Breen in Bengal

Links Between Irish Revolutionary Literature and Indian Revolutionary Violence in the Early 20th Century

Abstract

This article challenges dominant historiographical narratives that characterise the Indian independence movement primarily through Gandhian non-violence and European communist influence by foregrounding the neglected transnational connections between Irish revolutionary literature and Bengali revolutionary violence in the early to mid-twentieth century. Focusing on Bengal as a regional outlier within Indian nationalism, it examines how Irish traditions of physical force nationalism—articulated through revolutionary practice, martyrdom, and, crucially, literary production resonated with and shaped militant movements such as Anushilan Samiti, Jugantar, and the Indian Republican Army. Tracing a genealogy of political violence in Ireland from Young Ireland through the Fenians, the Easter Rising of 1916, and the Irish War of Independence, the article demonstrates how figures like Pádraig Pearse, Éamon de Valera, and especially Dan Breen became influential symbols for Bengali revolutionaries. Particular attention is paid to the circulation, translation, and banning of Breen’s My Fight for Irish Freedom in India, and to the Chittagong Armoury Raid of 1930 as a conscious imitation of the Easter Rising. Ultimately, the article argues that while Bengali revolutionary violence failed to achieve the political synthesis realised in Ireland, Irish revolutionary literature provided Bengali militants with tactical models, moral justification, and a language of martyrdom that profoundly shaped their anti-colonial imagination.