Kalidas Ghosh

Kalidas Ghosh (1909-2000), was born in Fultala, in the village Alka in Khulna, now in Bangladesh. In his very boyhood when he was hardly aged about 12 or 13, he was arrested by the British police as he hoisted the Indian National Flag in public in the Rajsahi Court complex raising the slogan “Vande Mataram” as a part of the Non-cooperation Movement (1920-21). He was arrested and had to appear (‘Hazira’) before the local police station every day and kept under strict surveillance for three years by the police.

While in college, Kalidas took an active part in the great ‘Mail train Robbery’ at Hili in 1933 and went under the concealment of identity. From there, he joined the Peasant Movement sensitizing the farmers around Chalon Beel located in the Patisar estate owned by Rabindranath Tagore. He was again arrested as a ‘Rajbandi’ (detenu) by the British police along with Purnananda Dasgupta (follower of Satya Basu), Dinesh Das (later a convict with a pending death sentence), Nalini Sengupta, Anantahari Mitra and so on.

After his release, while still a college student, he became a member of the secret society “Anushilan Samiti” which under the guise of yoga and physical exercise, used to teach ‘Lathi Khela’ (stick game), thereby imparting training in the use of arms-art and so on.