Person · revolutionary poet
Ram Prasad Bismil
Also known as Bismil
Ram Prasad Bismil (11 June 1897 - 19 December 1927), the Hindustan Republican Association leader and Urdu-Hindi revolutionary poet who led the 9 August 1925 Kakori Train Robbery to fund the independence movement. Born at Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh, Bismil wrote the famous Urdu couplet 'Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil mein hai' and the Hindi song 'Mera Rang De Basanti Chola'. After the Kakori robbery (which yielded ₹8,000 from a British treasury train), he was arrested at Shahjahanpur in September 1925 and hanged at Gorakhpur Jail on 19 December 1927. His 1980 'Nirbhay Nirvair' autobiography (written in Gorakhpur Jail) remains a classic of Indian revolutionary literature.
- Date
- 1897–1927
- Function
- Social reform & movement
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Connections (2)
- Court associationBhagat Singh
Ram Prasad Bismil's 1925 Kakori Train Robbery and 1927 Gorakhpur hanging preceded Bhagat Singh's HSRA leadership. Bhagat Singh took over the organisation's Punjab unit from Bismil's Shahjahanpur unit after Bismil's December 1927 execution. Bhagat Singh explicitly cited Bismil's writings in his 1930 Lahore Conspiracy Trial defence statement.
- Court associationAshfaqulla Khan
Ashfaqulla Khan and Ram Prasad Bismil were the two closest comrades of the HRA Shahjahanpur unit — a Hindu-Muslim revolutionary friendship that became iconic. They were hanged on the same day (19 December 1927) at different jails (Bismil at Gorakhpur, Khan at Faizabad). Their joint 9 August 1925 Kakori Train Robbery and their simultaneous executions represent the HRA's early Hindu-Muslim revolutionary unity ideal.
Sources
Standard biography; regional historiography.
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