The Legend of Baji Raut
On a day after October 10, 1938, at the Khannagar cremation ground in Cuttack, seven bullet-ridden bodies lay burning on a single funeral pyre. One of them was Baji Raut. He was 12.
Beholding it a 24-year-old revolutionary Oriya poet’s heart caught fire and what followed was Baji Raut – a long narrative poem that went on to become a classic that inspired generations and led to the birth of a legend…. The legend of a boatman-boy who fell to the bullets of British troops for resisting them to cross the river near his village by denying them the ferry boat.
The poet was Sachidananda Routray, popularly known as Sachi Routray who was later conferred with Padma Shree in 1962, Sahitya Akademi Award in 1963, Soviet Land Nehru Award in 1965 and Jnanpith Award in 1986. He died at the age of 88 at his residence in Mission Road, Cuttack on August 21, 2004.
Baji Raut won nationwide acclaim after Indian English poet and author Harindranath Chattopadhyay rendered it into English – The Boatman Boy in 1942. Later it was published in The Boat Man Boy and Forty Poems by Sochi Raut Roy in December 1954.
In the 33-page long Translator’s Notes dated February 15, 1942 published along with the anthology by Prabasi Press, Calcutta – 9 Harindranath Chattopadhyay wrote: “When that ugly and blood curling incident – the shooting and bayonetting of Dhenkanal boatmen – took place Sochi arrived on the scene with a mighty song celebrating the courage of those boatmen, the cowardice of the tyrants who slew them, and specially the immortal example of young boatman boy Baji Raut of barely twelve, whose name has now become a household one in the homes of revolutionary thinkers and writers. This song of Sochi’s begins with the powerful invitation to the tyrant:
“Shoot, shoot as steadily as you can. Our breasts are bared to your bullets!
Keep aside your wooden lathis, for we damn it all. Our breasts are made of rocks!”
The Song caught on, even as flames catch on in a forest-lighting up all the night with its lurid glare! Thousands and thousands sang it – it rang like a message of release struck from a giant gong hung from the ceiling of the firmament. It was not a song anymore; it became a machine-gun-a dangerous weapon which must be withheld. The song was proscribed in the state. It still is. But its effects on the masses have been ineffaceable”.
In a prelude to the Anthology – The Background of the “Boatman Boy” - Sachidananda Routray wrote: “The hero of the major poem in this book is a boatman boy of barely twelve, namely Baji Raut who fell a martyr to imperialist bullets of British Raj and its feudal underlings in India. He was but an ordinary human being, a mere dot in the vast multitude of man. But he has now grown to be a great force or should I say a mighty institution that inspires and vitalises a nation!
Further describing “The Daring boy of Dhenkanal”, Rautray wrote: “Baji Raut, born at the village of Nilakanthapur in Dhenkanal state in Orissa, was then barely twelve. He came from a poor family and had none to look after him except his poor old mother.
The fateful night of October 10, 1938 came. It had been raining incessantly for the last three days. The night was dark and the sky and the hills looked ogrish every time the patterns of the cloud changed. Baji was fast asleep on the banks of Brahmani River inside the little thatched shed of his ferry boat fastened to a tree. He had been posted there by the Praja Mandal as a sentinel to watch over the ‘ghat’ and to see that the boat was not used by the troops of the State Durbar to cross the river carrying out their murderous game of killing and looting people and burning down the houses of the houses of peaceful villagers across the river who were found sympathising with the Praja Mandal workers.
At the dead of the night, the police troops arrived at the bank of the river where Baji’s little boat was fastened………. They roused Baji Raut and demanded his boat to be taken across………. But the little hero stood undaunted and an inspired voice rang out – “This boat of mine belongs to the Praja Mandal. It cannot be hired out to you- the enemy of the people”. ………… One of them shook his tiny body violently while another struck his head with the heavy butt of his gun……. His skull was fractured and blood was oozing profusely. However, he did not succumb immediately. He got up, jumped to the river bank from the boat tied ashore, and called out to the workers of the Praja Mandal……. Soon after, other workers of the Praja Mandal appeared in the scene. They fastened the rope of the boat tightly to their waist and stood on the bank like trees deeply rooted in the soil. The police cut the rope that fastened the boat and rowed away…… After rowing away the boat a few yards the troops loaded their guns and fired a volley at the silent crowd standing in the bank. A few were killed instantly and many were wounded fatally.
Baji Raut, Hurushi Pradhan, Lakshman Mullick, Raghu Nayak, Guri Nayak, Nata Mullick and Fagu Sahu were among the brave deads who fell martyrs to imperialist bullets……. The dead bodies of the martyrs were later brought to Cuttack, the capital of Orissa and after the post mortem, were cremated on a single pyre by the author and his friends”.
“The poem that follows seeks to immortalise heroic sacrifice and the burning patriotism of the young hero Baji Raut who stands today as a supreme symbol of deathless struggle against the forces of darkness and reaction”, Routray wrote in the seven-page-long prelude dated September, 1942.
Exactly forty-four years later Friends Publishers, Cuttack printed the first edition of Surendra Mohanty’s Patha O Pruthivi in 1986.
Mohanty, one of the leading modern fiction writers in Odia language who had 50 books written in different genres, including some in English received the Central Sahitya Akademi Award for his magnum opus – Nilashaila. He was also conferred with Padma Shree.
Mohanty was also a parliamentarian. He was Member of Rajya Sabha 1952-57 and 1978-1984. He was also elected to the Lok Sabha from Dhenkanal in 1957 and from Kendrapada in 1971. He died at his residence in Shelter Square on December 21, 1990.
Written in the form of a memoir - Patha O Pruthivi – a book of 566 pages earned the Odisha Sahitya Akademi Award. In Page 244, he recollected how he visited Nilakanthapur and met the mother of Baji Raut and queried about her son’s death.
According to Mohanty, while narrating about her son's death on that fateful day, she said; "On that day, Baji had neither gone to the ferry ghat nor had held the ropes of the boat. He was standing under a tree in our backyard, on the river bank and watching the villagers holding onto the ropes of the boat. The river was in spate. The boat was going up and down with the rising waves. When the police troops fired the shots, a stray bullet came and hit Baji and he fell down on the spot".
Mohanty then concluded: “Tenuh Pulice Fauzku Pratirodh Karibaku Jai Baji Raut Je Goolichotareh Sahid Hoijaichi – Eha Eka Sahityaka Kalpana Matra (Hence, that Baji Raut was martyred by bullet shots while preventing police troops is just a literary fiction)”.
Be that as it may. But Baji Raut has gone down in history as a classic case of literary fiction transcending facts. That is where fiction rises higher than facts and fiction is chosen over fact.
No wonder the Government of India in Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav -an initiative to celebrate and commemorate 75 years of independence and the glorious history of its people, culture and achievements named Baji Raut among the ‘Unsung Heroes’.
“Baji Rout who was martyred on 12 October 1938 at the age of 12 only while peacefully resisting the British troop to cross the river in his village by denying them the ferryboat, is the youngest in the history of freedom struggle in India to gain martyrdom……. The killing of Baji became a sensation in Odisha and he became a legend”, the ‘Unsung Heroes Details” says.