The magnificent 7 of Bihar live on

An act of courage that galvanised students

Seven unsung heroes were gunned down by the Gurkha Military Police jawans while trying to hoist the flag on the Old Secretariat

Seventy years back, or to be more precise, on August 8, 1942, when Mahatma Gandhi gave a nation-wide call for Quit India movement, there was a mass upsurge in Patna, much like what had happened during the 1857 mutiny. The Quit India notice served by Gandhiji during its Bombay session came at a time when the British Government was engaged in the war against the Hitler-Mussolini-Japan axis.

When Bapu’s message reached Bihar’s capital on August 9, the most prominent leader of freedom struggle Dr Rajendra Prasad was recuperating at his makeshift house in Sadaquat Ashram, as he was 

suffering from breathlessness. But since Gandhiji had given a do-or-die call, the agitated freedom fighters took to streets.

Taking a pre-emptive measure, the British regime arrested an ailing Rajendra Prasad. This infuriated his followers who hit the roads despite being asked for a non-violent agitation. Among the 5,000-odd men and women, were the seven brave-hearts who 

announced that they would hoist the Congress flag on top of the Old Secretariat, the trademark of Patna, which was also then the epicentre of power.

It was a tense moment. A few had an inkling of what was going on in the minds of the then District Magistrate of Patna WG Archer. When all his pleas to the agitators fell on deaf ears, he made a last-ditch effort to disperse the crowd. But so infuriated were the freedom fighters over the arrest of an ailing Rajen Babu (as the former President was fondly known) that the marchers went ahead with their stir plan.

Amid commotion, Archer ordered the Gurkha Military Police (GMP) jawans to open fire. Within a short span, the seven brave-hearts, one of whom was carrying the Congress flag, were gunned down.

Of these seven young men who fell to bullets, three – Uma Kant Sinha, Ramanand Singh, and Satish Jha-- were students of Class XI. The other two – Rajendra Singh and Ramgovind Singh – were studying matric in Patna High School and HE school, Punpun, respectively. Of the remaining two, Jagpati Kumar was son of the then district magistrate of Gaya, Sukhraj Bahadur, and was studying in second year at BN College in Patna, while seventh martyr Devi Pado Choudhary was a student of class IX at Miller High School and was son of Devendranath Choudhary, a respected teacher.

The news of killing spread like a wild fire. More students took to streets. While Uma Kant and Ramanand were students of Ram Mohan Roy Semin­ary, Satish, originally hailing from Bhagalpur, was a student of renowned school, Patna Collegiate. “Had an ailing Rajendra Prasad not been arrested, the crowd would not have turned into a mob… Nor Archer would have ordered his jawans to open fire,” reminisced Dr Razi Ahmad, noted Gandhian, while talking to Deccan Herald.

An unprecedented police crackdown on law-breakers followed. At one point of time, Viceroy Linlithgow, in his telegram to the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, compared the rebellion to “the mutiny of 1857 in gravity and extent”. The Government had also planned to air-bomb Kadamkuan area of the State Capital, the epicentre of agitations, but was persuaded by a top official who threatened to quit if the Britishers went ahead with their plan to air-bomb civilian areas.

So, when India got Independence and Jairam Das Daulatram took over as Bihar’s first Governor, the first thing he decided to do was to lay the foundation stone of Shaheed Smarak, also called Martyrs’ Memorial, outside the eastern flank of Old Secretariat, the exact place where seven brave-hearts were gunned down.

After several rounds of discussion for the appropriate sculptor, it was decided that Debi Prasad Roy Choudhary, the then Principal of Government School of Art, Madras, be consulted. The Bihar Government, headed by its first Chief Minister Srikrishna Sinha, sent a special emissary to Madras (now Chennai) to bring in Choudhary.

After much deliberations, it was decided to erect a huge bronze statute of seven students – with one of them carrying the flag and the other six falling to the bullets or about to fall. “The statue was cast and sculpted in Italy,” said a retired engineer of Public Works Department, the nodal agency which was initially asked to looks after the Martyrs’ Memorial. 

“Eventually, it was Rajendra Prasad, who as the country’s first President, inaugurated and opened the Martyrs’ Memorial for public viewing on October 24, 1956,” he said and added that for the last 15 years the memorial is being maintained by a corporate house based in Jharkhand.

Later, as a mark of extension to the Martyrs’ Memorial, an adjacent park (near the eastern gate of Vidhan Sabha), called Amar Jyoti, came up on August 11, 1997, coinciding with the silver jubilee celebrations of country’s Independence. “Every year, on August 11, floral tributes are paid on behalf of the Governor, the Chief Minister and prominent citizens to these martyrs,” said Vijay Rai, the man who maintains the park.

The spirit of do-or-die call given by Gandhiji is amply evident in the statue where the first student, marching ahead, holds a shaft with a flag in his right hand, while his left hand points to the target – the Secretariat – where the flag was to be hoisted. Of the six others behind him, five appear to have already been hit with bullets or are about to be hit. To give a local imprint and touch, the boys are in dhoti-kurta, with kurtas of some of them folded up to arms, while one of them is in loin cloth. “This symbolises the 

do-or-die spirit of the young-men, who were ready to lay down their lives for the country’s independence,” opined Dr Ahmad, ruing how diametrically opposite the present crop of youth leaders India had today.