Ritabrata urges Centre to set up busts of 3 Bengal revolutionaries in Cellular Jail
The Statesman | 14 February 2026
Rajya Sabha Trinamul Congress MP Ritabrata Banerjee has put up a strong case for busts of three Bengal revolutionaries, Barindra Kumar Ghosh, Ullashkar Dutta and Hemchandra Kanungo, to be set up at Cellular Jail as a mark of respect to them for their exemplary actions.
Freedom fighters from Bengal, who had threatened the British administration in India had not been given their due respects, feels the MP. He said that many of these freedom fighters were sent to Cellular Jail in the Andamans and faced harshest atrocities there. But the central government has not recognised their contributions, feels Ritabrata.
He said these freedom fighters from Bengal have been “conveniently forgotten”. “They need to be given their due respect. These three revolutionaries ~ Barin, Ullash, and Hemchandra ~ need to be celebrated. I, through you, sir, demand from the central government that busts of these three revolutionaries must be set up in Andaman,” he told the Speaker.
The trade union leader is known to be very passionate and sensitive about Cellular Jail. He has always been vocal about national heroes from Bengal and argued that they should get their due respects.
In 2018, the Rajya Sabha member had asked the ministry of culture for details on revolutionaries executed or imprisoned in the Andaman Cellular Jail. In a reply on March 28, 2018, it was stated that between 1909 and 1938, 585 revolutionaries were jailed in the Cellular Jail, out of which 398 (roughly 68 per cent) were from undivided Bengal.
Ritabrata has argued in his speech during the Budget session this week that the revolutionaries had gone into Andaman jail in two phases. In the Andaman Cellular Jail, the properly registered history is up to the first phase. But the second phase is not properly registered. At the Watch Tower in Cellular Jail, there are marbles where the names of the revolutionaries are depicted. Incidentally, the majority of the names carved in the marble are from Bengal. The Chittagong youth rebellion was one of the most important incidents that took place at the time in undivided India. A young school master headed 60 young school boys. For two years, Chittagong declared Independence. Unfortunately, the names of these revolutionaries were not mentioned, said Ritabrata.
“There are efforts to replace history with mythology in the present BJP regime. There is an effort to eulogise Vinayak Damodar Savarkar by the present govt at the Centre. Heroes from Bengal face neglect. Nobel winning poet Rabindranath Tagore had prescribed reading Nirbbasiter Atmakatha by Upendranath Bandyopadhyay; he never prescribed reading Savarkar’s book,” said Ritabrata, who adds that even in the ‘light and sound’ show at the Cellular Jail, the BJP government has been giving wrong facts.
“In the show they show that Savarkar was kept in a particular cell to witness the hangings in the premises and to scare him. But, the govt has admitted in Parliament to my question that no hanging took place from 1909-1925, the time Savarkar is supposed to have stayed in the jail,” he added.
Ritabrata Banerjee in his speech in Parliament mentioned about twelve Bengali-speaking lion hearts, who were deported to the Andaman Cellular Jail, convicted in the Emperor versus Barindra Kumar Ghosh and Others case, popularly known as the Alipore Conspiracy Case.
Revolutionaries Barindra Kumar Ghosh, Ullashkar Dutta, and Hemchandra Kanungo, along with nine other Bengali bravehearts, were deported to the Andamans in 1909.
Barindra Ghosh, a revolutionary ideologue, poet, and journalist, set up bomb-making units and underground cells in Calcutta and throughout the state. He was strongly influenced by Irish revolutionary thought. He was released from Cellular Jail in 1920. Ullashkar Dutta was one of the earliest Indian bomb makers. Initially sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment, Ullashkar was deported to Andaman. He suffered a severe mental breakdown, and even British historical records cite him as one of the most tragic cases of colonial prison brutality. Hemchandra Kanungo was a senior revolutionary strategist and technologist. Hemchandra sold all his property and travelled to Paris and trained under exiled Russian revolutionaries in explosives and arms.