Bhagwan Ahir was born in the Gorakhpur district of Uttar Pradesh. On the afternoon of 4 February 1922, an incident took place just outside of the police station Chaura in the District Gorakhpur between a small body of police and village watchmen and a crowd of some 3000 to 4000 peasants collected from neighboring villages. The police force included a Sub-Inspector and eight men of the armed police. The Majority of the crowd, as they approached the police station, carried no weapon of any sort, not even bamboo sticks or clubs. The ill-fated officer-in-charge of the police station, Gupteshar Singh, after the crowd had begun to make use of ballasts, committed the fatal blunder of ordering the volley to be fired first in the air and then on the crowd. Some of the peasants were killed by the bullets and hundreds of peasants were wounded during this incident. This agitated the peaceful satyagrahi crowd and in the counterattack by the crowd twenty-three policemen and chowkidars were killed and the police station was set on fire. Bhagwan, son of Ram Nath Ahir, was a leading volunteer. He was the drill instructor who taught the volunteers to march in order and to obey the sound of the whistle. As per the approvers and the volunteers he was the man who brought thatching grass for burning the police station, carried out the corpse of the Sub-Inspector to throw into the flame, and was involved in the beating of several of the constables who were subsequently killed, and of leading the crowd of volunteers. He was convicted under section 302/149 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to death by the session court and ed by the High Court on 30 April 1930.