I wrote zero words today. I’ve been stuck on how to translate this bit of summary into plot and story.
Sachin Bose was a student at Ripon College in 1905, when the infamous Carlyle Circular was issued by RW Carlyle, the chief secretary of the Government of Bengal. It instructed magistrates and collectors to take stern measures against students involved in politics, and declared that colleges could lose their government funding if they did not rusticate students who were found guilty of seditious politics.
Bose, and Hemachandra Kanungo, who was a member of the Anushilan Samiti, a secret society similar in form and function to Abhinav Bharat, organized a protest against the Carlyle Circular in Greer Park in Calcutta. There, they flew the first unofficial flag of India, which was known as the Calcutta flag. It had three bands, of saffron, yellow and green, with eight lotuses, for the eight provinces of British India on the top band, Vande Mataram written in Devanagari in the middle, and a sun and crescent star in the bottom band.
Sachin Bose was sent to Rawalpindi prison for the protest.
Hemachandra Kanungo had a colorful history. As a member of Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar, he and his friends were eager for revolutionary action. In 1906, he, along with cousins of Aurobindo Ghosh, went to the newly partitioned province of East Bengal to assassinate the first governor, Bampfylde Fuller. They travelled around the province looking for opportunities for the job. But they spent all their money, and went back to Aurobindo for advice. Aurobindo gave them what money he had and suggested they look for someone to rob - at that point, the Samiti had approved of robbery as a legitimate way for revolutionaries to raise money. So Hemachandra, Aurobindo’s brother Barin, and a new recruit named Naren Goswami, tried to rob the house of a rich woman, but that plan too failed. But they heard news that Fuller’s train was going to stop at Naihati Junction, where they decided to board the train and assassinate him, so Hemachandra and another recruit, Prafulla Chaki, went there. But the train didn’t arrive!
Dejected, they went home.
Frustrated, Hem decided that their technical know-how wasn’t sufficient, and went to Europe to get it. At this point, he was in his late thirties, and was a man who wanted results, and wanted them now.
He sold his house in Calcutta and used that money to go to Europe. He arrived in Marseilles towards the end of 1906, and joined courses at the University of Paris. He spent some time trying to get in touch with anarchists and other revolutionaries in Switzerland, France and England. With the friends he made along the way, he came to the attention of Joseph Albert “Libertad”, an influential anarchist in France. Libertad funded his education in Paris, and Hem began moving in Anarchist circles.
Hem came to India House, and fell in with the members of Abhinav Bharat. His visit came at a time when Bhikhaiji Cama and Sardarsinh Rana were preparing to go to Stuttgart for the International Socialist Conference. Mrs. Cama’s association with the Socialists in Britain had borne fruit, and Mrs. Cama was asked to represent India at the Second International Socialist Conference. They needed a flag that would represent India, and Hem and Savarkar rejigged the design of his original flag (now known as the Calcutta Flag) to have the top band be green, the middle saffron, and the bottom band red. Mrs. Cama unfurled this flag at the Conference, making it the first flag to represent India internationally.
Hem connected with Pandurang “Senapati” Bapat, a student of engineering, from Ratnagiri, who had similar persuasions, and both of them were now in pursuit of learning to make bombs.
Exciting, right? Attempted murder, attempted robbery, arrest and imprisonment, anarchists. And bombs. Somehow I’m finding it very hard to convert to plot.
Do we go to Hem’s story in snapshots and then show him arriving at India House? Do we have him narrate his own story to his new friends? Is his story told by gossip and intrigue among the other cast? I can’t decide. And when I do, and start to write, it reads incredibly stupid.
This feels like a silly reason to be stalled.
But in the spirit of writer procrastination, I came up with a new logo for this Substack. Well, I thought of it, and it was my husband who actually drew it… he’s skilled like that, and kind.
All I had to do was tweak the filters on Canva and play with fonts and image sizes before deciding to use it all as is.
And it’s been productivity to fiddle around with Substack too, because I found you can now have newsletters within newsletters. Which is great. I’ve wanted to have a mailing list just for big novel updates, another for novel excerpts (as well as big novel updates), yet another for science and productivity stuff. I was actually wondering if Medium would be a better home to fit these needs, but thank heavens Substack has seen sense.
Also, while I could subscribe everyone on the original mailing list to this one too, I decided not to. It feels too personal to shove down everyone’s throats, so those interested can subscribe separately.
Anyway. it just hit me it might be better to switch POV to Hemachandra Das for a bit, and end with him coming to India House. I don’t know why I was reluctant to do that; I do different POVs anyway (given it’s a third person omniscient narration) and given Hem is going to have a very interesting track (I think), might as well give him that importance. Thanks for listening.
Hi Lila
Might it work to start by writing about Anushilan Samiti, and Abhinav Bharat to give the movements some context and then segue into Hemachandra and his story?
I'm not sure what Sachin Bose has to do with what follows, but maybe that's because I am not familiar with the history and the passages you have written leading up to this extract.
Hey, Lila!
I think what I'm most curious about is what Hem's motivations are. Obviously, he wants to get rid of the colonial government and needs more knowledge on how to do that, but is there anything deeper than just his political persuasions? Did his time in prison make him resentful or did he have an epiphany? What kind of knowledge did he go to Europe to seek and what kind of impact did the change of scenery have on him? (I'm a huge fan of moral tension in novels, so I love seeing characters fight with their own conscience!)