, we find that a very
many confidential files of the Home Department exist only in the indexes but not in
reality. When repeatedly enquired, the reason adduced is invariably that those files have
not yet been transferred to the Archives. This sorry state of archival preservation and
accessibility to the public even after the lapse of 50-90 years period!
Now the question arises as to whether the above three persons should only be
considered as informers or could even be deemed agents-provocateur. As for Virbhadra
Tiwari, it appears that he was mainly an informer only but at the same time he had much
potential to cause damage as an agent provocateur also. As for Yashpal and Sukhdev Raj,
if the allegation that they had links with the C.I.D. could be sufficiently established,
I will not hesitate the least to place them in the category of agents-provocateur. Here we
should remember that Yashpal was so ambitious as to declare himself to be the
Commander-in-Chief of the H.S.R.A. immediately after the death of Azad, this in spite of
the well-known fact that Azad, in his last days, had disbanded the central organization of
the H.S.R.A. and even distributed the stock of arms and ammunition with the central
body to the various regional groups. Then we have seen how resourceful Sukhdev Raj
was and this resourcefulness would certainly have prodded him to some provocative
mischief.
An Agent Provocateur exposed!
In the month of April 1927, two young men were arrested at the Lahore Railway
Station and one of them, a Bengali youth named K.C. Banerji, was found to be in
possession of a revolver and a number of cartridges. This K.C. Banerji was in reality a
paid informer of the U.P. C.I.D. and when he confessed this matter to the Punjab C.I.D.,
the S.P., C.I.D., Political Branch, Lahore one Rai Sahib Chunnila, Esq., asked him not
to disclose any thing to the Magistrate but suffer imprisonment for a month or so after
which he would somehow or the other be released from jail. It was explained to him that
this was necessary if no suspicions regarding him were to be created in the minds of
potentially revolutionary young men of Punjab. After a period he could be out from the
jail with the halo of a persecuted and tested revolutionary and that would greatly promote
the further endeavours of the C.I.D. to use him effectively as an agent provocateur and
blow up any revolutionary conspiracy - actual or potential. With this understanding, K.C.
Banerji meekly admitted to his guilt before H.C. Phalibus, I Class Magistrate at Lahore.
However, since Phalibus did not know the antecedents of K.C. Banerji he handed down
stringent punishment of 5 years R.I. to him under section 20 of the Indian Arms Act.
Banerji was stunned and shocked and when he was made to actually undergo the rigour
of the rigorous imprisonment in jail, he could not endure it even for a few days. He wrote
pity-evoking letters to Rai Sahib Lala Chunilal, S.P., C.I.D., Political Branch, Lahore and
B.G.P. Thomas, Esqr., S.P., Meerut, U.P., describing his weal and woe, and praying them
to cause his immediate release by whatsoever method possible. These letters also
contained an implicit threat to reveal everything to the High Court in case his release was
not so caused. That timid fellow could not even wait for the reply for a long time and
engaged one Lala Dhuni Chand, Bar-at-Law, to appeal on his behalf to the High Court.
Perhaps he related that entire mattter to that advocate, or perhaps the letters written by
him somehow fell into the hands of others and they handed them over to The Tribune,
Lahore. Whatever be the case, The Tribune published the entire matter with sensational
headlines on 6 May 1928. However, long prior to it, even by October 1927, Banerji was
taken out on bail of Rs. 500/- by the C.I.D. circles and then asked not to bother about
attending the court any further. So Banerji had finally gained his freedom, but at what
cost to his mentors in the Punjab and the U.P. C.I.D.! This news in The Tribune caused a
furore in the Punjab Legislative Council where an adjournment motion was moved on
Contd

-610 May 1928 by one Chaudhuri Afzal Haq, M.L.C., who strongly arraigned the Punjab
and U.P. C.I.D. departments on this outrageous attempt of theirs to plant agentsprovocateur and disturb the tranquillity of the province by duping, and endangering the
lives of, many a patriotic but innocent young man. His arguments were strongly
supported by other luminaries like Raizada Hans Raj, Dr. Gokul Chand Narang and
Sheikh Mohammed Sadiq. The Financial Commissioner, H.D. Craik, rising in reply to
those indictments, did not admit that the Punjab C.I.D. designed to use Banerji as an
agent provocateur. However, he admitted that the Punjab C.I.D. verified and confirmed
that Banerji was an informer of the U.P. C.I.D. and it was only to save him from possible
trouble and danger from the other suspect along with whom he was arrested that the case
was pursued against him. Anyway this sensational revelation in The Tribune laid bare the
nefarious designs of the C.I.D. to plant agents-provocateur and create disorder whereas
its real duty was to maintain or help in maintaining law and order.1
ON THE FLOOR OF THE CENTRAL LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY :
During the debate on Bengal Ordinance in the Central Legislative Assembly on 5
February 1925, Pandit Motilal Nehru, while presenting an able refutation of the
governments arguments for the promulgation of the ordinance, also touched upon the
sensitive point of agents-provocateur. He contended that much of what the government
presented before the people as revolutionary violence might, in fact, be the work of
agents-provocateur. When the Home Member expressed his indignation at the mention of
this point, Pt. Nehru quoted an extract from the writing of Sir Reginald Clarke, ExCommissioner of Police, Calcutta, in The Times about the agencies of police informers
wherein Clarke, among other things, commented: I wonder whether they do not raise
more devils than they lay. One has to use them to fight anarchy, but their inevitable
concomitants, the agents-provocateur and the lettre de cachet, alienate public opinion to
such an extent that they can never be continued for long. Pandit Nehru also referred to a
Memorial addressed to the Secretary of State for India by two the then prominent
revolutionary detenus, B.K. Dutt and J.C. Chatterji, wherein, among other things, they
also pointed to the nefarious activities of agents-provocateur who manufactured
revolutionary violence in Bengal. They made a particular reference to one such person
who was exposed as an informer in an identification parade in the Alipore Conspiracy
Case trial but whose name was skillfully penned through and that of another accused
introduced by the prosecution for obvious reasons. The point was not then pressed by the
defence counsel. However the same person, they contended, was behind whatever
violence committed in Bengal, succeeding as he did in duping many an innocent young
man and recruiting them to his fold. Referring to this Pt. Motilal stressed that the Home
Minister had no cause whatever to become indignant in the face of such glaring facts, and
that the people of the country thought that there were such agents.2
ALLEGATIONS AGAINST RASHBEHARI BOSE TOO :
Going still back in time to the period 1912-15, we come across an interesting
episode when allegations of like nature were hurled against one of the two most
important revolutionary leaders of the First World War times, Rashbehari Bose of the
Lord Hardinge Bomb Case fame. If they were mere innuendoes or libelous statements by
his political opponents or by the persons in power and privilege, I would not have cared
to refer to them. But being one of the main points consistently put forth by the able
advocates of patriotic revolutionaries like Amir Chand, Bal Mokand and Avadh Behari,
the accused in the Lahore-Delhi Conspiracy Case who were subsequently sentenced to
death and courted martyrdom on the gallows, both in the Sessions and the Appellate
Courts, I cannot possibly refrain from mentioning them. And those advocates did adduce
certain reasons for their allegations too. Of course, it is quite another matter whether the
reasons given were sound and sufficient, and herein lies the stupendous work before
scholars of history who have to unearth more and more information on such topics and
sift it properly to illumine the many dark corners and arrive at the shining altar of truth.
1
2

Comrade Ram Chandra, Road to Freedom, New Delhi, 1980, pp. 234-48.
I.A.R., 1925, Vol. I.

Contd

-7Firstly, I will quote from two illustrious writers who knew something about the
secret deal of Rashbehari with the C.I.D. Smt. Uma Mukherji, who wrote a wellresearched biography of Rashbehari Bose, says thus:
On account of his pronounced pro-government speeches and actions at Dehra Dun,
Rash Behari won very soon the favour of the police officers of the U.P. and the
Punjab. One of them, Sushil Chandra Ghose, picked up intimacy with him, probably
with the object of eliciting information from him [Rashbehari] about his
[Rashbeharis] relative, Srish Chandra Ghosh the political suspect of
Chandernagore; but Rash Behari also in his turn utilized this contact with the police
for his own purposes. He pursued his policy with such an ability as to mislead even
the spying Bengali police officer from Dehra Dun to report about him [Rash Behari]
that it is the general belief there, among the Bengali community, that Rash Behari
was a police spy and used to supply information to the C.I.D. officers. In the battle
of wits Rash Behari obviously proved the stronger. The trying Judge in the DelhiLahore Conspiracy Case observed that Rash Behari was an even cleverer man than
he is generally supposed to have been, and that he made use of his connection with
the police to further the ends of this conspiracy. Rash Behari, by his speeches and
actions, produced at that time such a favourable impression on the police as [that] he
was even allowed to enter the Circuit House at Dehra Dun where the Viceroy
Hardinge had come there for treatment following the Delhi outrage. 1

Now here itself it would be worthwhile to quote a remarkable comment in reference

to Rashbehari by the Viceroy Lord Hardinge himself:
(at Dehra Dun) when driving in a car from the station to my bungalow I passed
an Indian standing in front of the gate of his house with several others, all of whom
were very demonstrative in their salaams I was told that [he was] the principal
Indian there [and] had presided two days before at a public meeting at Dehra Dun
and had proposed and carried a vote of confidence with me on account of the attack
on my life. It was proved later that it was this identical Indian who threw the bomb at
me!2

The second writer we wanted to quote, Arun Chandra Guha, himself a revolutionary
during the days of the national movement, writes thus:
It is interesting to note how clever and resourceful Rash Behari was. As soon as he
got the scent that his name was likely to be connected with the Alipore Bomb Case,
he shifted from Calcutta to Dehra Dun and established contact with some important
police officers, including Sushil Ghose, a Deputy Superintendent of Police. He posed
as an informer of Sushil Ghose for some time so that the least suspicion against him
might be allayed. Three top officials of the Central Intelligence Denham, Petrie
and Cleveland, knew of this. Ultimately when Rash Beharis true character was
revealed, Sushil Ghose had to explain his relations with Rash Behari. Immediately
after the Delhi Bomb Incident, Rash Behari rushed to Dehra Dun and organized a
public meeting to condemn the outrage and to avow allegiance to the British
authority. He presided over that meeting. This meeting is mentioned by Lord
Hardinge It was because of such ingenuity and resourcefulness that Rash Behari
could escape police vigilance during all these years though he was engaged in hectic
revolutionary activities in Bengal, U.P. and Punjab. It also helped him to escape to
Japan posign as Raja P.N. Tagore of the famous Tagore family.3

So it is obvious that these two eminent writers knew of Rashbeharis connections

with the police, and at least Uma Mukherji should have been conversant with the
proceedings of the Delhi-Lahore Conspiracy Case. But unfortunately both of them failed
to take note or mention that it was the defence counsel of the prinicpal accused in the
Lahore-Delhi Conspiracy Case that had mainly voiced the allegation that Rashbehari was

Uma Mukherji: Two Great Indian Revolutionaries, Calcutta, 1966, pp. 110-111.

Lord Hardinge: My Indian Years : 1910-16, London, 1948, p. 83.

Arun Chandra Guha, First Spark of Revolution, New Delhi, 1971, p. 336.

Contd

-8an agent provocateur. We quote from the judgment of the Additional Sessions Judge in
that case:
(c) Rash Beharis connection with the Police.
I now take the main contention of the counsel for the defence. Throughout the case
Mr. Sen has directed his cross-examination and later on his argument to show that
Rash Behari was a police spy, and that he had been used to manufacture evidence
against the various accused. He has given nine reasons for holding that this must be
the case

The gist of the reasons adduced was that Rashbehari took medical leave for nine
months on 8 August 1913. But instead of resting he toured widely. He met Sushil
Chandra Ghose, D.S.P., in December 1913 and then visited Amir Chands house where he
secretly concealed the bomb-cap which he should have got from Sushil Ghose. Then he
went to Calcutta, thence to Dehra Dun, after ten days from there to Hardwar, and four
days later came back to Dehra Dun. On 22 January 1914 he went to Delhi, on 2 February
to Gurdaspur, on 13 February to Lahore and vanished on 18 February. Mr. Sen
commented: This abnormal activity immediately before the searches was due to his
[Rashbeharis] desire to make all things ready for the police, and in this final tour leave
letters, books, etc. wherever he stayed like a bird shedding its plumage but never a scrap
of paper which could make him out to be a conspirator. On this particular point
Mr. Harrison writes in his judgment: It is quite true that he [Rashbehari] did leave
articles behind in Delhi, Lahore and Gurdaspur which connected him with Raghobar
Sharam, Khushi Ram, Abad Bihari and Charan Dass. The ninth reason adduced was that
the prosecution could not explain the source from where they got the photograph of
Rashbehari and that was due to the best of reasons i.e. that the prosecution got it from the
police who had it in their records as of one of their own species. But the Judge brushed
aside that argument saying it was possibly due to oversight by the prosecution. Finally
Mr. Harrison had this much to say on this point:
These various details have most cleverly been pieced together by Mr. Sen and, as a
matter of fact Rash Behari was employed by the criminal intelligence department
and the extent to which he was employed is shown in Petries diary.

Going through the pages of that diary which mentions about Petries enquiries at
first with, and later jointly with, Cleveland and Denham on this point, we find that Petrie
was finally led to conclude that
It is quite certain that he [Sushil Chandra Ghose] got nothing at all from him [Rash
Behari], and that on this account he began to look with a doubtful eye on Rash Behari
himself. To put it in a vulgar language, it seems to me that the only solution is that
Deputy Superintendent Sushil had been spoon-fed by Rash Behari; and that Rash
Behari, more probably than not, was a spy in our camp, especially as it seems he, at
one time, was making enquiries about Deputy Superintendent, Mahapatra. In my
mind absolutely no suspicion attaches to the incident, and I leave it here for good.

The Judge accepts the conclusion of Petrie that Rash Behari spoon-fed Sushil
Chandra Ghose as obviously correct, and then goes on to make the comment Rash
Behari was even cleverer than supposed, which was quoted earlier from Uma
Mukherji. He [the Judge] firmly rejects the theory that Rash Behari was allowed to
escape and is still being allowed to evade arrest an impossible theory.1
The judgment was appealed against by the convicted accused in the Chief Court of
the Punjab, and the two Judges, D.C. Johnston and Rattigan, who delivered separate but
concurring judgments, also commented on this aspect. D.C. Johnston wrote:

Vide Judgment by Mr. Harrison, Additional Sessions Judge, Delhi Division, delivered on 5 October
1914 in Trial No. 6 of 1914 in The Crown v. Basant Kumar Biswas & others, published in The Struggle
for Free Hindustan, Vol. 3, New Delhi, 1987.

Contd

-9I will now touch upon one other main feature of the defence, which affects
practically all the accused though it was argued in detail only by Mr. Sen, namely the
contention that Rash Behari was a police spy and an agent provocateur I have
carefully considered this defence and so has my learned colleague, and, as he is
making it an important part of his judgment, in the statements and views expressed
in which I heartily concur, I will refrain from discussing it at length and will merely
note here that I reject the theory put forward as unproved and inherently improbable
to the verge of impossibility.

The other Judge, H.A.B. Rattigan, did discuss this point in detail. He remarked that
from the first instance that theory appeared to him to be singularly unconvincing and
baseless, but since it was put forward strenuously by Mr. Sen and Mr. Raghunath Sahai,
both in the Sessions Court and before the Chief Court he considered it at length. After
going through the various points raised by the defence counsels, he concludes that the
theory propounded by the defence had nothing to support it except improbable surmises
and unjustifiable references. He refers to some more facts other than denials of Mr. Petrie
and Mr. Denham, which go against this theory. For example, he asks how Rash Behari, a
complete stranger to Amir Chand, could get up to a room in the top storey to hide a
bomb-cap, and dismisses it as an impossible surmise. Finally he pronounces that he has
no hesitation in holding that there is no ground for suspecting that Rash Behari Bose was
a police spy in the employment of the C.I.D., while there are very strong reasons for
accepting the contention of the government that he was a intimate political friend of the
various accused persons, and the active leader of the conspirators.1
Here I would like to place the issue in a different light. The able advocates of the
accused, who wanted to save their clients, could in no way make any inculpating
statements and hence adopted a completely exculpatory defence that is, that their clients
were quite innocent and it was all the work of the agent provocateur without the
knowledge of their clients. But, in reality, it is never the way an agent provocateur works
and succeeds. He patiently and silently worms his way into the confidence of the
militants and would be revolutionaries. He normally, and intimately at that, befriends the
revolutionary sympathizers, inspires them with some imaginative programme(s), and
persuades them to do or attempt to do some daring enterprise(s) and finally arranges
and if successful manages to trap all or most of them. Seen in this light, the bomb-cap,
etc. might have been left with the accused with their full consent and pleasure, but they
might be blissfully ignorant that their friend, philosopher and guide is in fact an agent
provocateur. And then sooner or later when they get trapped, they rue about their own
credulousness, and get stunned at the cunning, and become indignant at the betrayal, of
their leader. Likewise the conclusions of the British Judges, however eminent they be,
about so delicate a problem affecting the innermost secrets of the imperialist rule, cannot
be accepted as final verdicts by nationalist historians. Hence, I still feel that serious
scholars of history should try to unearth more information in this matter without,
however, cherishing any prejudice against Rashbehari Bose. For my part I make clear that
I would certainly be the happiest man to learn that these allegations were found to be
baseless and unjust by a team of nationalist historians after a thorough probe.

Kripal Singh, the spy :

Rashbehari Bose, evading arrest in the Lahore-Delhi Conspiracy Case, thereafter
stayed incognito at Benares for about one year. He made Sachin Sanyal of Benares, who
already had a well-knit organization and considerable following, his right-hand man and
began to gradually establish contacts with other areas in U.P. and the Punjab. Meanwhile
the World War II broke out in August 1914. The national revolutionaries inside the
country, and the revolutionaries in exile, especially the Ghadarites in America, wanted to
take advantage of Britains wartime predicament and strike hard and swift blows at it to
gain independence for India. Thousands of Ghadarites from all corners of the globe began
to pour into India with the firm resolve to bring about an armed insurrection, chiefly by
1

Balmokand v. Emperor, AIR 1915 Lahore xxx.

Contd

- 10 seducing the native troops and whipping up a concerted mutiny. Mula Singh, Amar
Singh, Prithvi Singh Azad, Kartar Singh Saraba, et al were the active leaders of the
emigrant Ghadarites, and Vishnu Ganesh Pingle and Vinayak Rao Kaple 1 worked to
coordinate their activities with those of the Bengali and the North Indian revolutionaries.
At the instance of Pingle, Sachin Sanyal visited Punjab in December 1914 and, returning
to Benares, reported to Rash Behari that the situation there was satisfactory and
promising. There was a great discontent among the sturdy and militant Sikh and
Mohammedan troops in Punjab and some regiments were planning to rise immediately.
However, Sachin Sanyal cautioned against any hasty move, and pleaded for a concerted
and simultaneous uprising by all or several regiments on a fixed day. This was obviously
Rashbeharis idea and the advice was accepted by the Punjabi Ghadarites. Sohan Singh
Josh is sore with Sachin Sanyal for this advice which, he contends, had in reality
prevented any rising or fighting breaking out, and all the attempts at a grand rising had
miserably failed. He commented that with British Intelligence men like Nawab Khan and
perhaps Mula Singh already there in the movement and others likely to penetrate, this
delay proved fatal. However, he seems to be blissfully ignorant about the allegations
against Rashbehari during the trial of the Lahore-Delhi Conspiracy Case, and who knows
what could his criticism have been, had he been aware of that?2
Let us now learn about the plan chalked out by Rashbehari Bose and how it was
frustrated:
in December 1914 Vishnu Ganesh Pingle had arrived in the Punjab promising
Bengali cooperation with the malcontent emigrants After his arrival in the Punjab
a meeting was held at which revolution, the plundering of Government treasuries,
the seduction of Indian troops, the collection of arms, the preparation of bombs and
the commission of dacoities were all discussed. Pingles offer to introduce a Bengali
bomb expert was accepted Rash Behari arrived from Benares A house was
procured for him in Amritsar, where he lived with the other Bengalis till the
beginning of February 1915. There he worked in concert with the leading Sikh
revolutionaries. Early in February he arranged for a general rising on the 21
February of which Lahore was to be the headquarters. 3

Meanwhile almost all the cantonments in North India were contacted, most of the
regiments promised to join the rebellion after it had actually broken out whereas only two
regiments in the Punjab were said to have agreed to begin the rebellion. There were
already about 4000 Ghadarite emigrants ready to join the fight, and as many as 20,000
more were expected to pour in once the battle began. So the day was fixed, Rashbehari
himself shifted to Lahore and assumed the direct command of the immediate
preparations.
But the magnificent preparations were frustrated by the treachery of a single man
who was later found out to be a police spy. One Kripal Singh, who was known to
have been related to a great Punjabi revolutionary, Ajit Singh, somehow managed to
get into the inner circle of the revolutionaries. A suspicion about him was
communicated to Rashbehari who ordered that he should be removed from the earth.
Rashbehari thereafter decided to antedate the event the rising [to] take place on 19
February instead of 21 as originally fixed. But information about this D-Day
somehow reached the ears of the traitor and from his place of detention he could
somehow [by the simple expedient of going to the roof of the building] transmit the
information to the police headquarters Rashbeharis headquarters were raided by a
large contingent of police force at about 2 p.m. on 19 th. Rashbehari and Pingley had
already left the place. So they could not be found there but seven Ghadar
revolutionaries were arrested4

This Vinayak Rao Kaple was also, later on, found [or at least strongly suspected] to be a government
spy and was murdered by some of his former colleagues as a measure of revenge.

Sohan Singh Josh, Hindustan Gadar Party : A Short History, New Delhi, 1977, Vol. I, pp. 224-225.

Sedition Committee Report, para 138.

Freedom Struggle and Anushilan Samiti, Calcutta, 1979, Vol. I, p. 107.

Contd

- 11 It makes a very interesting reading to learn how Kripal Singh of Barar, the spy
mentioned above, was placed in the inner circle of the revolutionaries. Mula Singh of
Mirankot, who was one of the most active organizers of the preparations for the uprising,
and who later turned a very damaging approver in the Lahore Conspiracy Case, was
arrested on 13 February 1915 itself. He knew about the projected rising on 21 February
1915. But it does not seem that he revealed the date after his arrest. Kripal Singh, who
took Mula Singhs place in the inner circle, did the real damage. It all is said to have
occurred as follows:
Shortly after the Chhaba dacoity, it became known to K.B. Liaqat Hayat Khan,
Deputy Superintendent of Police at Amritsar, that Mula Singh was concerned in it
and he concluded that the crime was the work of the revolutionaries. He accordingly
sent for Bela Singh, Zaildar, and asked his help in finding a man who would get in
touch with the returned emigrants and be able to supply information of their acts and
plans. On the 8th February the Zaildar brought to him Kirpal Singh of Barar, a cousin
of Balwant Singh in the 23rd Cavalry and himself a returned emigrant from Shanghai.
Kirpal Singh understood the duty and was sent off to Lahore to see Balwant Singh to
whom he said that he wished to join the revolutionaries and to be introduced to Mula
Singh. Balwant Singh could not get leave and referred to one Naurang Singh, a darzi,
in Amritsar whose house was sometimes used by Mula Singh as a place of shelter.
Naurang Singh may have been suspicious for he professed himself unable to help.
Leave for Balwant Singh was then arranged, and he came to Amritsar on the 12 th.
Mula Singh, however, had gone to Lahore; so the pair followed him there and was
taken by Madan Singh, the preacher, to the Mochi Gate house where they met Amar
Singh and were told that he [Mula Singh] had gone back to Amritsar. Amar Singh
accompanied them to Amritsar and on arrival they learned that Mula Singh had been
arrested. Kirpal Singh had convinced his two companions of his bona fides and they
took him to a meeting place at the Resulpuria Haveili where Nidhan Singh, Kehar
Singh and Harnam Singh of Kotla, who had lost an arm perhaps in experimenting
with a bomb in America were staying. Nidhan Singh had known Kirpal Singh in
Shanghai and vouched for him. So also did his cousin, Balwant Singh; then at
Nidhan Singhs suggestion the gathering voted his admission into the inner circle
and elected him to succeed Mula Singh. He then heard that the rising had been fixed
for the 21st and passed on this information and that the revolutionaries were
manufacturing bombs and arranging for further dacoities. Next day he went to
Lahore and found a large gathering there of nearly all the leading conspirators. He
was not in touch with the Lahore Police and so wired to the Deputy Superintendent
of Amritsar to come at once. Unfortunately the wire was delayed and the party
arrived too late to raid the place. He was then ordered by the revolutionaries to go to
Lahore Cantonment to get the men of the 23 rd Cavalry ready for the rising on the 21 st.
Next day he was directed by Rash Behari Bose to go to Dadhar village, Amritsar,
and prepared the local men for cooperation. Flags and seditious literature were
distributed by him at the village, and he arranged that the gang should loot the
Lopoke police station on the 20th, representing that the arms would be useful when
they had to march into Lahore the next day. It was his intention to have the gang
ambushed and captured on its way to the raid, but finding that he could not arrange
the matter with the police in time, he caused the plan to be dropped.
On the morning of the 19 th he returned to Lahore, bringing back three inkpot
bombs which he had been given at Dadhar, to find that in his absence the date of
rising had been changed and that it was to break out that night. He himself had come
under suspicion because of some indiscretion in asking questions (it was a rule of the
conspirators that no one was to do so) and because he had been seen at the railway
station in Lahore on the 15th waiting for the Amritsar police when supposed to be
at Lahore Cantonment arranging things with the 23 rd Cavalry. The date had been
changed in consequence. Nevertheless he managed to get out and convey to K.B.
Liaquat Hayat Khan the news that the rising was to take place that night, beginning
with an attack on the Lahore Cantonment. As there were only three conspirators in
the house, the place was not raided at once, Kirpal Singh was to signal when the
proper moment came, the arrangements were made for action when he did so. Later
at 4-30 in the afternoon, he had caused to believe that his murder was imminent. He
gave the signal, the place was rushed by the police and others, and seven men were
captured, including Amar Singh of Nawanshahr, Hirde Ram and a Ludhiana student
named Khark Singh. Three loaded bombs, four empty inkpots, raw materials for

Contd

- 12 bombs, a dagger, a revolver, seditious literature and revolutionary flags and materials
for more were discovered. Three more revolutionaries were arrested soon afterwards
when coming to enter the house. With the headquarters gone and with the
knowledge that the police were in possession, the other leaders scattered; and the
final act of war came to grief.1

The betrayal of Kripal Singh was like a deathblow to the proposed uprising, and we
have seen how easily the police managed to infiltrate the inner circle of the
revolutionaries. It only demonstrates how loose and amateurish that organization of
revolutionaries was, how immature and credulous those revolutionaries were, and how
they proved unworthy to execute any meticulous plan. It is all the more surprising to find
so clever and skilful a person like Rashbehari Bose also duped for a brief period by
Kripal Singh who does not appear to be extraordinarily talented at that. However he was
indeed a quick-witted informer, probably he might have duped the credulous Punjabis
first and that easily, and Rashbehari might have come to know of it later on only. We have
seen that Kripal Singh was prepared to act as an agent provocateur too. If his plan to
incite the revolutionaries to attack the Lopoke police station and get that raiding party
ambushed on its way by the police had actually materialized, it would have certainly
resulted in loss of many precious lives on the side of the revolutionaries. But anyway the
Sikh emigrants and soldiers were already very much discontented and boiling with
emotions of rage and fury and so there was probably no need or time to further provoke
or preempt anything. So Kripal Singhs job was mainly limited to that of an informer
which he did excellently well.
However, Rashbehari evaded arrest this time also and returned to Benares along
with Pingle. However, Pingle, within a short period thereafter, again began to contact
some cantonments for seducing soldiers, and came across an Afghan Jamadar who had
shown great enthusiasm for insurrection. Pingle even took the Jamadar to Rashbehari
who also thought him worth trusting. However, that Jamadar betrayed Pingle, and when
Pingle went to the 12th Indian Cavalry Lines on 23 March with a box in his possession
containing ten bombs, sufficient to annihilate half a regiment, he was arrested. Later he
was sentenced to death in the Lahore Conspiracy Case and subsequently hanged. 2
Thereafter Rashbehari thought it better and safer to leave India for a while and sailed for
Japan in the guise of one P.N. Tagore of the famous Tagore family. 3 But ultimately that
amounted to leaving India for good and never afterwards was he able to set his foot on
the Indian soil again.

Informers in the Communist movement :

The communist movement in India was from its inception marred and menaced by
a spate of informers. Abani Mukherji, a founder-member of the migr communist group
in Tashkent, which styled itself as the Indian Communist Party (under the leadership of
M.N. Roy), was strongly suspected of being a British spy, and was put to death in Stalins
purges in 1937, probably on the very same charge being revived. Janaki Prasad
Bagerhotta (Bhagiratha) who had participated in the First Communist Conference at
Kanpur in 1925 and thereafter became one of the first secretaries of the Communist Party
of India, was, in reality, a paid agent of the British Indian Intelligence Department and his
nefarious role came to light during the Meerut Communist Conspiracy Case trial.
Likewise, Nalini Gupta, who was the first emissary M.N.Roy sent to India to organize
communist groups here, was already once discredited among the national revolutionary
1

2
3

Isemonger and Slattery, Ghadr Conspiracy Report (1914-16), paras 49 & 50, as published in Struggle
for Free Hindustan, Vol. I, New Delhi, 1986.
Along with Kartar Singh Saraba and five others. See Sedition Committee Report, para 121.
Uma Mukherji, op. cit., p. 136; also Satyavrata Ghosh, Remembering the Revolutionaries, Hyderabad,
1994, pp. 157-160.

Contd

- 13 ranks for making a statement against Sasanka Hazra of the Raja Bazaar Bomb Case in
June 1914. Later he gained the confidence of M.N. Roy and became a communist, but
after being implicated in the Kanpur Bolshevik Conspiracy Case in 1924 he became an
informer to the police. Later he left for Europe in 1927 and after the rise of Nazism acted
as a British spy in Germany. Fortunately he had no occasion to do any real damage to the
Indian communist movement, and expired in Calcutta in 1957. Ghulam Hussain, Editor
of the paper, Inquilab (Urdu), Lahore, was first implicated in the Kanpur Bolshevik
Conspiracy Case but later not prosecuted due to his making full confession to the police
and deposing as a prosecution witness against Muhammad Shafiq of the Peshawar
Conspiracy Case.1 Thus we find police informers and confessing cowards aplenty in the
early period of the communist movement in our country; but we do not have as yet
information about any particular agent provocateur in that phase of the movement.
Probably the movement was not considered so dangerous then as to need such a species.
But coming to the recent history of the communist movement in India, we find herein
some grounds to suspect that there were at least a few agents-provocateur who wormed
their way into this movement. There are certain incidents in the Telangana Armed
Struggle of 1946-51 wherein entire guerilla squads were wiped out or subjected to heavy
losses due to informers or in some cases even due to agents-provocateur.
Naxalite movement and other terrorist movements:
Coming to the more recent communist revolutionary or what is in common parlance
called naxalite movement, we find causes to suspect that this dangerous species should
have been present and also must have caused the great damage suffered by the naxalite
movement as a whole and the various groups in it in several. The almost wholesale arrest
of the state committee of the communist revolutionaries led by Tarimela Nagi Reddy and
Chandra Pulla Reddy in Madras in 1969 and likewise the arrest of almost the entire
central committee of the Pro-Lin Piao faction of the C.P.I. (M-L) led by Mahadev
Mukherji at Calcutta in the 70s are certainly the work of some very highly-placed
informers in those groups. In the former case one Vajravelu Chetti, himself a member of
the state committee of that group, was strongly suspected whereas in the latter case some
accusing fingers were raised against the very leader himself. If there is any truth in the
latter accusation then that leader could and should only be considered as an agent
provocateur and not as a mere informer.
The present armed struggle, a small size guerilla war, led by the C.P.I. (M-L) People's War in the North Telangana districts and the coastal agency districts of Andhra
Pradesh as also in the contiguous forest areas of Madhya Pradesh (now mainly
Chattisgarh) and in Bihar and some other areas of the country also presents some
interesting features in this regard. Informers galore from the hundreds of those
surrendered People's War naxalites as also from the still working militants. That apart
certain militant leaders and cadres of that party have now turned entirely hostile to that
party and the movement and have vowed to organize counter terrorist war against the
fighters and sympathizers of that party. Especially they are aiming their guns at the
activists in the civil liberties movement in Andhra Pradesh who they say are but People's
War activists in disguise. They have floated an organization called, or at least are using
the name of, Green Tigers for the purpose and have recently killed two important
leaders of the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee Purushotham and Azeem Ali.
Once militant cadres of the People's War group like Nayeem and Sammi Reddy, who
were active participants in the sensational action in which the infamous D.I.G. of Police,
Vyas, was killed, have been taking a leading part in this counter terrorist police agent
organization. Nayeem is still alive whereas Sammi Reddy has recently lost his life in an
air crash at Frankfurt which news has hit the headlines in the local papers and also
created a big controversy. Questions were and are being raised as to how Sammi Reddy
(Katthula Sammaiah), still formally facing several murder and other criminal charges,
was given a passport, how he got that much money to go for business in foreign countries
too and as to whether the near relatives of some top police officers were also partners in
1

Communism in India, (1919-24) & (1924-27), Compilations of Secret Intelligence Records, Calcutta,
1972 & 1971; Ed: M.P. Saha; See Sahas notes therein also.

Contd

- 14 his business. It is an admitted fact that these ex-Naxalites generally hold businessmen and
other rich people to ransom in the name of settling the property disputes and in that
course earn lakhs of rupees easy money. Another disturbing development is that these exnaxalites, or at least some of them, together with some ruffians in the police department,
are resorting to open robberies and dacoities too, in addition to other types of goondagiri
and forcible collections. While Nayeem and Sammi Reddy may be ranked as leaders in
such outfits there are others like Jedala Nagaraj, who killed in cold blood some top level
People's War leaders by treachery, and one Srinivas, who are their active cadre and many
of them have leadership potential too. Definitely these people and their activities are
causing a lot of damage and loss to the struggle led by the People's War group and also to
the general civil liberties movement in the State and other areas. These outfits and
persons cannot be categorized as agents-provocateur but I feel they are capable of
creating several such agents and with their help the police and intelligence departments
can and may infiltrate, or have already infiltrated to an extent, the People's War group and
other revolutionary groups in Andhra Pradesh and other areas. There was (perhaps a small
remnant of it still is) one Rawoof group a group which split away from the parent group
of the present People's War group in 1978 which shouted more but did little about
waging uncompromising armed struggle. Unfortunately almost all or most of the militant
leaders and cadres of that group have been bumped off in so many fake encounters. It is a
group, which paid a cost too disproportionate to its activity decimated for doing
nothing! I strongly suspect that not only top level informers but also a few agentsprovocateur should have been behind this tragic annihilation of that entire group.
The Khalistani terrorist movement, which menaced entire Punjab and also a large
portion of North India for more than a decade from 1980 onwards, also seems to have had
its quota of agents-provocateur. Rebeiro, who was considered a very efficient Director
General of Police in Punjab for having organized the Punjab Police very well and
courageously and effectively fought the terrorist groups, used to publicly boast about the
very necessary and useful practice of employing agents-provocateur, which was adopted
by the Punjab Police under his command. The same person, however, after his becoming
an Advisor to the Punjab Governor during the period of Presidents Rule in that state, had
turned back 180 degrees on that and publicly lamented about the evil consequences
arising out of such employment of agents-provocateur!
The jehad or mini-insurrection or revolt going on in Jammu and Kashmir, more
particularly in the Kashmir Valley, ever since 1989 has also many interesting features
worthy of observation. It is generally on a higher level and pitch as compared to the
revolutionary armed struggles going on in the country or even relative to the nowsubsided Khalistani terrorist movement. In fact it is a proxy war with the various militant
terrorist outfits fighting for the freedom (aazaadi) of Kashmir having the full support
both moral and material from Pakistan. It is also a mini-war of mercenaries with
hundreds of Afghan and other Muslim tribal fighters taking an active part, mainly for a
consideration generously offered to them by their Pakistani and other mentors. Of course
the element of real patriotism in this case love for their Kashmir and high idealism,
may be of a religious fundamentalist variety are also not absent but to a considerable
extent present among the fighters in this jehad. We do not exactly know how far the
dangerous species of agents-provocateur is being utilized by the Indian Army to curb and
suppress this insurgency but we do know for certain that several ex-azaadiwallahs have
been mobilized into counter terrorist outfits and are openly aided and abetted by the
Army and the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir to wreak virtual havoc. The socalled Green Tigers of Andhra Pradesh pale into insignificance compared to the scale
and pitch of these counter-terrorist ex-aazaadiwallah organizations. And so the natural
inference to be drawn is that these organizations are capable of, and perhaps are already
engaged in, infiltrating the still-aazaadiwallah organizations in Jammu and Kashmir and
in that course placing sufficient number of agents-provocateur too in the ranks of the
fighters for Kashmiri freedom.
And the same or similar developments and reasoning processes can be said to be
found in or applicable to or as being applied in the many other insurgent movements or
Contd

- 15 armed struggles like that of ULFA in Assam, the struggle of the Naga National Council in
Nagaland, Manipur peoples liberation struggle, etc.
All this only points out to the tremendous importance possessed, and the immense
interest that can be aroused, by any study relating to this category of spies. However
nothing much has been ploughed in this field till now.1 And I should be glad if this
paper/article can inculcate any real interest in the minds and scholars of history, and
provoke some or several of them to a serious study of this topic so that a new light can be
thrown upon many a controversial event in our history, especially the history of our
national freedom movement and also of the current armed struggles or insurgencies.

*****

REFERENCES:

1.

Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences, Vol. 13, New York, 1957.

2.

Una Birch, Secret Societies and the French Revolution, London, 1911.

3.

James H. Billington, Fire in the minds of Men, London, 1980.

4.

Dharmendra Goud, Azad ke gaddhaar saathi.

5.

Terrorism in India : 1917-1936, I.B., Home Department, G.O.I., Simla, 1937.

6.

Mathura Das Thapar, Amar Shaheed Sukhdev, Delhi, 1980.

7.

Mrityunjayi, vol. I & II, Ed. Ratanlal Joshi, Bombay; its English version: The Martyrs.

8.

Comrade Ram Chandra, Road to Freedom, New Delhi, 1980.

9.

Uma Mukherji: Two Great Indian Revolutionaries, Calcutta, 1966.

10. I.A.R. (Indian Annual Reporter), 1925, Vol. I.

11. Lord Hardinge: My Indian Years : 1910-16, London.
12. Arun Chandra Guha, First Spark of Revolution, New Delhi, 1971.
13. The Struggle for Free Hindustan, Vol. 3, New Delhi, 1987.
14. AIR 1915 Lahore.
15. Sohan Singh Josh, Hindustan Gadar Party : A Short History, New Delhi, 1977.
16. Sedition Committee Report (Rowlatt Report), 1918.
17. Freedom Struggle and Anushilan Samiti, Vol. I, Calcutta, 1979.
1

I. Mallikarjuna Sharma, Role of Revolutionaries in the Freedom Struggle, Hyderabad, 1987, p. 182.

Contd

- 16 -

18. Isemonger

and Slattery, Ghadr Conspiracy Report (1914-16), relevant paras

published in Struggle for Free Hindustan, Vol. I, New Delhi, 1986.

19. Satyavrata Ghosh, Remembering the Revolutionaries, Hyderabad, 1994.

20. Communism in India, (1919-24) & (1924-27), Compilations of Secret Intelligence
Records, Calcutta, 1972 & 1971; Ed: M.P. Saha.

21. I.

Mallikarjuna Sharma, Role of Revolutionaries in the Freedom Struggle,

Hyderabad, 1987.

Contd