Chittagong Armoury Raid (April 1930): Surya Sen's Bold Rebellion

During the 1920s, many revolutionary groups in Bengal reorganized their underground activities while working under the Congress, gaining access to the masses and strengthening the Congress's organizational base in towns and villages.
Several revolutionaries cooperated with C.R. Das in his Swarajist efforts. After his death in 1925, the Bengal Congress split into two factions—one led by J.M. Sengupta and the other by Subhash Bose.
Notable actions included an assassination attempt on Calcutta Police Commissioner Charles Tegart by Gopinath Saha in 1924. Government suppression followed, with Subhash Bose and others arrested.
Despite severe repression and internal factionalism, the Chittagong Group led by Surya Sen became the most active revolutionary movement.

Surya Sen, a prominent leader of the Non-Cooperation Movement, later became a teacher at the national school in Chittagong.
Imprisoned from 1926 to 1928 for his revolutionary activities, he served as the secretary of the Chittagong District Congress Committee.
Sen was inspired by the poetry of Tagore and Qazi Nazrul Islam, with a belief in the power of "Humanism as a virtue of a revolutionary."

In April 1930, Surya Sen led an armed rebellion alongside Anant Singh, Ganesh Ghosh, and Lokenath Baul to defy British rule.
The mission involved seizing arms from the main armouries in Chittagong, isolating it from the rest of Bengal.
The raid succeeded, with Sen proclaiming a provisional revolutionary government and hoisting the national flag.
Although Surya Sen was arrested in 1933 and hanged in 1934, the raid inspired a new wave of freedom fighters.

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