Barda (elder brother) of revolutionaries, Hemchandra Ghosh(1884-1980), son of lawyer Mathuranath Ghosh of Dhaka, was born in Gava, Barishal in the undivided Bengal. Hemchandra was initiated into revolutionary nationalism by Swami Vivekananda at Dhaka in 1901.
In 1905, Hemchandra in association with Sreeshchandra Pal, Haridas Datta, Gunen Ghosh and Khagen Das established Mukti Samgha (literally, Liberation Club) at Dhaka, apparently a physical club for the youth but in reality a revolutionary footboard. Between 1908 and 1915, Mukti Samgha in collaboration with Atmonnati Samiti (Self-Culture Association) of Calcutta executed a number of revolutionary activities; like assassination of the police inspector, Nandalal Bandyopadhyay (1908), who arrested Prafulla Chaki.
The other important activity during the period was the raid on the Messrs R B Rodda & Company, (26 August 1914) the noted importer of arms and ammunitions in Calcutta and the acquisition of fifty German Mauser pistols with forty-six thousand ammunitions; referred to as ‘an event of the greatest importance in the revolutionary crime of Bengal.’ In between, he suffered one-year imprisonment in Agartala (1909-10); followed by his imprisonment under the Defense of India Act from 1914 to 1920.
In 1928, he organized the Bengal Volunteers as a part of the Calcutta session of the congress and later turned it into a permanent organization, code-named BV. The BV members were associated with several revolutionary activities all over Bengal, which led to Hemchandra’s long imprisonment from 1930 to 1946, except for one year. A celibate, he dedicated his entire life to the service of the nation and refused freedom fighters’ pensions.
Source: Saheed Surya Sen Bhawan, Museum, Calcutta; Bhupendra Kishore Rakshit Roy, Sabar Alakshe, 1367 BS, in Bengali; Kalicharan Ghosh, Jagaran O Bisforan, 1380 BS in Bengali; Subodhchandra Sengupta Ed. Samsad Bangali Charitabhidhan, 1976, in Bengali.