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BRITAIN AND THE WORLD

Policing ‘Bengali Terrorism’

in India and the World
Imperial Intelligence and
Revolutionary Nationalism, 1905–1939

Michael Silvestri
 Britain and the World

Series Editors
Martin Farr
School of Historical Studies
Newcastle University
Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK

Michelle D. Brock
Department of History
Washington and Lee University
Lexington, VA, USA

Eric G. E. Zuelow
Department of History
University of New England
Biddeford, ME, USA
Britain and the World is a series of books on ‘British world’ history. The
editors invite book proposals from historians of all ranks on the ways in
which Britain has interacted with other societies since the seventeenth cen-
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Martin Farr ([email protected]) is the Chair of the British
Scholar Society and General Editor for the Britain and the World book
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 Michael Silvestri

Policing ‘Bengali
Terrorism’ in India
and the World
Imperial Intelligence and Revolutionary
Nationalism, 1905–1939
Michael Silvestri
History Department
Clemson University
Clemson, SC, USA

Britain and the World

ISBN 978-3-030-18041-6    ISBN 978-3-030-18042-3 (eBook)
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© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019

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For my parents
 Acknowledgments

This book has had a long and winding history, and in the process of
researching and writing it, I have piled up an extraordinary number of
debts. I first approached the topic of colonial policing in a PhD disserta-
tion at Columbia University, and although only traces of the original thesis
remain in the present study, the intellectual and financial support I received
at Columbia was critical to this book’s genesis. Sir David Cannadine was
an enthusiastic and supportive dissertation supervisor and I was fortunate
to benefit from the insights of a truly outstanding dissertation committee:
David Armitage, Sugata Bose, Leonard Gordon, and Ayesha Jalal. Ayesha’s
suggestion that I explore Sir John Anderson’s career in Bengal has led me
down many profitable avenues of historical research in subsequent years.
Needless to say, neither she nor any of the individuals mentioned in these
acknowledgments are responsible for any deficiencies of fact or interpreta-
tion in this book.
I owe an enormous debt as well to the archives and libraries in which I
have researched and written this book and in particular to the staff of the
Asia, Pacific, and Africa Collections of the British Library. Over the years,
they have been unfailingly helpful with my research questions and research
requests and have made the Asian and African Studies reading room quite
simply the best place in the world to think about, research, and write
about South Asian and British imperial history. At Clemson University, the
staff of the Resource Sharing Office of the Cooper Library have tolerated
my innumerable requests for books, articles, and other materials and have
done an outstanding job of providing them.

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A number of institutions have generously supported the research in the

United States, the United Kingdom, and India on which this book is
based. I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Council for European
Studies, Columbia University; the American Institute for Indian Studies;
and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation for supporting the initial
research for this project. More recent research was funded by the American
Philosophical Society, which awarded me a Franklin Research Grant; and
by the History Department; the College of Architecture, Arts and
Humanities; the Humanities Advancement Board; and the University
Research Grants Committee of Clemson University.
Some material in this book appeared previously in my article “The
Bomb, Bhadralok, Bhagavad Gita and Dan Breen: Terrorism in Bengal
and Its Relation to the European Experience,” which appeared in Terrorism
and Political Violence in 2009.
I am also grateful to many individuals for inviting me to present my
research at workshops, conferences, and seminars and for sharpening my
fuzzy thoughts on imperial intelligence and “Bengali terrorism.” I thank
Andy Syk, John Horne, and Robert Gerwarth for inviting me to partici-
pate in the joint University College Dublin-Trinity College Dublin con-
ference on Paramilitary Violence in Europe after the Great War in 2010.
Thanks to Satoshi Mizutani for organizing an outstanding 2013 confer-
ence at Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan, on the transnational trajec-
tories of the Indian nationalist struggle. Bill Meier invited me to take
part in a very productive workshop on terrorism and violence at the
2014 Midwest Victorian Studies Association conference, while Kim
Wagner organized and led a stimulating and collegial workshop on colo-
nial violence at Queen Mary College, University of London, in 2015.
Audiences at the British Scholar Conference and the Pacific Coast
Conference on British Studies in 2017 provided valuable feedback and
encouragement.
The late Sabyaschi Mukherjee was generous in sharing materials which
he had collected on Calcutta Police Commissioner Charles Tegart. Jeremy
Ingpen provided insights on his grandfather, police intelligence officer
R. E. A. Ray, and shared excerpts from his grandmother Marion Ray’s
diaries. Along with other historians of late colonial Bengal, I am indebted
to Dr. Amiya K. Samanta, former Director of the West Bengal Police
Intelligence Branch. Dr. Samanta facilitated the research process while I
was a graduate student in Kolkata, and his publication of documentary
collections on “Bengali terrorism” has provided a valuable resource for
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix

historians at a time when access to colonial-era materials on this subject

can still be difficult.
A number of other individuals have provided important critical per-
spectives, assistance, and encouragement. I thank in particular Brian
Drohan, Richard Hill, Harald Fischer-Tiné, Durba Ghosh, Eunan
O’Halpin, Heather Streets-Salter, and Kim Wagner. Conversations with
Kate O’Malley have helped me to understand the mentalities of both
imperial intelligence officers and anticolonial activists, while my colleague
Mou Banerjee has not only provided warm encouragement but also shared
her deep knowledge of colonial India. My visits with Ed, Claire, and
William Moisson have been the highlight of my research trips to London.
A draft chapter benefitted from a critical reading by Heather Streets-­
Salter, while an early version of the introduction benefitted from the com-
ments of my friends and colleagues Steve Marks and James Burns. The
students in my graduate seminar on empire in the Fall 2018 semester
buoyed my spirits and helped me refine my arguments as I completed the
final manuscript. Gail Nagel was a careful and critical reader and an enthu-
siastic supporter of this project.
At Palgrave Macmillan, I thank Molly Beck, Maeve Sinnott, and the
series editors for their enthusiasm about this book and for their help with
the publication process. The careful and critical reading of the anonymous
reader at Palgrave provided comments and suggestions that have immea-
surably improved the final manuscript.
Ellie, Lizzie, and Bear care little, as far as I can tell, about British his-
tory, but I am grateful for their daily reminders that there is more to life
than writing books.
As with past projects, my biggest thanks are reserved for my wife and
fellow British historian Stephanie Barczewski. Stephanie has been hearing
about imperial intelligence and revolutionary nationalism in various forms
for as long as she has known me; nonetheless, she has never complained
when I have inflicted my work upon her and her careful and critical com-
ments have helped me shape this book from its earliest unwieldly and
inchoate incarnations. Even more importantly, I value beyond words what
Stephanie has contributed to our life together.
This book is dedicated to my parents, John and Carol, who have offered
unstinting love, support, and encouragement over the years.
 Contents

1 Introduction: Imperial Intelligence and a Forgotten

Insurgency  1

Part I Policing Revolutionary Terrorism in Bengal  23

2 The “Bomb Cult” and “Criminal Tribes”: Revolutionaries

and the Origins of Police Intelligence in Colonial Bengal 25

3 Surveillance, Analysis, and Violence: The Operations of the

Bengal Police Intelligence Branch 75

4 Intelligence Failures, Militarization, and Rehabilitation:

The Anti-Terrorist Campaign After the Chittagong
Armoury Raid127

Part II The Wider World 185

5 Transnational Revolutionaries and Imperial Surveillance:

Bengal Revolutionary Networks Outside India187

xi
xii CONTENTS

6 Spies, Sailors, and Revolutionaries: Bengal Revolutionaries,

Indian Political Intelligence, and International Arms
Smuggling233

7 Intelligence Expertise and Imperial Threats: Bengal

Intelligence Officers in North America, Europe, and Asia279

8 Epilogue: Bengal Intelligence Officers and the Second

World War327

Bibliography341

Index353
 List of Tables

Table 3.1 Bengal Police Central Intelligence Branch Staff 80

Table 3.2 Bengal Police District Intelligence Branch Staff 82

xiii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Imperial Intelligence

and a Forgotten Insurgency

In February 1939, the Governor of Bengal, Lord Brabourne, toured the

town of Midnapore in western Bengal. The highlight was a somber visit to
the graves of three British District Magistrates, which lay “side by side” in
a local cemetery. At the beginning of the decade, Bengali nationalist revo-
lutionaries had assassinated the three men. James Peddie was shot from
behind at close range while attending an exhibition at a local school on 7
April 1931. Just over one year later, Robert Douglas was shot dead while
presiding over a meeting of the District Board. His successor, B. E.
J. Burge, was murdered at a local football match on 2 September 1932.
For a British intelligence officer, writing in the year of Burge’s shooting,
the sequence of assassinations served as a “tragic” reminder “that the
Government are a long way yet from having been able to suppress the ter-
rorist movement in Bengal.”1
By the time of Brabourne’s visit, however, the revolutionary movement
had been crushed by colonial security forces and the use of mass detention
without trial against revolutionary suspects.2 The political situation in
Bengal had been transformed by the establishment of Indian ministries
under the 1935 Government of India Act, while the revolutionaries’ own
political tactics had shifted from individual acts of violence to communist-­
inspired political organization of Indian peasants and workers.3
Nonetheless, colonial officials feared a return to revolutionary violence in
what had been one of the centers of “Bengali terrorism.” “The streets
were empty,” Brabourne reported to the Viceroy,

© The Author(s) 2019 1

M. Silvestri, Policing ‘Bengali Terrorism’ in India and the World,
Britain and the World,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18042-3_1
2 M. SILVESTRI

and closely watched by the police and plain clothes men and the shutters of
houses on the streets had been closed under police directions. The opinion
of the local officers was that it would probably have been possible to carry
out this informal visit without such precautions … but that, knowing the
past history of Midnapore and what they consider to be the untrustworthy
nature of the people, and knowing also the present attitude of mind of the
group which has been responsible for much of the trouble in Midnapore in
the past, no responsible officer would have been prepared to take the risk of
waiving strict precautions.4

In the following month, intelligence indicated that some of the revolu-

tionary groups were “definitely preparing to collect such old arms as they
have.” Brabourne added that the “‘naming’ of the present District
Magistrate of Midnapore, by one group, as a potential obstacle that might
have to be removed is a matter that cannot be lightly ignored.”5
Brabourne’s account of the elaborate security precautions in Midnapore
reflected colonial fears that had evolved over thirty years of revolutionary
activism in Bengal. An anticolonial revolutionary movement, which came
to be known to colonial authorities as “Bengali terrorism,” began prior to
the 1905 Partition of Bengal and did not come to an end until more than
three decades later.6 During that time, revolutionaries conspired to disrupt
the administration of the Raj, assassinate British and Indian colonial offi-
cials and their agents and informers, and commit robberies to obtain funds
for arms and ammunition in preparation for a mass uprising. In 1930,
revolutionaries carried out an attack on the Writers’ Building, the seat of
the Government of Bengal in Calcutta, and in the same year attempted to
re-stage the 1916 Easter Rising, substituting the eastern Bengal port city
of Chittagong for Dublin. After this act of intra-imperial emulation of
Irish revolutionary tactics, known as the Chittagong Armoury Raid, a
renewed offensive in eastern Bengal began to approximate a campaign of
guerilla warfare in which the revolutionaries commanded widespread sup-
port from the local population. Women also began to join the revolution-
ary societies and committed some of the most high-profile assassinations
and attempted assassinations in this period. In total, the Bengal Police
Intelligence Branch (IB) estimated that the revolutionaries committed
more than 500 “revolutionary crimes” between 1905 and 1935. In addi-
tion, the IB recorded another 200 cases of “revolutionary activity” from
1917 to 1935 alone, including cases of loss or recovery of arms, ammuni-
tion, and explosives.7 As Brabourne’s account demonstrates, a revival of
 1 INTRODUCTION: IMPERIAL INTELLIGENCE AND A FORGOTTEN… 3

“Bengali terrorism” remained a near-constant fear of colonial officials

until 1947.
Lord Brabourne’s pilgrimage to the graves of British martyrs to Bengali
terrorism also demonstrates how the growth of Indian revolutionary orga-
nizations in the first decades of the twentieth century brought about a
parallel growth of imperial intelligence agencies. The Security Service
(MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6), which came into
existence prior to the Great War and greatly expanded their operations
during the conflict, were staffed by a considerable number of officers with
colonial police and military experience.8 The small office of Indian Political
Intelligence (IPI), established in 1909, worked closely with MI5 (respon-
sible for security intelligence within the United Kingdom and the British
Empire) and SIS (responsible for intelligence beyond the empire’s bor-
ders) to coordinate intelligence efforts against Indian nationalists and
revolutionaries around the globe.9 In the decade around the Great War,
imperial authorities bolstered their networks of intelligence-gathering and
surveillance of Indian revolutionaries in North America, Europe, and
Asia.10 In the interwar era, intelligence agencies played a crucial role in
establishing and maintaining British control over their newly expanded
empire in the Middle East.11
Empire and intelligence thus developed in tandem and were closely
intertwined.12 Calder Walton in his study of post-Second World War
intelligence and empire observes that “from the earliest days of the British
intelligence community, which was established in the early twentieth cen-
tury, there was a close connection between intelligence-gathering and
empire. It is not an exaggeration to say that in its early years British intel-
ligence was British imperial intelligence.”13 In no part of the British
Empire was the growth of colonial intelligence more striking than in
Bengal. At a time when the personnel of both MI5 and MI6 dramatically
contracted from their peak during the Great War, the intelligence struc-
tures of the Bengal Police continued to expand.14 Prior to 1907, the
intelligence apparatus of the Bengal Police was practically non-existent.
By 1936, however, the Central Intelligence Branch of the Bengal Police
in Calcutta numbered close to 650 police officers, with more than 400
intelligence staff distributed throughout the province’s districts.15 Bengal
thus became both the focus of British fears of Indian terrorism and of the
most concerted police intelligence efforts that attempted to eradicate
revolutionary activity in the empire prior to the Second World War. While
recent historians have emphasized the important role of intelligence
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