9. Atul Sen ( ? - 5.8.1932).10. Atulya Ghosh (1904-1986)

Atul Sen was born in Senhati, Khulna.
During his time Watson was one of the editor of The Statesman news paper. He used to write against the revolutionaries and asked the Govt. to take measures against the revolutionaries. He always put comments undermining the revolutionaries. Atul sen , on behalf of the Revolutionary Organisation sacrificed his life in attempting to assassinate Watson on 5.8.1932Calcutta Municipality inaugurated a monument in honour of him on the footpath of Chowrangee on 8th Aug, 1993.

Atulya Ghosh (centre) following the leaders.

Atulya Ghosh (28 August 1904 - 18 April 1986) was a Bengali politician and an able political organiser who had become a legend in Indian political circles.^[ He has been described as “a wise, scholarly and honest leader who was a superb political organizer

Formative years

He was born on 28 August 1904. The family hailed from Jejur in Hooghly district. In the early 1920s, he quit studies to become a Congress khadi (hand spun cloth became a symbol of self reliance) worker. In the 1930s, he was active in selling khadi in the East Bengal districts of Dhaka, Comilla and Chittagong, with the centre being Malekandra, the village home of Dr. Prafulla Chandra Ghosh, a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi.
He was a member first of the Calcutta and then Hooghly district Congress committees. During this period he also came in contact with Bhupendranath Dutta (brother of Narendranath Dutta, better known as Swami Vivekananda), one of the known early communists in India, who introduced him to works by Lenin (autobiography - Kashtokalpito). According to his own admission in his autobiography, it was at this period that the concept of his later book "Gandhism in the eyes of an anarchist" was first formed (Kashtokalpito). However he was fully converted to the Gandhian mode of struggle by Vijay Modak, a well known philanthropist and Congress organizer of the Hooghly district. According to him, he started out on his political career as a "grassroots" worker with one of his first duties being carrying ladders and putting up political posters (Kashtokalpito). In 1930, he was arrested as a suspect in the murder case of a policeman in Midnapore but was released because of lack of evidence. He had to go underground for some time as during this period the British government of India used various acts to justify physical repression or elimination of political activists not necessarily involved in armed movements. (autobiography - Kashtokalpito). He spent two years hiding out with the family of a fisherman sharing their life (Kashtokalpito). During the Quit India movement of 1942 he was arrested and lost one eye in jail, as a result of police action on detainees inside the jail on protest strike when a baton was inserted into one eye. During the same period he contracted spinal tuberculosis and had to be hospitalized. He suffered from mis-advertent administration of drugs while in jail, but reportedly officially forgave the British surgeon in charge when the latter apologized (autobiography - Kashtokalpito). On his release he was diagnosed with severe malnutrition and was instructed to maintain a minimal body weight by the reputed physician and Congress leader and the second Chief minister of West Bengal of independent India, Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy (autobiography-Kashtakalpito). He became editor of the weekly Janasevak in 1945. It was converted to a daily in 1949.
For some time he worked in the Hooghly bank, founded by the Congress leader Dhirendra Nath Mukherji. In 1947, he organized a Congress Seva Dal camp at Howrah station to assist elderly AICC members. When the Radcliffe Commission, empowered to draw the boundary line across Bengal, started functioning, he along with Dhirendra Nath Mukherji, Jadabendra Nath Panja, Dr Nalinaksha Sanyal, Sukumar Datta and others founded the New Bengal Association. The Association told Radcliffe that “the districts of Murshidabad and Nadia must be allotted to the Indian side of Bengal for the protection of the Calcutta Port, the lifeline of Eastern India.”

At the helm

In 1948, he became general secretary of the West Bengal state Congress committee, assuming charge as its president two years later. He joined the Congress Working Committee in 1950. In 1952 he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Bardhaman, and in 1957  and 1962  from Asansol. In 1967, he lost the Bankura parliamentary seat to J.M.Bisas (Shri J.M. Biswas was a Member of Fourth Lok Sabha from 1967 to 1970 representing Bankura Parliamentary Constituency of West Bengal.

Shri Biswas was a member of Public Accounts Committee during 1970.
Shri Biswas was the founder of "All Bengal Refugees Council of Action", which worked relentlessly for proper rehabilitation of the East Bengal refugees.
Shri Biswas who was a well-known trade unionist, did yeomen’s service for the cause of the working class. He served in different trade union organisation in various capacities. He founded the J.P. Institute of Trade Union Education and Research at Garden Reach, Kolkata with the objective of imparting education to the trade union workers. He also served as the educator of International Transport Workers’ Federation, London for Asia Pacific Region.
Shri Biswas was the Vice-President of All India Railwaymen’s Federation, New Delhi. He also served as the President of South Eastern Railwaymen’s Union.
A person with a spiritual bent of mind, Shri Biswas a member of the Divine Life Society founded by Swamy Shivanand (Rishikesh) and was also the President of West Bengal Divine Life Soceity.
Shri J.M. Biswas passed away on 30 January, 2003 at Kolkata, West Bengal at the age of 77.
We deeply mourn the loss of this friend and I am sure the House would join me in conveying our condolence to the bereaved family.
The House may now stand in silence for a short while as a mark of respect to the memory of the departed soul)
He also served as the treasurer of the AICC (All India Congress Committee) for some time. He lent his support for the selection of Lal Bahadur Shastri as prime minister after Nehru’s death and then of Indira Gandhi. When the Congress old guard fell off with Indira Gandhi, he was with them as part of what was called the ‘syndicate’ and then formed Congress (Organisation).

Retirement days

In 1971, he retired from politics and led an active life spending much of his time founding and organizing the B.C.Roy Memorial Committee under whose auspices land was acquired in eastern Kolkata to form a children's garden and activity centre named the Bidhan Shishu Udyan. Although detached from active politics, he maintained friendly relations with many of his former political colleagues, such as Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, who visited the Udyan when he was the President of India. Although he used to be heavily criticized by the communists and socialists in his active days, it was the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Benoy Choudhury, who often met him in his retirement days.

Works

Patrabali, Kastakalpito, Sampradayik Samasya, Nairajyabadir dristite Gandhibad