“Why Should I Fear? Have I Not Read the Gita?” — The Immortal Courage of Khudiram Bose In the long and turbulent history of India’s struggle against British rule, few names shine with the blazing brilliance of youthful courage as brightly as Khudiram Bose . A fearless revolutionary, a fiery soul born for a brief but glorious moment in history, Khudiram became one of the earliest and youngest martyrs of the anti-colonial movement. His defiant spirit, philosophical clarity, and unwavering devotion to the motherland transformed him into a legendary icon of resistance. Khudiram Bose was born on 3 December 1889 in the village of Mohoboni (or Maurani) under the Keshpur police station of Medinipur district in the then Bengal Presidency of British India. His father, Trailokyanath Bose , worked as a revenue agent in Narajol, while his mother, Lakshmipriya Devi , was a deeply religious woman. Khudiram was her fourth child after three daughters. Before his birth, both of her sons had died in ...
“Why Should I Fear? Have I Not Read the Gita?” — The Immortal Courage of Khudiram Bose
In the long and turbulent history of India’s struggle against British rule, few names shine with the blazing brilliance of youthful courage as brightly as Khudiram Bose. A fearless revolutionary, a fiery soul born for a brief but glorious moment in history, Khudiram became one of the earliest and youngest martyrs of the anti-colonial movement. His defiant spirit, philosophical clarity, and unwavering devotion to the motherland transformed him into a legendary icon of resistance.
Khudiram Bose was born on 3 December 1889 in the village of Mohoboni (or Maurani) under the Keshpur police station of Medinipur district in the then Bengal Presidency of British India. His father, Trailokyanath Bose, worked as a revenue agent in Narajol, while his mother, Lakshmipriya Devi, was a deeply religious woman. Khudiram was her fourth child after three daughters. Before his birth, both of her sons had died in infancy. Terrified of losing yet another child, and following a traditional local ritual believed to protect the newborn, Lakshmipriya symbolically “sold” the infant boy to her elder daughter in exchange for three handfuls of husked rice (khud)—a symbolic act meant to deceive fate. Thus the child came to be named Khudiram, the boy who had been bought with khud.
Tragedy struck early, and Khudiram lost both parents in childhood. He was raised by his elder sister, who nurtured his education and early sense of justice. But no one could have foreseen the revolutionary fire already smoldering within the young boy.
From an early age, Khudiram was drawn to the swelling wave of nationalism sweeping across Bengal, especially after the 1905 Partition of Bengal, which ignited the Swadeshi movement. Unlike moderate political leaders who believed in petitions, debates, and the gradual negotiation of rights, Khudiram gravitated toward the more radical, action-oriented school of political thought. He rejected what he saw as the cowardice and opportunism of “oil-polishing politics,” strongly opposing the moderates of the Congress such as Surendranath Banerjee. He believed, with the conviction of youth and idealism, that British imperialism could only be driven out by armed struggle.
At the time, one figure had become particularly hated among revolutionaries—Douglas Kingsford, the Chief Presidency Magistrate of Calcutta. Kingsford was notorious for his brutal repression of Swadeshi activists, ordering excessive sentences and tortures that made him a symbol of colonial cruelty. To avenge this oppression, the revolutionary group Jugantar resolved in 1908 to assassinate Kingsford. The responsibility was entrusted to two young patriots: Prafulla Chaki and Khudiram Bose.
Before the plan could be executed, the British transferred Kingsford from Calcutta to Muzaffarpur as a Sessions Judge. Undeterred, Khudiram and Prafulla followed him there. On 30 April 1908, they waited outside the gate of the European Club, concealed behind the shadows of trees. When a carriage resembling Kingsford’s approached, they hurled a bomb at it. But fate took a tragic turn—the carriage belonged not to Kingsford, but to two British women. The attack killed an Englishwoman and her daughter.
In the chaos that followed, Khudiram fled on foot but was eventually captured by police at Waini railway station. Despite interrogation and torture, he refused to reveal the identity of any fellow revolutionary. He took full responsibility for the attack. His trial was swift, and he was sentenced to death.
On 11 August 1908, the nineteen-year-old Khudiram walked to the gallows in Muzaffarpur jail with a smile on his lips. His fearlessness astounded even the British officials. Before his execution, social worker Satish Chandra Chakrabarty asked him gently, “Do you feel afraid?”
Khudiram laughed and replied:
“Why should I fear? Have I not read the Gita?”
His answer echoed the timeless teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, which had been a philosophical backbone for many revolutionaries of the Swadeshi era. They found in the Gita the profound assurance that the soul is eternal, indestructible, and beyond the reach of weapons or death.
The verses Khudiram remembered with serenity were these:
“As a man casts off worn-out garments
and puts on new ones,
so the soul discards its worn-out body
and takes on a new form.”
“Weapons cannot cut the soul,
fire cannot burn it,
water cannot wet it,
and wind cannot dry it.”
(Bhagavad Gita 2:22–23)
Khudiram believed deeply that even if his body perished, his spirit would return again and again to serve the land until India became free. Indeed, British officers would later admit that wherever they found a copy of the Gita, they suspected the presence of a revolutionary.
In his final days, Khudiram asked for books by Mazzini, Garibaldi, and Rabindranath Tagore. He told his lawyer, Kalidas Babu, “Rajput women once leapt fearlessly into fire while performing the rite of Jauhar. I too shall meet my death fearlessly. Before my execution tomorrow, I want to eat chaturbhuj’s prasad and go to the gallows in peace.”
When asked his last wish, Khudiram first said he wanted permission to teach Indians how to make bombs. This, of course, was denied. When asked again, he said quietly, “I want to see my sister.” But even this final wish was denied by the colonial authorities.
Khudiram’s martyrdom ignited a wildfire across Bengal. Poet Pitambar Das composed a moving song in his memory, which soon became an anthem of revolution:
“Ekbar biday de Ma ghure ashi,
Hasi hasi porbo phashi…
Ten months and ten days later,
I shall be born again at my aunt’s home, Ma—
And if you fail to recognize me,
You will know me by the noose around my neck.”
It was not merely a song; it became a mantra of rebellion. Even a century later, its words still stir hearts with the same intensity.
Khudiram’s story is a reminder that nations are built by those who value ideals more than life itself. Those who cling desperately to life at any cost are forgotten. But those who walk into death smiling for a greater cause live eternally in the memory of a people.
Yet today, many young Bengalis—barring those with a nationalist inclination—know more about Che Guevara than about their own homegrown heroes like Khudiram Bose, Masterda Surya Sen, Pritilata Waddedar, Prafulla Chaki, Binay, Badal, and Dinesh. This collective amnesia is a national tragedy.
Khudiram’s life—short but luminous—stands as a testament to unshakeable courage, moral clarity, and spiritual depth. A teenager armed with a bomb in one hand and the Gita in the other, he transformed into a symbol of immortal defiance. His words—“Why should I fear? Have I not read the Gita?”—remain an eternal call for fearlessness, sacrifice, and unwavering love for the motherland.
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