Satyen Chandra Bardhan

In 1993, on the 50th anniversary of their execution, Reddy took the lead in organising a memorial event in Trivandrum and then Vakkom. All the survivors of the original 20 and/or members of their families from across India came to Vakkom to honour the four martyrs. Though in 1998, a stamp was issued in the honor of the executed Abdul, Satyen, Fauja Singh and Anandan. But for the rest of the country, these martyrs have disappeared from the collective memory.

The wind carried the message of the four martyrs, Satyen, Abdul Khader, Fauja Singh and Anandan, to every corner of India. It did not take long before India achieved it's independence on 15 August 1947 on the ashes of these martyrs. A small memorial is built at Travancore. C.G.K. Reddy, who was one of the twenty men arrested, narrates how his four comrades Abdul, Satyen, Fauja Singh and Anandan sacrificed their lives on gallows :-

Satyen Chandra Bardhan, known popularly as Kanu (1916 - 1943) was an Indian Bengali revolutionary and a soldier in Indian National Army, which was led by Netaji Subhas Bose. He was a trained radio communicator and revolutionary. Four people, including Satyen Bardhan, were hanged in Madras Central Jail on the 10th September, 1943. He along with his three comrades Vakkom Abdul Khader, Anandan and Fauja Singh, walked up to the gallows, while singing the Vande Mataram song and raising the slogan of Vande Mataram.

After all of the twenty men including Abdul, Satyen Bardhan, Fauja Singh and Anandan were arrested, they were then removed to Fort St. George, India at Madras in due course of time. They were even tortured in Madras Fort in order to reveal all the secrets about their intention to enter India, which was their own Motherland. Of the 20, one became an approver and the other 19 were tried in early 1943. The accused were placed on a trial for waging war against the King, and acting as enemy agents under the Indian Penal Code and War Emergency Ordinance on 8 March 1943. The judgement was delivered on 1 April 1943. Satyen Bardhan, Abdul Khader, Fauja Singh, Anandan and one Christian named Boniface Pereira, were sentenced to death. But the Christian, Boniface Pereira escaped death on the strength of a successful appeal. Boniface was later sentenced to five years of imprisonment.

The soldiers of the Indian National Army, Satyen Bardhan and his four comrades Abdul Khader, Fauja Singh and Anandan were executed in the Madras Penitentiary on 10 September 1943 at twelve o' clock midnight. Almost the whole night previous to the executions the prison reverberated with the song Vande Mataram. With great courage each of them, Abdul Khader, Satyen Bardhan, Fauja Singh and Anandan, ascended the steps to the gallows while raising the slogan of Vande Mataram, which meant ''Hail my Motherland''. Satyen Bardhan in his last letter to his brother and maternal uncle, wrote :-

Satyen was born in the Bitghar area, Brahmanbaria, Comilla District, which is now in present-day Bangladesh. His father's name is Dinesh Chandra Bardhan. Not much is known or documented about his childhood, but in his early life, he had been working in the Post and Telegraph Department in Malaya when it was overrun by the Japanese. He found himself stranded in Singapore for some time. He joined the Indian Independence League in 1941, and was sent to Penang to receive training connected with the war. With the formation of Azad Hind Fauj or the Indian National Army, Satyen joined it in 1942. He was given special training in radio transmission by both Indian and Japanese experts, besides training in fighting etc.