Birendra was born with the surname Bhattacharjee. His ancestors were all Gangopadhyay, but in native Bramhanbaria they took the title of Bhattacharjee. His was a lower middle-class family from an obscure village and the family income came from what little land they owned, supplemented by his father Mahendra Chandra’s salary from a Dhaka landlord’s office. The family was always financially constrained. Mahendra would disembark from the train several stops before his destination and walk up to twenty miles to save a few annas. Birendra was the great hope for the family. From a young age his intelligence, charm and charisma were remarked upon. But he left his family, his home and a comfortable professional path for a life of ideology, action, danger and ultimately arrest, torture and imprisonment. This sacrifice is impossible to understand in today’s world.
He played a prominent role in the revolutionary cadres of the time in...