JM Sen Hall stands witness to an eventful century in Chittagong

Constructed with red bricks and topped off with a tin shade, the Jatra Mohan Sen Hall still stands in Chittagong bearing witness to a century of the port city's history.

Mitoon Chowdhury Chittagong Bureaubdnews24.com
Published : 19 Nov 2016, 06:14 AM
Updated : 19 Nov 2016, 06:14 AM

From the beginning of British rule in the sub-continent to the end of the last decade, the building and its premises has played host to major political, social, literary and cultural meetings.
 
It witnessed the rebellion in 1930, when an armoury in Chittagong was raided, and the detention and subsequent release of the ‘rebels’.
 
It is also where the non-cooperation movement began in the region.
 

Hundreds of tea labourers, who aligned with the movement were fired upon and killed by the British colonial rulers.
Having seen some historic moments during the 1952 Language Movement and the 1971 Liberation War, the JM Sen Hall, famous as the first town hall, is on the verge of completing 100 years .
With a capacity of seating 500 persons, the hall has eight entrances with the main access facing west. Wooden stairs beside it leads to the second floor which stands on wooden poles.
Reduced to a crumbling structure for lack of maintenance, the historical site now needs urgent renovation.
With towering buildings encompassing it, even daylight struggles to reach JM Sen Hall today. Darkness is ever present there without the lights on the inside.

The poles are on the verge of collapse while the doors are barely in place. The stairs are falling apart and the tin-shade roof also needs replacement. Calls are being made for repairs for a long time, but the Chittagong Association or other government organisations have not yet taken any step.

Chittagong Association leaders said works on restoring the site is at a standstill after the death of many of its forerunners.

A meeting has been called on Friday to rework the association committee.

The building was named after Jatra Mohan Sengupta - a lawyer and politician during British rule. Historians say he took part in laying the foundation of the protest against British rule.

Writer Abdul Haq Choudhury said in 'Bandar Shahar Chattagram' that the Chittagong Association and  a board of trustees was put together  by Jatra Mohan Sengupta, who was a leader of the India National Congress.
 

In 1914, he bought lands in Rahmatganj with personal funds and paid Chittagong Association Tk 3000 to build the 'Chittagong Town Hall'.
Confirming that the construction began two years after that, sociologist Dr Anupam Sen said, "My great grandfather Rai Bahadur Sarachchandra Das laid the foundation stone of the JM Sen Hall on Nov 19, 1916."

Jatra Mohan Sengupta died, however, while it was still being built, in Dec 2, 1919. Rai Bahadur Nabinchandra Datta then opened the hall on Feb 8 next year.

His son Jatindra Mohan Sengupta, a revolutionary against the British rule, then renamed the establishment in memory of his father. It has been acutely linked with with local movements since.

According to 'Hajar Bochhorer Chattagram', a book published by Dainik Azadi on their 35th anniversary, Congress called for the non-cooperation movement in 1920 at a special session in Kolkata where the leading figures from Chittagong were also present.
 
On his return from the session, Jatindra Mohan Sengupta called for a strike in a meeting at the hall. The blueprint for the Chittagong-wide mobilisation of the protest was also prepared at the assembly under the then chair Maniruzzaman Islamabadi.

Bengal Swaraj Party, founded by the great Chittaranjan Das , was established near the hall to speed things up.
The tea-garden labourers joined the protest and left the fields, but railway authorities thwarted their return home by cutting off ticket sales.

A harrowing turn of events followed as British police opened fire on defenceless tea-garden workers at Chandpur dock.

It stirred up a response from railway workers who called a strike from Assam Bengal Railway headquarters Chittagong to Chandpur.

"After the railway authorities ordered the protesting labourers to leave the quarters, they set up tents around JM Sen Hall and nearby areas," Anupam Sen said.

Muhammad Shamsul Haq, editor of tradition and culture magazine 'Itihasher Khosra', said the revolutionaries involved in the armoury raid in Chittagong also frequented the hall.

With the Pakistan regime raising questions over language following the departure of the British colonial rulers, the JM Sen Hall turned into the venue of the Language Movement in Chittagong.

Awami League's women wing held a meeting there during the no-cooperation movement on Mar 9, 1971.

The Hall needs urgent renovation to see the light of a brighter day.