 |
| Sir Charles Tegart, Colonial police officer iart uk |
During the colonial rule in India directly under the British Crown in London soon after the famous Indian revolt of 1857-58, it became a necessity for the British Government to have an efficient police department with a separate section for detective work to keep an eye on the Indian nationalists and freedom fighters who wanted to get off the British yoke. In Charles Augustus Tegart, they found a superb police officer who was very particular about upholding Britishness and safeguarding Britain's quest for imperialistic ambition. Considering his temperament and natural ability, for the tough police work in India, no person was better qualified than Tegart who would never compromise on ethics and professionalism. Unfortunately, the black mark he had was his overwhelming enthusiasm and dedication in his work pushed him to the extreme of brutality bordering on madness.
 |
| American Indian Chief Joseph AZ Quotes |
joined the Calcutta Police in 1901. Later he headed the Detective Department and his continuous service in Calcutta police department for 30 long years gave him lots of experience in the area of policing and tailing criminals. Later he became a member of the Secretary of State's Indian Council in December 1931.
Being the first officer of the Indian Police (IP) in the organization on his recommendation, the Special Branch was created to track revolutionary activities in Bengal. After getting the King's Police Medal in 1911 for his dedicated services to the Crown, his career saw upward mobility and Tegart's promotion was purely on merit. Finally, he ended up becoming the Commissioner of Calcutta Police from 1923 to 1931.
 |
| AZ Quotes |
 |
| Map of India showing Bengal BBC |
 |
| www.picswe.com |
That Tegart was reported to have come out unscathed in six assassination attempts on him in India is itself a proof that how much the Indian nationalists hated him and his guts. Unmindful and undaunted, he liked driving around Calcutta in an open-top car. Some years later on 12 January 1924, at Chowringhee Road in Calcutta, Tegart was shot at by Gopinath Saha, an Indian revolutionary. He escaped unhurt as Saha erroneously shot down a white man, Mr. Ernest Day, whom he mistook for Tegart. It was a close call, but luck was on the side of this fearsome cop. He had yet another close brush with the death when, on 25 August 1930, at Dalhousie Square in Calcutta, a bomb was hurled at him by a revolutionary while traveling in a car, He escaped unhurt and he fired at the revolutionary.
Tegart's efficiency and dedication in curbing the freedom-fighting activities of the Indians in Bengal left a lasting impression on Lord Lytton, then Governor of Bengal. He was awarded the KCIE in 1937. In view of his reputation as a tough police officer, to whom compromising and leniency were anathema, the British Government sent him to the ''British Mandate of Palestine'', to subdue the the Arab Revolt and to advise the Inspector General on matters of security. He arrived there in December 1937. The rebellion was brewing in Palestine in protest at the British decision to allow Jewish migration into the Holy Land from Europe. In the 1930s, Tegart came up with a drastic and expensive solution - a network of fortresses that today stand as monuments to a lost empire. Those monuments are called Tegart forts, quite famous even to day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Tegart