SHAHEED DIWAS

SHAHEED DIWAS

TOPIC: HISTORY

Context- Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said that February 15 would be commemorated as “ShahidDiwas” in memory of the 34 freedom fighters who were killed by police in Tarapur town of Bihar’s Munger district 90 years ago.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi had referred to the Tarapur massacre in his Mann kiBaat radio address of January 2021.

Concept-

Tarapur Massacre:

• The Tarapur massacre was the biggest carried out by the British police after the one in Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar in 1919.
• On February 15, 1932, a group of young freedom fighters planned to hoist an Indian national flag at Thana Bhavan in Tarapur.
• Police were aware of the plan. Around 2 pm, even as the police carried out a brutal lathicharge, Gopal Singh succeeded in raising the flag at Thana Bhavan.
• A 4,000-strong crowd pelted the police with stones, injuring an officer of the civil administration.
• The police responded by opening indiscriminate fire on the crowd.
• After about 75 rounds were fired, 34 bodies were found at the spot, even though there were claims of an even larger number of deaths.

Trigger for protest:

• The hanging of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru in Lahore on March 23, 1931.
• Following the collapse of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, the Mahatma was arrested in early 1932.
• The Congress was declared an illegal organization, and Nehru, Patel, and Rajendra Prasad were also sent to jail.
• In Munger, freedom fighters Srikrishna Singh, Nemdhari Singh, Nirapad Mukherjee, PanditDasrathJha, Basukinath Rai, Dinanath Sahay, and JaymangalShastri were arrested.
• A call given by the Congress leader SardarShardul Singh Kavishwarto raise the tricolour over government buildings resonated in Tarapur.