His mother, Saratsashi, took the children to her brothers’ house at Koya. Basanta Kumar Chattopadhyaya, brought up the Jatidranath’s maternal uncles, brought up the children with exceptional care. He became the Government advocate at Krishnagar, where he got Jatindranath admitted into the Anglo-Vernacular School.

Saratsashi laid solid foundations for the character of the future Jatindranath-morally and physically redoubtable. At eleven, Jatindranath caught by the mane and controlled a horse that caused a scare on the street. With his years grew in number the anecdotes about his acts of valour and charity. While in Government service, he knocked down with blows and kicks four British soldiers, who had insulted the “native”. He wrestled with, and killed with a dagger a tiger which was causing havoc in the countryside.He was thus called 'Jatin Bagha'.

Passing the Entrance examination in 1895, he joined the Central College, Calcutta, for his First Arts. Anxious to be financially free, he simultaneously took a steno-typist’s course. He left study, served successively two private firms, then became a confidential clerk with the Bengal Government’s Finance Secretary, Wheeler.

Meanwhile, several influences worked on him. Bankimchandra Charropadhyaya’s ‘Anandamath’ inspired the generation. Benodebala, then a childless window, instilled patriotic fervour in him. A wrestling club introduced him to Sachin Banerjee. Sachin’s father, Jogen Vidyabhusan, though a Deputy Magistrate, published exciting essays and biographies of Mazzini and Garibaldi. His writings attracted to his house prominent revolutionaries including Aurobindo Ghosh. Jatindranath’s bearing impressed Aurobindo.

Devoted service to the plague-stricken people induced Sister Nivedita to introduce Jatindranath to Vivekananda, who advised him, in private, on the ways of India’s emancipation. In 1900 Jatindranath married Indubala daughter of Umapada Banerjee of Jeerut-Balagarh (Hugli). She was brought up in her maternal uncle’s family at Kumarkhali near Koya. The family’s Vaishnav traditions gave her the fortitude to bear sufferings calmly. In 1904 Jatindranath was spiritually initiated by Sannyasi Bholananda Giri, who was known to be infusing into some disciples a zeal for national independence.

Agitation against 1905 Partition of Bengal gave an impetus to the growth of Samitis or physical culture associations. Some of them were banned, some went underground. Revolutionary thinkers were preaching “Passive Resistance”, which really meant building up of parallel government by the people. Aurobindo knew that it presupposed a conscious nation, which Indians were not yet. To arouse the people he conceived of acts of self-immolation under the patriotic impulse.

He initiated action. The journal Yugantar as well as a bomb factory were started. It all resulted in the martyrdoms of Prafulla Chaki and Kshudiram Bose, Kanailal Dutta and Satyen Bose. Other actions, initiated at Jatindranath’s instance, set brilliant examples of self-immolation by Charu Bose and Biren Dutta Gupta. The Yugantar ideal of defiance of death produced the desired effect: Awakening dawned.

Aurobindo later described Jatindranath as his right-hand man. Their mutual relation was unknown. Aurobindo settled in Calcutta in 1906, when Jatindranath, under the cloak of Government service, visited towns, villages and ‘Samitis’, forming a loose federation of secret groups. Such an organisation was less vulnerable to conspiracy charges. Some of his activities remain unknown to this day because of the spirit of self-effacement in which Jatindranath worked.

His personality fascinated young men. To them his message was: Be men; read the Gita, never fear death. His headquarters for inter-provincial links were Amarendranath Chattopadhyaya’s ‘Sramajibi Samabaya’ and for Bengal groups ‘Chhatra Bhandar’, managed by Nikhileswar Roy Moulick. Naren Chatterjee of Sibpur group was seducing Jat soldiers in the Calcutta Fort and Naren Bose of ‘Atmonnati’ group Indian soldiers in Upper Indian Cantonments. Rashbehari Bose later benefited by these as also Niralamba’s civilian organisations at Delhi, Lahore and elsewhere.

When Biren Dutta Gupta killed a Government prosecutor in the crowded High Court premises in 1910, Jatindranath with 46 others was tried in the Howrah Conspiracy case. The case failed. But Jatindranath lost the Government job. He started contract business constructing Jessore-Jhenibah Railway line. Earlier, during the anti-partition agitation there was an exodus of young men in search of ways for achieving Indian freedom. Their efforts led to the formation, in America, of the Ghadar party, later

led by Hardyal and, in Germany, of the Berlin Committee initaited by Birendranath Chattopadhyaya, Champakaraman Pillai and others.

In 1911, Dhangopal Mukherjee from U. S.A informed his brother, Jadugopal, that Germany was preparing for war against Britian. Deciding to take advantage of the war, Jatindranath advised revolutionary societies to be prepared and to avoid overt acts. He consulted his senior colleague, Nirlamba, at Brindaban, where Rashbehari was also called. A provisional programme was drawn up.

Existing revolutionary groups reorganised the Yugantar Party under Jatindranath’s leadership; the Dacca Anusilan Samiti, believing more in a coup than in revolutions, dissented. The Anglo-German War began in 1914. Jatindranath of Benodebala, Indubala, a daughter, Ashalata and two sons, Tejen and Biren.

The Berlin Committee contacted the German Foreign Office. A treaty followed that envisaged all help, except an army of liberation, for an Indian uprising. Aid arrangements were to be implemented by the German Embassy in America. With it was attached an Indian Committee, of which Taraknath Das, Hemendra Kishore Rakshit Roy, Bhupendranath Dutta were the leading spirits and were working with the Ghadar Party. Some money was received at Harry and Sons in Calcutta. More being necessary, Jatindranath now permitted Naren Bhattacharyya (M. N. Roy) to look a British firm’s cash. Some more money was similarly collected.

Indian emigres, returning from the Far East via Canada, disturbed the silent preparations in the Punjab. Rashbehari sought Jatindranath’s advice. M. N. Roy and Atul Ghosh also visited Benares. Their conference decided that an army mutiny in Upper India might precede a general rising. A provisional date was fixed. But betrayal baffled Rashbehari. Isolated skirmishes followed. Rashbehari escaped to Japan in May 1915.

Receiving messages from Berlin through Srish Sen, and then from U. S. through Satyen Sen and Pingley. Jatindranath sent Bholanath Chattopadhyaya to Gokarni near Goa and Dr. Jatin Ghosal and Harikumar Chakravati to the Sunderbans to unload arms from German ships. He himself went to Balasore and found shelter at Kaptipada in Mayurbhanj, then an Indian State. The U.S., meanwhile, grew anti-German. Besides, Indian revolutionaries in America, trusting the Czechoslovaks, who sought Allied help against the Austro-Germans, were betrayed. Czechoslovak reports were pursued by British Naval and Indian Central Intelligence.

The chartered German ship Maverik, compelled to leave the U. S. coasts without the expected quantities of aid, was intercepted and interned at Batavia. Other shipments met a similar fate. The Sunderbans party returned disappointed. Bholanath was captured. M. N. Roy, sent to investigate the causes of dislocation, could not return and reached U. S. via the Far East.

Clues, succeeding clues, exposed Harry and Sons in Calcutta, Universal Emporium at Balasore and eventually Jatindranath’s Kaptipada shelter. He got timely information but, characteristically, would not leave behind two comrades who were nine miles away. Exit was cut off, British police alerted village officers in Mayrubhanj and Balasore.

Hundreds of simple villagers, misled into believing that they were to apprehend ordinary criminals, were in pursuit. With occasionally skirmishes, the revolutionists, running through thorny jungles and marshy lands, harried and hungry for days, at last took up position on 9 September 1915 behind an improvised trench in a bush at Chashakhnad in Balasore.

Reinforced by the army unit from Chanadbali, the police party surrounded them. An unequal battle of 75 minutes between the five revolutionaries with Mauser pistols and an overwhelming number of police and armymen with up to-date rifles ended with an unrecorded number of casualties on the Government side and on the revolutionists' side, with Chittapriya Roy Choudhuri’s death, Jatindranath being mortally and Jatish Pal seriously wounded and Manoranjan Sen Gupta and Niren Das Gupta being captured after their ammunition ran out. Jatindranath Niren were executed, and Jatish was transported for life.

During this trial, the prosecuting British official advised the Defence lawyer to read a manuscript by Jatindranath and remarked: Were this man living, he might lead the world. Jatindranath was known to be writing good English and Bengali and contributing in handwritten magazines short stories and poems in Bengali-some of them humorous, ridiculing antiquated social ideas and practices.

Uncommonly fearless and with superhuman physical strength, Jatindranath’s intellectual and spiritual qualities, attributed by many to an inner illumination, won deep esteem even of persons like Poet Tagore, Sri Aurobindo and C. R. Das. Between his workers and Jatindranath there subsisted a relation of rare devotion and love that sometimes reclaimed the moral outcast.