Bhagwati Charan Vohra

Pandit Bhagwati Charan Vohra-Gujrati Brahmin (15 November 1903 – 28 May 1930) was an Indian revolutionary, associated with Hindustan Socialist Republican Association.

He was an ideologue, organiser, orator and campaigner.

Bhagwati was born in 1903 in the family of a senior railway officer named Pandit Shiv Charan Vohra who was conferred with title of 'Rai Bahadur' by British Raj in 1919 for his services and loyalty.

He married Durgawati Devi D/O Shri Banka Bihari from Allahabad.

Vohra passed intermediate science from F. C. college in 1921 and again took admission after the call-off of the non-cooperation movement in National College, Lahore, which was opened by Lala Lajpat Rai for Indian students who are not able to go in Government Colleges.

Vohra left college to join the non-cooperation movement in 1921, and after the movement was called off, joined National College, Lahore where he got a BA degree.

It was there that he was initiated into the revolutionary movement.

He along with Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev started a study circle on the model of the Russian Socialist Revolution.

Vohra was an avid reader.

He played a key role in infusing intellectual ideology into the functioning roots of the organizations he worked with.

He was not influenced by caste prejudices and worked for Hindu-Muslim unity as well as the upliftment of the poor by the use of socialist principles.

Vohra and Devi had their first child in December 1925, a boy whom they named Sachindra.

In 1926, when the Naujawan Bharat Sabha revolutionary organization was formed by his friend, he was appointed the propaganda secretary of the organization.

On 6 April 1928, Vohra and Bhagat Singh prepared the manifesto of Naujwan Bharat Sabha and urged the young Indians to have the triple motto "service, suffering, sacrifice", as their sole guide to achieve the goal of independence.

In September 1928, many young revolutionaries met at Ferozshah Kotla ground in Delhi and reorganized the Hindustan Republican Association into the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) under the leadership Chandrashekhar Azad.

Vohra was appointed Propaganda Secretary and prepared the HSRA manifesto that was widely distributed at the time of the Lahore Session of the Congress.

He was also party to murder of J. P. Saunders and the throwing of bombs in Central Assembly Hall by Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt.

In 1929 he rented room No. 69, Kashmir Building, Lahore and used it as a bomb factory.

He planned and executed the 23 December 1929 bomb blast under the train of Viceroy Lord Irwin on the Delhi-Agra railway line.

The viceroy escaped unhurt and Mahatma Gandhi thanked God for the narrow escape, condemning the revolutionary act through his article The Cult of Bomb.

In response to Gandhi's article, Vohra, in consultation with Azad, wrote an article entitled The Philosophy of Bomb.

It appealed to youths to come forward and join them.

The concluding paragraph of the article reads "There is no crime that Britain has not committed in India. Deliberate misrule has reduced us to paupers, has 'bled us white'. As a race and a people, we stand dishonoured and outraged. Do people still expect us to forget and to forgive? We shall have our revenge – a people’s righteous revenge on the tyrant. Let cowards fall back and cringe for compromise and peace. We ask not for mercy and we give no quarter. Ours is a war to the end – to Victory or Death."

Vohra died in Lahore on 28 May 1930 while testing a bomb on the banks of the Ravi.

The device was required for the proposed rescue of Singh and others under trial in the Lahore Conspiracy Case but it exploded during the test and he was severely wounded.

He was survived by his wife Durgawati Devi (popularly known as Durga Bhabhi to the revolutionaries) and a son, Sachindra Vohra.