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They are by no means obscure papers, and some of them, such as the Kal the Hind Swarajya, and especially the Yugantar, which became at one time a real power in Bengal, achieved a circulation hitherto unknown to the Indian Press.
Said S. Krishnavarma in The Indian Sociologist: "Political assassination is not murder, and the rightful employment of physical force connotes 'force used defensively against force used aggressively." "The only subscription required," stated the Yugantar, "is that every reader shall bring the head of a European." Not even women and children were spared.
"Revolution," asserted the Yugantar, "is the only way in which a slavish society can save itself. If you cannot prove yourself a man in life, play the man in death. Foreigners have come and decided how you are to live. But how you are to die depends entirely upon yourself." "Let preparations be made for a general revolution in every household!
Barendra Ghose, who had studied history and political literature at Baroda, where Arabindo was a Professor in the Gaekwar's College, had originally intended to start a religious institution, and whilst he edited the Yugantar he founded a hostel for youths attending "National" schools. The Yugantar set itself to preach revolution as a religious even more than a political movement.
Raise the banner of Swadesh, crying Victory to the Mother! Rescue the truth and accomplish the good of India. The Calcutta Yugantar argues that "sedition has no meaning from the Indian standpoint." If the whole nation is inspired to throw off its yoke and become independent, then in the eye of God and the eye of Justice whose claim is more reasonable, the Indian's or the Englishman's?
I have before me a letter from a Hindu scholar who certainly has no sympathy with the methods advocated by the Yugantar "Nothing like these articles ever appeared before in Bengali literature." "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh," and this was essentially true in the case of the Yugantar.
The Yugantar at the same time set forth in a series of articles the scheme by which the enfranchisement of India was to be achieved a scheme which was little more than a reasoned exposition of the methods already adopted in the previous decade by Tilak in the Deccan.
Khudiram Bose at any rate had shown that "determination" with the lack of which the writers in the Yugantar had so often taunted their fellow-countrymen. So for the Nationalists of Bengal he became a martyr and a hero. Students and many others put on mourning for him and schools were closed for two or three days as a tribute to his memory.
From the speech made by counsel for the prosecution in opening the case it appears that some of the defendants were schoolmasters, who were charged with preaching revolutionary doctrines in their schools and carrying on correspondence of the same character with old pupils; others were charged with circulating papers of the Yugantar and Swarajiya type; others with holding secret meetings and delivering inflammatory lectures; others again with distributing pictures and photographs of well-known revolutionists, including Khudiram Bose, the Muzafferpur murderer.
Tilak typified the nationalist movement. A Brahmin with an excellent Western education, he was the sworn foe of English rule and Western civilization. An able propagandist, his speeches roused his hearers to frenzy, while his newspaper, the Yugantar, of Calcutta, preached a campaign of hate, assassination, and rebellion.
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