Shaheed Kushal Konwar – the great martyr of Assam

The only martyr to be hanged during the Quit India Movement in 1942, Shaheed Kushal Konwar was one of the great patriots India could ever have. Like many other states of India, Assam as well played a crucial role in the freedom movement and a number of her sons and daughter sacrificed their lives to free the nation from the atrocities of the British Government and Kushal Kowar was one of them.
 

Born in March 21, 1905 at Balijan near Sarupathar in the present District of Golaghat in Assam, Kushal Konwar was the son of Sonaram and Kanakeshwari Kowar. He was the fifth child of his parents and led a normal life like any other young boy. However, his course of life was changed in the year 1925, when he was motivated by the ideologies of Mahatma Gandhi, who led the freedom struggle and lived a Satvik life and made Bhagawad Gita his companion. He participated in every movement initiated by Gandhiji and during the Salt Satyagraha Movement that started in the year 1931; he quitted salt until his last breath. In the year 1921, while still at school he was inspired by Gandhiji’s clarion call for Non-cooperation movement and took active part in it. The young man inspired by Gandhiji’s ideals of Swaraj, Truth and Ahimsa, set up a primary school at Bengmai and served as its honorary teacher. Later, he joined the Balijan Tea Estate as a clerk and worked for a while. But, the spirit of independence and call of Mahatma Gandhi inspired him to dedicate himself unconditionally in the Independence Movement. He organized the Congress party and led the people of Sarupathar area in Satyagraha and non-cooperation movement against the British. He was elected the President of the Sarupathar Congress Committee.
 

When Gandhiji took the resolution, urging the British Government to quit India and leave the Government of Independent India free to decide whether to join World War II or not was endorsed by a special session of the All India Congress Committee. This session was held at the Guwalia Tank Maidan of Bombay on the 8th August, 1942. Gandhiji declared that the British Government would be given 15 days time and meanwhile the Congress would deliberate on the strategy in the morning. But in order to preempt the Congress strategy for mass movement at the critical juncture of the World War, the British Government arrested Gandhiji, Nehru, Patel, Azad, Pant, Narendra Dev, Kripalani, Sarojini, Kamaladevi and other leaders in the early hours of 9th August and sent them to an unknown destination. Finding no time to talk to others, Gandhiji left a piece of paper inscribing “Do or Die” with the secretary Mahadev Desai. People of Assam as well instinctively joined this movement of and two leaders of Assam Pradesh Congress, Gopinath Bordoloi and Siddhinath Sarma were arrested by the British in Dhubri while returning from Bombay attending the Congress Working Committee meeting. Other Congress leaders like Bishnuram Medhi, Bimala Prasad Chaliha, Md. Tayebulla, Omeo Kumar Das, Debeswar Sarma, etc., were arrested from different parts of Assam and were imprisoned. Assam too burned like the rest of India and many people leaving the path of non-violence engaged in violence.
 

On October 10, 1942, early in the morning, some people removed few sleepers of the railway line near Sarupathar in Golaghat district and a Military train passing by was derailed and many British and American soldiers lost their lives. The British army immediately barricaded the area and started operation to catch the culprits. Innocent people of the area was rounded up, beaten and harassed. The British police let loose a reign of terror; people were beaten up and arrested. Accusing Kushal Konwar as the chief conspirator of the train sabotage, the British police arrested him. An ardent follower of Gandhiji and his principle of non-violence, Kushal was uninformed about the incapacitate plan and action. On November 5, 1942, despite of being innocent, the police alleged him as the architect of the train disruption and he was brought from Golaghat and lodged in the Jorhat jail. In the Court of CM Humphrey, he was declared guilty, although there was no evidence against him and he was sentenced to hang till death. He accepted the verdict with dignity and when his wife, Prabhavati visited him in the jail, he told her that he is proud that God has selected him to be the only one among the thousands of prisoners to sacrifice his life for the nation. He spent his remaining days in the death row cell of Jorhat jail in prayers and reading the Gita. At 4:30 am he was hanged in Jorhat Jail and knowing about him, Gandhiji said that he was true satyagrahi who knew the art of living as well as dying.