The Intellectual Roots of India's Freedom Struggle (1893-1918) 9781138095410, 9780203712849

Citation preview

THE INTELLECTUAL ROOTS OF INDIA’S FREEDOM STRUGGLE (1893-1918) Most people believe India’s struggle for independence to have begun with Mahatma Gandhi. Little credit goes to the proof that this call for a mass movement did not arise out of a void. For the past century and more, historians have overlooked the phase of twenty-five years of intense creative endeavour preceding and preparing for the Mahatma’s advent. The reason for this systematic omission has been the fundamentally radical nature of the revolutionary programme put to practice by Indian leaders of late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Jugantar was diametrically distinct from the dream of non-violence floated by the Mahatma and the Congress. Very well documented with inputs from Indian, European and American archives, the present study carefully straightenes out the origins – philosophical, historical and religious and intellectual, so to say – of Indian nationalism. From Rammohun to Sri Aurobindo, passing through Marx and Tagore, the full set of ideological views has been analysed here. Unknown up to this day, the sustained focus in this volume on the outlook and the activities of these revolutionaries inside India and abroad brings home the ‘very sophisticated understanding of the contemporary political reality’ that made their leader Jatindranath Mukherjee, the ‘right hand man’ of Sri Aurobindo, the very emblem of an epoch and its aspirations. Prithwindra Mukherjee (b. 1936) is a poet, historian, musicologist, translator and author of more than sixty books in Bengali, French and English. Based in Paris since 1966, he has received the Chevalier Arts & Letters (2009) and Chevalier Palmes Académiques (2015) from the Government of France.

Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group http://taylorandfrancis.com

THE INTELLECTUAL ROOTS OF INDIA’S FREEDOM STRUGGLE (1893-1918)

PRI THWI NDRA MUKH E RJ E E

~~ ~~o~!~;n~~;up NEW YORK AND LONDON

First
published
2018 by
Routledge 2
Park
Square,
Milton
Park,
Abingdon,
Oxon
OX14
4RN and
by
Routledge 711
Third
Avenue,
New
York,
NY
10017 Routledge
is
an
imprint
of
the
Taylor
&
Francis
Group,
an
informa
business ©

Prithwindra
Mukherjee
and
Manohar
Publishers
&
Distributors The
right
of
Prithwindra
Mukherjee
to
be
identified
as
author
of
this
work
has
been
asserted
by
him
in
accordance
with
sections
77
and
78
of
the
Copyright,
Designs
and
Patents
Act
1988. All
rights
reserved.
No
part
of
this
book
may
be
reprinted
or
reproduced
or
utilised
in
any
form
or
by
any
electronic,
mechanical,
or
other
means,
now
known
or
hereafter
invented,
including
photocopying
and
recording,
or
in
any
information
storage
or
retrieval
system,
without
permission
in
writing
from
the
publishers. Trademark
notice:
Product
or
corporate
names
may
be
trademarks
or
registered
trademarks,
and
are
used
only
for
identification
and
explanation
without
intent
to
infringe. Print
edition
not
for
sale
in
South
Asia
(India,
Sri
Lanka,
Nepal,
Bangladesh,
Afghanistan,
Pakistan
or
Bhutan) British
Library
Cataloguing
in
Publication
Data A
catalogue
record
for
this
book
is
available
from
the
British
Library Library
of
Congress
Cataloging
in
Publication
Data A
catalog
record
for
this
book
has
been
requested ISBN: 978-1-138-09541-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-71284-9 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon LT Std 11/13 by Ravi Shanker, Delhi 110 095

MANOHAR

Contents

List of Illustrations

ix

Foreword

xi

Abbreviations Introduction I. THE GENESIS OF NATIONALISM IN INDIA I.1. Ideas they Defended 1. The Pioneer: Rammohun Roy (1772-1833) 2. After Rammohun (1833-1857) I.2. The First Clash of Interests Karl Marx, the Observer (1857-1860) I.3. The Bard of Patriotism Mahatma Rajnarain Basu (1826-1899) I.4. The Quest of the National Soul Swami Dayanand (1824-1883) I.5. The Motherland, a Cult Bankimchandra Chatterjee (1838-1894) I.6. The Soul of Militant Nationalism Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920) I.7. The Poet of Patriotism Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) I.8. Patriotism as Religion Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902)

xiii 1 47 47 47 55 58 65 71 77 86 91 98

vi

Contents

I.9. Patriotism, a Synthesis Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) II. THE THINKER IN ACTION II.1. Jatin Mukherjee (1879-1915) and the Bengali Society II.1.1. From the Gorai to the Ganga II.1.2. Meetings in Calcutta II.1.3. A Foretaste of Insurrection: 1905 II.1.4. Violence, an Antidote II.1.5. His Majesty’s Prison II.1.6. Secret Revival II.2. Revolutionaries Abroad II.2.1. In England II.2.2. In France II.2.3. In Germany II.2.4. In the United States II.2.4a. Taraknath Das (1884-1958) II.2.4b. Ghadar, the Revolutionary Formation II.3. The Enemy’s Enemy: First World War II.3.1. Bengal Fireworks II.3.2. Balasore: Baptism of Blood II.3.3. Letters of Jatin Mukherjee II.4. Consequences II.4.1. In the Far East II.4.2. In Europe II.4.3. In the USA II.4.4. In India: Gandhi Steps In

110 124 124 124 136 152 161 178 189 197 197 203 213 219 219 229 236 236 247 279 288 288 296 310 341

Contents

vii

III. CONCLUSION III.1. Facing the Extremist Perspective III.1.1. Tagore and Gandhi III.2. The Last of the Prophets IV. ANNEXE IV.1. Introduction IV.2. ‘The Pioneers’ by Rabindranath Tagore IV.3. Tagore on Jatin Mukherjee IV.4. Jatin Mukherjee (1879-1915) by M.N. Roy

369 371 371 398 403 403 403 404

Glossary

411

Bibliography

415

Index

453

406

Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group http://taylorandfrancis.com

Illustrations

(between pp. 226-7) Plate

1. Raja Rammohun Roy

Plate

2. Rajnarain Basu

Plate

3. Swami Dayanand

Plate

4. Bankimchandra Chatterjee

Plate

5. Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Plate

6. Rabindra Nath Tagore

Plate

7. Ashwini Kumar Datta

Plate

8. Swami Vivekananda

Plate

9. Jatin Mukherjee 1898; 1903; 1910; 1915

Plate 10. Sri Aurobindo Plate 11. M.N. Roy Plate 12. Lord Curzon Plate 13. Krishnakumar Mitra Plate 14. Nolinikanta Kar Plate 15. Ashutosh Biswas Plate 16. Charuchandra Basu Plate 17. Atulkrishna Ghose Plate 18. Bomb attack on Hardinge

x

List of Illustrations

Plate 19. Shyamji Krishnavarma Plate 20. Har Dayal Plate 21. Madam Cama Plate 22. Taraknath Das Plate 23. Vishnu Ganesh Pingley Plate 24. Rasbehari Bose Plate 25. Kartar Singh Plate 26. Virendranath Chattopadhyay Plate 27. Seal of the Government of Free India Plate 28. Amarendranath Chatterjee Plate 29. Nirendra Dasgupta, Chittapriya Raychaudhuri, Manoranjan Sengupta and Jyotish Chandra Pal Plate 30. Charles Tegart Plate 31. Bhupendranath Datta Plate 32. Sardar Ajit Singh Plate 33. Bhupendra Kumar Datta Plate 34. Mrs M.N. Roy’s letter Plate 35. French Newspaper article on Savarkar (1) Plate 36. French Newspaper article on Savarkar (2)

Foreword*

No one can depart unaffected after reading this wonderful book by Prithwindra Mukherjee. It is the work of an excellent sociologist, writer and musicologist; a thesis begun under Raymond Aron and completed under Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, supported by the greats of French academia, like Annie Kriegel. A wonderful instance of the quality of a university, which can welcome within its fold someone coming from a faraway place and offering to France – in exchange – more than what she has given him. This fascinating book constitutes first of all a passionate tribute to a grandfather, activist and martyr, the great Jatindranath Mukherjee, whose place in the history of India has not been recognized as it deserved to be, in the front rank of the freedom fighters; simultaneously it is a volume which shows at first hand India at the cusp of the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, looking for the path leading to the awareness of her identity, and the necessity of her fighting for independence. For too long a period, indeed, people all over the world have believed that Gandhi’s non-violence had been enough to drive out the armies of the colonizer. That is not true. Before Gandhi succeeded in animating the vast social movement of the 1930s, there had been the great intellectual movement of Aurobindo, of Bagha Jatin, and of all those who strove * Translated from the French edition published by Editions CodexFrance in 2010.

xii

Foreword

by their side, at times up to death, enabling India to become aware of herself. This book is essential for understanding what today’s India is, even in her violence, and to put back in their due – the first – place, all the dreamers who, from Aurobindo to Tagore, from Gandhi to Patel have trodden diverse paths leading her to independence, in its diversity. It is essential as well for understanding the very special role that intellectuals played in all freedom movements, in India and elsewhere. And first of all their role in kindling the perception of the national idea, often artificial, often imaginary: here, Prithwindra Mukherjee explains to perfection their driving power and the conditions of their crystallization. The volume is essential, at last, for understanding the role of intellectuals in History, so often carried off by the consequences of their ideas, swept out, chased away, censored, by the very persons who implement their concepts. An exceptional musicologist and a great poet, the author of this book reminds us that humanity is one, that music, poetry and politics are mere dimensions among many in the human condition, and we have as yet much more to learn from India. Let France take advantage of it and establish relations necessary for our future. Jacques Attali*

* Professor, Economist, Historian, appointed special Counsellor (198191) by the French President Mitterand. Author of more than sixty-five books of essays, biographies. Active in movements like Grameen Bank and Planet Finance.

Abbreviations

AAWK

: Deutsches Auswärtiges Amt, Weltkrieg 1914-18 AK/R : (Shrimati) Ashru Kole: Rajnarain AS/TB : Amiya K. Sanyal, Terrorism in Bengal Bankim : Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya (Chatterjee) BD/DCI : Buchanan: Development of Capitalist Enterprises Bhatta : Dr Abinash Bhattacharya Bh.G. : Bhagavad Gita Chakravarti, A. : Maharshi Devendranath Chatto : Virendranath Chattopadhyaya CB/R : Bankimchandra Chattopadhyaya (Chatterjee): Rachanavali (Complete works) CL/Pa : Lalitkumar Chatterjee, Paribarik katha CL/Du : Lalitkumar Chatterjee, Durgotsava CWSV : Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda DM/MM : M.N Das: India under Morley & Minto fn : notes at the bottom of page GA/FS : A.C. Guha: First Spark of Revolution IB : The Police (Intelligence Branch) Jadu : Dr Jadu Gopal KJC : J.S Ker: Political Trouble in India Kumar : Guran Ditt Kumar MB/HI : B. Majumdar: History of Indian Social & Political Ideas MB/MNI : B. Majumdar: Militant Nationalism in India

xiv M/Br.I. M/C M/FrBrI

MJ/B MND M.PR/EB MP/R MP/RJ MR/H MS/RI MTP NAI N/EU Rowlatt RPD RR/Rk SA/BCL SS/RL TA/ Ex TA/ V TIB TS/R Two Great VVS

Abbreviations

: Karl Marx: ‘The Future Results of British Rule in India’ : Karl Marx: The Capital : Karl Marx, ‘The Future Results of British Rule in India’, in New York Daily Tribune, 8 August 1853 : Jadugopal Mukhopadhyay: Biplabi Jibaner Smriti : M.N. Das, India under Morley and Minto : Les écrits bengalis de Sri Aurobindo : Prabhatkumar Mukhopadhyay, Rammohun : Prabhatkumar Mukhopadhyay, Rabindrajibani : R.C. Majumdar: History of Freedom Movement in India : Sisirkumar Mitra: Resurgent India : Minto Papers : National Archives of India (New Delhi) : North and Eudin : S.A.T. Rowlatt, Sedition Committee Report, 1918 : Rajani Palme Dutt, India Today : Romain Rolland: The Life of Shri Ramakrishna : Sri Aurobindo, Birth Centenary Library : Sivnath Sastri: Ramatanu Lahiri : Amales Tripathi: The Extremist Challenge : Amales Tripathi: Vidyasagar : Terrorism in Bengal : Saumyendra Tagore: Rammohun. : Uma Mukherjee: Two Great Indian Revolutionaries : V.V.S Aiyar

NB.1 : We have adopted the present names of the cities Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, formerly called Bombay, Calcutta, Madras. NB.2 : Consult Bibliography for complete references.

Introduction

A certain historiography claims that in April 1919, the stepping in of M.K. Gandhi (1869-1948) with a programme of passive and non-violent resistance marked the beginning of the movement for India’s independence and was its unique cause. The present study was written during 1974-81 as a thesis for the State Doctorate, investigating this premise. It was supervised by Raymond Aron (1905-83), at the University Paris IV and defended in January 1986 before a jury presided over by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie.1 Its initial object was to question and to reconstitute a total social phenomenon (elitist, though revolutionary) prevailing during the long twenty-five years (1893-1918) that preceded Gandhi. Moreover, it had an ontological vision firmly based on an ethics specific to India. Generous in his acknowledgement of moral debts to foreign sources, Gandhi was not so fulsome about the blueprint that was left by his native predecessors, which served and guided him step by step. The scope of reconstituting the character and the programme of a revolutionary party which, mostly, cropped out of an underground and subversive effort within an oppressive colonial state, could but be limited. To chisel the events out of a complex gangue of legend, half accomplished intentions, and memories more or less altered by four decades of state secrecy and indiscreet exploitation, was not easy. This task received at times, on behalf of some surviving protagonists— mainly Bhupendrakumar Datta (1892-1979), my mentor—a number of analytic approaches to the events and their corrosion with time, notably the conflict between available

2

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

archival documents on the one hand and notes assembled from confused reminiscences on the other. Even personalities of unsuspected reputation like Jadugopal Mukherjee (18861976) have succumbed to ambivalent readings.

* As father of historic sociology in France, Raymond Aron cherished a few notions that served me as a guiding line in exposing, straightaway, the main ideas that had been seething in the vast country and were emerging progressively. He wanted me to develop my narrative in keeping with its ramifications in time and space. This is what I attempted, by following the chronological highlights, as far as possible. The geographical preference given to a Calcutta-centred analysis was logically justified by the fact that until 1911 Calcutta was the capital of British India and continued to preoccupy the colonial authorities for decades after. Numerous were the difficulties, as I have mentioned, in reconstituting the events (which had seldom been attempted before), the subject matter belonging to a movement both ample and clandestine on the whole. Also, the biases in the date were many. (a) In spite of exceptions like the Anglo-English impeachment that Edmund Burke pronounced against the abuses of Warren Hastings and of the various accounts of mutilating fingers of the native traditional weavers of muslin, for the monopoly of imported Manchester textile, a false international image remained of British rule as a benefactor of the country. (b) Discrimination was devised to run a government unhampered: for example, the Bengalis (allegedly too intellectual) were kept away from all physical education and all contact with the Indian army. Maintained within the Indian budget, the army nevertheless had spread as sentry to the remote corners of the Empire. Inversely, it was politic to

Introduction

3

deprive the warrrior races, so-called (Sikhs and Rajputs), of too much education, in order to pin them to the ranks of cannon fodder. In spite of the pious proclamations of Her Majesty, the market of employment, in cases of equal merit, preferred a white-skinned candidate to the detriment of Indians. (c) An increasing moral and physical dependence disarmed the people and they relied on the will of the foreign masters (whose pastime would sometimes consist of blowing up—with booted legs—the liver of cirrhosis-affected labourers in the plantations, victims of malaria, malnutrition and evident contamination caused by the processing of the indigo. (d) A global system of education was imposed. It was adequate for manufacturing pen pushers, for accountancy in commercial enterprises, stripped of all ambition, all intelligence and all clear sight about the menace hovering over the people’s increasingly tetanised state.

* Traditional elite ethics upheld the ultimate reality to be a value composed of immortal essence. It had for symbols the first attributes of the Absolute in its cosmic play: Existence (sat), Consciousness (chit) and Bliss (ananda). According to the ‘Great Forest’ (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad)—one of the very fundamental texts—at the moment of retiring from the world and consecrating his life exclusively to metaphysical reflections, the sage Yajnavalkya bequeathed his material goods to his two wives. One of them, Maitreyi, protested: ‘What shall I do with all this, which cannot lead me to Immortality?’ In her prayer, which became a famous value-centred manifesto, she implored: Guide me from non-existence towards the Real; Guide me from obscurity towards Light; Guide me from death towards Immortality.

4

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

In Brahmanic cosmogony, intermediary between the seeker and the Absolute was the divine Mother, ever present in the unconscious Indian memory. Bearer and executor of the Absolute’s will, She, Prakriti—the creative Energy—gave birth to the universe and according to the aspects and precise roles in various phases of her cosmic labour she was worshipped under various names. Admitting that one may associate an ideology ‘derived from the French revolution and the Italian struggle for independence and unity’ with the roots of Indian patriotism and with its emotional nuances, Jean Naudou evoked, with a great relevance the Indian love of the Mother Earth tints this nationalism with a devotion which is properly Indian: hence, this cult of the Motherland is connected with an emotional complex centred on a tender reverence for the mother (the mother Ganga; the cow, the very symbol of motherliness; the word vaatsalya that designates the love for the children—the ‘calves’; and vande mataram).

Bankimchandra in his novel, Anandamath (‘The Monastery of Joy’, Chapter 10), while describing the Mother—‘as she was, as she became, and as she will be’—asked, ‘Which Mother do we speak of ? . . . Of the Motherland, certainly, and not of the Mother!’ And the Sage—one of the characters—answered that the only mother that the santana (Children of the Motherland) recognized was the Motherwho-is-the-Motherland. Then he quoted in Sanskrit: janani janmabhumishcha svargaadapi gariyasi, which the Sage paraphrased as: ‘We recognize no other Mother. This Mother— the Motherland—is more glorious than Paradise.’ Unable to authenticate that the excerpt is from one of the versions of the Ramayana, specialists agree on the circumstances of this uttering: after having conquered the golden island of Lanka, when Lakshmana requested Rama to forget Ayodhya and to transfer the capital there itself, such was the Hero’s answer.2 To return to the notion of patriotism in India, we can

Introduction

5

presume that it welled less from the Roman conception of Patria known in Europe as the Vaterland, than from the Vedic vision of the Earth as Mother, as Bipin Chandra Pal points out.3 India has always been worshipped by her children: janani janmabhumihcha svargaadapi gariyasi (the mother, as much as the native soil, looked up to like a mother: they are more even glorious than paradise). While accepting the Absolute as Lord, God, Creator, while accepting his immanence in the creation as much as in the creatures, an Indian could not but love his compatriots as brothers. From that point of view, the politics of the more powerful nations (or of the stronger individuals) devouring the weaker following the famous ‘logic of fishes’ (matsyanyaaya)—a classic expression of the Hindu political treatises—should stop under an equitable regime. Thus, a thirst for justice lingered at the root of Indian patriotism, justice for all men and for Liberation; the quest for it became an integral part of Indian patriotic dialectics. That is why the problem of India’s political slavery became a preoccupation for Indian nationalism. Vivekananda advised his disciples that: the only cult that mattered was that of the Motherland. Defying all theological abstractions, he proclaimed that service to the millions of humiliated and starving compatriots was imperative for every Indian as the only path leading to a spiritual salvation. After fourteen years of studies in England, whereas Sri Aurobindo was posted in Baroda, K.G. Deshpande, his revolutionary friend of Cambridge days was appointed editor of the Indu Prakash published in Bombay. At KG’s invitation, Aurobindo started writing for his journal from 7 August 1893. With his series of articles titled ‘New Lamps for the Old’ he launched an acrid criticism of the Moderates’ cautious petitions to Her Majesty. He regretted the tragic absence in India of a just vision of her own past, an awareness of her present strength, and a legitimate dream of the future. In the context of a people in slavery, destitute of military and economic means, reduced to a total dependence on the English political

6

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

structure, the Congress represented, nevertheless, a faint ray of hope, the only grandiose guarantee of political energy. While recognizing this organization as a manifestation of the national life, he diagnosed this life to be sick; sick because of the pressures of Imperialism and the British plans to remould India in conformity with the model of the Commonwealth. In other words, sold to the interests of the foreign masters and unable to put forward the interests of the common man, no one could say the country was in good health, or vigorous. One required to put an end to its role as an instrument for suppression and to convert it into a real nationalist forum. In a spirit of know thyself—instead of incriminating any outside political power whatever—Sri Aurobindo insisted on the people’s own crying weaknesses, cowardice and shortsighted sentimentality as internal causes of their misery. From the issue of 4 December [1893], he urged his readers to do away with the begging policy of the Congress leaders, and to adopt radical action: the Indian proletariat was sinking in ignorance and was crushed under distress. He cited examples in the history of nations where, despite pacifist negotiations and constitutional claims for reform, the culminating and unavoidable phase of freedom movements ended with violent and revolutionary actions. Capable of converting ideas and particular events into abstract ideologies, before enhancing their significance and appraising their power more certainly, even before urging the population to mobilize, Sri Aurobindo consulted history to remind us that the great revolutions of the past had all been people’s revolutions.4 Referring to the progressive flaring of the people’s anger in France—up to its ultimate outburst on 14 July 1789—Aurobindo fixed the objective of his ambitious project for India. But he remained convinced that the Indian fighter in his struggle for independence needed absolutely to be assisted in his faith by Sanatana Dharma (the Perennial Order). In his apology of violence—as Jean Naudou pointed out—though, at times, Sri Aurobindo seemed to echo Marxist terminology, he founded his arguments faithfully on the Bhagavad Gita: the answer of God incarnate (Krishna) to the anguish of Arjuna engaged in his

Introduction

7

action. From the individual point of view, in a country where non-violence has been recognized as a high moral value, Aurobindo allied the compatibility of an ardent mysticism with the surprising psychological feature of a terrorist action. Jean Naudou noted that from the political point of view, the dialectics of non-violence and violence reflects obviously that of dharma—universal and individual—made particular according to the position man occupies in society and in history.

* By the end of 1905, taking into consideration the pan-Indian militant spirit protesting against the Partition of Bengal Aurobindo published Bhavani Mandir (Temple of Bhavani). Far from reviving an idol of the Hindu pantheon, he conceived this Goddess Mother as the psychic embodiment of the invincible divine energy that the three hundred million men and women of India—Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist— adored. Denham in his CID report did not fail to declare that Bhavani Mandir was an explicit foretaste of a lot more spicy meat that the Jugantar was going to serve.5 Just as the seventeenth-century monk Ramadas had invoked Bhavani to bless the political programme of his valiant disciple Shivaji, Aurobindo conceived in Bhavani Mandir the creation of a community of patriots around a temple erected for this goddess in a wild region. Quite conscious of the value that traditional India attached to pragmatic and artistic expression, to which multiple monuments testified, he discerned how sovereign spiritual impetus remained behind the evolution of Indian society. Himself practising in his mental and physical life an unconditional vow of chastity and purity (brahmacharya) as compulsory for a disinterested patriotic mission, Sri Aurobindo wished to confer on a batch of missionaries dedicated to the cult of the Motherland,6 the service of the nation. He probably remembered that hardly twelve years after the victory of the English in Plassey in 1770, Bengal had known a famine of such gravity that both Hindu

8

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

and Muslim religious teachers, sannyasis and fakirs, fully armed, rushed to recruit soldiers among starved peasants; simultaneously, zamindars in disgrace and dismissed soldiers formed a desperate army between Rangpur and Dhaka, determined to make a clean sweep of the English power all over the country. During an encounter they gained the upper hand over detachment of sepoys and killed their commander. In 1773, after the defeat of Captain Edwards, they ended up merging with the Marathas stationed in Bihar, in their battle against the British.7 Bankimchandra made use of a similar mobilization of monks as the plot of his novel, Anandamath. Inventor of the doctrine of swaraj (self-rule), Sri Aurobindo dovetailed therein the politico-economic notion of mukti (liberation) along with the psychological and ritual dimension of moksha (deliverance): in this formula, he equated the substance of liberation (from colonial yoke) with that of spiritual deliverance. Having coexisted in Sri Aurobindo’s consciousness as the ultimate objectives of his preoccupations and his occupations, these two objectives found in swaraj as much of an ethical as a spiritual pursuit.8 Vivekananda had taught Jatin Mukherjee9 that the whole of mankind—for its spiritual salvation—was in need of a free India. Moving a step forward, he prepared the ground for nationalist aspirations. Concerned about this spiritual objective, one of the young associates once enquired of Jatin Mukherjee whether the service to the Motherland was really compatible with the ‘true’ quest. The answer of Jatin seems to have been immediate: ‘If it were not so, I myself, would not be involved in this venture!’

* Probably inspired by the example of the monk Upadhyaya Brahmabandhava (1861-1907) and in conformity with Sri Aurobindo’s expectation, J.N. Banerji—one of his first revolutionary followers—exercised an immense influence under the identity of Niralamba Swami. In the same way, recognized

Introduction

9

by Sri Aurobindo as his faithful friend and assistant, Jatin Mukherjee had known not only the political intentions of Swami Vivekananda, but he had received spiritual initiation from the Vedantist Bholananda Giri, who was very close to the vision of Dayananda and approved the idea of an armed revolution. In his synthesis of the reports on revolutionary organizations, J.E. Armstrong, Director of Information, regretted the fragility of character of some great nationalist leaders and observed: ‘It is well known that the very dangerous revolutionary Jatindra Mukherjee … not only owed his pre-eminence thanks to his qualities as leader but, largely, to his reputation to be a Brahmachari, having no other idea than the revolutionary cause.’10 Incarcerated in January 1910 Jatin was exposed for several days to a massive dose of physical and mental torture, about which we shall speak later on. He had received from the Police Commissioner a congenial proposal: ‘A beautiful life . . . with dream creatures . . . and streaming champagne. . . .’ Transformed into a statue of steel, with glaring eyes, Jatin had lifted his handcuffed fists before thumping on the table that separated him from his cheeky interlocutor, ordering: ‘Shut up!’ Locked up in cells on different floors of the Royd Street police station in Calcutta, his associates had heard the cracking of the piece of furniture with their leader’s roaring voice. Present among them, Suresh Majumdar alias Paran (accused No.33 in the Howrah Gang Case), was to describe the thrill of this scene and to evoke it in great detail thanks to later interviews with officers who had happened to be present there. Prudence prompted the Commissioner to behave himself before such a magnetic personality.11 This anecdote confirms the judgement of Gilbert Murray about ‘those who detain power’: they must pay a lot of attention to the way they treat a man who has no attraction either for sensual pleasure, or riches, or for any comfort or praise or promotion, but who swears to act according to his conviction of something that is simply right. He is too dangerous an enemy, because his body offers little influence on his soul.12 By dint of practising this attitude of renunciation, numerous

10

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

followers of Sri Aurobindo and Jatin Mukherjee, in course of time, were to become either monks (notably in the orders of Shri Ramakrishna or Bholananda Giri) or, while leading a family life and even, on the political field after India’s Independence, enjoying mandates as ministers, were to stick to the precepts of the brahmachari to the last.

* Tilak was among the earliest to have sensed the necessity of acts of violence in order to rouse popular awareness and to warn the government that the hour for settling accounts was approaching. His oral and written instructions had started evoking constantly a moral justification and found in Sri Aurobindo a resonance which was adequate for the cult of the new India: the true ethical clear sight knew how to reinvent conduct to follow, in tune with the dharma of the epoch. Since his Baroda years, Sri Aurobindo had already been in contact with one Thakur-Sahib of the royal family of Udaipur, who was up in organizing a vast clandestine movement against colonial regime. Together, Tilak and Sri Aurobindo conceived the successive steps of their extremist programme: swadeshi or boycott of British goods; search for arms and munitions; targeting enemies of the nationalist interest; forging unity between Hindus and Muslims against the colonial power. On 22 June 1897, while celebrating the diamond jubilee of Her Majesty Victoria, the three Chapekar brothers (Damodar, Balkrishna, and Vasudeo) and their accomplice Mahadev Vinayak Ranade murdered Walter Charles Rand and Lieutenant Ayerst, officers who, by their zeal to detect cases of plague, had exposed men and women of the region of Bombay to public humiliation, by the way of indecent assault. It was the first political murder committed in the name of privacy and independence. These were the first four martyrs for Freedom. In 1898, the first Maratha high school was founded at the holy city of Benares, as well as the Kalidasa magazine with seditious ideas, shortly

Introduction

11

before Tilak’s visit there in 1900: it was the springboard to win over simultaneously north India and Bengal. In his Notes on Benares as a Centre of Revolutionary Activities, Denham commented: ‘. . . the Poona party which had been so closely connected with the murders in 1897, hoped that, in Benares, they would find a congenial spot where they could live in safety and at the same time make some show of activity.’13 In 1893, on his way to the USA, in Japan Vivekananda met a Japanese thinker named Okakura, who had appeared to be interested in the project of a pan-Asiatic unity. John Carson Nixon, ICS, in his Report notes the first structuring of a secret society in 1900, in Calcutta, around Okakura. Two years later the Anushilan was registered with the barrister Pramatha Mitra as president, Sri Aurobindo and Chittaranjan Das vicepresidents, Suren Tagore treasurer; among others present were Sarala Ghoshal, Sashibhushan Ray Chaudhuri, Jatin Mukherjee and Bhavabhushan Mitra. Paying homage to the memory of Vivekananda, they invited Sister Nivedita to the first committee: having donated an important collection of works favourable to the promotion of Extremism, however, she moved away from it in order to pursue the educational scheme which Vivekananda had entrusted to her. This was the starting point of the Anushilan party, whose main objective seems to have been merely ‘to murder the civil servants and the Government’s supporters’. According to Bhavabhushan, Jatin Mukherjee maintained constant contact with Nivedita and Sarala Ghoshal. Since 1900, these activities seem to have spread over several districts of Bengal, observed Nixon, ‘and to have flourished particularly at Kushtia, where Jatindra Nath Mukherjee was the leader’. 14

* In his report entitled The Growth of Revolutionary Movement in Bengal (1905-1911), F.C. Daly, in-charge of the Secret Service and the Special Office, assisted by Denham, noted the violent political agitation—overt and practically

12

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

without any restriction—that shook Bengal from July 1905 and the British decision to divide the country. He accused the Amritabazar Patrika of Calcutta, the English language daily with a patriotic slant, of having fomented in the last decade a shrewd hostility and to have advanced a systematic opposition to the government’s policy. For the first time a doctrine of reprisals was professed, inciting children of the Motherland to frown as soon as the Europeans would be seen frowning and to return them tit for tat. This same Report indicated that the Patrika published in its issue of 17 July 1905 a letter signed ‘G’, that advised for the first time the boycott of products made in England; the source of these ideas was ascribed to Sri Aurobindo or his brother Barin Ghose. This new policy was immediately and widely adopted on 7 August, during a rally in Calcutta. Holding Sri Aurobindo more explicitly responsible for the doctrine of ‘India, a Nation’, F.C. Daly evoked the religious taint in the contribution of this prophet of nationalism and wrote that he (Sri Aurobindo) was sufficiently farseeing to grasp that the only hope of succeeding lay in the dissemination of a discontent in India and gathering the people of all provinces in a unique feeling of hostility towards the foreign rulers. He also had the sagacity to see that the surest and the safest ground to proceed on would be religion, and it was he, we believe, who first conceived, the idea of training missionaries to be sent forth in Sanyaasi garb to all the ends of India to preach the new religion, which was the worship of the Motherland. He cleverly interpreted the Bhagavad Gita to fall in with his doctrine, and developed the minds of his young followers with the idea that any action is justifiable, if its object be the attainment of some benefit to humanity, and death is of no more consequence to a man than changing a suit of clothes; and that every man has within him the power of a god. By meditation and self-abnegation he likes to develop it.15

Then, in 1902, it was a celebration of Sivaji in Calcutta. Surendra Nath Banerjee qualified it to be a symbol of unity between the different peoples of India: was this festival going

Introduction

13

to inspire the Indians to get rid of the foreign yoke and to establish a Hindu kingdom? It was going to be immensely popular by 1906. In 1903, through his emissary J.N. Banerji, Aurobindo met some future extremist leaders, especially Jatindra Nath Mukherjee, who was to become his righthand man and had been organizing, in the region of Nadia, centres apparently dedicated to physical education, with an introduction to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita and some discussions on the history of great revolutions in the world.

* Approached by nationalist leaders, the scholars of Nadia (the traditional seat as it was of Brahmanic learning) condemned the English method of manufacturing and refining sugar and salt with bones and blood of pigs and cows, and forbade the use of these commodities by Hindus as well as Muslims. The Bengali magazine Bangabasi in its issue of 2 September 1905 urged the erudite and religious to join the boycott: their counterparts from all over India joined them, mainly thanks to the initiative of Shri Ramakrishna Mission and of the Order of Swami Dayanand in the north; constantly these religious leaders recalled the 1857 revolt of the sepoys. On 28 September the auspicious night of the new moon (Mahalaya) which announced, on the ritual almanach, the decisive battle of the Goddess Mother against the powers of darkness, before an image of Kali the Terrible, fifty thousand men and women took the oath against purchasing any English merchandise in future. Accompanied by the Vedic scholar Mokshada Samadhyayi, Kartik Datta of Nadia incited Naren Bhattacharya (the future associate of Jatin Mukherjee) to raise, devise and direct the violent indignation of the religious leaders of Bhatpara16 against the colonial regime. In May 1908 commandos provided with handmade coconut-shell grenades committed seven aggressions. Denham in his note mentioned the presence in Nadia, Calcutta and Birbhum, of the roaming monk Tara Khepa alias Tarapada Banerji, disciple of the

14

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

great esoteric master Bama Khepa given to ‘abject manners’, in the eyes of the English. The adherents of the Youngmen’s Association (Yuvak Samiti) that the monk had created—recognized to be as efficient as the Anushilan—held him in high esteem. One of his adepts, Nanigopal Sengupta, in-charge of the important Shibpur unit belonged, like Jatin Mukherjee, to Sri Aurobindo’s immediate circle. In an anonymous letter quoted by Denham, it is learnt that Somnath Bhaduri, a rich resident of Benares, had published in 1902 the compilation Gangajal (Water of Ganges) containing highly seditious allegorical poems and, in Calcutta, had made the acquaintance of revolutionaries like Sri Aurobindo, J.N. Banerji, Mokshada. He had also undertaken a pilgrimage in Puri, in the company of another rich person, Preo Nath Karar of Serampore. The correspondent claimed to have convinced the chief of the great federation of the religious confraternities of India (Bharat Dharma Mahamandali) about working for a revolution. Some days before the publication of the Jugantar (a Bengali journal to disseminate Sri Aurobindo’s revolutionary thoughts) in Calcutta, in March 1906, Suranath, son of Somanath organized a gigantic gathering in Benares with scholars and Hindu sants, all specialists of astronomy and astrology. Addressing the public, they proclaimed firmly that the Age of Iron and sins had just ended and the New Age was going to come. After that, Hrishikesh undertook a tour of the holy places to incite different groups of sannyasis (monks) to join a rebellion and drive the English away.17

II François Bourricaud has raised the fundamental question, ‘What perception did the first nationalists have of the stranger, of the barbarian?’ The civil servants of the English Company had been warned by the previous passage of Portuguese conquerors in India: by their cruelty perpetrated in the name of their Faith, they had generously sown in their wake the first germs of xenophobia among the natives who had been, up

Introduction

15

to then, well-known for their hospitality. Cautious to avoid any atrocity, at the moment when the English adventurers set to capture political power in the subcontinent, the English Christian missionaries had acquired the right to practise their profession, hitherto solely in the pockets occupied by the Danes, the Portuguese or the French in India. There arrived other fortune-hunters after Warren Hastings in the mideighteenth century who took indigenous partners, embraced the style of life and clothing of the affluent Indians. They were mainly employed in the army, the police, merchant offices, or in the administration, they came from mediocre social levels, hardly educated, little curious to understand and completely incapable of appreciating the traditional culture of the local people. Wherever they went, they acquired the right to ‘restore order’ in a clumsy way; suffering from the weather, far from leading a regular emotional life, addicted to excessive eating and drinking to the point of disrupting their physical and mental balance, these batches of ‘messengers’ from Her Majesty had an attitude considerably far from the sensitivity and the depth of men like William Jones.18 Many among them found their solace in eccentricities or cultural vandalism, leaving the population at their mercy. The waves of English education introduced during the first half of the nineteenth century encouraged the ‘enlightened’ students of Calcutta to imitate temporarily these delinquents as models of the Queen’s race, before learning to distinguish between the little Englishmen from the truly great Englishmen. Rajnarain, belonging to the first generation of these students, remained nostalgic of the instruction received in the old-style schools where there was a transmission of traditional values, through an emotional relationship between pupils and teachers. The contact of Western theoretical liberalism taught university graduates to feel attached to the modern ‘meritocratic’ values as embodied by the British institutions; they estimated and proclaimed the positive contributions of the English presence in India. Sooner or later, however, the narrowness and the pragmatism of the discriminatory colonial

16

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

politics made them discover the falsehood not only intended to pacify the subjects’ minds but, to astound the galaxy of nations with the idyllic image of a harmony that prevailed apparently in these English colonies. A great exception in the midst of such a corrupt system was probably the English consciousness in its almost rigorous application of justice. This discovery of the leaders’ feet of clay was necessary and sufficient for thinking about the future of the Indian people, about an efficient means to put an end to the state of the things. Such was the genesis of patriotism in India. In the chapter dedicated to Bankim, we shall find some concrete elements of this disappointment. In the same way, Sri Aurobindo’s father, the surgeon Krishnadhan Ghose had been so persuaded that India’s salvation would come from London, that he had imposed the practice of English on his household, and had left his three young sons at the home of a Latinist in Manchester to provide them with the best and most authentic of English education, with a view to serve the country better. His immense popularity simultaneously in the circles of Indians and Europeans had won him the nickname of ‘Suez Canal’. Dr Ghose’s disenchantment was to help his son, Aurobindo, to structure his activist life. Swimming upstream to the sources of India’s traditional values, Aurobindo embraced Mother India in a complete and sincere admiration, before undertaking a path she judged useful for the people as well as for humanity.

* Accepting as a starting point the principle of reconstituting some major ideas that preyed on people’s minds through the writings and speeches of patriotic thinkers, considering how insufficient the media of the time was, I had chosen to concentrate more on whatever was transmitted orally, whatever had been perceived by men on the spot, putting aside the temptation of exposing in their nuances all these great, rich and constructive currents. It is my opinion that India, at the

Introduction

17

very heart of British imperialism, constituted an emblem of challenge to the system of the Commonwealth. The British government of India had decided never to meddle in the religious affairs of the people, nor to impose on the people any slight faith imported from the banks of the Thames. Yet we cannot underestimate the extent to which the missionaries with their sympathy for sharing power between the English and the Indians could play also a positive role. The major problematic of my work revolves around the problem: how to convince people abroad that British rule in India was not a model of sweetness and happy household? Brooke Adams, the American historian, noted that hardly about ten years after the Battle of Plassey in 1757, ‘the loot of Bengal started arriving in London, whose effect seems to have been instantaneous, because all authorities are unanimous that the Industrial Revolution got its impetus in 1770’. Drawing the attention on its nature of depredation, Sisirkumar Mitra quotes the English historians Edward Thompson and G.T. Garrett: ‘A gold-lust unequalled since the hysteria that took hold of the Spaniards of Cortes’ and Pizarros’ age filled the English mind. Bengal in particular was not to know peace until she had been bled white.’19 Personally involved in the share of profits that reached the amount of three billions of rupees, the orator and politician Edmund Burke (1729-97), sworn enemy of the English colonial policy conducted his famous Impeachment of Warren Hastings, who had become Governor-General of India in 1774. It was ‘one of the most corrupt and obstructive tyrannies that probably ever existed in the world’.20 Retrospectively, Karl Marx was to accuse the English Company of India of creating a famine that carried away a third of the population of Bengal and Bihar.

* Le Roy Ladurie observed, in relation to my thesis, ‘It seems that we have to deal with such a kind of personality (Rammohun) that will become widespread enough, that tends

18

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

to merge national tradition with contributions from the West’. Concerning Rajnarain, LRL took note of the distinction that he made between the evil deeds of the ‘little Englishmen’ and the benefits introduced by the ‘great Englishmen’, with the commentary: ‘There is in him an interest in his own Indian culture, in Islam and in Western culture’. He praised Bankim for the fact that—bred with English education—he knew the Utopian socialists, Louis Blanc, St. Simon, Cabet, having been champion of a sort of world religion. In the same way, he singled out Vivekananda as ‘In a word, a complete character. . . . He sides with the mass and is hostile to the humiliations of the untouchables (. . .) Maybe a sort of democrat (. . .) In this context I think about his ideal to unify religion (. . .)’ Stopping at the chapter on Sri Aurobindo, ‘the astonishing personality that we and I myself know better’, LRL held: ‘He is interested in the proletariat, therefore (. . .) judging from his vocabulary it seems he underwent a socialist influence. . . . Before mentioning the ‘beautiful comparison made by an Englishman, in 1907: Aurobindo is like Joan of Arc listening to celestial voices (. . .)’, LRL added: ‘Maybe, henceforth we better understand Joan of Arc! ‘ LRL recalled that the famous speech of Garibaldi quoted by Jatin Mukherjee—‘I offer you hunger, thirst, war, death’— was going to be somewhat Churchill’s words, too, in 1940. As for the organizations founded by Jatin, LRL wondered whether it was not anachronism to designate them as cells (word issued by the Communists, later); nevertheless they gave him an ‘impression sometimes of a kind of Bolshevik organisation (…)’, occurring altogether of ‘a pure functional coincidence’. This reminded me of M.N. Roy’s relief— during his first interview with Lenin—at discovering an analogy between the conceptions of Plekhanov with those he had known under the leadership of Jatin Mukherjee. Greeting the originality of these measures, LRL recognized: ‘We step inside the concrete, here! with this character (Jatin). . . . This is the first chapter where there is a great impression of modernity, it

Introduction

19

is not only due to your talent; the things changed, too, toward 1900.’ On the menu of novelties—having skipped some details such as the use of automobile taxicabs before the First War (at the time when in France flourished the mysterious Bonnot Gang), our observer recovered ‘these physical exploits against the English, a kind of the superman side of Jatin (…). He authorised holdups, as did Stalin too, at the same time (…). A whole wave of terrorism unfurled (...)’. Sceptic, however, in spite of ample testimonies to support it, he questioned: ‘You speak of torture, quite contrary to the English habits, against persons arrested (…).’ LRL’s exasperation turned almost into sarcasm: ‘The stream of spirituality of which you speak in the same paragraph has evidently to be accepted in a very rich context (!)’ Because he seemed to have lost sight of this context: in the name of true spirituality, Vivekananda had wanted as much as Sri Aurobindo, to shake off passivity and inertia so characteristic of a pseudo spirituality that overwhelmed India, they had tried so to wake the people’s awareness in order to let it protest against the tyranny that the antidote introduced by Jatin became urgent. One of the first tributes of LRL concerning this hero was: ‘An expert in self-defence, quite a remarkable and champion horseman. Around this gentleman, there is something like an odour of (gun) powder’, remembering perhaps Vivekananda’s saying that he had wanted to ‘transform the country into a depot of gun-powder, that was somewhat the age of the anarchists, in Europe too’. Admiring Jatin’s intuition concerning the utility of a possible war in Europe, LRL felt it hard to believe, however, that the Leader’s pacifying instructions—in a strategy of putting off the evil day—could appease the revolutionary situation; he asked: ‘Do you believe that this leader had so great an influence?’ Without looking for any other answer, I had just to turn to Reports written by Nixon and by Justice Rowlatt that confirmed this suspension of anti-repressive manifestations, and proved that, for once, the violence they practised was not blind, nor mechanical. It was controllable and

20

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

controlled.21 ‘An astonishing character, Mr Jatin,’ pursued LRL: ‘Dismissed by the bureaucracy, founding a contractorship of roads and railways, pedalling on his bicycle22 and pursuing his underground revolutionary organization.’ In 1927, twelve years after the time when Jatin had settled his enterprise in Jhenaidah, Saibal Kumar Gupta of the Indian Civil Service was posted there as SDO. Gupta notes in his autobiography some vignettes of his time there. The shed that served Jatin as headquarters was still intact. The municipal library had carefully preserved Jatin’s personal collection of Complete Works of Shakespeare which had been given as a gift.23 Requested by Mr Cassels, the English Commissioner of the time, Jatin had accepted to undertake the construction of the bridge on the river Nabaganga that was going to connect Jhenaidah with the eastern bank, and he had executed it punctually, while no other contractor could assure that construction on time for the Governor’s visit to inaugurate it. While passing below or crossing this bridge, countrymen remembered with nostalgia and pride this builder of national identity.24 At the SDO’s office at Jhenaidah, there existed a confidential register with instructions for future occupants of this post: several consecutive Commissioners had left therein respectful notes of service on Jatin’s whereabouts, evidently without approving them. The last word, according to Gupta, was signed by one Wilkinson: Jatin Mukherjee died fighting at Balasore: He need not worry us anymore.25

* After having skimmed the amalgam between the legendary sweetness of the Englishmen and the cruelty of their colonial rule, LRL put full focus on my second problematic—that of presenting Jatin Mukherjee—in his conclusion: ‘We have the impression (…) of a charismatic personality indeed.’ Without the need for inventing the least incident, without moving away from the faithful testimonies of his contemporaries and

Introduction

21

the archival documents, no effort has been spared in reconstituting Jatin’s portrait and in establishing a realistic balance of his contributions while taking them out of the gangue of the myths, I seemed to attract some distrust, which led me to wonder: how to convince the readers—accustomed to characters of a normal calibre—that in addition to his innate qualities, Jatin, by a will of steel and by following rigorous disciplines aiming at an auto perfection (anushilan), had learnt how to train, as much his physical as his psychic faculties? In order to avoid the natural tendency to rush and sanctify historic personalities, I claim that everything that I have collected on the person of Jatin Mukherjee is based on records supplied by his close relatives and reliable and honest associates, as they saw him and as they lived in his presence, most of them belonging to the intelligentsia: they were scientists like Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray, Nilratan Dhar, and Meghnad Saha; medical students like Jadu Gopal and Kumar Nath Bagchi; M.N. Roy (the future associate of Lenin and Stalin), without forgetting less famous witnesses, or the reports of the English Police commissioners and inspectors. The great master Vivekananda had taught Jatin Mukherjee to sublimate the libido with energy and inculcate courage obtained through a stern asceticism. Jatin had experimented with a series of physical and moral disciplines to test the malleability of human nature: it resulted in the making of his inner assets a source of strength.26 According to some observers, Jatin knew how to concentrate all his physical and psychic strength—in case of necessity—to a single part of his body, endowing it with an incredible strike-force. As a man prove to keeping secrets he had carried through his secret project even unsuspected by those who surrounded him. Several men admired the spiritual depth of the few available letters of Jatin Mukherjee. Although inspired and influenced by lives and work of brilliant thinkers, writers, speakers and leaders of men, this epoch seems to have found a symbol of the most intimate of its aspirations in the personality of Jatin Mukherjee. Hardly three

22

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

weeks after Independence on 9 September 1947, a report in the Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika27 quoted the dean of the surviving revolutionaries, Jadu Gopal—who inaugurated a week-long public celebration in homage to Jatin: Great minds are born in a country at one crucial moment of history, in answer to its people’s expectations. Like Chaitanya in Bengal and Sivaji in Maharashtra, Jatindranath Mukherjee had chosen to be born in Bengal in the process of particular historic conjunctures, on the background of a national calamity (artistic, commercial, educational and cultural). Aggravated by a multiple tyranny, the only thing the people tried was to get rid of it. It is this popular will that found its personification in Jatindranath. Much more than a personality, Jatindranath was the very embodiment of this movement.

The Marxist leader Hari Kumar Chakravarti (Member of the Legislative Council of West Bengal) said ‘Jatindranath . . . was the very symbol of the ideology that uplifted the entire life of Bengal since the time of Rammohun upto Vivekananda.’ About the revolutionaries of the twentieth century M.N. Roy wrote that they were great men whereas Jatin-Da was just a good man: ‘I have still to find a better’. ‘Jatin-Da was a humanist—perhaps the first in modern India.’28 Arun Chandra Guha, another disciple of Jatin and a minister in independent India, would write in his history of the liberation movement: ‘The spirit that guided the project in its totality— Jatin Mukherjee—was someone far more than an individual, really speaking far more than an important leader. . . . All revolutionaries considered him the very symbol of their hopes and their objectives.’29

* LRL was impressed by the chapter on the Indian revolutionaries active abroad. He underlined the role of Shyamaji in London: founding the magazine The Indian Sociologist, ‘close to the English socialists’, he wondered: ‘Had sociology already turned left?’ Characterizing Savarkar’s enterprise to translate Mazzini into Marathi as ‘extraordinary’, LRL found

Introduction

23

‘the term very modern’ when he learned that Savarkar held the revolt of 1857 (of the Sepoys) to be a War of Independence. In the same way he did not conceal his admiration for Madame Cama, simultaneously attached to her revolutionary compatriots, and to the Western revolutionaries such as Rosa Luxembourg, Jean Longuet and even Lenin and the Socialists’ Congresss.’ LRL was equally eloquent about Chatto: You note the contacts with the Turkish, the Egyptian, the Irish, the Polish revolutionaries, established by Chatto with links in Paris, in Holland. Also interesting were the ties between these expeditions of arms and then Jean Longuet, the lawyer, a member of Marx’s family (…). In 1914, Chatto creates a revolutionary group in Germany, with the support of the Germans (…). Since 1911, Ballin, the famous German industrialist, helps some Indians. Fascinating: these Indians go from the university of Iowa-City in the USA, to Berlin (…), to Leipzig, to Cologne etc. For the first time, the term Socialist Republic appears for India, in the agreements between Germany and India. All this, with going to and coming from San Francisco (…). It is the Zimmerman Plan of revolution in India. And we come across the German embassy in the USA with Von Papen, a name which was evidently to persist; everything passing by Batavia! It is very global, all of it.

LRL did not fail to admire the Indian revolutionaries active in the USA under the initiative of Taraknath Das, ‘one of your heroes, certainly someone cultivated who is inspired by the German Revolution of 1849, and by the Russian methods.…’ Then commented, after having enumerated the presence and the busy schedule of men like V.V.S Aiyar, Har Dayal, Maulana Barakatullah, among so many others: ‘One perceives that you have (…) a good knowledge of the American and other archives (…). There is there a whole swarming of individuals that contributes, I believe, to the quality of your work.’ Further, LRL recognized: ‘I also tried to imagine the life of these revolutionaries, it is not yet the age of airplanes (…); it had to be for months at a stretch of hard trips on steamers, it is something that one does not realise in the book. . . . One can well conceive how this revolutionary life

24

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

is facilitated today by the Jets, by the powerful equipment in armaments (...).’ Taking note of a ‘genuine “Berlin committee” (of Indians) (…) subsidized by the emperor of Germany,’ LRL was astonished to see how ‘Czech nationalists foiled the Indian plans, out of friendship for the English, those future liberators of Czechoslovakia’. Eager to dovetail the objectives of pan-Islamism and those of the Indian revolutionaries, the expedition organized by the Germans had held LRL’s attention: You (...) evoke the character of Pramatha [Datta], a revolutionary of Bengal [who had] left for the USA, [become] member of the Foreign Legion [Regiment] in France in 1909, come back to Paris, then to the USA, then to Constantinople. There is a whole pro-Islamic side here, true or stimulated, that joins the Turkish manifesto of the beginnings of the Turks’ joining the War (…). Another [revolutionary] (…), was leaving Paris via Dakar for Brazil, in September 1914 and ended up in Iran. Committed suicide. The unfortunate Kaiser Wilhelm (…) greeted the revolutionaries personally. In 1915, Turkey encouraged the formation of an Indian revolutionary government; all this is very kaleidoscopic, very impressionistic; but, at the bottom, do not a good deal of analogous things meet at present in the Arabian, Palestinian and other nationalistic movements, taking advantage of the very open structures of the West, to establish their networks?

And he stopped before ‘this leader’s personality about whom you have already spoken, Jatin, [who] appears in broad daylight. With his terrorist revolutionary audacity, and also his mysticism.’ Impressed by my faithful reconstitution based on various reports of the English Police preserved in archives, LRL commented: You refer to the existence of a real camp of guerrilla warfare. At a certain moment, the attempt to arrest Jatin literally resembles a Western (…). It ends up with a battle of five revolutionaries surrounded by eighty policemen and officers during seventy-five minutes. And the long account of Jatin’s death, it is stirring. Deep down, we are dependent on what happened thereafter; the battle Jatin and the others fought appears to us to possess a decisive, real

Introduction

25

legitimacy since India was to have had a destiny henceforth, independent India was its prize.

On reading a few of Jatin’s letters, LRL remarked: ‘(…) They are so few, finally very religious, more religious than one would have thought after your presentation which has evidently a modernist brushwork of revolutionary, ideological history.’ At the defence of the dissertation I could not expose all the aspects of the complex personality named Jatin Mukherjee. For example, the rigorous discipline that he imposed on himself with a lucid serenity brought in his behaviour such a spontaneous good-heartedness—great and contagious— that in his presence there reigned always a happy optimism. Dr Jadu Gopal was to write on his leader: His entire life was a personification of the teachings of the Gita: happiness or misfortune, life or death, victory or defeat, praise or reproach mattered little for him. (…) When Jatindranath spoke, the listeners felt an electric current sweep down their body and their mind, flooding them with an extraordinary strength. In his presence, the notion of impossibility vanished.30

Elsewhere, this same witness confirmed: Jatindranath belonged to a different category of men. An indomitable courage was the very stuff of his character and his projects. . . . These were projects of a superhuman being. . . . He soared very high, beyond the reach of us, the mortal folk. He seemed to light the flame of his heart in a lofty sphere, before stepping down in our midst.31

* Then, full of admiration for M.N. Roy, ‘the extraordinary character’, LRL opened my chapter on ‘The consequences’. The main organizer of my oral examination for thesis after the accidental death of Raymond Aron, Professor Annie Kriegel reminded us the reason for her presence in the jury. Effectively, during several interviews, she had given

26

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

me the impression that India’s freedom movement could be the subject of a comparative study as a case or a variety of the general freedom movement from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries. Familiar with the opinion of the Marxist Stalinists against the ‘romantic revolutionary’ M.N. Roy—who plays, understandably—an important role in my narration, Mrs Kriegel seemed to be convinced that ‘Lenin never accepted him to be an orthodox Bolshevik.’ Owing to the fact that such a remark invalidated my own conclusion on an important flowering of Jatin Mukherjee’s teachings, it required on my part a deeper investigation. Shortly after Roy’s arrival in Moscow, early in 1920, Roy was presented to Lenin. One hour before his first interview, Lenin had sent him an autographed copy of his Theses on the National and Colonial Question, with a comment: ‘Comrade Roy, for criticism and suggestion’. Roy was then hardly thirty years old, but appeared much younger. At the time of this meeting, congratulating his guest on his highly interesting experience in revolutionary strategy in Mexico’, and on the reports that he had received from Borodine concerning him, Lenin told him with a mock disappointment: ‘You are so young! I expected a sage from the Orient with gray beard.’ Having learned that Roy had not had the requisite time to acquaint himself with the text, Lenin reassured him that they were to meet again to speak about it.32 Lenin was to present the above text at the imminent 2nd International Congress scheduled for July 1920. During several sessions of work, he exposed to Roy his idea that imperialism compelled colonized countries to feudal social conditions, which gradually retards the development of capitalism and holds in leash the ambitions of indigenous bourgeoisie. In his eyes, historically, the movement of national liberation was to assume the significance of a democratic bourgeois revolution: according to his dialectics, it had to be the unavoidable phase before the colonized countries could attain the status of a proletarian revolution. The Communists’ role was to help colonized countries controlled by nationalist bourgeoisie, while

Introduction

27

accepting them to be ‘objectively revolutionary strength’. Roy knew that—from economic and cultural points of view— bourgeoisie in India was hardly distinct from feudal order: owing to this fact, a nationalist movement could not but be reactionary in the sense where the expected triumph was not going to be necessarily a democratic bourgeois revolution. Discovering that Lenin considered Gandhi, the new leader of men in view on the Indian horizon, to be an objectively revolutionary, he revealed the reactionary side of Gandhi— culturally and socially—hidden behind his politically revolutionary appearance. Basing on Plekhanov’s judgement on Populist and Social Revolution in Russia, Roy confessed to have found an analogy with the extremist nationalism in India: resort to terrorism, if need be; dismiss capitalism as a Western vice (swadeshi); urge the militants to go to work in the rural areas; an exaggerated esteem for the specific genius of their race.33 Conscious of his personal lack of information concerning this domain, and out of respect for Plekhanov, the master in theorizing commissioned Roy to write an alternative thesis on national and colonial questions, as a supplement to his own text.34 Once the writing was over, Lenin read it with great pleasure and brought some modifications here and there. Then, in due time, before the concerned Commission, he declared that having had long discussions with ‘Comrade Roy’, he began to question the validity of his own thesis. In conformity with his decision, both the texts should be examined together like ‘the greatest possible approximation to an approach to the problem, theoretically blameless and valid on factual plan’.35 This prompted E.H. Carr to note: ‘Roy’s thesis attracted as much support as that of Lenin’s.’36 J. Degras went as far as specifying that Lenin’s theses were adopted with three abstentions (Serrati, Pestana and Graziadei), while those of Roy’s were adopted unanimously.37 Keeping in view the nature and the objective of the Revolution in India, Roy dreamed of writing a first review of the history of India with a Marxist interpretation, putting

28

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

forward the structure of national economy and some reports on classes in contemporary India. Lenin preferred it to be more elaborated, in a book form. Thus appeared India in Transition, first in Russian translation from Moscow, then the original in English from Berlin (proscribed, at once, in India), and a German edition (more than one hundred thousand copies sold before the end of the year), followed by several editions in different languages. Pirate editions in English served as catechism in revolutionary and Marxist political thoughts to the future leaders in India.38 During five years of purge that followed Lenin’s death (1924-9), the Soviet authorities displayed for Roy a particular attitude, counting him ‘among the young militants of Stalin’. Lenin had asked Roy to keep Stalin personally abreast of his ideas on the colonized countries; hence, since his return from a mission in Central Asia, in summer 1921, Roy—in the company of Borodine—had paid his first visit to the Man of the Civil War, who was still suffering from the after-effects of nine months passed in Tsaritsyne, and was going to undergo, on the following day, an important surgical operation. Perfectly informed about Lenin’s friendly esteem for Roy, Stalin had greeted him with a smile: ‘Thus, you detect no revolutionary significance behind pan-Islamism!’ Till then only Lenin had knowledge of Roy’s conviction on this subject. It was for Roy the beginning of a stimulating collaboration with Stalin, who invited him to occupy quickly some posts with various responsibilities, and promoted him as a full-fledged member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. It was for him an opportunity to work with Russian and foreign leaders of all origins. We have seen a photo with Roy at the time of the 3rd World Congress of the Comintern in 1922: he is surrounded by Tan Malaka, Ho Chi-Minh, Eizo Kondos, Sen Katayamas, Manabus and some close colleagues. Although by temperament and affinity he was more intimate with Trotsky, he remained convinced that only Stalin’s project would be able to strengthen the basis of Revolution as dreamed by Lenin. He regretted the

Introduction

29

rough internecine wars that pushed the latter progressively towards a cruel dictatorship. These wars did not spare Roy in his choice of action, either: having shouted high and strong in favour of Trotsky, many turned towards the former Bolshevik barons such as Zinoviev, Boukharine, Radek. Ample data on the multiple difficulties that Roy had to face in China can be consulted in the faithfully worded, M.N. Roy’s Mission to China, by Robert S. North and Xenia Eudin. The country was shaken by a revolution jointly under the National Party, the Kuo Min Tang, and the Communists. This alliance appeared to be anti-imperialist, anti-feudal, nationalist democratic, looking for the active support of capitalists, the small bourgeoisie, the peasants and the workers. A putup job by Tchang Kai-Shek in March 1926 had succeeded in sowing confusion: how far could the Communists help them? Roy’s answer had been formal: In order to be victorious, the Chinese revolution had to stick to its agrarian choice, or else it was to sink. At this stage, in November 1926, elected at the Presidium of the Comintern and as a member of the Chinese Commission, he left for China at the head of a delegation to organize a line of action there.39 North and Eudin reproduce a cutting from a Kuomintang paper announcing that in spite of rain, alerted by Roy’s objective, an assembly of one hundred thousand citizens—peasants, tradesmen, students and workers—joined the mammoth meeting and welcomed him; in his honour, the government offered a banquet, before he left for Hankow, in the company of Tan P’ing-Shan, the minister of agriculture.40 Having been preceded by his friend Borodine who not only represented officially the Communist International but, also, who managed the purse and acted against Roy’s project in favour of an agrarian revolution which Stalin himself guaranteed. Ridiculed step after step, aggrieved, Roy intimated Stalin; the detractor received from Moscow a telegram of confirmation in favour of the agrarian action. Borodine’s daring reply was: ‘Orders received. We will execute them as soon as we shall be able to do it.’ In July 1927, he learned that Moscow had recalled all its

30

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

delegates to the headquarters. After a brief stay in Moscow, Roy left for Berlin to write for the Comintern his report of the Chinese experience. Simultaneously, he wrote his other work, Revolution and Counter-revolution in China; since 1929, the Russian edition of the first work started appearing in Moscow. Present in the 9th Plenum of the Comintern in February 1928, hoping to receive Stalin’s grace, Roy failed to obtain an audience. Lucid about the fate which awaited him, in a dark night, he crossed the Soviet border incognito.41

* At the end of his critical comments, LRL stated: ‘One has the impression of a fidgety “globalisation” between America, Asia, Europe; to what use did it come? Certainly it gave birth to something great. Perhaps, at times, you get ensnared in details. But your talent remains great.’ And he concluded: Even if you are critical enough with regard to Gandhi, you see his influence in the movements as undertaken by Martin Luther King, although away from the Marxism of Mao Tse Tung or Guevara. It is therefore Gandhi who constitutes the ‘terminus’ of your work, this work on the whole perfectly admirable, attractive, interesting, well informed.

The period between 1893 and 1918 contains as a turning point the genesis and development of a project which, indeed, Gandhi was to inherit. Endowed with some understanding of Indian genius as found in history, his initial project did not brandish non-violence as an absolute and pathological fetish. He was concerned with human beings, with a people in bondage for centuries and suffering from an unconscious repression of anger. A certain degree of violence—momentary and under control—had to be utilized as a driving force both for awakening and starting up, as well as for attaining a patriotic unity and action consolidating a nationalist structure. Violence was a condition of life, of movement, of progress. A violence in its role of moral purification and national

Introduction

31

catharsis. A violence of a spiritual order, that was an integral part of an activism emerging out of Rammohun Roy’s vision. A violence that could affirm itself in the same way as the future action of Gandhi: violence injected virility at decisive moments of blundering dejection in public life. A violence which Gandhi himself was to recognize as a conclusive utility and to reserve some of its basic principles before launching, in a tragically inopportune manner, his last movement of the masses in 1942, on a national scale, urging at last the English to Quit India! He was assisted by the pressure (apparently as much tragic as inopportune), that Subhas Chandra Bose exerted from Japan, with German collaboration. While inserting Gandhi’s positive contribution in a more and more intense revolutionary process, any effort to reconstitute and analyse this period (1893-1918) permits us also to determine some intrinsic traditional values of the Indian genius. I recognize a few starting points: among the most meaningful of them, let us remember the facts that mark 1893: (a) The young lawyer M.K. Gandhi’s departure for South Africa, in search for a decent career; (b) Swami Vivekananda, the rationalist monk, began his Western tour with the International Congress of Religions in Chicago, where his speeches on the activist spiritual message of India received a warm welcome; (c) Annie Besant (1847-1933), the Theosophist, reached India; (d) after fourteen years of study in England, Sri Aurobindo returned home with plans for committed extremist actions; (e) the first politico-religious demonstrations launched by Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920). This period ended with the rioting accumulation of other facts that, at first sight, appear to be less disparate in nature. They are more or less related to the Armistice, in November 1918: (a) The formation of an investigation commission presided over by the Justice Sydney Arthur Taylor Rowlatt to rule out definitely from Indian political life any new audacity to disobey British colonial authorities. To realize it—in

32

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

contempt of all war-time promise given to the people of India in return of their participation—the government maintained the Defence of India Act of 1915, the state of emergency proclaimed during the War, giving free rein to repressions (mainly life-long detention without trial) dispensed of all censorship and all institutional moderation. Too shabbily hidden, this treason emerged behind the ‘well-intentioned’ Montagu-Chelmsford Bill: its aim was to examine the utility of granting some executive responsibilities to ‘distinguished’ Indians so that one day, while forming an integral part of British Empire, India could enjoy her own institutions of self-government. Rabindranath Tagore approved this perspective. (b) The declaration of a general strike in the factories of Bombay was joined by 125,000 workers. (c) The acute indignation of politicized Indians was voiced by Gandhi who, shaken in his assumption of the benevolence of British rule, premeditated for the first time, a vast campaign of challenge. The major lines of development that followed this turning point were: 1893-1905: Sparse clandestine preparations by recruiting young patriotic minds who were growing progressively aware of the nature of injustice perpetrated by colonial domination, in order to give them an antidote, by way of advanced physical and moral training. In contemporary Indian history, they are known as Extremists for having preferred revolution to reforms. The manifesto conceived by their founder, Sri Aurobindo, proposed: r
B
TFDSFU
PSHBOJ[BUJPO
IBWJOH
GPS
JUT
HPBM
BO
PQFO
JO surrection against the British Empire in India; r

QVCMJD
QSPQBHBOEB
JO
GBWPVS
PG
OBUJPOBMJ[JOH
KVEJDJBM
and academic institutions; r
B
QPQVMBS
NPWFNFOU
DBSSJFE
PVU
CZ
passive resistance capable of intensifying up to a healthy degree of violence against all imperialist abuses.

Introduction

33

1905-1908: The government’s decision to mutilate Bengal for the benefit of a Muslim minority (a division helping to weaken all nascent patriotic efforts), created for the Extremists a dream opportunity in favour of a popular movement that was to storm the whole country. Sri Aurobindo’s incendiary articles in Bande Mataram roused debates in the British parliament. Endowed with too centralized a structure under the direction of Barindra Kumar Ghose (1880-1959), the very first revolutionary organization was soon blacklisted as a dangerous den of sedition. Agitations against the Partition of Bengal cemented not only a pan-Indian nationalist spirit, but also turned Bengal into a pioneer in improving the lifestyle in the rural areas through evening schools for adults, encouraging small industries, farming, social welfare, coming close to the ailments of the common folk with rudimentary homoeopathic and Ayurvedic treatment. From Madras to Punjab a wave of admiration surged up for the Extremist challenge, as kindled by Sri Aurobindo. Bipin Chandra Pal and Taraknath Das—welcomed by followers of Subrahmanya Bharati, V.V.S. Iyer, Tirumal Achari—travelled sowing the seeds of the Jugantar ideology down the south, whereas, greeted by Arya Samaj leaders, pioneers like J.N. Banerjee (Niralamba Swami) and Rash Behari Bose in the north inspired other militants and ceaseless globe trotters like Virendra Chattopadhyay and Lala Har Dayal. Therefore, often, while examining the situation in Bengal as symptoms, I have considered them as the epitome of a united India. Credit where credit is due— paradoxically with the notorious motivation of divide and rule—this unity of India seems to have reached a far more concrete and greater evidence under the British Raj than during any other epoch before or after. 1908-10: Revolutionaries arrested and maintained under

34

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

trial prisoners during the Alipore Case: most of them belonged to or were connected with the highly centralized organization around Barin Ghose; the most dangerous among them underwent deportation or capital punishment, while a series of new antiterrorist laws—such as the project of Morley-Minto law of 1909—were in force.42 Simultaneous emergence of a very powerful movement in depth organized progressively by Jatin Mukherjee in the form of a loose decentralized and secret confederation of extremist units scattered all over the country, with branches active in the north and the south: the Police noted with stupefaction the high degree of their efficiency and daring in planning and executing anti-repressive actions, at the very heart of Calcutta, the capital of British India. 1910-11: Before coming to Amales Tripathi’s revelation concerning the Howrah Case, we may examine the passage in The Extremist Challenge where, in fn. 153 of Chapter 6, Amales Tripathi observes that the forces unleashed by Sri Aurobindo were so strong that restraining the Government from merciless repression and the revolutionaries from violence went beyond control. Tripathi quotes two articles from Sri Aurobindo’s Bengali weekly Dharma, dated 4 Magha and 18 Magha 1316 Bengali year – February 1910 (both articles are absent from the authorized Bengali Writings in the 1972 edition of the Birth Centenary) to show Sri Aurobindo’s despair, probably one of the reasons for his leaving politics. Ignoring Jatin Mukherjee’s refusal to be classified as ‘terrorists’ (since they were but protesting as victims of a reign of terror), Tripathi continues: ‘Ruthless repression did not render the terrorists entirely “leaderless” as Minto thought. New leaders like Jatindranath Mukherjee and M.N. Roy tried to reorganize the ranks, the former with considerable success.…’ New waves of incarcerations and unfruitful cases, directly aiming at Jatin Mukherjee and

Introduction

35

his forty-five associates. This time, obviously leading to the release of the whole lot of these political prisoners. The newly appointed viceroy, Lord Hardinge, regretted it very much.43 1911-14: Having anticipated First World War in Europe,44 Jatin Mukherjee set out strengthening and remoulding the Extremist organization, henceforth known as the Jugantar Party.45 His emissaries, working since 1906 in Europe and the the United States, rapidly established close contact with different members of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s government. They succeeded in presenting before international public opinion the reasons and the grievances justifying India’s unconditional political liberation.46 1914-18: Since the declaration of the War, an IndoGerman pact—officially known as the the Zimmermann Plan—was concluded in view of a loan of arms, ammunition and currency to promote in India a massive uprising: Von Papen, the military attaché of the German embassy at Washington, purchased and despatched weapons from the Pacific coast of the United States. Thousands of nationalist emigrants, notably from California, returned to India and reinforced the ranks of the revolutionaries, in collaboration with indoctrinated Indian soldiers in various regiments of His Majesty’s army. Having discussed with most of the surviving associates of Jatin Mukherjee by correspondence and meetings, I summarized into three stages the revolution as he conceived it. (a) Individual martyrdom. (b) Skirmish and guerrilla warfare. (c) Finally, freed from the clutch of multiple fears and inertia, impatient to sacrifice themselves in the name of the Motherland, the people would learn how to swell the ranks for a movement of the mass.

36

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Slowly down the decades, we come to recognize that Jatin Mukherjee, with his heroic death, in 1915, did not only inaugurate his second phase but, almost simultaneously, prepare the field for Gandhi’s triumphal encounter with destiny, as the final phase. Bhupati Majumdar—one of the Jatinian militants who was to occupy several ministerial posts in the Government of West Bengal after India’s Independence— claimed Jatin Mukherjee to be the sole creator of the entire international revolutionary network, during the 1914-18 War. The Berlin Committee had started training an army of liberation with Indian soldiers from various British regiments captured by the Germans in the Middle East. The objective was to invade India: from the West, through Afghanistan, under the leadership of Mahendra Pratap; and, another army in a pincer movement from the East, via Thailand through Burma, was to join the insurrection spreading from Fort William to UP and Punjab. After a meticulous study of the documents concerning the Howrah Case and the writings of revolutionaries involved, Amales Tripathi revealed that ‘new and original currents’ were released by Jatin Mukherjee’s policy, as yet unsuspected in the pages of official history. He (a) forged a revolutionary consciousness with the help of sporadic but daring acts and individual martyrdom; (b) He organized an armed resistance in small groups, concomitant with an effort to improve the general (particularly financial) standard of the people’s living; (c) Arms were requisition from native sources (like the Rodda Case) and imports (with German collaboration via Californian coast); (d) A guerrilla organization was strengthened; (e) Indian soldiers in different regiments (such as the 10th Jats and the 16th Rajput Rifles) were indoctrinated to launch an All-India uprising.47 Just as we shall presently examine two opposite trends active in the freedom movement—Moderate and

Introduction

37

Extremist—it will be necessary for us also to become aware of the two contradictory factions within the Extremist camp: (a) members of the Dhaka-based Anushilan, reactionary, centralized, communalist, mostly active in East Bengal, deviated from the initial secular vision of the Calcutta-centred Samiti; (b) those of the Jugantar, progressive, decentralized, mainly active through north and West Bengal up to Upper India. With the advent of Gandhi, the Jugantar sided him to the limit of their compatibility and their convictions, but the Dhaka-based opponents—along with Indian Communists— opposed Gandhi, even serving as paid agents of the colonial policy. In the opening chapter of his autobiography, Pratul Ganguli, leader of the reactionary faction, has given vent to an apology of his belonging to Brahmin orthodoxy and, to bring water to his mill so to say, he has put some words in Jatin Mukherjee’s mouth claiming him also to be a champion of the illusion such as superiority by birth. All lovers of history have bitterly regretted this vain and false enterprise. Jatin Mukherjee’s entire life and teachings were a protest against discrimination and superstitions welling from the hazards of birth, against fatalism, against idle speculations, against social and economic sectarianism, against humiliation and injustice of men putting down men, notably in the colonial context. Since his youth, Jatin practised free-hand tournaments with competitors who belonged to both ‘touchable’ and ‘untouchable’ social classes. During the annual religious festivities, Jatin was seen imploring his uncle to put an end to social favouritism by serving quality rice to men of upper castes, and a coarse red variety to the others. He shared an earthen platter with an old Muslim lady. In 1905, during agitations against the partition of Bengal, Jatin sat with Muslim and Hindu militants around a community meal. He counted all his brothers—disciples and political associates—from all social levels and some of them lived with his family.48 His childhood friend and revolutionary colleague, Bhavabhushan Mitra told Jatin’s grand-children with a jolly laughter: ‘During

38

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

his emergency missions, often I had the chance of accompanying him. I remember that epoch when it was difficult to find volunteers to cremate corpses belonging to lower caste citizens, or victims of tuberculosis or contagious epidemics; all infringement to these social inhibitions was liable to ostracism. Jatin took a particular pleasure in organizing such ceremonies overtly.’ Among other ‘new and original currents that were released by Jatin Mukherjee’, Bhavabhushan—hailing from the Kayastha49 caste—was amused to underline in a hilarious lucidity: ‘We, who had no right to wear the sacred thread or yajnopavita, under his influence, we took it and practised the rituals reserved for Brahmanas, whereas many others (like himself) who had had it by birth, discarded it merrily.’ The innate humanitarian devotion of Jatin had been fed by the teaching and the uncompromising example of his own mother Sharatshashi Devi, long before his meeting with Swami Vivekananda.

* While waiting for the consignments of arms, on the east coast of the Indian peninsula in Bengal and in Orissa, a supreme choice presented itself to Jatin Mukherjee and his four associates, on 9 September 1915: whether to flee the approaching armed police (a flight which was amply possible thanks to their topographic knowledge of the region—mainly through the Meghasani hills—and the administrative facilities of international travel), or to sacrifice their lives in a pitched resistance. With one accord, they adopted the second solution so as to liberate the minds of a people enslaved to multiple fears: fear to live, fear to disobey, fear to die. These five revolutionaries wanted to set before their companions in arms an example. On the morning of 10 September 1915, Charles Tegart of the British Indian Police, went to Jatin Mukherjee’s bedside during his last hours at the Balasore hospital. Among the Tegart Papers, preserved in the South Asian Study Centre Archives, University of Cambridge, there is a work entitled,

Introduction

39

Revolutionaries of Bengal by Hemanta Kumar Sarkar, published in 1923 by Indian Book Club. The author has recorded Tegart’s reply to the Barrister J.N. Ray’s enquiry about the rumours concerning Jatin Mukherjee’s death, shortly after the Battle of Balasore (p. 56): ‘Unfortunately he is dead.’ Ray asked, ‘Why unfortunately?’ Tegart is reported to have said: ‘Though I had to do my duty, I have a great admiration for him. He was the only Bengali who died in an open fight from a trench.’ In the margin of this passage there is a check mark, presumably by Tegart himself, attesting the accuracy of this statement.50 It is worth noticing that later, in agreement with the usual tone employed by Western observers such as Chirol, Ker, Rowlatt, up to Judith Brown, Tegart was to write: ‘In the character of Jatin (...) and most of the other enthusiasts, the visionary was stronger than the realist (…). At the same time, their driving power was immense.’ Let us not forget that talking about Gandhi and Nehru, L.S Amery (Minister for Indian Affairs) found them ‘niggling unpractical creatures’,51 while Linlithgow regretted, ‘They could never run straight’. Tegart admitted that if—according to Jatin Mukherjee’s project— the army of liberation could have received adequate training on the Thai-Burmese border, and if the consigned ships could deliver the arms and ammunition in Indian ports, it would seriously affect the British during First World War.52 The police discovered some of Jatins writings in the form of a diary: circulating these among members of the Viceroy’s Council, they inspired a wonder for these ‘exceptional political treatises, deeply steeped with spiritual reflections.’53 Jadu Gopal was later informed by an officer posted at Balasore that, impressed by Jatin’s lofty thoughts the authorities believed that under other circumstances this man could lead the world.54 It echoes Sri Aurobindo’s appreciation of Jatin Mukherjee: ‘He was a man who would belong to the front rank of humanity anywhere. Such beauty and strength together I have not seen, and his stature was like a warrior’s.’55 Ross Hedvicek in a recent article in Czech stated:

40

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Had E.V. Voska not interfered in this history, today nobody would have heard about Mahatma Gandhi and the father of the Indian nation would have been Bagha Jatin. To say it briefly: Bagha Jatin wanted to free India of the British but he had the idea of allying against them with the Germans from whom he expected to receive arms and other help. Voska learnt it through his network and, as pro-American, pro-British and anti-German, he spoke of it to T.G. Masaryk.56 This latter … rushed to keep the institutions informed about it. Thus, Voska transmitted it to Masaryk, Masaryk to the Americans, the Americans to the British. Bagha Jatin died, killed by police bullets, on 10 September 1915. And India had to wait for another thirty years to have her democracy, just as the present Czech Republic had to wait for thirty more years. Mahatma Gandhi was as yet in South Africa. T.G. Masaryk mentions all these facts in the English version of the Making of a State….57

In spite of ample evidence in favour of a direct relationship between these preparations and the week-long siege of the Singapore fortress in February 1915 by the rebel regiment known as Malay States Guide, very little study is available on this event: it only confirms Tegart’s concern about the efficiency of the revolutionary efforts under Jatin Mukherjee. Although animated and characterized by the life and works of very brilliant thinkers, writers, speakers and leaders of men, Jatin Mukherjee seems to have personified the most intimate and the most daring aspirations of this period. Bhupendrakumar Datta (1894-1979), the most important among the successors of Jatin Mukherjee, made available to me all documents and testimonies that he had collected in order to write the hero’s official biography; as a member of the Pakistani parliament, he had not been able to develop them because of his commitments. Then, having put an end to his political activities, happy to guide me during most of the interviews and to initiate me to the significant way of reading the objective data of the West Bengal and the National Archives (where the assessment of the light and shade game on recorded facts required a direct knowledge of the functioning of a secret society and colonial ulterior motives), Datta came to my help. For more than a quarter of a century,

Introduction

41

over a thousand letters and as considerable a volume of written notes came from him and enabled this chronicler of the Indian renaissance to transmit his understanding of the movement in which he had participated to me. He followed with interest my first decipherment of the coded messages in German microfilms (Group AAWK) since 1963, to which Datta and myself had access as the first consultants approved by Jawaharlal Nehru, as well as my publications (mainly the serial in the pages of the Basumati, Bengali weekly of Calcutta, in 1965-6) and my several papers, for example, at the annual Historical Records Commission of the Government of India, in February 1977 and at the Indian History Congress in December 1977. Instead of defining a number of given problems and establishing a social typology founded on rather ambitious criteria, I had intended, in the beginning, to identify the various social types and institutions and organization of some utopias and ideologies (for example, the genesis of nationalism as catalyst), their points of convergence and difference. There were also the rough patches existing between reasons and interests (between the colonized and the colonizers; between the Extremists and the Moderates; between the patriotic challenges in a chain work and repressions and counter-repressions; between the uncertain idealism and the concrete happiness of the pour-soi; between some questionings, imposed by the routine of a colonized people, and affirmations of religious, ethical or hierarchical values. All that emerged out of the plurality of Indian society in the heat of its action. Most Indian thinkers—beyond their nationalist dreams—maintained some humanitarian and international objectives, putting to practice the essence of a traditional wisdom that reminds constantly: No one is a stranger to you. I did not lose the sight of some oppositions dear to Alain Touraine: that of various degrees of awareness, that of double dialectics, that of societies, or that of systems. In the same way, the statements of Pitirim Sorokin in his Sociology of Revolution as well as those by Jean Baechler concerning revolutionary phenomena, suggested some lines of development

42

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

leading to a subjective analysis on the levels of concepts, functions and typology. Confronting my notion of social pathology with the meaning of revolution as a ‘period where the individual incentives are the most ardent and naked’, permitted me to discern the role of forces at play through Indian society: a certain latent millenarianism encouraged a Gandhi to erect his utopia of God’s Kingdom (Rama-Rajya), away from all industrialization and all stress of contemporary life. It does not in any way preclude the contribution of rationality, a state that precedes the suprarational reign, as conceived and elaborated by Sri Aurobindo. The publication of this thesis has been delayed by more than twenty-five years; I gratefully remember, however, Mr. William Grover (National Archives of the USA, Washington DC), Mr. George Kovtun (Library of Congress), Professor Kenneth Logan and Miss Jane Singh (South/Southeast Asia Library, University of California, Berkeley) and Mrs Robin Dondero (Federal Archives, San Bruno) for their active collaboration in the research that I did in the USA in 1981. I would like Martin Moir (India Office Library, London) to know that his collaboration gave me access to some precious discoveries in the British Archives. In 1963, I also benefitted from assistance of Ms Purabi Mukherjee (Minister, West Bengal)—while working at the Bengal archives; from Chittaranjan Banerji and Bijoy Sengupta at the National Library (Calcutta); from Sauren Roy and Ms David at the National Archives of India (New Delhi). Untiring adviser, Tejendranath Mukherjee (1909-89), my father—and himself a former revolutionary working under Bhupendra Kumar Datta—assured me an uninterrupted supply of Indian publications on my subject of research in France. One whose inspiration and discreet influence enlivened me throughout—Usharani, my mother—will she remain always unknown to acknowledgments? I cannot forget either the fierce conviction Ishani (Catherine) had in the utility of publishing this work. Finally, I thank Mr Matthieu Boisdron, my French publisher, for sharing with the readers of this edition the valuable illustrations. Prithwindra Mukherjee

Introduction

43

NOTES 1. Abbreviation LRL. 2. In an article on this topic (Mother India, December 2003, pp. 1088-90), Pradip Bhattacharya informs us that this quotation is found in an inscription above one of the doorways of the Dakshineswar temple, which Bankim had visited. 3. The Soul of India, p. 109. 4. The Religious Roots of Indian Nationalism, pp. 21-2. 5. Bharater svadhinata samgrame jugantar ptrikar dan, note 18, p. 48. 6. The Gita’s fundamental teaching of the nishkama karma (action without expecting retribution). 7. MR/H, vol. I, p. 116. 8. Paul Tillich proposes a functional definition of religion: in its largest and most fundamental conception, it belongs to the ‘ultimate preoccupations’ (Theology of Culture, pp. 7-8). Consequently, all ultimate preoccupation—such as a thirst for political freedom—can spontaneously acquire the dimension of a religion, without any question of strategy. 9. He is better known by his popular and legendary name of Bagha Jatin (‘Jatin, valorous like a tiger’), because, in 1906, he killed a Royal Bengal tiger with a dagger. His Guru, Bholanand Giri of Hardwar, used to greet him as ‘my Hero, my Tiger’ (mera shura-vira, mera sher)! 10. TIB, vol. II, p. 93. 11. Article by Suresh Majumdar published in the special Jatin Mukherjee supplement of the Anandabazar Patrika, Calcutta, 9 September 1947. 12. Hibbert Journal, January 1918. 13. TIB, vol. V, p. 137. 14. Ibid., vol. II, p. 509. 15. Daly’s Report in TIB, vol. I, p. 9. 16. Bhattapalli, the famous ‘Latin Quarters’ of traditional Brahmanic studies in West Bengal. 17. TIB, vol. V, p. 155. 18. English barrister bred in Oxford: appointed Judge at the Calcutta High Court in 1783 (till his death in 1794), he published the famous Asiatic Researches (1786) in which he advocated the study of Sanskrit as a common source of Greek and Latin. One of the founders of comparative philology.

44

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

19. Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule in India, p. 83. 20. MS/RI, p. 45. 21. J.C. Nixon, Indian Civil Service (ICS), Index to Notes on Outrages. Compiled in 1917, vol. VIII, Indian National Archives, New Delhi. Reproduced in Amiya K. Samanta, Terrorism in Bengal, vol. II, p. 591. 22. And riding on his favourite mare, Sundari (The Pretty Maid). 23. Kumarnath Bagchi, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in Calcutta, told me during an interview in 1963 how, since his childhood, he had benefited by Jatin’s affection, having belonged to a family close to the Hero’s. During his medical studies Bagchi received from Jatin an unexpected gift—a manual for learning French—with a blessing: ‘I am sure this will be helpful to you’. The only available poem by Jatin was written and distributed on the occasion of Bagchi’s marriage in 1909. 24. Gaurkishore Ghose, hailing from this region, describes the bridge in his famous novel, Jal Pade, Pata Nade. 25. Kicchu Smriti, Kichhu Katha, M.C. Sarkar & Sons, Calcutta, 1994, p. 46. 26. Interview with Atulkrishna Ghose in 1963. 27. Calcutta edition, 24 Bhadra, 1354 bc. 28. ‘Jatindranath Mukherji’, Editorial in Independent India, 27 February, 1949. 29. First Spark of Revolution, p. 393. 30. MJ/B, 2nd edn., pp. 351-2. 31. Ibid., pp. 537-8. 32. M.N. Roy’s Memoirs, pp. 339-46. 33. Ibid., p. 380. 34. A facsimile of Roy’s text with Lenin’s corrections has been reproduced by A.C. Guha in his Aurobindo and Jugantar. 35. Memoirs, p. 381. 36. The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-23, New York, 1953, vol. 3, p. 254. Cf. Lenin, Collected Works, Moscow-London, 1966, vol. 31, p. 240. Cf. Der Zweite Kongress der Kommunist International Protokol, Hamburg, 1921, pp. 144-5. 37. The Communist International 1919-43, Documents, London, vol. 1, 1956, pp. 138-9. 38. Memoirs, p. 352. 39. Memoirs: Epilogue by V.B. Karnik, pp. 575-6. 40. N/EU, p. 59.

Introduction

45

41. Ibid., p. 128. 42. At the climax of the anti-repression actions against the Colonial power, two of Jatin Mukherjee’s emissaries shot dead, on 24 January 1910, an important officer of the Police who showed particular zeal in exploiting ‘available’ sources to get the revolutionaries condemned in the trial. Two days before the arrest of Jatin, Viceroy Minto in his speech at First Meeting of the Reformed Council referred with awe to a succession of abominable crimes and saluted the ‘Spirit of Jatin Mukherjee’. ‘A spirit hitherto unknown to India has come into existence, (…) a spirit of anarchy and lawlessness which seeks to subvert not only British rule but the Governments of the Indian Chiefs.…’ (Minto Archives, M. 1092. Cf. MND., p. 122). 43. Hinting at the Trial against Jatin Mukherjee, the new Viceroy Hardinge in his letter to Earl Crewe (Minister for Indian Affairs) regretted: ‘As regards prosecution, I (…) deprecate the net being thrown so wide; as for example in the Howrah Gang Case, where 47 persons are being prosecuted, of whom only one is, I believe, the real criminal. If a concentrated effort had been made to convict this one criminal, I think it would have had a better effect than the prosecution of 46 misguided youths.’ (Hardinge Papers, Book 117, no. 5, 15 December 1910. Italics are not in the original.) 44. Later, in his letter to Valentin Chirol, Hardinge could hardly hold his exasperation: ‘The 10th Jats case was part and parcel of the Howrah Gang case; and with the failure in the latter, the Government of Bengal realised the futility of proceeding with the former… In fact, nothing could be worse, in my opinion, than the condition of Bengal and Eastern Bengal. There is practically no government in either province, but I am determined to restore order.…’ (Hardinge Papers, Book 81, vol. II, no. 231, 28 May 1911. Italics are not in the original.) 45. Nixon, op. cit. Consult GA/FS, pp. 160-5; 170-8; 360-3, etc. 46. Dutt, p. 331. 47. Swadhinata Samgrame, pp. 77-9. 48. Jatish Pal, who fought by Jatin’s side at the Battle of Balasore, hailed from a family of potters (chaki); he had spent several years as one of Jatin’s family members, to the point of having being nicknamed by the Hero’s three children as Uncle Chak. 49. The writer caste of eastern and northern India.

46

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

50. TIB, vol. III, p. viii. Hemanta Kumar Sarkar was a native of Krishnagar and had been a class-mate of Netaji Subhas Bose and Bhupendra Kumar Datta during their university days: all the three in their youth came under the aura of Jatin Mukherjee. Persuaded that the leader of a revolution has to be a mukta-purusha (Liberated Soul), Subhas asked Bhupen— who had started frequenting Jatin—whether Jatin Mukherjee was a mukta-purusha. Confessing his inability to determine the attributes of a mukta-purusha, Bhupen could only remark: ‘All that I know is that Jatin-da fervently lives and practises the teachings of the Gita, and knows by heart the entire text.’ After a night of reflection, Subhas wanted Bhupen to inform Jatin that he was going to follow Jatin’s path. This was manifest when during Second World War—quite untimely—Subhas was to take up Jatin’s blue print for invading India from the eastern front. 51. Amery’s letter to Linlithgow, 2 February 1942, CM.58; cf. Amales Tripathi, Swadhinata Samgrame, p. 300. 52. Tegart Mss, p. 128; cf. op. cit., p. 78. 53. Basudha Chakravarti, op. cit., p. 66. 54. Biplabi jibaner smriti, p. 343. 55. K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, Sri Aurobindo, vol. I, p. 496; Nirodbaran, Talks with Sri Aurobindo, p. 46. 56. Tomáš Masaryk (1850-1937), the first President of the Czech Republic that he founded in 1918. 57. CS Magasin, Pravda orodu Kinskych Zpatky nahlavni stranku [Srpen 2006].

CHAPTER I

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

Forerunners of a divine multitude Out of the path of the morning star they came. sri aurobindo, Savitri, Book III, Canto 4

I.1. Ideas they Defended I.1.1. The Pioneer Rammohun Roy (1772-1833)

Modern India owes to Rammohun Roy the vision and the general orientation of her social, political and spiritual evolution. The poet Rabindranath Tagore, grandson of a friend of Rammohun, describes his advent as an ‘unwelcome accident, stupendously out of proportion to his surroundings, and yet he was the man whom our history has been watching through the night—the man who is to represent in his life the complete significance of the spirit and the mission of the land to which he belonged.’1 Riding the surges of time, Rammohun took the country across the obstacle that condemned her to suffer the stagnation of a feudal society. The polymath led a number of reforms (social, educational, economic, religious, and political) which, by their dynamism would look more like revolutions, had not his serene temperament with a robust physique and a discerning understanding introduced the impression of constant transition. Standing before the ad hoc Committee of the British parliament, in 1831, Rammohun left no illusion about the plunder and selfserving nature of the English Company. This Company

48

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

had run a deplorable drainage of Indian economy, sacrificing the interests of millions of Indians to profit for an English elite.2 The three volumes by M. Dows (1772) on the basis of the Firishta by Mohammed Quasim (1570-1611)—as well as on his own experiences in India—and the Considerations on Indian Affairs (1772) by William Bolts (1740-1808) had, in the meantime, sufficiently sensitized European opinion on the abuses of the Company in India. Dow had the additional merit of having justified Voltaire’s remark: ‘the polytheism of the Hindus was but a symbolic cult of the divine attributes’, whereas the fundamental belief revolved around the Supreme Being. Voltaire claimed that the Hindus were the oldest of the peoples on earth; in his observation to King Frederic the Great, Voltaire wrote: ‘Our holy Christian religion is founded solely on the ancient religion of Bra[h]ma’.3 We shall examine closely this exceptional attraction that Voltaire felt for India. More than a century before Gandhi’s historic march demanding the right to manufacture salt on the coast of the Indian ocean, instead of buying it as a costly import from England, Rammohun denounced the abuses of the Company concerning the salt trade in India: in Bengal alone, 125,000 manufacturers of salt (molunghi) had become victims of this severe monopoly of the English.4 This did not stop Rammohun from appreciating positive contributions of the Europeans, for example, concerning a more perfected method of agriculture and a more appropriate behaviour regarding farm workers. Rammohun was the first—and the most valid—among Indian representatives to canvass in favour of introducing Europeans of character and capital in India, ‘to improve resources of the country as well as the fate of the indigenous inhabitants considerably’.5 Christianity—as a monotheistic doctrine—was introduced in India by the powerful European conquerors; Rammohun found that it corresponded to a certainty for India to get rid of thousands of superstitions and blind social practices. Rammohun held that the British government carried the message of a new cycle of world culture: that of materialism. This

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

49

could raise India up to the degree where, finally, it would be possible for her to realize the splendid dream of a universal fraternity. Turn by turn, Rammohun wondered about the justification of the religious practices and the doctrines of the Christian missionaries and of the champions of Hindu orthodoxy; his analytic mind went back to the sources of all these traditions. Also preoccupied by the invective of missionaries exaggerating the superiority of Christianity, Rammohun began, between 1820 and 1823, a series of debates with the Christ’s most illuminated doctors against their teaching. Besides the writing and the publication of two journals—the Brahmanical Magazine (in English) opening a dialogue with the missionaries and, the Brahman-sevadhi (in Bengali), he consulted Greek and Hebrew texts, before publishing four in-depth works: The Precepts of Jesus; An Appeal to the Christian Public; A Second Appeal to the Christian Public and Final Appeal to the Christian Public. These works were reprinted simultaneously in London by Dr T. Rees. Motivated by the highest esteem for Jesus the historic personality, Rammohun sifted out the most edifying contributions of the Christ, capable of regenerating the whole of mankind. In spite of irritation of missionaries such as Marshman, Ryland and White, the majestic serenity of this leader of men attracted the admiring attention of defenders of Christianity. Whereas Abbot Henri Gregoire (1750-1831), archbishop of Blois, noticed in this philosopher a thirst for truth and knowledge and a ‘logical manner of distinguished reasoning’,6 the editor of the Indian Gazette discovered in Rammohun an ‘acuteness of his thought’, and an ‘incontestable cheerfulness with which he advanced’ his arguments’. This cheerfulness would bring him the friendship and the collaboration of the Reverend William Adam. Moncure Daniel Conway in 1894 acknowledged the importance of Rammohun’s contribution to the British Unitarian movement and among the American Transcendantalists.7 Hailed by Monier-Williams as a pioneer in comparative religious studies, Rammohun would be celebrated by Max

50

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Müller as the ‘first to bring about a synthesis between the East and the West’. Mercilessly denouncing the social injustices perpetuated by Hindu orthodoxy, notably by the practice of immolating widows at the time of their spouse’s cremation, Rammohun experienced physical attacks by Hindu fanatics. He restored the traditional spiritual teaching of the Vedanta in the new universal faith that he founded. Irrefutable in his arguments, culling support from trustworthy Sanskrit texts, he gave back to Brahmanism its purest monotheistic vision. Committed as much to liberty as to equality, Rammohun followed with a sustained attention revolutionary developments in France and America. Possessing a vast knowledge of universal history through Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabian and Persian texts, Rammohun had the time to bring up to date, during the last fifteen years of his life, a historicity which was further nourished by the intensive reading of English and French texts, notably penned by Montesquieu, Jeremy Bentham and William Blackstone. It is worth keeping in view his direct knowledge of the empirical philosophy since Bacon up to Locke and even Newton as well as of the writings of Hume, Gibbon, Voltaire, Volneys, Tom Paine, the Unitarians and the utopian socialists.8 Rammohun was convinced that a tradition of constitutional government had prevailed in India for two millennia before the Christian era, and he noted that in ancient India, according to popular suffrage, the legislative institution had been confined par excellence to the Brahmanas, an institution which received its executive control from princes (the Kshatriyas). The belated acceptance of the Brahmans of posts as advisers of the princes corresponded to a decay and a corruptibility of the legislation, yielding to despotism. It was, besides, this decay that encouraged, since the thirteenth century, the implantation of Muslim rulers: their fanatic zeal urged them to ravage in India communities, temples and monasteries merely to promote tyranny. Present in India at

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

51

the time of the crumbling of this Muslim tyranny, the English Company captured political power taking full advantage of ‘the internecine quarrels and the cowardness of the princes and the native chiefs’, whereas the people showed no trace of patriotism, ignoring completely the ‘modern improvements in warfare’,9 Rammohun was persuaded that India would be able to recover her autonomy. In the meantime, Rammohun worked to endow the country with a system of Western education, the English language acting as a channel open to the great currents of modernism that gave the Western nations their superiority in relation to the rest of the contemporary world. In order to draw the vitality necessary for Indian culture, he undertook, simultaneously—not without provoking the indignation of the Brahmanas, who held the holy Scriptures to be their property—the translation of several basic Sanskrit texts into Bengali and English, for the use of the common man. His nationalism aimed, thus, at making Indians aware of the fundamental principles of justice and security for individual life and collective interests. The outcome of this nationalism was, straightaway, an internationalist vision. In his letter to the prince Talleyrand, dated of 26 December 1831, Rammohun proposed from London the creation of a multinational Congress ‘composed of an equal number of members’ of the parliaments of every constitutional government. This Congress would be assigned to examine amicably all disputes—political or commercial— between two nations, in order to give full satisfaction to each of them and to promote friendship from generation to generation. Received in England by King William IV, and in France by Louis-Philippe, Rammohun counts as a peer among the historian William Roscoe, the aforementioned abbot Henri Gregoire, and Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) who considered himself to be ‘his friend’. Dr Bowring, biographer of the latter, in one public reception organized in London, greeted Rammohun by evoking that some authors have endeavoured to imagine what would be their sensations if Plato or Socrates or Milton or Newton were unexpectedly to

52

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

honour them with their presence.… It was with feeling such as they underwent that I was overwhelmed when I stretched out in your name the hand of welcome to Rajah Rammohun Roy. In my mind, the effect of distance is very like the effect of time; and he who comes among us from a country thousands of miles off must be looked upon with some interest as those illustrious men who lived thousands of years ago.10

On 27 September 1833, Rammohun died at Bristol, at the age of sixty. His epitaph read: ‘Conscious and constant believer in the unity of the Divine, he dedicated his life, with a whole devotion to the cult of the only Divine Spirit.’ Mary Carpenter in her The Last Days in England of Raja Rammohun Roy could not help formulating in poetry: Thy spirit is immortal and thy name Shall by thy countrymen be ever blest, Even from thy tomb thy words with power shall rise, Shall touch their hearts and bear them to the skies.11

A gigantic personality, according to Romain Rolland, he sowed generously his thought and his flame, and ‘cropped out of the soil of Bengal a rich harvest—harvest of works, harvest of men’.12 Nobody better than Romain Rolland could evaluate, in French, Rammohun’s thought: It implied a rare harmony between critical intelligence and faith, ranging upto the illuminations of a noble mysticism always under control and domination of reason. Regally constituted, as much physically as morally, he was capable of reaching the summits of contemplation, without losing for an instance the balance of his daily life, nor interrupting the flow of his action; he was free from all emotional excesses. We have to go upto Aurobindo Ghose, to meet again, a century later, this aristocratic hold over the various and the highest powers of the mind.13

Since his childhood, Rammohun was deeply marked by the arrogant and disdainful behaviour of the English towards his compatriots. As an assistant to the revenue officer William

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

53

Digby (later administrator and professor at the Fort William College in Calcutta) in Bhagalpore, he had suffered discrimination at the hands of Sir Frederic Hamilton, the English collector. Prejudice produced in him a number of concrete and unfavourable reactions. However, convinced of the makeshift role of the English as emancipator, Rammohun did not let his personal resentment hamper his own growth. Eager to make accessible to the youth of the country revolutionary thoughts that set Western nations on the way to a new cycle of existence, eager also to put an end to a traditional and frozen system of passeist teachings through Sanskrit and Arabic, on 11 December 1823, Rammohun proposed to Lord Amherst, Governor-General of India, the implantation of a Western educational system dispensed in English. The Sanskrit system of education would be best calculated to keep this country in darkness, if such has been the policy of the British Legislature. But, as the improvement of the British native population is the object of the Government, it will consequently promote a more liberal and enlightened system of instruction, embracing mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry and anatomy, with other useful sciences which may be accomplished with the sum proposed, by employing a few gentlemen of talents and learning, educated in Europe, and providing a college furnished with the necessary books, instruments and other apparatus.14

Let us note that, instead of waiting for any favourable official decision (that will only be taken in 1835 by the commission of Macaulay), Rammohun had, directly and indirectly, inaugurated several English-medium high schools, to begin with the Hindu College (which became the prestigious Presidency College) since 1817. Whereas in 1828 the number of students in the English classes was hardly more than 1,400, H.H. Wilson noted, when he left India in 1836, that there were at least 6,000 students in the metropolis. Excellent educators like David Hare, Henry Vivian Derozio (pupil of David Drumond, admirer of the mobilizing thoughts behind the French Revolution), D.L. Richardson, Alexander Duff,

54

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

were to form a whole elite generation, in conformity with Rammohun’s wishes. About ten of his friends and admirers, men of great culture and means (such as Dwarkanath Tagore), supported unconditionally the multiple reform projects that Rammohun proposed. Similarly, far from disdaining the fundamental values of Indian tradition, along with several high schools following the new scientific pedagogy, Rammohun opened some Vedantic high schools where eminent Indian savants and literates taught in Sanskrit and in Bengali. In addition to the first Bengali translations of Sanskrit sacred texts Rammohun wrote a number of textbooks in Bengali on subjects as varied as geography, astronomy, and geometry. His Bengali grammar, the first of its kind, is claimed to be the best up to this day. Having once introduced the new pedagogy, having been able to engage competent minds to explore the traditional texts, Rammohun already started thinking about the outlets that young indigenous intellectuals would seek. He claimed before the British parliament the right of Indians to be admitted to the administrative and judicial services—then forbidden—at the same time, he asked for a certain number of institutional reforms. There was the curtailment of the government budget, the abolition of the colonial army in the place of one recruited among the peasants, the definitive dissociation of the executive and judicial functions, and the empowering of the jury of the panchayats.15 Rammohun challenged the system of favouring the city-dwelling landowners (who held the farmers in contempt) according to the 1793 text of the Permanent Settlement:16 he pleaded for putting an end to the pitiless exploitation of the farm workers who, traditionally, were the real proprietors of the land they tilled. In order to let the young elite earn the liberty of expression, Rammohun, himself a victim of the discrimination, submitted a petition to the Supreme Court and the King’s Council on 17 March 1823, demanding on behalf of the subjects the right to make public the mistakes and injustices perpetrated

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

55

by civil servants in all spheres. Regretting the impossibility of such a communication because of censorship, Rammohun concluded, Every good Ruler, who is convinced of the imperfection of human nature, and reverences the Eternal Governor of the world, must be conscious of the great liability to error in managing the affairs of a vast empire; and, therefore, he will be anxious to afford to every individual the readiest means of bringing to his notice whatever may require his interference. To secure this important object, the unrestrained Liberty of Publication, is the only effectual means that can be employed.’17

I.1.2. After Rammohun (1833-1857)

Vivekananda summarized Rammohun’s contributions under three heads: (a) accepting the true message of Vedanta; (b) promoting patriotic spirit; and (c) marrying the essence of Islamic teachings to that of Hindu spirituality.18 Reverend J.T. Sunderland would write in 1933, ‘I am sure that when India becomes a free and great nation, as under God she is sure to do at no distant day, she will recognise Rammohun Roy as in a large and true sense her immortal—what shall I say?— Moses or Mazzini or Washington or all in one.’19 According to Sri Aurobindo, the Indian people owe a triple impetus to the renaissance thus initiated by Rammohun: (a) awakening the critical and intellectual faculty that was temporarily eclipsed; (b) transmitting the desire of a new creation; (c) orienting India’s new awareness towards new conditions, new ideals, the imperious necessity to understand, assimilate and conquer them. Sri Aurobindo noted that the new nationalist spirit turned towards the culture of its past, seizing once more its significance; but, at the same time, it examined this in the context of modern knowledge and ideas.20

*

56

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

In the wake of Rammohun’s journal, the Samvad-kaumudi (1821), animated by the nascent nationalism, Ishvarchandra Gupta (1811-58) showed in the pages of his historic daily, the Samvad-prabhakar (1830). There were essays, narrations, sketches, satires and lyrics on all aspects of national life. Awaiting a nationalist fraternity, he went as far as counselling the worship of a native dog rather than reverence to the ‘imported divinities’. Ishvarchandra welcomed young writers, carefully revising their drafts in order to bring out their characteristic style. Rangalal Banerjee (1827-87), Dinabandhu Mitra (182994) and Bankimchandra Chatterjee (1838-94) were among the apprentices who owed much of their inspiration to Ishvarchandra Gupta. In the same way, a generation of radical philosophers was propelled by Rammohun’s vision and fed on thoughts of Bacon, Hume, Thomas Paine and the French Encyclopaedists, joined the cultural effervescence.21 To express their admiration for the French Revolution, according to John Bull, they hoisted on the occasion of Christmas 1830, the French tricolour on the monument of Sir David Ochterlony, by the side of the Union Jack. Great professors like Reverend Krishnamohan Banerjee, speakers like Ramagopal Ghosh, administrators like Rasik-Krishna Mallik, promoters of the education for the women like Shivachandra Dev, journalists like Harish Chandra Mukherjee of the Hindu Patriot, Tarachand Chakravarti of The Quill, Kishorichand Mitra of the Indian Field and Pyarichand Mitra, known also as author of the unforgettable novel, Alaler Gharer Dulal, among others, scientists like Radhanath Sikdar, the first topographer to evaluate the altitude of Mount Everest, religious reformers like Devendranath Tagore, nationalist thinkers like Vidyasagar and Akshay Kumar Datta. Their patriotic enthusiasm found echoes in the compositions of Kashiprasad Ghosh (editor of Hindu Intelligence) who sang: Misfortune to me! I will never see in this life That day of your triumph, when firm and valiant

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

57

You will soar on the wings of an eagle toward the summits Where reside knowledge and liberty that we cherish!22

A passage from the Hindu Pioneer, mouthpiece of the former pupils’ Association of the Hindu College, was reproduced in the Asiatic Journal (May-August 1838): The government of India (under the English) is merely aristocratic; the people have no voice in the Legislative Council; they have no power in penning the laws that govern their civil conduct. We do not want to linger on the monopoly of the State Services, on the lethargy of the laws, on the insolence of the employees, on the heavy charges imposed by the government, on the withdrawal from India of all those who accumulate fortunes, nor on the excessive tax system which stifles the entire country: these are abuses too well known in India. The Muslims encouraged merits wherever they saw any; the English, like the primitive Hindus, have only one caste of men to govern a general body. The violent means with which foreign supremacy has been instituted, and the whole alienation of the native people from all involvement in the government … , even from all posts of power and confidence, here are the circumstances that no commercial or political profit can allow nor justify.23

Inversely proportional to their hostility to Rammohun’s religious stand, the English missionaries at Serampore (in Danish territory not far from Calcutta) encouraged on two fronts the efforts of this Indian pioneer. In the field of literacy and expansion of general knowledge, thanks to the first printing press that they had installed in the country, besides the pamphlets and the journals conveying their effort to evangelize they had distributed, between 1800-18 with the help of a few literate Englishmen—notably William Carey (1761-1834), Joshua Marshman (1768-1837) and William Ward (17691823) and competent Hindus (like Vidyalankara, Rajnarain Basu, Haraprasad Ray, Chandicharan Munsi), a collection of works in a bizarre language henceforth known as padre Bengali. The above collection included, to begin with, the Bible up to texts of general interest, without forgetting the very serious Bengali grammar by Carey. Most of these works

58

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

aimed at familiarizing young English administrators with the life and the languages of the country. The government recognized Carey’s vocation as an educator by appointing him professor at Fort William College. The second contribution of the missionaries consisted of politicizing popular awareness and to sensitize it to the legitimate rights to participate in the country’s administration. The positive results that the untiring endeavour of Rammohun and his disciples obtained was their patriotic zeal married to a deep knowledge of the people’s requirements and traditional values with the vision of an international regeneration. Their acrid critique of the colonial politics and their denunciation of government exploitation never lost sight of the role of the English in modernizing India. But they could hardly reconcile themselves to the English promise in the new Charter of 1833, the year when Rammohun died, that ‘No Indian by the simple reason of his religion, of his birth place, of his complexion (...) will ever be disqualified from a post, an office or a job under aforesaid Government’—and the inflexible attitude of the English administrators that turned a deaf ear on this point.

I.2. The First Clash of Interests Karl Marx, the Observer (1857-1860)

The more the well-wishing mission of the Company regime affirmed itself in the fields of social order and the introduction of the press and improvement of the transport systems, the more the people’s representatives turned to these new institutions to formulate and to communicate their grievances. As the capital of the new leaders, the theatre of ideological confrontations and of administrative, political and commercial managements, Calcutta housed a new indigenous elite. A number of popular discontents formulated in Calcutta had been simmering among some Indian soldiers of the neighbouring military cantonment of Barrackpore; they hatched an uprising against the English, in the guise of commemorating

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

59

the centenary of the implantation of the English army in Plassey, 1757. Other soldiers of the Berhampore barrack—in Bengal, close to Plassey—informed of this project, joined them in solidarity. These soldiers dispersed later, over the four corners of India, carrying their message of humiliation, inciting other regiments to organize themselves for a revolt. Very quickly, this first expression of a deep resentment was voiced by some leaders of factions with varied interests: some of them were revolutionary by temperament; others, xenophobic; still others were angry with the English for having put an end to their feudal and conservative monopoly. Among the most famous personalities who entered in stage, determined to foment discontent to the point of an insurrection, was Nanasaheb (Crown Prince of the Maratha Kingdom, home interned by the English), his General Tantiya Tope, Lakshmi Bai (Princess of Jhansi and friend of Nanasaheb) and the Muslim priest of Faizabad. The Governor-General, Metcalfe, worried by these events, wrote in 1835: ‘Entire India, at every moment, awaits but our fall. The people will rejoice … everywhere if we are defeated. And there will be no dearth of those who will make the most of whatever they are capable of, to provoke it.’24 The vast area between Calcutta and Kanpur was shaken by a public anger and an incendiary violence prevailing in June and July 1857. The event had for immediate effect a radical transformation of British policy: recuperate at any price all reactionary elements, with a view to manufacture a social shock absorber between the government and the masses. Protect and coddle the ‘sovereigns’ of the Indian principalities, as they descended to the role of puppets and unconditional collaborators, indifferent to the general interest of the people; it was the first stage of a progressive politics to divide in order to reign better. The following stage was to try and win over the sympathy of the Muslim population till then hostile to the English regime. Both these phases aimed at alienating them from popular aspirations and freeze all relationship between the government and the ascending Indian bourgeoisie occupying

60

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

the forefront of the progressive forces, to that of ‘frigidity and suspicion, if not an increasingly envenomed animosity’.25 Guarding its international image as liberal, the colonial government made public, in 1858, Queen Victoria’s Proclamation: she promised an absolute equality between her Indian and English subjects. To enter in the administration, for example, the only qualities required of any candidate would henceforth be ‘qualification, competence and integrity’. Making allusion to this promise, in 1876, Viceroy Lytton admitted in a confidential letter, ‘We all know that these pretensions and these expectations will never be or cannot be granted. We had to choose between forbidding them or to deceive them, and we chose the least honest course.’ To believe R.P. Dutt, Lord Salisbury characterized these promises as a simple political hypocrisy.26

* The advent of a new bourgeoisie—representing an intelligentsia devoted to modern Western ideas and, especially to democratic aspirations, most of them practising judicial, medical, administrative and academic professions—dragged in its wake the emergence of another new class in India: the industrial capitalists. Since 1853, this new bourgeoisie ran in Bombay the first textile factories entirely financed and controlled by Indian investments. Before 1880, about 156 of these factories employed 44,000 workers; in 1900, more than 193 ‘national’ factories had 161,000 workers. Alerted by Lancashire textile manufacturers, since 1882, the government abolished taxes affecting British textiles imported in India and maintained an extremely high rate of taxes on Indian textile exports to England. At the same time, all direct trade of India with foreign nations was prohibited. Whereas British textile imports hardly exceeded a million yards (in 1814) to more of 51 millions (in 1835), the Indian material on English markets fell back from 1.25 million of units (in 1814) to 306,000 units (in 1835) and only 63,000 units (in 1844):

61

The Genesis of Nationalism in India Export Britain ÆIndia India ÆBritain

1814

1835

1 million yards

51 millions

1844

1.25 million units 306,000 units 63,000 units

What represented a turnover of £ 1.3 million (in 1815) to £ 100,000 (in 1832) on the side of Indian export, against £ 26,000 (in 1815) to £ 400,000 (in 1832) on the side of British import:27 Turnover

1815

1832

India ÆBritain

£ 1.3 million

£100,000

Britain ÆIndia

£ 26,000

£ 400,000

Among about fifty passages in The Capital, in addition to a series of articles published in the New York Daily Tribune in 1853 and, especially, in his letters to Engels, Karl Marx analysed the features of Indian economy impacted by British capitalism. Beginning with different forms of property generated by the dissolution of different forms of collective property of Indian type, Marx wondered why Asia never knew a Western style of feudalism. Proceeding from the very ancient and all too small Indian village communities as a sufficient key to this investigation, Marx observed their autonomous character at the level of productions by cottage industry and agriculture: these provided an inexhaustible source of work and an ‘immediate market’ of consumers at a time, without any surplus bringing in the notion of goods for exchange. At the same time, as these activities were meant for the population, the community distributed, managed and took in charge a dozen posts for public civil servants: someone maintaining justice, the police and the revenue; a second for ‘accounts’; a third, authorized to condemn the malefactors, to protect and to escort travellers; a fourth to watch over the borders; a fifth, for the upkeep of water reserves and irrigation; a sixth, the Brahmana, to officiate in the cults; a seventh, to teach children; an eighth, to consult the almanacs and to predict the right time for sowing, for harvesting, etc.28

62

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Examining, as if with a magnifying glass, how British intervention caused a breach in Indian economy consecutive to the calculated destruction of this hard core of Indian society, Marx underlined that the colonial government had given nothing to the Indians and he regretted the dire misery that prevailed in this country as a consequence. He quoted the report of a British Governor-General (1834-5) who confessed: ‘This misery hardly knows a parallel in the history of the trade. The bones of the weavers are bleaching today on Indian fields.’29 And Marx concluded that while wanting to bring about a social revolution in India, England had been acting under the meanest of motivations and in the stupidest of manners ever known.30 Not yet abreast of the whole reality, understandably Marx warned the English regime, which stood on its industries (millocracy): They intend to endow India with railways with the exclusive view of extracting at diminished expense the cotton and other raw materials for their manufactures. But you have once introduced machinery into the locomotion of a country, which possesses iron and coals, you are unable to withhold it from its fabrication. You cannot maintain a net of railways over an immense country without introducing all those industrial processes necessary to meet the immediate and current wants of railway locomotion, and out of which there must grow the application of machinery to those branches of industry not immediately connected with railways. The railway system will therefore become, in India, truly the forerunner of modern industry . . . (that) will dissolve the hereditary sharings of work on which the Indian castes are founded, these decisive obstacles to the progress and to the strength of India.31

Marx expected that in Britain the new elite would be overthrown by the industrial proletariat, or that the ‘Hindus’ themselves become powerful enough to get rid of the English.32 Friedrich Engels wrote: ‘Maybe India will produce, perhaps undoubtedly, a revolution and, since no proletariat wanting its freedom can lead any colonial wars, it should receive its full luck; this would not occur without all sorts of

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

63

destruction, obvious as it is, but this kind of things is inseparable in all revolution.’33 With the abolition of slavery in West Indies, in 1833, many British slave traders turned towards India to become planters. Diffident about the particular customs and temperaments of these outlaws, British administrators granted them some land in distant regions and provided them with a forced labour nearly free of charge. Besides orchards and the plantations of tea, coffee, sugar cane and rubber, the most profitable commodity was indigo. All of a sudden, about a million Indians, most of them former craftsmen and farm workers suffering unemployment, were reduced to slavery. Emboldened by the leaders’ indulgence, insatiable in their criminal perversity (which victimised workers in every plantation), these planters trespassed into neighbouring villages and compelled the farmers to cultivate indigo. Sowers of consternation, these planters became objects of general odium in Indian society. When Frederick Halliday was appointed Governor of Bengal in 1853, he received a petition against the abuses of the indigo planters signed by one thousand citizens including farmers, landowners and members of the intelligentsia, he qualified the file to be a case of gratuitous calumny. Finally, incapable of hushing up popular resentment, a mediating decree on 20 February 1859 ordered the planters to stop imposing on farmers the cultivation of indigo. Far from being discouraged, the unpopularity of the indigo planters reached its climax; manifesting the people’s impatience, farmers declared a general strike. Manhandled, these strikers constituted themselves in spontaneous popular militias and started reacting against the planters’ violence. These, on their turn, kidnapped some villagers as hostages and executed them discreetly. On 23 February 1860, a whole regiment of peasants armed with improvised weapons invaded the plantation of Aurangabad in the district of Nadia, to put an end to the torture of the hostages by setting them free.34 Two competent masters of traditional martial arts of Bengal, Vishnucharan and Digambar

64

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Biswas of Chaugacha—in Nadia—had assembled and armed a few hundred guerrillas with lathis (seasoned staffs of bamboo), considered dangerous and infallible weapons. According to B.B. Kling, there were even women who joined the farmers, with terracotta crocks transformed into terrible projectiles. Testimonies of clashes despatched by respectable citizens and missionaries from all corners of the country arrived in Calcutta. Formerly believing in the beneficent acts of the English in India, two of Rammohun’s disciples— lending voice to the indignation of their fellows—started publishing in their newspapers echoes of this state of things. They were deeply disappointed by this new colonial politics that had no real intention of caring for the Indian interests. These two patriots were Pyarichand Mitra of the Indian Field and, Harish Chandra Mukherjee of the Hindu Patriot. It was only on 9 April 1860 that a commission of investigation was designated by the Council of the Governor-General. When Harish Chandra Mukherjee confided to the members of the commission the file of the testimonies against the planters, the whole country was aghast. Embodying the planters’ wrath, Archibald Hills filed a case against Harish. Motivated by a spirit of sacrifice for the good of his compatriots in misery, Harish was to fight for months together against the planters’ abuse. Overstrained, riddled with debt, he died in June 1860 at the age of thirty-one. Paying homage to him and inspired by his personal experience of the catastrophic effects that the planters provoked in the region of Dhaka, Dinabandhu Mitra staged a moving play, the Nila-darpana (The Indigo Mirror). This work was an immediate success: translated into English by the great poet Michael Madhusudan Dutt, it was published thanks to the Reverend James Long, himself author of a famous compilation of popular tales from Bengal. Never did in India’s history, the publication of a book cause such an uproar. Imprisoned under the pressure of the angry planters who accused him of slander, the Reverend was passionately supported by every Indian patriot. During his trial, the judge Mordaunt Wells pronounced some strictures against Bengali

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

65

people. Shocked by this malevolence, Radhakanto Dev organized an immense demonstration and handed over to the Viceroy a petition signed by about twenty thousand citizens: the judge was dealt a serious warning.35

I.3. The Bard of Patriotism Mahatma Rajnarain Basu (1826-1899)

While on the political field, in 1857, India was thoroughly shaken by the Revolt of the Sepoys, the first three Indian universities (Calcutta, Bombay and Madras) opened their doors to native students, under the influence of the Bengali savant Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar (1820-91). This obstinate leader pursued the social work chalked out by Rammohun Roy, simultaneously striving to abolish the system of polygamy among the Kulin Brahmanas and, especially, to grant Hindu widows the right to get remarried since, under Rammohun’s legislation, they had been saved from immolation on their spouse’s funeral pyre. Vidyasagar himself organized, in 1866, the first remarriage of widows, creating a great scandal among orthodox Brahmanas. And, with Vidyasagar’s personal blessings, Professor Rajnarain Basu got his cousin Durganarayan and his own brother Madanmohan married to two widows, under the threat of being lynched alive. Son of Nandakishore Basu (1802-45)—who was disciple and secretary of Rammohun—Rajnarain had been, first, to the school of David Hare, then to Hindu College under D.L. Richardson and Mr. Ries. Formerly a soldier in Napoleon’s infantry, Ries had inflamed the heart of his pupils by his evocations of the French Revolution.36 Drawn towards the sceptical philosophy of David Hume and influenced by Henry Derozio, Rajnarain said: ‘There is nothing wrong in being sceptical. Scepticism proves that men are better than doctrines and opinions.’ Scepticism, from that point of view, was to be recognized by Rabindranath Tagore as a state of grace resulting in a first contact with the Divine. Not content with

66

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

the established order, we reach out to something beyond.37 Religion is that, believed Rabindranath, which is at the service of unity and peace, a link in the midst of so many clashes, incompatibilities and separations on earth, that which people call Law (dharma).38 In 1845, struck by his wife’s death and that of his father, Rajnarain Basu found the friendship of Devendranath Tagore (1817-1905) the son of Dwarkanath who had been one of the first disciples and friends of Rammohun. Rajnarain, with an encyclopaedic mind—at ease in Sanskrit, Bengali, Persian, Arabic, as well as English—had brought to Devendranath a prophetic breath in structuring the reformed Brahmo religion, which Rammohun had founded and which was considered to be the ultimate blossoming of Hinduism in its spiritual essence. Rajnarain’s contribution was fundamental in Devendranath’s monumental Brahmo Dharma. With insertions of texts in old Sanskrit (extracted notably from the Upanishads, the laws of Manu, the Epics and the Tantras, with translations and commentaries) this work owed to Rajnarain his learning, intellectual clarity, and intuition. He considered that intuition helps lay only the infrastructure whereas reason erects the superstructure of all religion. Instead of the momentary ecstacy of the mystics, Rajnarain tried to consolidate in his heart, more and more intensely, the constant radiance of his devotion. ‘Religion is not an occasional kindling of the feelings; it is life itself,’ he said.39 ‘Live constantly in an ambience of love, since religion is nothing but love.’40 We will see further how deeply Devendranath admired Victor Cousin: toward the end of his life he tried to read The True, the Beautiful, the Good in the original with the help of a French dictionary. On the other side, to inaugurate the new Brahmo temple in February 1849, Rajnarain adapted in Bengali, a sermon of Fenelon (1651-1715): interspersed with Upanishadic hymns, this ‘explanation of the maxims of the saints’ sang the adept’s perfection in his love of God and the passive and confident quietude of the soul. The love for the Creator remains incomplete, in Rajnarain’s conception,

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

67

as long as one does not turn it into love of His creatures. Knowledge, love, and action are the three paths of the human quest. Thanks to his realistic and practical bent of mind and an uncompromising search for truth, Rajnarain was the first to speak in terms of a science of religions. He recommended the shortest and the simplest path for acquiring the best results. His social reforms and patriotic projects having been inspired by his theistic consciousness, he was persuaded about the transforming role of religion in human life. According to him, the more someone succeeds in modifying his thought and religious practice, the more ascendancy he gains in his integral life, enabling him to mould it according to his ideal. Rajnarain’s analytic mind, perceived India’s multiple crises, economic, moral and intellectual. According to Rajnarain, Western ways adopted by Indians while acquiring education in English exposed them to a desperate situation: although European culture was imbibed along with European notions of want, necessity, and luxury, the European means to fulfil them through industry and trade did not develop adequately. There was no doubt that increasing concern for these was the main cause of a people’s loss of strength, vitality, and longevity. The indifference of the regime to this frustration precludes, from day-to-day, all hope of sympathy or solidarity. Just as Rajnarain accused the mentality of the little Englishmen of having sown cupidity, insubordination, discourtesy, double-dealing, selfishness, he never lost sight of positive qualities—such as patriotism—that India cultivated by emulating the great Englishmen. Insisting that Indian tradition cherished immensely perseverance, endurance before all hardship, humility, obedience, respect and devotion, he urged they be perpetuated. Rajnarain discovered in them the secret of the past value and grandeur of the country. Son of a man who commanded an admirable style in English, himself having published in the prestigious English newspapers (e.g. the Times of London), Rajnarain relentlessnessly professed the utility of learning one’s mother tongue; he recommended Hindi as the national language. Only a return to decorum

68

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

and to basic ethics would be able to give back to Indians their moral and physical health. Love of the motherland and love of compatriots, converging into love of the Creator, allowed Rajnarain to affirm that the religion reformed by Rammohun (the Brahmoism) was the bridge between the past and the future, between the East and the West that could obliterate the multiple disagreements and conflicts that tormented the national spirit. Evoking as illustration the excellence of their Aryan forefathers, Rajnarain advised Hindus, in the most scientific way, to adopt the ambitious but realistic project to realize on their ancestral land a great national unity. Having drunk of the most elevated Muslim theistic thought (at one time, the teenager dreamed of embracing Islam), having enjoyed his father’s liberalism (who appreciated refined meat dishes prepared by his friend Uzir Ali, a Muslim man of letters from Kanpur, while he often relished, in the evening, a hearty glass of sherry with his son), having shared with Devendranath Tagore the enthusiasm for Muslim mystics (Saadi, Hafez, Rumi), Rajnarain did not exclude a mutually enriching cohabitation with his Muslim brethren. Faithful to the letter to the wishes of Rammohun, it is in 1865 that Rajnarain had his daughter Svarnalata married to Dr Krishnadhan Ghose (future parents of Sri Aurobindo), for the first time in India according to the strict injunctions of the new Brahmô religion. Among the guests were Devendranath Tagore and Keshubchandra Sen (converted since 1857 on reading Rajnarain’s works). The Society for the Promotion of National Feelings that Rajnarain had founded in 1861— having to encourage arts, as well as moral and physical instruction—gave rise, since 1867, to a concrete structure under the shape of the National Festival organized annually in Calcutta by Nabagopal Mitra. This organizer had assembled the country’s intelligentsia for an exceptional occasion when statesmen, poets, philosophers, writers, and others revealed to the people various horizons of service to the Motherland. It was during this festival, in 1871, that there appeared for the first time before the public, a teenage poet of the name of

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

69

Rabindranath (son of Devendranath). Driven by his nationalist devotion, Nabagopal created the National Association (that met every month), the National Journal, the National High School, the National Gymnasium (where lessons in self-defence and horsemanship attracted a crowd of youngmen); so that people nicknamed him National Nabagopal. Presided over by Devendranath, during the Session of 15 September 1872, Rajnarain gave his historic speech on ‘the Superiority of Hinduism’. It was reproduced by the Times of London, reprinted by the Theosophists, translated into several languages. It helped Max Müller to orient his analysis toward the science of Comparative Religion and, pushed John Woodroffe to write Is India Civilised? Later, it inspired Aurobindo to pronounce on the Defence of Indian Culture. Planning to institute an esoteric element in nationalism, in 1877 Rajnarain founded a secret society, the Sanjivani (resurrection) inspired by the Carbonari model. Rabindranath Tagore in his autobiographical writings mentions that these meetings took place in a decrepit building situated on a dark street. The main door remained closed, the room was dark; the password was composed of some Vedic syllables; the speeches were whispered.41 To believe some other testimonies, notably those of Jyotirindranath (Rabindranath’s elder brother) and Bipinchandra Pal, Rajnarain clothed in a bloodred raw silk robe, received the members in a room where two candles burned (stuck in the orbits of a skull). On a table lay a manuscript of the Vedas and an unsheathed sword (representing the traditional power of the warrior); every new member signed on the leaf of adherence with the blood of his chest. At the very name of the Motherland, the old man’s eyes ignited and his heart vibrated with enthusiasm. For Tagore it was Rajnarain, who set in motion ‘the movement of our national emancipation’. The warrior-like exaltation of Rajnarain remained as alert up to his last days: Bipinchandra Pal wrote that at the first meeting, this venerable patriarch had told him: ‘I do not hope to live long. But I would feel fulfilled in this life if, before my death, I could annihilate with

70

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

my own hands at least one enemy of our Motherland.’ As a member of the National Association, Surendranath Banerjee (1848-1925), future leader of the party named the National Congress, undertook in 1877 an All-India tour to awaken nationalism by evoking the ideals of Mazzini and Garibaldi. Faithful to Rajnarain’s message, Surendranath consulted him before taking any major decision. Shocked by the incarceration of Surendranath, Rajnarain wrote to him in 1883: ‘Am I really sad? Such an arrest cannot but be a glory. Anyone who loves his Motherland, will accept imprisonment to be a due honour, since its possible consequences are of a great value for the nation.’ Then in 1907 Sri Aurobindo (Rajnarain’s grandson) was involved in a trial and proved innocent. Rabindranath Tagore went to congratulate him with open arms and said, in a playful tone, ‘Finally, you disappoint us. Neither prison, nor exile?’ Incapable of participating in the annual sessions of the National Congress (founded in 1885) owing to old age, Rajnarain sent the text of his speeches and maintained a regular correspondence with Allan Hume, its founder. Young Rabindranath Tagore, animated by patriotic fire wrote one of his first political speeches in Calcutta in 1884, where rang the prophetic voice of Rajnarain Basu: Why this agitation before the English! We who, by cowardice, leave space for them in the streets, we who tolerate the unjustified reproaches from our English superiors in the offices, these English who throw us out of the benches in public gardens, who forbid us access to their clubs, reserve their seats far from our company in the trains, they who mean by ‘gentlemen’ all their compatriots and by ‘babu’ these timorous of native officers. And it is before these Englishmen that we intend to brandish our supplications: ‘Grant us a prestige equal to yours!’ What does this comic petition mean. . . . Cannot we acquire this equality by our own merit? Can we not enhance our people’s dignity by our own means? . . . Is it not our duty to remedy the injuries that our people suffer from? . . . Those who do not know how to impose respect, how can they expect any crown of laurels? . . .

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

71

I.4. The Quest of the National Soul Swami Dayanand (1824-1883)

Having had to lead battles on several other fronts during his relatively short life, in spite of his wishes, Rammohun could not found the national consciousness on the principles of the Vedas. Time was at last ripe to interpret and to reveal the content of the Vedanta on the basis of available translations and commentaries of the major Upanishads. Pursuing the Master’s incomplete investigation with the help of Rajnarain, Devendranath wanted to demonstrate the doctrinal infallibility of the Vedas as divine and impersonal revelation; for so doing, he had to resort to a syllogism modelled on the rationalist method of Catholic church, also inspired by Bacon and Locke. It was a question of borrowing arguments without much subjective conviction; because Devendranath and Rajnarain were basically more sensitive to the poetic words of the Vedanta, as these were accessible to their experience and to their intuition. Therefore, happy to have rid the national cultural field of all savage growths encouraged by mythology and idolatrous legends (purana), they reserved the religion of the Vedanta for the future. Whereas Devendranath and Rajnarain looked to emancipate reason from the clutch of the holy Scriptures and, even, institute a religious revolt, Keshub Chunder Sen (1838-84), in the traditional manner of worshipping Vishnu triggered a social revolt by professing scorn for the caste and rituals, even inviting women to get involved in the functioning of the communities. These were ideas that Rammohun himself had defended. At the time of his lecture tours through India (notably Bengal, Madras, Maharashtra and the north-west regions), Keshub raised, literally his audience, making of Shri Chaitanya (1485-1533), the great apostle and visionary of divine love. To believe the Bombay Gazette (1868), Keshub had attained his objective of

72

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

uniting numerous Indian races—in order to give them a common religion, a common social goal, and to constitute out of them one single nation. In a nutshell, he attempted a unity in religion, a unity in social economy, and a unity in national feeling aiming at a common political belief leading to the achievement of a political destiny.42

His speeches are aglow with a particular passion as soon as the subject refers to considering the future of India.43 Just as Rajnarain’s religious revolt carried in itself the germs of social revolt, Keshub during his lifetime and with his efforts helped the release of a social revolt (which was none the less religious), and the first most remarkable flames of a political revolt. The gaze fixed on a cultural and national unity of Asia. Keshub proclaimed in its speech, ‘For me, the slightest dust of Asia is more precious than all the gold and all the silver (of Europe)’.44 This was echoed by the Japanese thinker Kakuzo Okakura (1863-1913), among others. Worried by the aggressive politics of the European nations, Keshub wrote in 1883 that England may wish to anglicize the whole of Europe, France may wish that the whole of Europe became Francophone, Germany may wish to Germanize the whole of Europe, America may want to Americanize the entire globe; but Providence hardly encourages such fantasies and such annihilating appetites, on behalf of any single power. Heaven has a horror of monopolies and grants to every individual and to every nation the liberty of action and the diversity of operations, so that each can grow in the spontaneity and according to the variety of a natural fullness.45 Faithful to Rammohun’s dream of a confederation of nations, Keshub proclaimed that the state is a vast and complicated gearing in which innumerable wheels of different sizes and shapes fit together, each in its place and functioning harmoniously with a unique goal in view. Judges and magistrates, tradesmen and merchants, rural and peasant proprietors, capitalists and ploughmen, scholars and illiterates, rich and poor, all contribute to the well-being and the progress of the state. Similar to the working classes, the aristocracy, too, is essential to the life and the comfort of

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

73

the political body. The very exclusion of the pettiest section of the community would entail death for the state. And, when several of these governments manage their respective business in solidarity, an international friendship and harmony emerge in which life and the growth of each discovers great security.46 The political revolt reached a singular dimension in the works of Swami Dayanand Sarasvati, militant monk hailing from Kathiawad where two other champions of Indian nationalism would be born: Pandit Shyamaji Krishnaverma (1857-1930) and M.K. Gandhi (1869-1948). At a very young age, disillusioned by abuses of idolatry, by social practices based on ignorance of the true spiritual life and on colonial exploitation, Dayanand put at the people’s service all his encyclopedic learning of the Hindu scriptures to revive Vedic teachings in order to solve contemporary problems, religious, social, political, and cultural. Having sworn not to borrow anything from Western thought, Dayanand never learned any European language. This permitted him to define the true nationalist existence inspired by the principles of a strictly Indian tradition and to go beyond the ritualistic and mythocentric interpretations of the Vedas. Dayanand chalked out the general principles sufficient to regenerate the Indian nation. He considered the Vedas as ‘something more: the very speech of the eternal Truth on which can be founded—in a sure and justified manner—the human knowledge of God and man’s relationship with the divine being as well as with the like.’47 To show the compatibility between a conduct of spiritual life and a science of national government, Dayanand in his ‘Introduction to the commentaries of the Rigveda’ (Rigvedadi-bhashya-bhumika), interpreted a section of the Vedic verses in the light of burning political issues of the time. Uniting, thus, the innate intuition of Aryan spirituality with an acceptable rational methodology by dialectic mentality, Dayanand established the fundamental unity of the Indian people where the plurality of languages, of sects, of behaviours and of customs only assumed a superficial but enriching

74

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

role. According to Dayanand, whatever the excellence of a foreign government, it could never replace the qualities of a self-management. To acquire the political independence of India as a nation chosen to reveal a new spiritual light to humanity, Dayanand undertook a programme of fierce struggle. This struggle would require: The exclusion of all ideological debt to foreign sources and the institution of an obligatory educational system for all children and teenagers (boys and girls), based on the residential academies of Vedic type (gurukula). ‘Be they princes and princesses or children of beggars, they will be submitted to the same food, sartorial regime, to the same absolute law of continence.’ The teaching would be physical, aesthetic (music, dance, theatrical art and authentic diction of the Vedic hymns), ethical, intellectual and spiritual. The arduous programme of intellectual studies that Dayanand recommended, has been reconstituted by B.B. Majumdar. Spread over twenty-two years, it included: (a) Phonetics; the grammar of Panini, the Mahabhasya of Patanjali (3 years); (b) The Vedic lexicon as established by Yaska in the Nirukta (8 months); (c) Prosody by Pingala (4 months); (d) The Laws of Manu, the Epics (the Ramayana, entirely and important portions of the Mahabharata); (e) The six orthodox Schools (darshana) of Indian philosophy and the ten main Upanishads (2 years); (f) All the four Vedas and the supplementary Brahmanas (6 years); (g) The science of life (Ayurveda) including medical and surgical treatises (4 years); (h) Music, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, geography, geology and astronomy (3 years); (i) Economics and policies, containing civil and military protections (2 years).

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

75

As strength and the physical activity grow, the intellect becomes subtle enough to seize the most abstruse and profound subjects.48 According to the faculty and the competence students had access to the highest knowledge. Once adult, they chose the woman or the man of their life to found a family and to assume their responsibilities as citizens and parents of future citizens. The degradation of national character caused by the centuries of slavery, preoccupied Dayanand. He had insisted on: (1) The personal integrity and health of the teachers. Each of them by his or her example should awaken among their subjects ‘qualities required such as truthfulness in words, in acts and in thought, decorum, the self-control, sweetness of conduct’. These educational experiences will make of the gurukula institutions ever more prestigious in India and their influence will be constantly present throughout the greatest developments of education in India, notably at Sabarmati (the educational community founded by Gandhi), at Santiniketan and the Vishvabharati (school and university founded by Tagore), at Pondicherry (the International Centre of Education founded by the Mother based on Sri Aurobindo’s teachings). (2) The acceptance of Hindi as the national language and of the Vedas as the source of the people’s religious life. (3) A conversion of the strata of population, unjustly oppressed by the ignorance and the intolerance of Hindu orthodoxy: conversion also, by an initiatic purification, of all those who want to share Hindu faith. As Nivedita was to observe, ‘thanks to Dayanand, Hinduism can take its defensive role against the invectives of all religious currents, and it can assume a dynamic militant aspect’. (4) The end of all foreign government in India: Dayanand would raise his voice to endeavour to fight, humiliate, and destroy unbelievers, even if they were sovereign over the world, even if they were powerful.

76

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

(5) Electing a president of the sovereign republic by universal suffrage, since the people are sovereign. Fiercely opposed to the autocratic reign, conscious of the fallibility and corruptibility of an individual propelled to the supreme command, Dayanand insisted on the vast learning and on the human qualities of the future president. According to the Vedic injunctions, the State should be composed of three colleges of elected citizens, all of them known for their integrity: (a) the legislative college; (b) the religious college; (c) the college of fine arts and sciences After a long journey throughout India, at the end of innumerable debates (qualified as Homeric by Romain Rolland) against assemblies of a hostile Orthodoxy, Dayanand established in Bombay, on 10 April 1875, the Society of the Men with Higher Principles (the Arya Samaj) that was to spread out its influence, little by little, all over India. Between 1879 and 1881, accepting Dayanand as their Master and Guide, Mrs Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott tried to implant the Theosophical Society in India; but very soon Dayanand withdrew from this society to preserve the uniqueness and the authenticity of his own movement, protecting it from all foreign influences, including the Christian. Acting under Dayanand’s political ideology, eminent leaders in the Punjab—Lajpat Rai, Swami Shraddhananda, Lala Hans Raj and Gurdas Ram—continued to be persecuted by the colonial police and during the difficult years of nationalist agitation (1907-8), the British Authorities constantly noticed a hundred and thirteen names. As passionate as Rammohun and Keshub Chunder by a universal kindliness, Dayanand declared (in the first Charter of the Arya Samaj), ‘The well-being of the whole humanity will be the objective of the Samaja’. Two years later, in 1877, he expressed among the principles of the Arya Samaj that of doing good to the whole world, while improving the physical, spiritual, and social conditions of humanity. And in the

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

77

Satyartha Prakash (The Light of the Truth) he wrote: ‘I believe in a religion based on all-embracing universal principles, that have always been accepted as truths by mankind and will continue to be obeyed down the ages to come. I call this the Eternal Primitive Religion: because it is above the hostility of all human beliefs. This alone I hold to be acceptable and worth believing by all people and down all times.’49 ‘What a mover of mass was this stern Sanyaasi with soul of a leader’ will write Romain Rolland. ‘He was the most vigorous force for the current action, for the immediate action of India for the moment, for the hour to resume national consciousness and its resurgence. He was one of the most ardent of builders for the reconstruction and the nationalist organisation. I sense in him the eve of an eventful day.50

As for Sri Aurobindo, himself translator of the Vedas and revealer of their secrets, founder of an Extremist nationalism and herald of the ideal of human unity, at the head of the Indian renaissance, he stands our with a particular and single distinction. In an assessment of the personality and the contribution of Dayanand as observed by Sri Aurobindo, Professor Tripathi later noted that in the midst of cultural shocks, of ideologies and interests, he made Dayanand the personification of pure energy, the highest clarity, the discerning perspicacity, a master and a dominant figure in one word, herald of the Vedic Word. Dayanand became the very symbol of the Extremist ideal for militant patriots of the future. He anticipated, in a way, Man’s creative religion—affirmative, courageous, powerful like that of the Aryans, one that Vivekanand will preach.51

I.5. The Motherland, a Cult Bankimchandra Chatterjee (1838-1894)

Rammohun Roy endeavoured to modernize the body and the mind of Indian society as it was being influenced by its transactions with the West. At the same time, he wanted to install

78

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

at the heart of Indian nationalism the vision and teachings of the Vedanta. This thesis contained in itself the antithesis that the Arya Samaj led by Dayanand was going to promote, recommending a total abstraction of foreign influences while infusing in national life the oldest message of the Vedas. Such an antithesis, in its turn, would beget a series of complementary syntheses, the very first of which was manifest in the life and the works of Bankimchandra Chatterjee. Bankimchandra had distinguished himself in the first batch of candidates for the highest qualification that the new University of Calcutta offered, in 1858. He wrote remarkable essays on various subjects, Shakespeare’s theatre, Dryden’s poetry, Addison’s prose, as well as mathematics (mainly the conic section), mechanics, astronomy, physics, mental and moral sciences, and Sanskrit and Bengali literature. Perfectly abreast with the strides taken by Indian and Western philosophers, Bankimchandra would remain to the end of his life an admirer of the positivist thought: several times in his works, there are direct allusions to Herbert Spencer, Auguste Comte, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. In a study on equality, he announced the advent of Communism and of Internationalism, proclaiming Buddha and Christ to have been the first two prophets of this cult of contemporary world. While imbibing the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Bankimchandra evoked with clarity and precision the contributions of as yet little known thinkers like Robert Owen (1771-1858), Louis Blanc (1811-82), Saint-Simon (1760-1825) and Etienne Cabet (1788-56). He professed with enthusiasm two topics that preoccupied him: social parity between classes (proprietors/labourers), and, especially, equality between women and men. Endowed with a deeply critical and analytical intelligence, a consciousness alert to social and historical problems, a temperament on the lookout for spirituality, often disdainful of religious formalism, Bankimchandra by his learning and his intuition was indeed a man more prudent and perspicacious than a number of his contemporaries. Indian by

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

79

heart, he did not let any emotional admiration influence his standpoints, either concerning Indian tradition or Western thinkers. Persuaded, like Comte, that a moral and religious regeneration based on the understanding of some fundamental principles of faith should necessarily precede all well-wishing reform, Bankimchandra preferred to avoid abrupt revolutions that would bring about a rupture with the past: a rupture that would require, sooner or later, according to Bankimchandra, a stepping back, in order to settle problems hastily left out.52 Innovative in his vision of promoting a just and accelerated action, Bankimchandra was uncertain in his affinity for Auguste Comte every time that this thinker wanted to replace God by humanity. Humanity, finally and concretely dependent on the love of its supporters, was ‘relative, modifiable and perfectible’. Sharing with Comte love of man as a principle, manushya-priti, where order is the basis and progress is assimilated into the final goal, Bankimchandra affirmed, however, that God was the only mediator between man and man: Indian philosophy had given him enough examples like Buddha who, while serving mankind, had had the experience of nirvana. With his love for human creatures as emanation of the Divine and the love of the Divine in a spirit of consecrated action, he remained faithful to the secret of Hindu activism. Bankimchandra also went back up to the First Commandment of the Old Testament: Purification obtained by a long apprenticeship (anushilan) for making all components of the being and all moments of life compatible with the chosen ideal. This would serve as an essential key to all religious practices of the world: ‘One who has attained psychological purification is, indeed, the best Hindu, the best Christian, the best Buddhist, the best Muslim, and the best Positivist.’53 In spite of his admiration for Mill and for Bentham, in spite of his understanding of their beneficent mission, Bankimchandra did not accept as a total truth the utilitarian philosophy. Incapable of admitting it as a surrogate of religion, he retained the ethical applications, without serious

80

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

consideration for its materialistic implications. It reminds Amales Tripathi of the apt observation of John Plamenatz: ‘For James Mill, as much as for Bentham, the virtuous man is above all a good calculator.’54 While condemning Darwinism, Bankimchandra denounced, as did Keshub Chunder Sen, the politics of self-enrichment by the great nations, attacking and enslaving others at the same time. He was reminded of Herbert Spencer’s favourite notion: self-protection is a universal law of creation meant for divine intention. Patriotism in its narrow meaning was for Bankimchandra a very futile goal. A magistrate in his professional life, Bankimchandra had seen the abuses of the colonial administration that oppressed the natives in a discriminatory way. Before the persecution of indigo planters led by the Morel establishment in Jessore, in November 1861, Bankimchandra had hurried, even risking his own life, to the affected areas. After having the malefactors arrested, he had transferred the case to the Court of Calcutta where he earned an absolute victory. This achievement was to be the cause of many prejudices against him later in his career. In the teeth of these tensions, anxious to concentrate more on his literary activities, Bankimchandra published, in 1872, his famous magazine Bangadarshana (Contemplating Bengal). About it Bankimchandra announced: As long as the educated and literate children of Bengal will not express themselves in Bengali, very little can be done for their progress. We have spared no pains to make this magazine worth reading. It can express the learning, the imagination, the experiences and the light of the writers’ mind. Vehicle of their thoughts, it can spread knowledge in Bengal.

Bipin Chandra Pal was to write about this magazine that it occupied in the history of enlightenment in Bengal, a place ‘identical to that of the Encyclopaedists in the history of French thought during the Age of Enlightenment’. Rabindranath Tagore wrote, ‘The Bangadarshana appeared like the first rain of the season, much expected, a majestic

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

81

voice coming from above. All streams and all rivers of Bengali literature attained suddenly their fullness. Poems, plays, novels, essays, magazines and newspapers filled the air of Bengal with pleasant voices of the dawn. And the Bengali, then, jumped from his childhood towards his youth.’55 While the whole country devoured with an unforeseen gusto the novels by Bankimchandra, the first sociologist of modern India, at the same time, he wrote also a flow of historic, social, political, literary, musicological and philosophical essays. He delivered some of his most intimate observations on national degeneration, taking refuge behind his character, Kamalakanta, the opium-eater, and in a tone of simple good-hearted satire. Under the pretext of reflecting on English pedagogy that trained only to become small clerical employees for the British commercial agencies in India, Kamalakanta brought out a notice that he seemed to have seen, during a fair, before a kiosk held by some Europeans who proposed to their customers experimental sciences in the form of a coconut. MESSRS BROWN JONES AND ROBINSON WHOLESALERS… ESTABLISHED SINCE 1757 ON THE FIELD OF PLASSEY. MESSRS BROWN JONES AND ROBINSON OFFER TO THE INDIAN PUBLIC A GREAT VARIETY OF COCONUTS, PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL, LOGICAL AND ILLOGICAL, GOOD ENOUGH TO DISLOCATE THE JAWS AND TO BREAK THE TEETH OF ALL INDIAN YOUTH IN NEED OF CURBING THE DENTAL SUPERFLUITIES

The tradesmen shouted: Come, o little man with a tanned skin, come and have a taste of experimental sciences. Look at this

82

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Experience Number 1: these are punches, efficient in blowing the teeth up, crushing the head and breaking the bones. We are here to demonstrate, provided that you lend us your own head or your sufficiently tender bones. We are clever in joining together and cutting asunder material objects, we have specialised in the analysis of matter by chemical or electric or magnetic processes; but, above all, we are infallible in analysing brains by blows with our fists. Strength of gravitation, composite attraction of the molecules, magnetic attraction are all known to us, but we are the best experts in traction by hair. In this world, one can note so many alloys between material objects; for example, the simple union of oxygen and nitrogen in air, the chemical mixture of hydrogen and oxygen in water and the phenomenon of the punch on your backs. Therefore, if you want to realise all these marvellous events, put forward your heads for our experiments. You will see how, thanks to gravitation, these coconuts are going to fall on your heads. You will also make acquaintance with the astonishing resonant mystery that one calls percussion and you will note that, by the presence of a nervous network inside your brains, you will feel the pain it causes. Pay in advance so that you can enjoy your experiences free of cost.56

Kamalakanta explained in this narration the way the European tradesmen pounced on the neighbouring stand held by Brahmanas, to seize their coconuts, to return to their boutique and crack its luscious kernel with the help of a perfected strong European tool and to taste brutally all its sweetness. Amazed, Kamalakanta wanted to know what was happening: ‘These are Oriental studies’, came the answer. It was always Kamalakanta—Bankimchandra’s mouthpiece—who, in his opium daze, had a vision of India, the unhappy Mother, and felt uneasy before the glorious form of the Divine Mother, creator of the universe. The sketches of Kamalakanta served Bankimchandra to stimulate the nation and to install in its heart an image of the Motherland, to demonstrate the power and the stature of this divinity, to execute Her will. Bankimchandra elaborated this vision in three of his most popular novels: Anandamath, where he published for the first time the national anthem of future India, Bande Mataram; Devi Chaüdhurani considered to be

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

83

the Emile of Bankimchandra the pedagogue); and Sitarama, the Hindu hero who fought against the Muslim empire to protect the autonomy of his principality. Very often, in order to provoke his compatriots Bankimchandra evoked allegorically the oppression of some historic Muslim reign, in order to avoid direct persecution from the British. Actually, keeping in view the complex reality of the nation he looked for a total emancipation of Muslims and Hindus. In Sitarama (1884), is a Muslim saint, Chandsa Fakir, who tells the hero: My child, I learned that you came to found a Hindu kingdom. If you do not have any equal consideration for Hindu and Muslim subjects, you will never establish your kingdom in this country that is at the same time home of the Hindus and the Muslims. Instead of being considered as a kingdom founded on the right law (dharmarajya), you will reign in a kingdom of sins.57

In the epilogue to his novel Rajasimha, Bankimchandra warned his readers: All Hindus are not necessarily good; nor all Muslims necessarily bad. All Hindus are not necessarily bad, nor all Muslims necessarily good. Good and Evil exist in equal parts in both these communities. Besides, it must be admitted that since it was the Muslims who had during so many centuries ruled over India, certainly the Muslims were superior to their contemporary Hindus, having necessary qualities to govern. Along with all other virtues, someone who practises the right law (dharma)—be he Hindu or Muslim—is a superior being. Someone who, in spite of other virtues, does not practise the right law is a lower creature. By not practising the right law, Aurangzeb set crumbling his empire with him. Rajasimha practised the right law: though he was the sovereign of quite a small kingdom, he was capable of braving and defeating the Mughal emperor.58

* Spokesman of the starved, exasperated and oppressed peasantry; spokesman of an intelligentsia deeply frustrated in its thirst for justice, for occasions to dedicate its competence to

84

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

the service of the Motherland; spokesman of an understanding that stopped accepting British politics as a boon for India, Bankimchandra professed more and more overtly in his novels and essays the indispensable need to resort to native means of self-determination. Addressing the irresistible strength of the Indian proletariat, underlining the invincibility of these hundreds of millions of children of Mother India, putting forward the efficiency of the traditional martial arts in cases where the voice of reason remained a dead letter with the government, Bankimchandra showed in Anandamath (1882) that rebellion became indispensable against a power hostile to the people’s interests. The ideal man of action must be initiated by a spiritual master, must have practised lessons of self-perfection (anushilan), must have united his patriotic love to that for his God. ‘The mother, as well as the Motherland, are more glorious than Heaven’ (janani-janmabhumish-cha-svargadapi gariyasi). This awareness of the necessities of the hour and this inspiring message were adopted very quickly by eminent contemporaries like the poet Navinchandra Sen (1846-1909), the novelist and historian Romesh Chunder Dutt (1848-1909) and the Tagore brothers, Jyotirindranath (1849-1925) and Rabindranath (1861-1941)—their evocation of the glorious episodes inspired by the people’s socio-political history—not only Bengali, but Rajput, Marathi, Sikh and even of the mythological battle of Kurukshetra—thus nourished the quest for a national identity. The brilliant pan-Indian lecture tours of Surendranath Banerjee (1848-1925) were situated in this same perspective; the latter advised his friend Yogendra Vidyabhushan (1845-1904) to inspire popular sympathy with biographies in Bengali such as Mazzini (1886), Garibaldi (1890), and Wallace, the Scottish Revolutionary (1886). Rare were the readers of the time who did not get intoxicated by the deeds of these heroes that Yogendra described with passion.

*

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

85

An aesthete addicted to the charms of life, admirer of beauty in Nature and of human beings (as much physical as psychic), at the same time champion of the highest ethics that revealed the spiritual essence of existence, Bankimchandra embodied a rare convergence of a rigorous ideology lived in a spontaneous serenity. The ideal man that Bankimchandra worshipped in Indian history was Janaka: king and saint at the same time, this personality counted on his son-in-law Rama, as the founder of the empire of Truth (Rama-rajya, the utopian empire that would serve Gandhi as a nostalgic reference to the Hindu millenarian dreams). Fundamentally opposed to all coercive and ascetic practices, himself an honest family man, Bankimchandra was on the lookout for the divinity in man: it is only after 1880 that he affirmed in his work the personification of God accepting a human material body in the person of Krishna. Disappointed by the conventional teachings of the Vedanta which worshipped an abstract God without attributes, he was in need of a personal God. His wayfaring was somewhat analogous to that of Saint Augustin: to try and recover the vestige in the human mind now, directing the sharpened tip of the illumined creature’s mind towards an unchangeable light.59 If the Brahmos (the elite reformed by Rammohun, worshipper of the Absolute without attributes) introduced personalized notions of God as Father, Friend, and Master, why should one not grant the man in the street the right to offer worship to a God with human faces? Bankimchandra seemed to anticipate the idea of transforming humanity into Divinity. Much like his positivist effort to install the historic Christ, he carved out the historic personality of Krishna from a thick gangue of mythological miracles. Adolescent, Krishna maintained an intimate contact with the animal, vegetable and farming life; adult, he come to the throne of Mathura, father of a family and a powerful statesman. He became friend and counsel of Arjuna, the best among warriors in an ethical quest of the right action, ready to receive lessons in self-perfection. Farther, choosing to drive Arjuna’s chariot in the decisive battle between the

86

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

forces of the future and those opposed to progress, in the midst of confusion and destruction, Krishna was to play the role of the symbolically clairvoyant: a state of things judged indispensable for the advent of a new order of things, of a new cycle in evolution. Such, according to Bankimchandra, is the heart of the teaching we derive from the Gita. For him, spirituality was based more on conduct than belief, and the Gita as a driving force for the new era corresponded with his social teaching. Bankimchandra widened the Benthamist mission in stages: (a) love for oneself; (b) love for one’s kin; (c) love for one’s Motherland; (d) universal love; (e) love for the Supreme. This ascending scale leading to a deification or divinization of life had been chalked out by the traditional Indian scriptures and, it will find a considerably new turn in Sri Aurobindo, as the future hope for humanity. Heir of the political applications of Bankimchandra’s vision, too, Sri Aurobindo hailed him as the creator of Bengali prose and literature, creator of a nation. Sri Aurobindo heard in Bankimchandra’s accents the prophetic throbbing of the Seers of long ago, of the Vedic rishis.59

I.6. The Soul of Militant Nationalism Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920)

The Maratha people in the west of India had constituted under the great hero Sivaji (1627-80) a powerful Hindu kingdom that spread up to the south of the peninsula, reacting against the crushing fanaticism of the Muslim emperor Aurangzeb (1618-1707). Disciple of the famous saint Ramadas (160881), Sivaji had had the mission of founding a reign of dharma. Out of respect for all places of divine worship, Sivaji had allocated a special budget to finance the functioning of the Hindu temples as much as Muslim mosques. In his eyes, Muslim women and children deserved the same treatment as that he meted to Hindus. Just as he had celebrated the

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

87

radiating spiritual presence of Baba Yakut, the Muslim religious teacher, by conferring on him landed properties and honours, he also reserved some funds for students of the Vedas: those who knew the First Book (the Rik) thoroughly, received about half a quintal of cereals per year to meet their material needs; those who knew the first two of them (the Rik and the Sama), received a whole quintal of rice.61 To promote thus the Vedic tradition was a part of Sivaji’s most cherished dreams. Unfortunately, surrounded by a Brahman elite more and more greedy and self-centred, oblivious of the interest of their heritage as well as that of the people and the Motherland, Sivaji will not be able to accomplish his heroic plans. When under English rule, the whole of India tried desperately to reject the increasingly heavy taxes levied by the British empire, refusing to be bled white by paying for expensive wars of the Crown in China or in Abyssinia, the expensive maintenance of a naval base in the Mediterranean, or diplomatic missions in Persia or in China, many Indian patriots turned with nostalgia to the memory of Sivaji. India’s ‘debt’ to the British Crown passed during this period (18601900), from 30 million pounds sterling to 133 million, when, with twenty-four important famines (six between 1851 and 1875, and eighteen between 1876 and 1900), 20 million of Indians perished. A propos of the State Commission’s investigation into the Famines, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee had raised the question of the peasants’ deplorable state.62 Taking advantage of agrarian revolts of the 1870s in Maharashtra and Bengal, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the Maratha statesman nicknamed Lokamanya—‘Venerated by the People’—published his essays attacking government policy and initiating a set of meaningful actions destined to rouse the masses against tyranny. Tilak taught the people the importance of disobeying the laws of a foreign power: better refuse to pay taxes and die as heroes than perish by famine and epidemic. Having criticized the arbitrary practices of a minister of Kolhapur, in 1882,

88

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Tilak was sentenced to four months in prison. In 1893—as soon as the Indian Congress proposed a bill to put a definite end to the capricious agricultural taxes—Tilak approved with enthusiasm.Then, facing the remote controlled fomenting of religious riots, quite a new phenomenon provoked by the measures taken by Lord Dufferin in the 1890s, Tilak revived, an old Hindu festival worshipping Ganapati (Lord of the People) resembling the muharram, the parade of the fervent Muslims to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hassan. Similar to the National Festival of Rajnarain Basu, this new feature demonstrated the skill of Hindu youngmen trained in self-defence. For ten days, they organized pageants of physical education, inciting the people to the cult of individual strength. In June 1895, in order to heighten before the people most recent expression of its glorious past, Tilak introduced the commemoration of Sivaji, which received strong appreciation everywhere in India. To enhance the significance of these celebrations, in 1904, Rabindranath Tagore composed his ‘Homage to Sivaji’, a poem published as a foreword to an essay on The Message of Sivaji by Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar, a Marathi author writing in Bengali. This poem communicated Tagore’s intense desire for a unified India. In such a climate of quest for the national identity Tilak began to censure the ‘too Westernized’ and ‘denationalized’ attitude of the leaders of the new party called the National Congress, henceforth classified as the Moderates. With the accumulation of grievances among the literate middle class (a social unit engendered by the English colonial policy), the acuity of anger of an increasing number of badly paid or unemployed young graduates, the revolt among the systematically exploited farmers, a nationalist struggle loomed everywhere Tilak stood as a remarkable spokesman. By his side, since 1893, appeared Sri Aurobindo who, in a series of incendiary articles in the Indu Prakash of Bombay, called on the enormous potential force of the country’s working classes. Having already control of the popular association Sarvajanik Sabha and having turned it into an Extremist organization,

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

89

Tilak (with Sri Aurobindo, Lajpat Rai and Bipin Chandra Pal) proceeded to convert the Congress into a national forum of Extremist actions. With a view to dissuading the colonial government from interfering in the intimacy of the Hindus, he went to the extent of opposing the bills that aimed at raising the age of marriage of the Hindu citizens. On 15 June 1897, when the country was celebrating the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria, Tilak, his gaze on the distress of the Motherland, published an article in his daily Kesari, denouncing the tyranny of Mr Rand, Commissioner in-charge of a plague that ravaged the country. Tilak recommended thereupon without ambiguity the urgent need of political murders, ‘perfectly acceptable according to particular ethical norms’. One week later, the two Chapekar brothers (Damodar and Balkrishna) murdered Mr Rand and his deputy, Lieutenant Ayerst. Arrested for involuntary homicide, Tilak accepted a second period of imprisonment, for eighteen months. The Chapekar brothers were ‘thanked’ for their zeal, by capital punishment. The unjustified sentence inflicted on Tilak shocked Rabindranath Tagore: in addition to addressing a moving speech at Calcutta town-hall, in a series of poems entitled katha, he struck the public imagination with the heroic deeds of some martyrs—Maratha, Rajput and Sikh—famous in history. Inside prison Tilak received the edition of the Rigveda by Max Müller, with the author’s dedication. A recognized philologist and Sanskritist, Tilak seized this opportunity to write his masterpiece, The Arctic Home of the Vedas. His previous work, Orion (1893) had been welcomed by specialists of the Vedas in India as well as in the West (such as Max Müller, Jacobi, Bloomfield, Thibault). Wrongly accused of being a reactionary, Tilak has not yet been studied with deep insight. Many historians seem to interpret his restoration of the Sivaji festival as an overflow of hostility against the Muslims because, as it has been underlined, the hands of Sivaji were soiled by the blood of

90

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Afzal Khan, Aurangzeb’s emissary. However, merely from the point of view of history, Afzal stood for a treacherous doubledealing and a cruelty worthy of his master. Had Sivaji not killed him, he would have the only choice of getting himself eviscerated by Afzal who carried such a miserable prejudice to traditional hospitality recommended by ethics all over the world. Therefore, in Tilak’s eyes, Sivaji was only the symbol of a law-giver on the face of a recognized malefactor. No Muslim citizen, respectful of his religious loyalty, would feel flattered to be compared to Afzal Khan. Just as Tilak’s evoking Sivaji meant to rouse Marathi sentiments, he could as well have used as a symbol—in the context of north India— the magnanimous personality of Akbar, even though he was Muslim.63 Owing to Tilak’s achievements and his personality Sri Aurobindo situated him at the very first rank of meaningful and historic figures, before confirming, ‘He was one who built much rapidly out of little beginnings, a creator of great things out of an unworked material.’64 According to Sri Aurobindo, Tilak was one of those two or three leaders of the Indian people who ‘kept back nothing for himself or for other aims, but has given all of himself to his country’. And, further: ‘Where the will of the nation has once said, “This man and his life mean what I have in my heart and in my purpose” that is a sure signpost of the future which no one has any excuse for mistaking.’65 Tilak had proclaimed India as his the Motherland, his goddess; the peoples of India were his brothers: ‘My highest religion it is faithful and resolute action for political and social emancipation.’ He affirmed: ‘Our life and our dharma are in vain without svaraj’.66 Exhausted by long years in prison, of exile, of intense intellectual and physical activities, before dying, on 1 August 1920, Tilak recalled for the last time: ‘As long as svaraj is not attained, India will not prosper. It is necessary for our existence.’ Solicited by his former colleague, Bipin Chandra Pal, Sri Aurobindo wrote:

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

91

A great mind, a great will, a great and pre-eminent leader of men has passed away from the field of his achievement and labour. To the mind of his country Lokamanya Tilak was much more, for he had become a considerable part of itself, the embodiment of its past efforts and the head of its present struggle for a free and greater life (…). The death of Lokamanya Tilak comes upon us at a time when the country is passing through most troubled and poignant hours. It occurs at a critical period, it coincides even with a crucial moment when questions are being put to the nation by the Master of Destiny, on the answer to which depends the whole spirit, virtue and meaning of its future. In each event that confronts us there is a divine significance, and the passing away at such a time of such a man, on whose thought and decision thousands hung, should make the people, make each man in the nation feel more profoundly the great, the almost religious responsibility that lies upon him personally.67

I.7. The Poet of Patriotism Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

The last but one among the fifteen children of Devendranath Tagore, and grandson of Dvarkanath who was the sponsor of the socio-politic realizations undertaken by his friend Rammohun Roy, Rabindranath represents the highest aspiration for Love. Brought up by the servants and the tutors of the house, away from childhood. He hated the grind of his early education; skipping classes and playing truant, this selftaught genius at his adolescence surprised everybody with a vast knowledge of languages, literatures, and human nature. Two prolonged stays with his father in the Himalaya brought to this child a love of Nature and a love for God. Shortly after his mother’s death, at the age of fourteen Rabindranath tasted the delights of maternal love in his relationship with one of his elder sisters-in-law. This opportunity allowed him to bloom as an aesthete in whom human love merged into the experience of Nature and God. One day, in

92

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

1883, it seemed to him that the sun rose slowly above the leaves. A veil was suddenly lifted before his eyes: he found the whole world bathed in an ineffable glory, in waves of joy and beauty exploding and surging on all sides. He had the impression at that moment that he could spare nothing or nobody his love. In the totality of his vision, he seemed to witness the body of entire humanity in movement, to feel the music and the rhythm of a mystical dance.68 A year later, distress followed with the suicide of this sister-in-law. He was face to face with the mystery of death, a mystery that surprised over the years notably, through the loss of his wife, of three of his children, of an intimate companion, and his father. These tragic events, far from embittering him, helped widen the horizon of his theistic humanism. Blessed with an unusually handsome and robust physique at the service of an overflowing creativity, Rabindranath typified the revolt, the impulsiveness and the rational clairvoyance of the Bengali genius. Before reaching his vision of the universal man, under the influence of Rajnarain and Bankim, two masters that he would hold in esteem throughout his life, Rabindranath examined the numerous injustices that throttled his compatriots.69 As much in his poems as in life, Rabindranath denounced ‘he who commits injustice and he who tolerates it’, asking of the Supreme one, ‘May Your hate consume them as sprigs of grass!’ In 1882, during a ceremony in Bankim’s honour, the latter took off his garland and placed it on Rabindranath, congratulating the budding poet. Ten years later, in 1892, when Rabindranath published an essay on the enormous gulf between theoretical knowledge and the daily life of India—a disaster provoked by an inadequate educational system—Bankim wrote him to confirm how close this was to his own vision. Inspired by the programme of auto-perfection that Bankim had elaborated in his Anushilan, Rabindranath insisted on the blossoming of the individual character through an instruction that knew how to awaken a high moral conscience (viveka) capable of acting on life, capable of fighting against everything that

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

93

reduced the nation to its state of slavery. Eager to make the knowledge of an elite accessible to thousands of compatriots, Bankim looked for the bond of the right action. Thanks to his proximity as a landowner and his direct contact with the peasantry, Rabindranath started erecting this infrastructure in the rural areas. Without relying on solutions from a foreign government, Rabindranath professed the utility of a national unity in order to settle internal problems by intrinsic means accessible to the people. Accepting patriotism as the infallible catalyst for social improvement, Rabindranath tried like Bankim, to encourage a sense of patriotism above all claims of a political nature. At the same time—like Bankim—inspired by all glorious episodes of history, Rabindranath created in his literary work sufficient models where the committed patriot took the lead of a politics of the daily life. Deeply convinced that the supreme leader of India had to be at the same time a saint and a patriotic activist, Rabindranath paid homage to the programme of B.G. Tilak, putting forward in his play The Penitence (Prayashchitta, 1908) the character of Dhananjaya Bairagi, greatly marked by the sacrifices that Tilak made.70 Accused of not having paid taxes for during two years, Dhananjaya Bairagi retorts: -No, my Prince, I am not going to pay them. I cannot pay you back what I do not owe you. Our handfuls of rice do not belong to you. He who is the author of our life is the master of our rice: how dare you exact that from me? -Is it you, then, who asked my subjects not to pay the taxes? -Quite so, my Prince, I have incited them not to pay them!

Mediator between the attitudes of the Moderates (accustomed to submitting prayers and petitions to the government, and that of the newborn Extremists (who did not disdain any means of pressure, violent or non-violent, on the government for the unconditional freedom of India in the fields of politics and economics, Rabindranath saw it for himself, swaying between his far-sighted philosophy and his

94

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

poetic exhilaration. Although attracted by the ardour of the Extremist youth, however, he saw a bloody revolution to be suicidal, and reminded his resolute compatriots that the love of the Motherland should not by any means arise from an anger against the English: the true way of loving her would be to undertake programmes of constructive social improvement, expansion of education among the working classes and the peasantry, modification of the conditions of farming life, struggle against the systematic exploitation of the farmers, care for individual intellectual, moral and physical strength in order to enrich national life. Inspired by the national festival of Rajnarain, he welcomed the organization of cultural demonstrations and the traditional exhibitions where popular bards and village operas would carry to the people the message of a new era. He insisted on a relationship of parity with the British, founded on self-dignity. According to Rabindranath, the ideal pedagogy should encourage among Indians the maturation of the universal Man that would become the crucible for the civilizations of the East and the West. The philosopher’s clairvoyance was confronted in the immediate with the poet’s sense of wonder before the rising tides of history, shaking and pulling down secular walls of inertia and inhibition among young patriots trained by Extremists. The more the police repression became intolerable, the more persistent grew the Extremists’ will: Rabindranath poured his patriotic devotion in electrifying songs, which became indispensable spiritual food for the militant. Ezra Pound will declared that thanks to his songs, Rabindranath transformed his people into a nation. In the lineage of the visionaries of the Motherland from Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824-73) to Bankim, while passing by Ishwar Gupta, Rangalal and Hemchandra—Rabindranath dedicated his poetic excellence to national rebirth.71 In reply to your call if nobody comes to assist you, Pursue your lonely path, If by the stormy night, in the dark while it rains

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

95

People shut themselves behind their doors, If one refuses to lend you a lamp, Light inside your heart the flames of the thunderbolt, Pursue your lonely path !

He wrote: The more firmly they will tie us up Our handcuffs will shatter, The redder will grow their angry looks Clearer will be our sight; The harder they will beat us The higher will rise the tides.

Further, as a warning to the British government: Do you feel so powerful as to tread and to crush The laws of Providence? Do you really feel so haughty To break and cast us all? However firmly you may tie us up, The weak will have strength; However great you may think yourself to be, Know that God is there.

After the heroic martyrdom of Jatin Mukherjee with his four associates, in 1915, thousands of militant patriots sang the homage adopting the prophetic accent of Tagore: On the banks of the Burabalam stream, Spurt the blood of the devoted fighters, Such as birds who fly back to their nest, These Souls sacrificed themselves to regain their Home!72

* Whereas Rabindranath, since 1901, concentrated on an experiental pedagogy and founded in Santiniketan his residential school, Aswini Kumar Datta (1856-1923)—popularly known as the Mahatma (the ‘Great Soul’)—the old teacher of Barisal in

96

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

East Bengal, elaborated through two institutions a pilot project for the national rebirth: the Brajamohan College (educational establishment serving to recruit and to train future militant youngmen) and the Swadesh Bandhav Samiti (association of the ‘Friends of the Motherland’, nursery of an administrative body for the future free India). Received and blessed by Shri Ramakrishna (1836-86), fed on the ideas of Keshub Chandra Sen and Rajnarain Basu (whom he knew personally as well as his young contemporaries Rabindranath, Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo), Aswini Kumar carried through a programme to promote the traditional local industries, national education, the social improvement (with an insistence on emancipation and the literacy of women and classes disfavoured by the Hindu orthodoxy), the unity between Hindus and Muslims, a national legislative body also taking care of the civil protection and the autonomous arbitration of the townships according to the model of the traditional village union (panchayat). In the same way, faithful to Rajnarain’s inspiration, Aswini Kumar organized a national fair where poets, bards (charan) and composers staged village operettas (jatra) on nationalist themes. It was under Aswini Kumar’s influence that the revolutionary charan Mukunda Das shook the country with operettas, until his incarceration in 1909. In the same way, the revolutionary bard Hem Mukherjee had flourished with the influence of Aswini Kumar. Author of the Bhakti Yoga (The Path of Love), Aswini Kumar was known for his new interpretation of the Gita. His emissaries were active kindling nationalist movements in Orissa (under the direction of Godavarish Mishra) and in north India (under the direction of Lajpat Rai and Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, founder of the Banaras Hindu University). Among admirers of the experiments undertaken by Aswini Kumar there were leaders like Gokhale, Surendranath Banerjee, Sri Aurobindo, Bipin Chandra Pal, Sister Nivedita (the Irish disciple of Vivekanand) and Maulavi Liaquat Hossain. The British socialist delegations, under the initiative of Nevinson and Keir Hardie, paid visits to Aswini Kumar. Satish

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

97

Mukherjee (Swami Prajnananda), Sayd Mohammed Hossain and Mohammed Ismail were among leaders influenced by Aswini Kumar.

* Protesting against the Partition of Bengal, Aswini Kumar convened two great meetings in Barisal in April 1906 to celebrate the New Year: (a) the Provincial Conference assembling 8,000 delegates from all over the country including the Moderate and Extremist leaders of the time; (b) the Conference of the Bengali Academy of Letters presided over by Rabindranath. The latter recalled in a manifesto of the Academy: ‘The Academy accepted to sensitize our entire country to the unity of our thought, to the unity of our feelings, to the unity of our language, to the unity of our literature, and to attend to the independent duty that each of us has towards this language, towards this literature.’ Once on the spot, Rabindranath and the delegates realized how merciless the government was in its repression in this region. Realizing the impossibility of holding meetings, the delegates had to leave Barisal, compelled by clashes that roused all over India a deep indignation. Exactly thirteen years later, to the very day, 13 April 1919, when people were celebrating the New Year at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, a regiment of the imperial cavalry surrounded children, women, and men, opened fire on them while trampling them underfoot, leaving behind them a heap of more than three hundred corpses. Rabindranath, knighted by the British Court shortly after his Nobel Prize (1913), sent back the decoration of a murderous government, in order to join a mass protest. The Anglo-American press, principal among them The Englishman of Calcutta, however, mocked him. ‘As if it bothered in any way the reputation, the honour and the security of the reign and the justice of the British whether this Bengali poet remained a Knight or chose to become again a mediocre Babu’.73

*

98

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Rabindranath lived to transform all conflict, all rudeness, all ugliness into harmony, grace and love. Nalini Kanta Gupta thinks that his philanthropy came from his vision of the union between God and the multiple universe. The absence of beauty in slavery tortured him more than anything else. The ugliness of misery was more intolerable than the physical reality. For him, personally, neither ease nor abundance mattered much. Abundance could as well be a true value if it contributed to the rhythm of life. That is why Tagore’s patriotism insisted more on constructing than destroying. ‘To build is to create. To create is to shape in beauty. The ideal of his patriotic society should have pervaded all the details of collective life in order to make of the nation a united organism, and to instill in it beauty of shapes and rhythm in action.’74

I.8. Patriotism as Religion Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902)

Inspired by the teachings of the religious reformers of the nineteenth century, the educated heir of one of the Indian principalities bragged before his guest, a notable monk, about the joy of having got rid of all idolatry and of counting himself, finally, among men freed from all prejudices. Having congratulated him, the monk contemplated the gallery of portraits of the royal forebears: -Ah, this one, my Grandfather, a well-known hunter. That one, my Father… -I would like that you unhooked it for me, O Maharaja.

The task accomplished, the monk asked him: -Will you, O Prince, spit on this portrait? - But, I told you, this is my Father! - Let us be serious. It is only a piece of paper under glass, with the features in colour. How can you worship all this as your Father?

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

99

The monk, Swami Vivekananda, thus reminded the prince about the traditional spirit prevailing in India: fixing one’s love and one’s reverence on an object, not with an animist or polytheistic idolatry, but as a symbol of a deeper reality. In their enthusiasm to derive the secrets of a nationalist renewal out of the revealed scriptures—the one from the Vedanta, the other from the Vedas—Rammohun and Dayanand had chosen to clear the people’s minds of all wild undergrowth that had accumulated during the Puranic period; the public enemy number one, in the eyes of both of them, was the figurative cult of a personal God. This attitude reached a degree of intolerance with the adepts of the Brahmo and the Arya Samaj movements and resulted in challenging all developments subsequent to the Buddhist period because they failed to bring up to date the justification of some traditional values. In a certain way, Rabindranath in his works betrayed a simultaneity with the thought of Schelling (17751854) who, in his turn, had simply exemplified the influence of Fichte (1762-1814) in conceiving Nature as a mediator between the human and the Divine, and art as the place where the Divine revealed himself in things. Vivekananda appeared to identify with myths and rituals (fantasy invented by the Puranas with a view to making the high abstract values of the Vedas and the Vedanta accessible to people) and by using the imaginary in sanctifying everyday life. In the wake of Bankim, Vivekananda was the first in modern India to revive the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, some Puranas, and of the epics (of the Mahabharata, principally). Swami Vivekananda is the monastic name of Narendranath Datta. Since the time when he studied philosophy and history at the University of Calcutta, he had been looking for a synthesis between the spirit of causality that Montesquieu had brought him, the humanist dimension he had discovered in Fichte, the love of liberty he had found in Thomas Carlyle and the ‘disinterested seeking for the good of others’ present in Auguste Comte (this last notion had appealed to

100 The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle him merely as a direct transposition of altruism as professed by the Bhagavad Gita. All service to humanity was a service indirectly dedicated to the divine. He had learnt French to appreciate better the historic writings of Gaston Maspero (1846-1916). An athlete’s physique seasoned by practice of self-defence, a lively intelligence endowed with a power of quick understanding and assimilation, a singer of high-quality classical music, the eldest son of a lawyer, since his childhood Vivekananda dreamed of only one career: to replace his father’s coachman one day and handle powerful animals. Was this a solidarity with the underprivileged? Speaking of a dream becoming an obsession, Vivekananda saw his wavering between earning an enormous amount of wealth and acquiring immense power, on the one hand, and, on the other, abnegation before the world, like an ascetic. As a teenager, he participated in the pageants of physical education at the National Fair and came to know Nabagopal Mitra as well as Rajnarain Basu. Toward the end of his life, in 1898, he visited Deoghar for the last time, to spend a few days in the proximity of the grand old man Rajnarain. Hailing from a Brahmo family, he had himself turned towards the Brahmo movement following his frustration with regard to Auguste Comte whose Religion of Humanity failed to solve the problem of the evil in nature and in human character. Disappointed by theosophical talk and the intuitive words of Devendranath Tagore (Rammohun’s godchild and dean of this reformed religion), Vivekananda rushed to Dakshineshvar, in the suburb of Calcutta, to solicit the opinion of an illiterate priest at the temple of Kali. This man, Shri Ramakrishna (1836-86), left him perplexed with an answer more direct and unexpected than the question: ‘Hey yes, I see God. See him as concretely as I see you.’ At the end of six years’ of tussle between reason and revelation, Vivekananda yielded to this seer, becoming his successor and spokesman. ‘His life as it is made me understand what the holy Scriptures mean’, admitted Vivekananda. Following Shri Ramakrishna’s demise, Vivekananda founded with a batch of

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

101

fellow-disciples the Shri Ramakrishna Mission to live up to the teaching of the Master from whom they had learned that jiva (the created being) is indeed Shiva (the Spirit supreme). Then, for seven years, as a roaming monk, he travelled all over India to identify with the aspirations of his Motherland and his people, to determine the possible role spirituality had to play in the future regeneration of India. In 1893, invited to the Parliament of the Religions in Chicago to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America, Vivekananda came to an limelight thanks to his profession of faith in the name of one of the oldest spiritual traditions of humanity, that had been revived by Shri Ramakrishna. Indignant at the sight of misery and hunger that overwhelmed India, Vivekananda exclaimed: Bread! Bread! I do not believe in a God who cannot give me bread here, giving me eternal bliss in heaven! Pooh! India is to be raised, the poor are to be fed, education is to be spread, and the evil of priestcraft is to be removed. No priestcraft, no social tyranny ! More bread, more opportunity for everybody! Our young fools make meetings to get more power from the English. They only laugh. None deserves liberty who is not ready to give liberty. Suppose the English give over to you all the power. Why, the powers that be then, will hold the people down, and let them not have it. Slaves want power to make slaves.75

Vivekananda made allusion to the social condition in India, where the individual remained always a slave, whereas the religious thought in India professed how to benefit always from an exemplary inner liberty: an opposite position in the West, according to Vivekananda, certainly created less oppressive a society, with a more intolerant religion as well. Vivekananda wished with impatience that Indian society made more efforts to remedy the misery of its masses, that it cared less for the spiritual deliverance of an elite. The religion of the Vedanta thus turned into a driving force, reviving the entire social, economical and political life of the nation. Vivekananda warned the West against its

102 The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle excessive dynamism (rajas), and India against her excessive inertia (tamas). Diffident of reform bills, he launched his own constructive plans to mould the personality of the individual citizen, raise each to his dignity—whether he be a peasant, or a labourer, or a shoemaker, or even a scavenger—giving all the benefit of education.76 Underlining the reasons of a national inertia, Vivekananda in My Plan of Campaign advised: ‘First create the power, the sanction from which the law will spring. The kings are gone; where is the new sanction, the new power of the people? Bring it up. Therefore, even for social reform, the first duty is to educate the people, and you will have to wait till that time comes.’77 By education, Vivekananda meant: ‘The training by which the current and expression of will are brought under control and become fruitful.’78 Anticipating a system of national education managed by Indians, Vivekananda, in his essay on The Future of India, recommended that the education from which people benefitted certainly has some positive points; but it had a tremendous disadvantage, so enormous that the good things were all weighed down. In the first place, it was not a man-making education; it was merely and entirely negative education. Any training based on negation is worse than death. Fifty years of such education had not produced one original man. Every man of originality had been educated elsewhere, not in this country, nor had they returned to the old universities once more to cleanse themselves of superstitions. Education is not the amount of information that is put in your brain and runs riot there, undigested, all your life. There should be life-building, man-making, character-making, assimilation of ideas. If people have assimilated five ideas and made them their life and character, they have more education than any man who has got by heart a whole library.79 About twenty years before the Russian revolution, Vivekananda analysed the nature of capitalist society: The wealth and power of a country are in the hands of a few men who do not work, but manipulate the work of millions of human

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

103

beings. By this power they can deluge the whole earth with blood. Religion and all things are under their feet; they rule and stand supreme. The Western world is governed by a handful of Shylocks.80 All those things that you hear about—constitutional government, freedom, liberty and parliaments—are but jokes. The West is groaning under the tyranny of the Shylocks, and the East is groaning under the tyranny of the Priests.

In his Bengali essay, ‘The East and the West’, Vivekananda specified, those who possess capital, hold the government in the hollow of their hands, robbing and sucking their subjects, sending them to die like sepoys in the four corners of the world. Vivekananda saw the great potential of the Indian masses. He asked his young disciples what they were to do with their personal deliverance (mukti): the very desire for such a deliverance was selfish. ‘Enough of meditations, enough of deliverance!’ he used to scold, preferring to see them wherever there was suffering, wherever there were victims of epidemics, wherever prople died of famine. ‘It will kill you, at most. Insects like you and me, we are born and we die constantly. In what way can it modify the world? Go and die for a noble cause. Since die we must, better die for something noble.’81 About patriotism, Vivekananda confessed his own ideal. First, feel from the heart. What is in the intellect or reason? It moves a few steps and there it stops. But through the heart comes inspiration. Love opens the most impossible gates; love is the gate to all the secrets of the universe. Feel, therefore, my would-be reformers, my would-be patriots! Do you feel? Do you feel that millions and millions of descendants of gods and of sages have become nextdoor neighbours to brutes? Do you feel that millions are starving to-day, and millions have been starving for ages? Do you feel that ignorance has come over the land as a dark cloud? Does it make you restless? Does it make you sleepless? Has it gone into your blood, coursing through your veins, becoming consonant with your heart-beats? Has it made you almost mad? Are you seized with that one idea of the misery of ruin, and have you forgotten all about your name, your fame, your wives, your children, your property,

104 The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle even your own bodies? Have you done that? That is the first step to become a patriot, the very first step.’82

In his speech on 14 February 1897, Vivekananda decreed that for fifty years to come, the Motherland, had to become the object of all worship; one could as well forget the rest of the inefficient divinities during these few years. Whereas all the divinities were asleep, She alone protected everybody: in the national life, Her hand was everywhere, everywhere Her ears, She is omnipresent.

* Keeping in view the hostility of Brahmana orthodoxy roused by Rammohun’s translation of the sacred Sanskrit texts for the first time into Bengali and English, Vivekananda qualified the medieval monopoly of the Brahmanas as ‘Satanic’. They believed, in fact, that if a Shudra (Untouchable) heard a Vedic quotation, he deserved getting his ears sealed with molten lead; if he uttered a single verse from it, his tongue had to be cut! Belonging to a caste, according to Vivekananda, was not a matter of birth, but of free choice. Everybody chose— according to his temperament and his vocation—to belong to the corporative rank (jati) of the teachers and the researchers (Brahmana), the warriors (Kshatriya), the tradesmen and industrialists (Vaishya), or the other liberal professions (Shudra). In so doing, Vivekananda stood by the pioneers Rammohun, Vidyasagar, and Ranade, who demystified the topic. He believed that by dint of progress, every being could acceed to the supreme status of a Brahmana. Merciless before the doctrines and the practices of untouchability, Vivekananda was up in arms to remedy drastically these abuses. They arose from a misunderstanding of the real Indian tradition. In a more direct inner communion with this warning pronounced by Vivekananda, Rabindranath would formulate in 1910: Miserable, O my Country, all those you have humiliated, You will have to feel their equal in humiliation.

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

105

All those you have deprived of human rights, Those you have kept standing, without welcoming them with open arms, You will have to feel their equal in humiliation. Having disdained every day, the contact of these men, You hated the God inside the heart of men. … Those that you shove downwards are going to pull you even lower, Those that you want to leave behind will drag you constantly behind.83

Consulted about the means that could efficiently shake the national consciousness, Vivekananda told the the Madras Times in February 1897 that the greatest national sin was to ignore the mass: this was one of the reasons of India’s decay. No amount of politics would be more efficient than imparting to the masses of India good education, sufficient food and adequate care. It is they who pay for our education, who build our temples, but in return they receive only kicks. They are literally our slaves. Those who want India to stand erect, must work for her. Vivekananda was planning to start two central institutions: the first one in Madras; the other one in Calcutta, aiming at training young missionaries. He counted on the young generation, the modern generation, to which belonged his disciples. Like lions, they would pounce on the problem. The only problem before them remained was to give to the masses their rights. ‘We possess the noblest religion that the world ever knew, while we feed our people on nothing at all.’84 Vivekananda fought, during all his life, against caste discrimination and, therefore, against untouchability. In the manner of Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), champion of a mobilized society, Vivekananda believed in a ‘circulation of the elites’. He anticipated the reign of the Shudra—of those who had been crushed, and exploited, having acquired the economic know-how of the Vaishyas, the strength and the valour of the Kshatriyas and the spiritual energy of the Brahmanas they would represent the new face of Aryan

106 The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle culture. Literally convinced by the confirmations of the Scriptures, Vivekananda initiated his disciples with the syllable AUM—heedless of their origin (Shudras, Muslims, Christians of Europe or America)—and accepted them, without exception, as authentic Brahmanas. If the life and the works of a Dayananda, a Bankim or a Tilak have been misinterpreted as reactionary attempts in support of the supremacy of Hindus—by the exclusion and the detriment of the Indian Muslims—those of Vivekananda leave no such scope of doubt and concession. Abreast with Muslim doctrines and with the experiences of Islam that Ramakrishna had, Vivekananda held that the theories of the Vedanta would be obsolete and futile for the common man as long as they did not get pragmatic support from Islam.85 In a letter dated 10 June 1898, Vivekananda wrote to a Muslim admirer that for the Motherland, the only hope lay on a convergence of Hinduism and Islam with Vedanta the brain and Islam the body. Vivekananda foresaw the perfect India of the future appearing, glorious and invincible, beyond the present confusions and shocks.86 In the same letter, he said he wished to lead humanity to a place where there was no Veda, no Bible, no Koran, although it must occur by harmonizing the Vedas, the Bible and the Koran. He mentioned elsewhere that a Christian did not have to become Hindu or Buddhist, a Hindu or a Buddhist will not have to become Christian either. Each must assimilate the spirit of the others while keeping his individuality intact. Vivekananda formulated his internationalist vision thus: ‘My interests spread to all nations, and not to India alone.... I belong to India as much as to the rest of the world. What country dares to proclaim on me an exclusive right?’

* Known as Sister Nivedita (Dedicated) the spiritual heiress and disciple of Vivekananda, Margaret Noble (1867-1911) was

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

107

Irish by birth. She had been strongly attracted by experimental pedagogy, mainly under the followers of Pestalozzi (17461827) and Froeble (1782-1852). Graduate of the Halifax College, after eight years of teaching, Nivedita founded in 1892 her Ruskin School in Wimbledon. She was associated with various movements such as Free Ireland, New Socialism and, especially, the anarchism professed by Prince Kropotkin. In 1895, Nivedita met Vivekananda in London and accepted him as her spiritual Father. She settled in India in January 1898. Turned upside down by the naked cruelty and hypocrisy that British politics assumed in India, she discovered in the personality of Vivekananda the herald of a movement of political liberation in this country that she had just adopted as the Motherland. Judging British imperialism as an obstacle in the evolution of a glorious nation, Nivedita threw herself body and soul at the service of India’s resurgence. Observing Vivekananda’s indignation against the political and economic slavery of India, seeing him railing on every news of his people’s humiliation, admiring his enthusiasm in wishing to inject a new virility in the national character, Nivedita discovered the convergence between his spiritual mission and the militant aspirations of the Indian people to acquire liberty. Vivekananda, for her, embodied the oracle of Kali, the terrible Mother, destroyer of Evil. He transmitted in her the cult of the Redoubtable Mother, to worship Death. Death that would not be the suicide of the craven, nor of the weak but the death of a heroic soul who after having known everything, after having been at the heart of things learned that he had no choice but to die. Vivekananda told Nivedita that he loved the Terrifying One because it inspired terror, Despair because it was despair, Misery because it was misery. He urged her to pursue her struggle—constant struggle—judging momentary defeats to be the very conditions for this struggle. Blessing Nivedita for having accepted this arduous challenge, Vivekananda had advised her to let herself perish if she were only his creation; but be immortal if she was created by the Mother herself.87

108 The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle On 26 April 1899, Nivedita informed her Norwegian friend Ole Bull how she hated her compatriots, knowing them as niggardly. She regretted that the day of glory for the English was not yet over in India and, with all her heart, she would wait for that moment. She prayed to be reborn in order to reconquer the liberty dear to India and to shout: Long live young India!, just the way the young revolutionaries by the side of Mazzini had exclaimed with a will to free Italy! She wrote on 19 July 1901, to her American friend Miss Josephine Macleod that whereas India had been absorbed in her quest of knowledge, a troop of brigands had charged on her. The turn was for India to take possession of her land after having driven the brigands away. As soon as India would decide to defend herself, she would have at her disposal all elements foreign to this end. Faithful to the message of Vivekananda for whom arts, sciences and religions are only three different ways of expressing the same Truth, Nivedita remained helpful to Indian scientists such as Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose and Sir Prafulla Chandra Ray. She encouraged the artistic blossoming of famous founders of the Calcutta School, such as Abanindranath Tagore and Nandalal Basu. In spite of her Extremist temperament, she maintained the most cordial relationship with all All-Indian leaders—both the Moderates and Radicals, determined to cement fast the newborn nationalist awareness under Vivekananda’s unifying view. In Pravasi, November 1911, Rabindranath recognized Nivedita as the ‘Mother of the Indian people’, endowed with a ‘multi-dimensional genius’. Author of a sociological study on India—Web of Indian Life—Nivedita had attracted the admiration of numerous sociologists, Patrick Geddes, F.R. Alexander, S.K. Ratcliffe, S.H. Swiney. Her influence reached to future celebrities like Surendranath Tagore, Radha Kumud Mukherjee, Benoy Kumar Sarkar, Dinesh Chandra Sen, Sir Jadunath Sarkar, Bhupendranath Datta, and O.S. Ganguli. When, on 6 January 1902, Kakuzo Okakura (1862-1913), the Japanese historian of art, came to meet Vivekananda in

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

109

Calcutta to propose him the presidency of a World Congress of Religions, the latter declined the invitation. No one knew that he had precisely seven months to live. In response to Okakura’s insistence for contacting Indian revolutionary elements and organizing a movement of Asian solidarity to free Asia from European domination, Vivekananda asked Nivedita to introduce him to the ‘young chaps of Ballyganj’: not very flattering, this term designated the Tagores and the frivolous admirers who danced to their piping. Spellbound by the Japanese seducer, Nivedita accepted to rewrite and to provide a preface to the manuscript of The Ideals of the East that Okakura would publish in London in 1904. Diffident about Okakura’s integrity, Vivekananda warned Nivedita against this subversive character. Having known Vivekananda’s plans for an armed revolution against the imperial tyranny (to the point of having taken contact with Hiram Maxim, the manufacturer of fire-arms, to import munitions and revolvers), Nivedita found it difficult to explain her teacher’s attitude with regard to Okakura and his reticence before the proposed Indo-Japanese collaboration. In an interview with Jean Herbert in 1937, Mr Ratcliffe, journalist and Nivedita’s friend, specified that she had seized the justification of Vivekananda’s intuitive distrust concerning Okakura: Okakura had come to India with the aim of political espionage, connected with the Japanese aggression of Korea. On 1 May 1908, Nivedita wrote: ‘If I had better understood the true significance of his book (The Ideals of the East), never would I have granted him the least collaboration.’88 In the course of an interview with Tilak, Vivekananda had explained that at the mercy of a foreign government, Indian politics had to count on its internal means, the method had to be that of struggle and self-defence.89 At the same time, Vivekananda insisted on a secret formation of militants dedicated to the cause of the Motherland with a view to create an environment in favour of an armed insurrection against British Empire.

110 The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

I.9. Patriotism, a Synthesis Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950)

Sri Aurobindo, the third son of the surgeon Krishnadhan Ghose (1846-93), was a privileged spiritual heir of Rammohun Roy, thanks to a direct transmission by his maternal grandfather, Rajnarain Basu. After two years spent in acquiring the degree of MD from Aberdeen University, Dr Ghose had gone back from England in 1871, convinced about the beneficent role of British culture in India. His extreme Anglicization deprived Sri Aurobindo, since his birth, of all contact with native life and with Bengali, his mother tongue. After two years of primary studies in a strictly English Convent school in Darjeeling, Aurobindo with his two elder brothers went to Manchester in 1879 and did not return to India until 1893. Living in the family of the reverend William Drewett Aurobindo benefited from intensive tutoring and English practice.90 He received exceptional distinctions: first at St. Paul’s School of London (1885-90), then at King’s College of Cambridge (1890-2), for his excellence in Greek. He devoured classical and contemporary literatures, adding to them original masterpieces in French, Italian, Spanish and German. In spite of his initial interdiction, Dr Ghose had started sending Aurobindo cuttings from the Anglo-Indian press describing the miserable conditions of India under colonial rule. At this juncture, in Cambridge, he read Mazzini and followed the activities of an association of Indian students, ‘Lotus and the Dagger’ vowed to the independence of India. After a First Class tripos in 1892. Turning away from an administrative career in India—a cherished wish of his father—Aurobindo did not report for the riding test, in spite of his over-all success in the contest for admission. Aurobindo took employment in the principality of Baroda in 1893. He began having a series of strange experiences with the descent of a ‘great calm’.91 Till then indifferent to all theistic preoccupations, he refused even to practise any Yoga postures, because he believed that a Yoga that required abandoning of the world did not interest

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

111

him. His objective was to free the Motherland. Then, determined to seize the implications of his experiences, he agreed to try the path of the quest for the Absolute as taught by Indian tradition: he took it up seriously only when he had learned that the tapasya (asceticism) that one uses to escape the world could as well serve a life of action. He learned that through Yoga one could acquire power—why should he not acquire powers for the liberation of the Motherland? In his heart of hearts, something got the sanction of the intellect; he entered the spiritual life by a side door. Therefore, far from being incompatible with his activities of political insurrection, Aurobindo’s spiritual effort, turned inward, provided him with a superior vision and energy, making him the principal leader of the national movement. He recalled having paid a visit to the great saint Brahmananda of Chandod, and having been initiated to the cult of Kali at the end of a Vedic ceremony around the ritual fire, officiated by an accredited priest. Later, in 1907, Aurobindo received from Lele Maharaj, the Marathi yogi, some concrete indications leading to an accelerated progress. In Baroda, for twelve years, Aurobindo established a programme of national emancipation. By turns, occupying administrative and educational responsibilities (professor of English and French, then Rector of the State College), he sailed upstream towards the source of Indian civilization. In addition to possessing Bengali (to the extent of using it for editorials published in his Bengali magazine Dharma, in 1909), and learning other major Indian languages (Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi and, later, Tamil), Aurobindo mastered Sanskrit and keeping with the initial objective of the seers of antiquity—the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita and of other fundamental texts. Up to then, these new significances escaped the grasp of the routine philologists. Sri Aurobindo affirmed, in his treatise on the philosophy of the Upanishads that, thanks to a number of inner disciplines and observances, the seers of ancient India had discovered some essential truths of the universe inside and outside themselves.

112 The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle Deshpande, his friend of the Cambridge association, appointed editor of the magazine Indu Prakash in Bombay, offered Aurobindo a regular column, where he published in 1893-4 nine political articles, ‘New Lamps for Old’: an analysis that suggested drastic measures against the servility of the Moderate leaders of the National Congress. Exasperated by their policy ‘of flattery, prayers and petitions’ with regard to the British government, he found their timidity ‘awful’. ‘We are at present the blind if not led by the blind, at any rate by the one-eyed.’ Mentioning the example of the revolution in France he observed that it was not an assembly of respectable citizens, but a vast ignorant proletariat that emerged to erase in five terrifying years the tyranny accumulated during thirteen centuries. And Aurobindo underlined the necessity to enlighten and drag the masses out of their slumber. Simultaneously, for the first time since the arrival of the British in India, Sri Aurobindo gave vent to a pitiless but realist criticism of the colonial government and demystified before the Indians the divine superiority of the British, by a historic analysis of the systems of education, administration, society, and politics of the European countries. The demystification became more concrete when Aurobindo ridiculed the loyalty of the Moderates to Victoria calling her ‘Our Mother’: he did not mince words while recalling that the Queen-Empress was an old obese woman, about whom few citizens could really know anything. He denounced the English who governed India as men of an extreme triviality, but enjoying a privileged position: types of the middle bourgeois or the Philistine, to mention the English expression, with a narrow heart and mercantile habits. Approached by Ranade, the moderate patriarch and spokesman of the Congress, Sri Aurobindo put an end to these exploding articles and undertook a few detailed essays on Bankim Chandra Chatterjee who had just died, declaring him to be a visionary. In company of Deshpande, he founded a Bharati Vidyalaya in Ganganath, near the Narmada: in addition to usual disciplines, it introduced training in self-defence

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

113

and in spirituality, under the guidance of Keshavananda, a monk who shared with Sri Aurobindo plans of political autonomy for India. Since his arrival in Baroda, owing to his political opinions and to his deep influence on the student circles, Sri Aurobindo was contacted by clandestine revolutionary cells that intended to launch a general movement throughout India. On meeting a certain Thakur Saheb of aristocratic origin hailing from the royal State of Udaipur and in-charge of its branch in Maharashtra, Sri Aurobindo set off on a trip to central India to negotiate his programme of uprising with Indian army officers, as president of the organization in Gujarat, he was also fortunate to collaborate with B.G. Tilak. Often, during vacations, he visited his grandfather, Rajnarain Basu, at Deoghar, and enjoyed his enlightening presence and conversations. Sri Aurobindo’s revolutionary plans to form a generation of young militants dedicated to the cause of the Motherland— reinforced by Bankim’s vision and by the cult of the divine Energy (Bhavani, the goddess personalized by Sivaji)—took very soon the shape of the manifesto, the Bhavani Mandir, to erect a ‘temple in honour of the divine Mother’. It was published in Baroda in 1904, simultaneously in English, Hindi and Bengali. The publication had for objective to found a community around a temple, situated in the forest at a summit close to Amarkantaka in central India. The mission of the community was to create a nation, to Aryanize the world. ‘The nation is yours; the epoch is yours (…); the world is not a fragment of earth surrounded by ocean and hills, but the whole earth with her millions of souls.’ After having trained a young Bengali patriot—Jatindra Banerjee (later a monk known as Swami Niralamba)—in the army of Baroda, Sri Aurobindo sent him to Bengal, to work as his emissary. Thanks to letters of introduction that Sri Aurobindo handed him, Banerjee was welcomed by a number of powerful thinkers in Bengal, such as the Barrister Pramatha Mitra (friend of Surendranath Banerjee),

114 The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle Sarala Devi (niece of Rabindranath Tagore) and Nivedita. She had met Sri Aurobindo in 1902 and had told him that Bengal waited for him. Barin Ghose, Aurobindo’s brother and collaborator, joined Banerjee in his mission. A central revolutionary party was constituted in Calcutta under the name of ‘Anushilan’, with secret units functioning all over the country. Other than intensive training in physical education, the militants attended classes in political, social, and economic history, with discussions on the activist teaching of the Gita. These classes were conducted by eminent specialists of respective domains: they anticipated the National Council of Education founded in 1906, with Sri Aurobindo as its principal, and Rabindranath Tagore, Sir Gurudas Banerjee, Rash Behari Ghose, Asutosh Chaudhuri, Surendranath Banerjee, Brajen Seal, A. Rasul, Satish Mukherjee, Taraknath Palit, Subodh Mallik, Brajendrakishore Raychudhuri, among its professors and active members. It was the first organization to welcome the Extremist revolutionary project conceived by Sri Aurobindo. This extremist programme was also adopted by Tilak in Maharashtra, by Lajpat Rai in Punjab, and by Bipin Chandra Pal in Bengal. Its goals were kindling the national spirit based on an unconditional independence of India (swaraj) and the launching of a secret revolutionary action to prepare the youth. This without losing sight of a possible phase of very controlled and temporary violence, to the extent of selfsacrifice in the name of the Motherland. A passive resistance would overtly accompany it and would drag the Indian mass progressively towards a collective involvement. The resistance would comprise: (a) A first economic boycott of British products in order to encourage the industries and the national handicrafts (swadeshi), which were penalized by a policy of discrimination for the benefit of commodities imported from Great Britain: to assure a continuous adult education, open several technological schools in rural areas;

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

115

(b) A second boycott of universities with English education, in favour of instituting a parallel system of national education; (c) A last boycott—judicial—with the opening of national law courts. In a letter to his wife, Mrinalini Devi, Sri Aurobindo explained his three ‘madnesses’ in 1905. (i) I believe that all individual acquisitions only belong to God and must be necessarily at His service; (ii) if God exists, there must be means to feel His Presence, to meet Him; however difficult be the path, he is determined to follow it. Hindu religion teaches that the path is to be discovered within: He is there inside the body, inside the mind; this religion gives us the necessary indications which he has begun to follow; after one month of practice, he has the experience that whatever Hindu religion teaches is not false: with the experience of given symptoms, he is busy passing through them; (iii) the others know their Motherland as inert matter, a cluster of fields, meadows, forests, mountains and rivers; he knows her as Mother, worships her, adores her. When an ogre sits on a mother’s chest and is about to suck her blood, what does her son do? Does he sit down at the table and eat his lunch peacefully, or rush to rescue his mother? Sri Aurobindo knew that there was in him the necessary force to raise the fallen nation; it was not physical force; but the force of knowledge. The Divine sent Aurobindo to accomplish this great task; the seed had begun to germinate when he was fourteen years old, at eighteen years it had shot up firmly, ineradicably; he does not say that the mission was to be accomplished in his lifetime, but it had to come true.

* The government’s decision, in 1905, to divide Bengal and to introduce a breach between the Hindus and the Muslims shook the whole of India with a spontaneous popular indignation. Moderates and Extremists came closer together:

116 The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle the Congress became the springboard, as it accelerated the programme of passive resistance under Tilak’s leadership, supported by Aurobindo. Since 1906, as editor-in-chief of the Bande Mataram, the English organ of the Extremists, Aurobindo, dipped his pen in vitriol, before attacking the abject politics of British in India. Reproduced simultaneously in the vernacular press all over India, quoted in the British press (such as the Times of London), analysed in the parliament, Aurobindo’s articles became a manifesto of the militant nationalism of New India. A first trial began against Bande Mataram in August 1907. Acquitted, Aurobindo was welcomed by Tagore and proclaimed the voice of the Motherland, The radiant Messenger who descended with God’s lamp, what

king can reach him, with what chain, what sceptre? H.W. Nevinson, an active member of the British political domain, was sent by the Manchester Guardian out in December 1907 to interview Aurobindo. Acknowledging the Partition to be the greatest blessing for rousing India so suddenly from the age-old lethargy, the Extremists were preparing the country for self-government, possibly like a state within a state. Nevinson remarked Aurobindo’s religious tone, a spiritual elevation in his words, and held that nationalism for him was a duty superior to all political ends. ‘Grave with intensity, careless of fate or opinion, and one of the most silent of men I have known; he is of the stuff that dreamers are made of, but dreamers who act their dreams, indifferent to the means.’92 The British educator A.B. Clark of Baroda remembered this visionary colleague: ‘If Joan of Arc heard celestial voices, Aurobindo’s eyes perceive divine visions.’ Since Jatin Mukherjee met Sri Aurobindo, in 1903, two parallel tendencies appeared within the Extremist movement: (a) One, highly centralized under the authority of his own brother Barin Ghose. With Jatin’s collaboration, Barin had started an experimental factory at Deoghar to manufacture rudimentary grenades by moulding shells; then, having for headquarters the garden house at Maniktola (Calcutta), in

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

117

addition to the aforementioned activities, Barin had installed there a laboratory for more advanced explosives and, notably, of bombs; Hem Das, one of his associates, had just returned from Paris where he had acquired some experience, in the company of Safransky, chief of a Russian nihilist group. Barin’s inclination to terrorism was premature and led this preparatory phase to a sudden end. (b) The other, decentralized and clandestine federation of a multitude of regional units that Jatin Mukherjee had founded, directly under Vivekananda’s influence, shortly before 1900. Jatin encouraged free contacts between the leaders of these two currents: several of his close associates continued to execute Barin’s orders.93 At the end of a terrorist manoeuvre, in April 1908, one of Barin’s emissaries—Khudiram Bose—was arrested by the police, whereas his colleague Prafulla Chaki managed to commit suicide. This triggered a wave of massive incarcerations, including that of Tilak, Aurobindo and Barin (with residents of his headquarters at Maniktola). The government initiated the historic trial of the Alipore Bomb Case, accompanied by more and more ferocious repressive measures, persuaded that the indictment of some revolutionaries would be sufficient to quench the rise of the militant nationalism. Imperturbable before this enormous grinding machine, between 1908 and 1910, Jatin Mukherjee set out reassembling the secret units and put a vast anti-repressive operation under way to prove before the country and before the authorities that the nationalists’ resources remained intact. Some spectacular hold-ups helped Jatin to finance the defence of the patriots under trial; the public murder of high grade police officers foiled colonial intentions. Sri Aurobindo was discharged through lack of evidence in 1909, whereas, struck by a momentary defeatism, Barin and his followers admitted guilt and were sentenced to lifelong deportation to the Andaman. A year spent in jail—in company of the Upanishads and the Gita, in practising intensive Hatha Yoga and meditation—opened before Sri Aurobindo perspectives beyond the

118 The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle immediate preoccupations of India’s political liberation. A gamut of spiritual experiences guided him more and more to a universal consciousness. Persuaded that the movement of independence would henceforth follow its own course in the right direction, Sri Aurobindo proceeded to a new phase of his life. Obeying instructions of an inner voice, in February 1910, Sri Aurobindo left Calcutta for Pondicherry. He had entrusted the editing of the Karma-Yogin to Nivedita. During the years that followed, till the last day of his life (5 December 1950), Sri Aurobindo would no more be active in politics or even accept the Presidency of the National Congress at the invitation of Gandhi. In spite of several repeated solicitations from the leaders representing the people’s expectation, he remained firm in this decision. On 29 May 1928, after a meeting with Sri Aurobindo, Tagore wrote a long article from Pondicherry: ‘Finally I met Aurobindo Ghose again’. Tagore understood that Aurobindo searched for the Self as the greatest truth and that he did find it in the truest manner. That is why in the expression of Aurobindo’s face Tagore saw radiating a beautiful calmness. The greatest privilege of the Self is the power to penetrate everything that exists, through integral yoga. Tagore told him: ‘Bringer of the message from the Self, you will reappear in our midst; I shall await that day. That message will spread abroad India’s invitation: Listen, O world (shrinvantu vishve)!’94 On 15 August 1947, the day of his seventy-fifth birthday, Sri Aurobindo saw India celebrate her Independence. On that day, in his message to the Nation broadcast by All India Radio, he spoke of five dreams of his life: (a) a revolutionary movement creating a free and united India; (b) the resurgence and liberation of the peoples of Asia; (c) a world union; (d) the spiritual gift of India to the world; (e) a step in evolution raising man to a higher and larger consciousness. Poet, philosopher, spiritual master, much like a meteor, Sri Aurobindo passed through India’s socio-political sky that, ever since, in spite of numerous influences, has cherished the

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

119

luminous imprint of an esoteric and spiritual nationalism. Gandhi had but the choice of taking over from his precursors. NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

TS/R, p. 56. MP/R, p. 19. TA/V, pp. 76-7. TS/R, p. 41. MP/R, p. 17. TS/R, p. 23. Ibid., p. 24. TA/V, p. 79. TS/R, p. 38. Ibid., p. 52. Quoted in MS/RI, p. 77. RR/RK, p. 119. Ibid, pp. 112-13. TS/R, p. 27; cf. SS/RL, p. 82. TS/R, p. 35. A notion borrowed from the British feudal practice; in India, the land belonged to the group of farmers who exploited it and who knew government to be the sole competent collector of revenue. Loc. cit. ‘Lectures from Colombo to Almora’, in CWSV, vol. III. Cf MS/ RI, p. 76. MS/RI, p. 77. MPr/EB, p. 7. It is learnt from contemporary observers like Shivanath Sastri that Paine’s Age of Reason sold like hot cakes in the bookshops of Calcutta. MB/HI, p. 52, quoting Mookerjee’s Magazine, 1861, p. 251. Ibid., pp. 53-4. DRP, p. 306. Loc. cit. DRP, p. 488. Ibid., p. 119. M/C, vol. 1, ch. xiv, §4. Ibid., ch. xv, §5.

120 The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

M/Br.I. M/FRBrI, NY Daily Times, 8 August 1853. Op. cit. Engel’s letter to Kautsky, 12 September 1882. B.B. Kling, The Blue Mutiny, p. 92. P.N. Singh Roy, Chronicle of the British Indian Association, p. 32. That was the period when a good number of erstwhile soldiers from Napoleon’s army lived in India; three French Generals—Ventura, Court and Allard—became the pride of the army reared by Ranjit Singh (1792-1839); cf: Robert Sigalea, Johann-Martin Honigberger, Medecin et aventurier de l’Asie, Paris, 2003, p. 27. Rajnarain Basu, Devagrihe Dainandin Lipi (Diary Kept in Deoghar). Rabindranath Tagore, Rachanavali (Complete Works), 1952, vol. IX, p. 451. KA/R, p. 245. Ibid., p. 250; cf. Bipin Chandra Pal, Navayug’er Bangala (Bengal of the New Age), p. 135. Rabindranath Tagore, Atmasmriti (Reminiscences), 1947 (2nd Impression), p. 101. This is reminiscent of Mazzini’s vision: a nation emerging as much out of the Motherland, as out of a political and religious freedom of the people. It was also going to be the dream of a reformed humanity cherished by Sri Aurobindo in the Life Divine, belonging to a certain logical perspective of the Risorgimento. Keshub Chunder Sen, Lectures in India, Asia’s Message to Europe, p. 53. Keshub Chunder in England, vol. I, p. 135. Loc. cit MB/HI, pp. 164-5. SA/BCL, vol.17, p. 36. Originally published in the The Vedic Magazine, 1916. MB/HI. Op. cit. RR/RK, 153, fn. 3. TA/Ex. TA/Ex, p. 10.

The Genesis of Nationalism in India 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

70.

71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76.

121

Prachar, a Bengali review, February, 1885. The English Utilitarians, p. 100. MS/RI, p. 184. CB/R, p. 77. Quoted by Hirendranath Datta in Darshnik Bankimchandra, pp. 233-4. Ibid., pp. 231-2. De Trinitate, Book IX, Chapter xii. SA/BCL, vol. 3, pp. 72-102; vol. 17, pp. 344-7. Jadunath Sarkar, Sivaji, pp. 35-6, 209. RPD, pp. 125, 134-5. S. Gopal, Indian Muslims: A Political History (1858-1947), p. 88. SA/BCL, vol. 3, pp. 72-102 and vol. 17, p. 364. Op. cit., p. 348. MS/RI, p. 164. SA/BCL, vol. 17, pp. 364-6. ‘Rabindranath Tagore’ by Prithwindra Mukherjee, in Encyclopédie Universalis. Sarala Bala Debi Chaudhurani (1875-1945), Rabindranath’s niece, claims Bankim to have been the guru and the guide of the poet, as far as modernism is concerned, born of a sharp analytical reason (cf. Jibaner Jharapata, p. 35). In Rabindra-jivani, his monumental biography (vol. II, p. 273, fn. 3), Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyay quotes Deviprasad Bhattacharya’s Madhavpurer Dhananjay o Maharashtrer Tilak. All the quotations have been translated by Prithwindra Mukherjee. MR/H, vol. II, pp. 153-4. Steeped in contempt and irony, the Anglo-Indian use of the term Babu meant a satire ‘gentleman’. ‘Rabindranath’ in Rachanavali by Nalini Kanta Gupta, vol. I, 1975, p. 371. CWSV, vol. IV, p. 313. Compare this with Vivekananda’s appeal that appeared in his Bengali review, Udbodhana: ‘. . . Oh India! . . . forget not—that the lower classes, the ignorant, the poor, the illiterate, the cobbler, the sweeper, are thy flesh and blood, thy brothers. Thou brave one, be bold, take courage, be proud that thou art an Indian and proudly proclaim ‘I am an Indian, every Indian is

122 The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

77. 78. 79. 80.

81.

82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90.

my brother.’ Say, ‘The ignorant Indian, the poor and destitute Indian, the Brahman Indian, the Pariah Indian, is my brother.’ Thou too clad with but a rag round thy loins proudly proclaim at the top of thy voice, ‘The Indian is my brother, the Indian is my life, India’s gods and goddesses are my God, India’s society is the cradle of my infancy, the pleasure-garden of my youth, the sacred heaven, the Varanasi of my old age.’ Say, brother, ‘The soil of India is my highest heaven, the good of India is my good,’ and repeat and pray day and night, ‘O thou lord of Gauri, o thou mother of the universe, vouchsafe manliness unto me! O thou mother of strength, take away my weakness, take away my unmanliness, and—make me a man!’ (cf. CWSV, vol. IV, p. 413). Ibid., vol. III, p. 216. Ibid., vol. IV, 490 (cf: MB/MNI, p. 25). CWSV, vol. III, pp. 301-2. There is no racist slant in this reference. Elsewhere (cf. his essay, ‘The East and the West’) he is struck by the preoccupation the Jews and the Hindus have in common as regards their food habits. In the present context the reference is rather made to the caste—Vaishya, holding the reigns of mercantile power and genius—that was to lead the world once the military authority (Kshatriya) will have taken the power over the priests (Brahmana): at the end, according to Vivekananda, there would be the reign of the labourers (Shudra). ‘Swamiji-Nivedita- Jatin Mukherjee’ by Prithwindra Mukherjee, in Bhagini Nivedita Janma-shata-varshiki Smarak Grantha, vol. II, p. 7. CWSV, vol. III, p. 225. Also songs nos. 107 and 108 in the Gitanjali. CWSV, vol. V, pp. 152-3. Benoy Kumar Sarkar’s foreword to The Social Philosophy of Vivekananda, by Trilochan Das. CWSV, vol. VI, pp. 375-6. Sankariprasad Basu in Desh, 10 July 1982, p. 23 (cf. Nivedita Lokamata). S. Basu in Desh, 24 July 1982, p. 43. Bhupendranath Datta, Swami Vivekananda, Patriot and Prophet, p. 8. Praelector of King’s College and Sri Aurobindo’s advisor, G.W.

The Genesis of Nationalism in India

91. 92.

93. 94.

123

Prothero wrote to James Cotton, admiring the young student’s ‘courage and perseverence’, adding that he had ‘not only ability but character’ (cf. Prithwindra Mukherjee, Sri Aurobindo, p. 25; A.B. Purani, Life of Sri Aurobindo, 1978 (4th rev. edn.), p. 328. SA/BCL, vol. 26, On Himself. Nevinson’s impressions were published in two of his books: The New Spirit in India (London, 1909, Delhi, 1975) and Fire of Life, London, 1935. Various passages of this interview appear in the chapters and books on Aurobindo’s political activities. Cf. M.N. Roy’s article on Jatin Mukherjee (Annexe) and several references in Terrorism in Bengal. Prabasi, Calcutta, July, 1928 (cf. Sri Aurobindo, biography in French by Prithwindra Mukherjee, pp. 133-4).

CHAPTER II

The Thinker in Action

II.1. Jatin Mukherjee (1879-1915) and the Bengali Society II.1.1. From the Gorai to the Ganga

Ballal Sen, king of Bengal in the twelfth century, is reputed to have exacted of the Brahmana ‘caste’ nine compulsory attributes: (a) fidelity to the rituals revealed by the Vedas; (b) humility; (c) erudition; (d) confirmation of aptitude; (e) devotion to the holy places (tirtha); (f) consecration to vocation; (g) radiating serenity; (h) strength acquired by personal discipline; and (i) generosity. Among nineteen Brahmanas picked up by this king from north India for their excellence Utsaha and Bahurupa were, respectively, the paternal and maternal ancestors of Jatin Mukherjee. All these Brahmanas were especially versed in the Samaveda. Given to Vedic studies, sufficiently educated in English, Umesh Chandra Mukherjee (1850-84), Jatin’s father, was abreast of the social mutations that India was undergoing. Enjoying a landed property allotted by the council of his native village Sadhuhati Riskhali in the district of Jhenaidah (Jessore, currently in Bangladesh), Umesh Chandra commanded, thanks to his courage, a sense of justice, and his learning, the respect of the local folk as well as European indigo planters of the region, though the latter were notorious as slave drivers in their dealings with local people. An enthusiast of physical training and riding, this father—before his untimely death—had transmitted to Jatin two passions: care for his compatriots and a love of horses.

The Thinker in Action

125

Jatin’s mother, Sharat-Shashi Devi (1858-99), was the granddaughter of Ramasundar Chatterjee (1794-1890), landowner of Koya in the district of Kushtia (also in Bangladesh now): at the head of about a hundred families belonging to martial classes, fishermen, washers, barbers, potters and peasants, Ramasundar was one of those rare popular zamindars whose subjects were proud of his prosperity. As a friend of Devendranath Tagore, Ramasundar had looked after the latter’s properties in the adjacent village of Silaidah, with the complicity of the powerful Muslim chief Naimuddin of the village Kaloa, during a generalized revolt of the subjects against some tax abuses. Indebted, for some time, Devendranath had appointed Ramasundar manager of his estates at Cuttack in Orissa. Even at the ripe age of seventy-six, informed about the conduct of a handful of drunken English officers from a nearby military camp at the heart of his village, Ramasundar rushed to the spot and, seizing four of them, dragged them up to his courtyard. Tied up, they waited there till their captain came and apologized. His eldest son, Madhusudan Chatterjee, died early, in 1875, leaving behind him two daughters (Sharat-Shashi and Jaya Kaali) and five sons (Basanta Kumar, Hemanta Kumar, Durgaprasanna, Anathbandhu and Lalit Kumar). The progressive and liberal ambiance of this family helped all the five brothers—firmly rooted in their soil—to participate, each in his way, in the social and political life of the country. The eldest, Basanta Kumar (1857-1908), pleader and law professor at Krishnagar College, represented Nadia district at sessions of the National Congress; legal adviser to the Maharaja of Nadia, he counted among his clients and friends Rabindranath Tagore and Ramgopal Chetlangia, a well-to-do trader. Having heard about the debts of a few local municipal scavengers to a businessman of Krishnagar, Basanta Kumar reimbursed not only their debt (the sum of Rs. 500, fabulous in those days) but also, before the approaching winter, distributed shawls among their families. Hemanta Kumar (1861-1937), practitising physician in Calcutta, had

126

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

for friends and colleagues celebrities such as Suresh Prasad Sarbadhikari and Sir Nilratan Sarkar. Durgaprasanna (18651950) and Anathbandhu (1869-1954) held different posts of responsibility at the princely estates of Cossimbazar and Lalbagh in Murshidabad. Lalit Kumar (1874-1949), sonin-law of the nationalist writer Yogendra Vidyabhushan (1845-1904), was lawyer at Calcutta High Court. He would have for son-in-law Justice Ramaprasad Mookerji (son of Sir Ashutosh). Personally known to friend of Suren Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, and other revolutionary leaders, Lalit Kumar left ample written accounts of his family (including a biography of Jatin, his nephew and revolutionary comrade-in-arms, in collaboration with his niece Vinodebala). Member of the Academy of the Letters of Bengal and permanent secretary of its Nadia branch, Lalit Kumar loved music and was himself a gifted poet and novelist. As for Sharat-Shashi, their mother, she had picked up the message from the builders of the future nation: especially and above all, she was influenced by the writings of Bankim Chandra, Bhudev Mukherjee, Madhusudan Dutt, Hemachandra, Yogendra Vidyabhushan (disciple of Vidyasagar, the pioneer among emancipator of the Indian Woman). Two voices of promising contemporary thought— Rabindranath Tagore and Swami Vivekananda, both her contemporaries—also impressed her. She admired the way Tagore, since the age of fourteen, had in meetings organized by his family members and friends started claiming equal rights for Indian citizens in railway carriages or in public places. As Jatin grew older, he gained a reputation for physical bravery and great strength; charitable and cheerful by nature, he was fond of caricature and acting in mythological plays, himself playing the roles of god-loving characters. In his later life, he encouraged several playwrights to produce patriotic pieces for the urban stage and also engaged village bards to spread nationalist fervour in the countryside.1 Jatin had a natural respect for the human creature, heedless of class

The Thinker in Action

127

or caste or religions. Having carried the burden of an aged Muslim villager on his head, he is known to have shared with her the only platter of rice she had, and sent her some money every month.2 Poet and chronicler of her family and of great events of national importance, Sharat-Shashi was an inspiration to people around her. After Umesh Chandra’s death in 1884, she went live with her paternal grandfather, with her daughter Vinodebala (1874-1943), and son Jatin. Hardly come out of mourning, she was struck again, in 1886, by the death of Vinodebala’s husband. In keeping with their pioneering social commitments, the Chatterjees of Koya were in favour of the remarriage of widows: Basanta Kumar himself had married a widow. But Sharat-Shashi considered herself happy and fulfilled in her life of daring ideology as a widow, having to bring up her children in conformity with Umesh Chandra’s wishes, keeping herself busy with the vast household of the Chatterjees. In addition to her daily chores, she assembled women of the district in a shed for handicrafts and arts to encourage ritual floor decorations, embroideries, hosiery, and study of Bengali magazines and journals of Calcutta. Spontaneously charitable, Sharat Shashi was seen nursing patients night after night, not only members of her family, but also neighbours and people of the village. Without thinking about her own pleasure, she at times gave away her own clothes and jewellery. The last of the household to eat her lunch, if any beggar happened to turn up in the afternoon, she served him with whatever remained; if Vinode or Jatin protested, seeing that she had kept nothing for herself, she answered with a serene smile that she was not hungry. She even held that he who had come disguised as a beggar, could have been God in person; their God who was hungry and would remain hungry as long as there were thousands starving in the country. One day, when Jatin was barely three, scared at the sight of a unruly dog, he had taken refuge in the kitchen, under a corner of the maternal sari. Having read on his face traits of

128

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

a panic, Sharat Shashi armed him with a stick and sent him chasing the dog away. On accomplishing his mission (because the beast had fled before the armed kid), Jatin came back to see his mother; he was welcomed with kisses, congratulations and only one comment that she hated to be the mother of a cowardly son. According to Vinodebala, it was for the first and the last time that she saw her brother afraid. The Gorai River, daughter of the impetuous Padma, became terrifying during the rainy season. Every evening, at the end of her busy day, Sharat took her children to bathe in the river. Expert in swimming, this widow threw her son into the whirling water, letting him struggle before darting and catching him up at the slightest sign of fatigue. For the rest of his life, Jatin was indebted to his mother for these lessons, because he made use of them quite frequently: returning from Calcutta, instead of waiting for a station jumped into the Gorai while his train crossed the bridge, thus reaching home earlier by swimming. As all mothers of the time, Sharat lulled her children by narrating heroic tales or excerpts from the epics and the vast popular mythology. Jatin was impressed as much by Dhruva and Prahlad (the teenagers who defended their faith against all tribulations till the divine apparition came to rescue them), as Hanuman (the valorous ape, faithful servant of Rama and also virtuous Harish Chandra and courageous Pratapaditya, fascinated Jatin throughout his life; he liked playing these roles. Jatin’s privileged confidant and adviser Vinodebala Devi was the only person who remained informed about his secret intentions, political and other. Between them, there was a loving, reciprocal tie of consideration, and a noble complicity. In the eyes of Jatin’s young followers, this elder sister was the symbol of the will of the Motherland, a serene source of constant inspiration. In April 1907, on the eve of their departure to douse local community riots in Jamalpur in East Bengal, a delegation of desperate revolutionaries composed of Indra Nandi, Bepin Ganguli, Nikhil Ray Maulik, Harish Sikdar, Prabhas Dey, Naren Bose, Sudhir Sarkar prostrated

The Thinker in Action

129

before Vinodebala for her blessings: she decorated their foreheads with a drop of blood drawn from her bosom.3 She preserved to her death the most authentic testimonies on the life and the projects of her brother. She narrated to her nieces, nephews, and their children, anecdotes of Jatin’s life with a thoroughness and a realistic clarity, protecting them from the abounding popular imagination around this personality, turned into a legend in his own lifetime. Having received an English education at Calcutta, having had for classmates daughters of Keshub Chunder Sen and girls from the Tagore family, Vinodebala was to look after her young sister-in-law and the children—after Jatin’s death in 1915—with her earnings as a teacher in the Carmichael High School of Krishnagar and other educational establishments at Calcutta like SarojNalini Institution for Widows. She was actively associated with the protection and social integration of women, at the side of Sarojini Ghose, sister of Sri Aurobindo, and Sarala Ghoshal (Chaudhuri).

* Jatin was born in Koya, on 7 December 1879. His father called him Jyoti or ‘Light’. This first name became Jyotindranath or Jatindranath. In addition to lessons at the village primary school, Jatin had regular coaching in self-defence and wrestling from Yadumal, a professional appointed by the Chatterjees. Uncle Anath, who was an accomplished gymnast, also trained Jatin and allowed him to go out riding on his mare, Sundari along the Gorai. Then Feraz Khan, a retired soldier from the North-Western Frontier, came to settle in one of the outbuildings and took on the physical education of the children, introducing wrestling, clubbing, fighting with swords, daggers and lathis (seasoned bamboo sticks). Feraz instilled in Jatin, especially, his love for liberty, which he held to be the greatest virtue that his tribe practised, which could not be subjugated by any domineering foreign power. A cross-road of progressive thoughts and patriotic passions,

130

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

the house of the Chatterjees was also the centre of social gatherings: every year, for three festive days that precede the first full moon of Autumn, they celebrated the victory of Durga over the Evil forces. On this occasion, about one thousand guests of all social origin came to eat with the Chatterjees; no less than 400 kg of rice had to be cooked daily and with his band of adolescent friends, Jatin took charge of this task. Fond of working in a cheerful atmosphere, Jatin improvised lilting humorous songs and sketches. There was a refined white rice intended for guests of high society, and a coarse red variety for the other subjects; one day, requested by a peasant to let him have a taste of ‘the other rice’ Jatin realized how happy the man was. Jatin persuaded Basanta Kumar that henceforth the same white rice would be served to all. In October 1905, as a part of patriotic demonstrations against the partition of Bengal, Jatin organized several community meals where guests of all castes, all subjects, Hindu and Muslim, sat side by side to eat. This in spite of mild reticence on behalf of the Brahmana orthodoxy. Rumours started spreading that in Barisal, under the direction of Mahatma Ashwinikumar Datta, a rebellion was fomenting with the involvement of the Muslim and Hindu peasants. On these occasions, happy to organize bouts of physical force where Jatin joined the hand to hand fight with ‘untouchable’ and Muslim subjects, and the competition of rowing. He participated also in the theatrical evenings on mythological and patriotic themes. Jatin thought that theatre could play a very great role in national regeneration. Among those who had been personally encouraged by him to renovate the theatre and to make it popular in favour of the aimed uprising, were Bhupendra Banerjee (Calcutta), Hem Sen (24-Parganas) and, Mukundalal Das (Barisal). The author of the famous play Nila-darpana (Indigo Mirror), Dinabandhu Mitra was a native of the Chauberia village, close to Krishnagar. This cultural capital of Bengal maintained a traditional excellence of theatrical activities with themes. Bhupendra founded the Friends’ Dramatic Union under the direct influence and

The Thinker in Action

131

support of Jatin Mukherjee who had not only asked him to compose new plays but also to write stage-versions and enact the Anandamath and other novels of Bankim Chandra. This inspired Girish Chandra Ghose, Amritalal Basu, Kshirode Prasad Vidyavinode, and Amarendranath Datta.4 Several documents under the category of Pamphlets and Proscribed Works in the West Bengal Archives (Calcutta) were grouped together for the trial against the famous nationalist bard Jogeshvar Dey alias Mukundalal Das and his appeal to the Court of Bakharganj. On 20 January 1909, he was sentenced to one year’s prison by the magistrate V. Dawson for having trained an itinerant troop of comedians circulating in a barge, to have composed the booklet Matripuja (Cult of the Mother) and staged it. It was decreed that his songs in the play were objectionable under the Articles 124A, 124-109A, 124-114A and 153A. In one song Mother Matangi5 sang: ‘Can the demons still reign on the country? Children of the Mother, Hindu and Muslim, take your weapons and make haste! Take for companion Mukunda, if need be! What matters life, what matters death?’ In another, the poet proclaims: ‘What can you obtain with your threats ? You possess our body, but our mind is free. Tie up our hands and our feet, but do you consider yourselves strong enough to condition our choice? The charming bracelets, combs, toys and mirrors that you import are only cheap junk; our heart have opted for the products of our country. Your strength, o ruffians, is of no use!’6 In a Police Report (No. 2429P, Calcutta, 26 March 1913, prepared by the Chief Justice for all Magistrates and Commissioners) no law previous to the Press Act of 1910 could protect the imperialistic interests better than the two bills known as Dramatic Performance Act of 1876, and Journals Act of 1908. Since 1910, according to this Report, the administration granted discretionary and arbitrary powers to proscribe all performance of jatra (popular operetta) or other plays of doubtful and seditious character. This Report came with three lists of proscribed plays, among which was Nila-

132

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

darpana by Dinabandhu Mitra, Siraj-ud-daüla, Mir Kasim and Chhatrapati Sivaji by Girish Chandra Ghose, Palasir Prayashchitta, Dada o Didi, Pratapaditya and Nandakumar by Kshirode Prasad Vidyavinode, Karmaphal by Manmohan Goswami, Chandrashekhar by Amritalal Basu, Asha Kuhakini by Amarendranath Datta, Durgadas, Rana Pratap and Mevar Patan by Dvijendralal Ray, and several others.

* With the help of a few faithful friends, following his mother’s example, Jatin organized relief for people affected by infectious diseases and shunned by everybody, in particular cholera. One year, when this curse had reached the proportions of an epidemic, Jatin—hardly a teenager—took the lead of his group and asked the permission of their high school teacher to go and save the suffering villagers. Interpreting this voluntary proposal to be a pretext to skip classes, the man refused point-blank to encourage them. On the following morning, Jatin and a few other friends hid behind the wall of a haunted house near the high school and took hostage boys who were on their way to school, inviting them to boycott classes in order to rescue the fishermen’s village. Those who did not agree were locked up till the teachers went home. Hemanta Kumar Tarafdar recalled two incentives that were afloat everywhere in India of the epoch: ‘Service to humanity with the spirit of a Service to the Divine’ and ‘Resistance to all despotic authority’.7 Admitted to the Anglo-Vernacular college of Krishnagar, Jatin came to know in this provincial city—historically important—a number of friends, all of them, like him, bubbled with vitality in addition to their serious studies: they looked for an ideology permitting them to lead this existence in the most useful way. These meetings ended with the creation of a football club. ‘At this stage, football was a turbulent game, of an extreme violence’, remembered Bhavabhushan Mitra.8 Born in village Balarampur, police station Kaliganj, district Jhenaidah,

The Thinker in Action

133

Bhavabhushan was son of Shyamacharan Mitra. As a student of Jhenaidah Government High School, he earned a reputation in sports. During a rough match at the Kushtia football field, in about 1900, he remembered having crashed into an adversary and measured the man’s astonishing strength. It was Jatin Mukherjee. ‘In those days, colliding with opponents and fracturing each other’s legs were not considered foul play,’ he recalled. In Jatin’s team, there were two of his young cousins, too: Phanibhushan and Nirmal Kumar Chatterjee, both A-Division players, respectively, of Mohan Bagan and the Aryans football clubs of Calcutta. Bhavabhushan became an intimate friend. He discovered Swami Vivekananda’s teachings as the social and patriotic inspiration behind the physical fitness programme in which Jatin was assisted by his boyhood friend, Kunjalal Saha of Kushtia. Soon, Jatin’s club came to include other future celebrities like Baladev Ray (Kushtia), Phani Ray (Kushtia), Deviprasad Ray alias Khuro (Kushtia), Sisirkumar Ghosh (Sri Aurobindo’s cousin, hailing from Sagardari, Jessore), Jyotish Majumdar alias Chandi (Jessore), Amaresh Kanjilal (Jessore), Suresh Majumdar alias Paran, the future founder of the Anandabazar Patrika group of papers (Krishnanagar), Atulkrishna Ghose (Jadu-Bayra in Nadia) and his cousin Nalinikanta Kar (Etmampur in Nadia), Kshitish Sanyal (Pabna), Satish Sarkar (Natore), Jnan Mitra (Calcutta), Charu Ghose (Chetla), and Nanigopal Sengupta (Howrah).9 Football was accompanied by gymnastics and reading of texts unknown to the colonial school syllabus such as the writings of Bankim Chandra and other patriotic authors and, especially, the teachings of the Gita. But such preoccupations did not turn them away from their mischievous proclivities. In the full summer, for example, the season par excellence of luscious fruits in Bengal, the inventive brains of these students found some pranks to play. The garden of the college abounded in fruit trees: the mango and the jack-fruit branches bent under the weight of ripe fruits; but no one had the right to touch them. All was reserved for the Headmaster’s use. In a mood to challenge this

134

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

arbitrary order, Jatin asked his friends to wait for him in the orchard after the classes. Having picked up a heap of fruits— without the knowledge of the guards—Jatin treated them, that evening, with a surprise party. The following morning, whereas nervous by the Headmaster’s remonstrances, none of his friends dared confess their complicity in this forbidden act, Jatin rose and simply assumed his responsibility, exposing the precise reasons of this decision. Usually austere the Headmaster’s amused eyes betrayed his admiration for the boy’s courage. His face brightened up, his rod rested on the table, and he promised before the jubiliant class that henceforth, every year, there would be a picnic in the orchard of the college, with the fruits of the summer. One afternoon, in 1893, Jatin was buying some stationery from the Nadia Trading Bookstore, in Krishnanagar. All of a sudden, he saw from the verandah of the shop some pedestrians running helter-skelter. Stepping down on the sidewalk for a better view, he heard a crowd of voices exclaiming from the verandahs and the terraces: ‘Be off, poor boy, be off! And he noticed that a distraught horse was charging from the left, whereas a child—panicked by the screaming crowd—stood motionless in the middle of the road. At once, heedless of the people shouting, Jatin sprang, without fear towards the horse. As soon as the nervous beast hoof arrived within his reach, with a precise jump Jatin seized his hairy mane. Facing this obstacle, the furious animal reared, endeavouring to rid itself, whereas Jatin got settled on its back and whispered soft words in a quiet voice, while tapping the croup. Immobilized, pacified, the horse ended up by stretching its neck in all submissiveness. Instantly, the groom of the lawyer Varanasi Ghose appeared, out of breath, and took charge of his animal. Beyond the city of Krishnanagar, even beyond the district of Nadia, for several days people talked of nothing but about this fascinating teenager. On returning to the village during holidays, Jatin went often to chat with Panchu Fakir, disciple of the legendary

The Thinker in Action

135

Lalan Shah, in the neighbouring village. It is customary to hear in the songs of this marginal sect—the Bauls—the invocation of names of local Hindu divinities as well as of Allah, although no orthodoxy guaranteed any authenticity to their creed. Enigmatic, these songs seemed to suggest, and open in the listener’s heart an indistinct path as words remained shrouded in a light-and-shade of symbols and evocations. Panchu seemed to tender a key received since his initiation and his long life devoted to the central teaching of Lalan. Quite like Jatin, hailing from Jessore (not far from Jatin’s ancestral village), Lalan had settled in the vicinity of Koya. Even Rabindranath Tagore, whenever he came to the region, used to call on Lalan, and consulted the notebooks of his songs. While speaking of Lalan, the old Baul Panchu told Jatin that, in all spiritual quest, it is the Guru who could accompany and guide the seeker: ‘On the tumultuous stream of life, the Master is both the boat and the pilot who steers for the right port that is Liberation!. . . One has to discover the sahaj—the Spontaneous, the Innate, the Simple—inside the heart, in the form of that Joy, beyond the reach of the winds, of the moon and even of the sun.’ Panchu described to Jatin the method of mastering the vital breath, to saving and retaining the seminal energy to participate more in life. It was necessary ‘to nurture’ the body, this marvellous receptacle, disdained so much by orthodox religions. Speaking of the Gita, that Jatin already knew by heart, Panchu affirmed that it was the new Veda of the future. Like his mother, Panchu also recited the message of the Gita: ‘Who is your parent, who your friend in this world? Whose death do you have to deplore? Who is your wife? Who is your son? Where is your home on this earth?’10 Jatin sensed that every human being had to find his accomplishment in this very life as the part of a divine mission. Persuaded to play a decisive role in the people’s destiny, Jatin looked for his path, prepared the field, waited for the moment when he would have set out. It was not a monastic life that attracted him, in spite of his deep propensity to spirituality. It

136

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

was not either the life of a docile family man that could fulfil his aspiration. II.1.2. Meetings at Calcutta

Admitted to the University of Calcutta, in 1898, Jatin took courses in Central College directed by the nationalist educator Kshudiram Basu.11 The air of the capital was surcharged with sayings of Swami Vivekananda: ‘Enough of meditation’ enough of personal deliverance!’ He urged the youth to go wherever epidemics were raging, where people were suffering or dying of famine: go and die for a noble cause! Vivekananda organized efficient help against the epidemic of plague that ravaged the metropolis. Without hesitation, Jatin accompanied the team. Vivekananda saw this young student several times and oriented him to a constructive programme. He raised a batch ‘with iron muscles and nerves of steel’, to serve their miserable compatriots during famines, epidemics and floods. According to J.E. Armstrong, Superintendent of Police, Jatin ‘owed his pre-eminent position in revolutionary circles, not only to his qualities of leadership, but in great measure to his reputation of being a Brahmachari with no thought beyond the revolutionary cause’.12 They welcomed Sister Nivedita, the Swami’s Irish disciple, with her humanitarian venture in 1898, during a recurrence of the epidemic; she wrote of Jatin, ‘A young man came to see me, who aspires to raise the youth of India in the name of the Swami. Full of admiration for the Master, himself, he is all strength. He is independent and, over all, a Brahman!’ She wrote in a London newspaper, ‘A religious order, unique in its kind, uniting Christians, Muslims and Hindus, has created a phenomenon of charity without equal since the Buddha’s times. Ten thousand human beings have been saved of famine in a single month.’13 Vivekananda sent Jatin to the gymnasium of Ambu Guha where he himself practised wrestling: this was a cross-road of great minds and leaders. Jatin met here, among others, Sachin Banerjee, son of Yogendra Vidyabhushan (a

The Thinker in Action

137

popular author of biographies like Mazzini and Garibaldi). In 1900, his uncle Lalit Kumar would marry Vidyabhushan’s daughter.14 While Vivekananda was touring the West, his revolutionary mind had looked for elements suitable for a changing Indian society. In Paris, introduced by Sarah Bernhardt, to Emma Calve—the enigmatic opera singer—Vivekananda had requested her to interpret La Marseillaise. ‘What a horror, Swami!’, some European disciples had protested. ‘It is a military song, associated with soldiers roaring!’ The monk had riposted: ‘Certainly, this is what I want to hear. Have you noticed, in every verse of this song, the heroic devotion, the drunkenness of love and sacrifice for the Motherland ? Do you not feel the power of this song that raises the stupid and apprehensive masses? I want to teach it to all those who admire me.’ According to an account left by Dr. Bhupendranath Datta—Vivekananda’s younger brother and himself a committed patriot—Swami seems to have confessed toward the end of his life: ‘In the name of a revolution in India, I browsed up and down the country. I contacted Sir Hiram Maxim to manufacture cannons for this country. But I need a handful of devoted volunteers capable of regenerating our people with the help of a proper instruction. ‘He wanted to transform the country into a gun-powder depot and wished to see, before his death, the flames of the revolution aglow in the hearts: let India no more rely on a foreign power!’ Explaining the significance of Jatin Mukherjee’s original contribution, an historian wrote: Not only a physical resemblance, but there exists—between Vivekananda and Jatin Mukherjee—a psychic resemblance. Both seemed to emerge out of the same workshop of Destiny and, just as Vivekananda could have played the role of Jatin Mukherjee, the latter as well could play the role of Vivekananda without difficulty. As if the same person seems to have chosen two different roles.15

*

138

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Together with his academic studies, Jatin attended courses in stenography with Mr. Atkinson: this new qualification was then coveted by a young elite because, according to their competence, the candidates could head for jobs with high responsibilities and a very comfortable salary. Jatin met another eminent personality at the gymnasium of Amber Guha: the educationist ‘Shashi-da’ or Shashi Bhushan Ray Chaudhuri (1863-1922). Belonging to the village Teghara in the 24-Parganas, Shashi Bhushan had been a longtime friend of the famous Congress leader, Surendranath Banerjee (18481925), who had engaged him to open in his native village a polytechnic school to assure adult education for workers and craftsmen in order to spread a nationalist instruction among the population. Having understood Jatin’s aspirations as well as his active experience with youth, Shashi Bhushan invited him to start recruiting in a number of clubs in Calcutta and its suburbs, potential trainees dedicated to the Motherland. Jatin was quickly introduced in the circles of patriots aiming at a national regeneration. The network of Shashi Bhushan’s contacts went beyond Bengal and included active centres of an experimental pedagogy in Bihar (where the educationist Nimdhari Singh was one of his disciples) and in Orissa (where he exercised a direct influence on Gopabandhu Das, Godabarish Mishra, Nilakantha Das, and many others). Physical education paired off with a technical training and crowned by a spiritual initiation through the teaching of the Gita. This simple programme was offered to young patriots anxious to remedy the degradation caused by foreign domination. As for the friendship of Sachin Banerjee, Vinodebala Devi believed that Jatin’s courage and strength got obviously intensified after this contact. An accomplished football-player, he was to become captain of the Mohan Bagan Football Club of Calcutta. The most beautiful gift that Sachin made to Jatin was to introduce him to his own father, the illustrious writer Yogendra Vidyabushan (1845-1904). Biographer of Garibaldi, friend of Bankim Chandra, Yogendra exposed to

The Thinker in Action

139

Jatin the objective of the Italian revolutionary: ‘If Destiny is unfavourable today, know that tomorrow it will be lenient to us. You who want to fight against a foreign power, follow me. I cannot give you money, nor roof, nor adequate supply. I offer you hunger, thirst, endless wayfaring, war, death. If you love the Motherland with all your heart, if this love is not empty words, follow me!’ It is at Yogendra’s house, in 1903, that Jatin would meet Sri Aurobindo. Among two other personalities met here were Kaviraj Annada Ray and Munsif Avinash Chakravarti: they were going to count in Jatin’s future plans. They both were going to open a business concern on College Street—later transferred to Harrison Road—called the Chhatra Bhandar. A meeting place of revolutionary leaders, ‘it played a very important role in the functioning of Jugantar as a secret revolutionary organization’, maintaining communication between the regional branches.16 W. Sealy in a long Report mentioned Avinash Chakravarti being (a) among the supporters of Barin Ghose’s plan to send someone to Japan or France, in 1906, to learn the science of bomb making; (b) He featured among names and addresses found in the books of Ananta Haldar, associate of Bhava Bhushan Mitra, specifying his connection with Jatin Mukherjee; (c) In 1915, some of the money received by Jatin’s emissary (Naren Bhattacharya alias A. Martin) from the Germans in Batavia, ‘had found its way into the hands of such dangerous men as Abinash Chandra Chakravarti, Benoy Bhushan Datta, Amarendra Chatterji and Gopal Ray (Nolinikanto Kar)’; (d) After the dying declaration of the spy Nirod Haldar accusing Jatin Mukherjee of having shot him down, a committee was formed to discuss the political situation, consisting of Bepin Ganguli, Jadu Gopal, Abinash Chakravarti and Abinash Ray, and ‘soon after, Jatin organized a daring dakaity at Pryagpur, Nadia’; (e) Concerning one Hari Ghose of the Dhaka Anushilan unit, ‘light was thrown on (his) doings in Mayurbhanj’. He was initiated by Avinash Chakravarti early in 1909, and was a member of the mess at 6 Mirzapur Street’ run by Jatin Mukherjee’s men; (f) ‘The

140

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

notorious Avinash Chandra Chakravarti … owns a house at Monghyr; his brother-in-law Kiran Ray is a chemist of that place. Abinash has proved to be one of the most dangerous of the revolutionary leaders’; this is followed by details of his intimacy with Sri Aurobindo, his generous contribution, his connections with several conspiracy cases,and a regret that ‘it has never been possible to prosecute him’.17

* Fed up with academic diplomas from a foreign government, on the eve of his examination, Jatin took a job as a private secretary, in 1899, and left for Muzaffarpore in Bihar. His employer, the barrister Pringle Kennedy, was an accomplished historian, a Premchand Roychand scholar of the University of Calcutta. As editor-in-chief of the Tirhoot Courier and intimate with the Congress between 1888 and 1891, Kennedy obstinately militated for the creation of a national army for the Indian people. His demand was based on one of the most sincere hopes of the nationalist thinkers of the time. His thoughts had a deep effect on Jatin. Personally supported by Kennedy, Jatin founded around him a band of young students in Muzaffarpore. His stay in Muzaffarpore was interrupted by the news of his mother Sharat-Shashi’s illness. While nursing a cholera patient, Sharat-Shashi succumbed to the contagion: this was the culminating lesson of an idealist mother who honestly put to practice her deepest spiritual convictions. After his mother’s death, in 1899, Jatin did not resume work for Kennedy. Speaking to Jatin about Indubala of the village of Kumarkhali—daughter of Umapada Banerjee—Vinodebala informed him of Sharat Shashi’s ferment wish to have her for her daughter-in-law. Jatin married Indubala in 1900 and they had four children: Atindra (1903-6), Ashalata (1907-76), Tejendra (1909-89), and Birendra (1913-91). For some time, Jatin worked at the Ahmutty & Co., a merchant office of Calcutta. Then, favourably disposed

The Thinker in Action

141

towards the promising patriot, Kennedy recommended him to a friend: Henry Wheeler, the Finance Secretary to the Government of Bengal. During his civil servant’s career as a secretary, between 1903 and 1910, Jatin proved his professional qualities and was honoured by ‘some special work’ in Darjeeling, the summer seat of the government. A report of the secret Police, after summarizing his activities, mentioned: ‘He was leader of one of several gangs that had sprung up in Darjeeling, whose object was the spreading of disaffection and, with his associates, he started a branch of the Anushilan Samiti, called the Bandhab Samiti.’18

* Jatin introduced Bhavabhushan and other friends to Suren Tagore, a nephew of Rabindranath: the Tagores lived in a picturesque mansion near the Station Road at Kushtia; while looking after their estates at Silaidah, they often consulted their solicitor Basantakumar Chatterjee, Jatin’s maternal uncle and father of Phanibhushan and Nirmalkumar. And, like Rabindranath and Basantakumar, Suren, too, held not only classes for the members of Jatin’s club, but also practised with them riding, rowing, and self-defence. Fond of Jatin and his friends, Suren taught them to think not only in terms of India’s freedom but, also of Asian unity. In 1900, invited by Suren at his Calcutta residence, Jatin and Bhavabhushan attended a meeting where Kakuzo Okakura, the Japanese dreamer of the movement ‘Asia is One’, was presented to Sister Nivedita, Barrister P. Mitter, Shashi Bhushan Raychaudhuri, and members of the Tagore family (Sarala Devi, Rabindranath, Abanindranath). Like other patriots Bhavabhushan too was to be impressed by the Japanese victory over Russia in 1905, and admired Japan as an Asiatic power. Even in 1937, as a tribute to the Japanese admiral, he christened one of Jatin’s grandsons as Togo. In Calcutta, Bhavabhushan noticed Jatin in his mission of preparing youths. Once as the Calcutta Anushilan Samiti was inaugurated in

142

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

1902 with the help of Bhavabhushan and other associates, Jatin opened branches in Kushtia and neighbouring towns. As Jatin’s messengers, on several occasions Bhavabhushan and Chandi Majumdar used to meet Sarala Devi, Nivedita, P. Mitter, Bipin Chandra Pal, and Krishnakumar Mitra. Since the beginning of Bagha Jatin’s collaboration with Sri Aurobindo, in 1903, some of Jatin’s recruits went to assist the former’s brother Barin Ghose till Jatin and Barin decided to manufacture bombs in Deoghar and Calcutta. The Police Who’s Who mentions as one of Jatin’s addresses as Carstaris Town, Deoghar, Santhal Parganas where his family lived.19 In Nadia, Calcutta and Deoghar, Bhavabhushan grew as much familiar with Jatin’s relatives as with those of Barin’s. In the midst of the number of patriotic units founded— almost everywhere in the country—by Shashi Bhushan and Jatin, in 1902, some intellectual activists such as professor Naren Bhattacharya, barrister Pramatha Mitra (Shashi Bhushan’s friend), Pulin Mukherjee, Satish Basu and Priyobroto Sarkar registered in Calcutta an association determined to put in practice the programme of self-improvement (anushilan). Conceived by Bankim Chandra, they had named it the Anushilan Samiti. Its office was at 49 Cornwallis Street, with residential facilities to board and lodge young adepts from the districts. Nearly at the same time, the patriotic Jatin Banerjee came from Baroda, provided with a letter from Sri Aurobindo. An extreme militarist, helped by Sarala Devi, he settled in Upper Circular Road, not far from the seat of Anushilan; here Banerjee lectured on history, and gave training in physical education. Sri Aurobindo delegated his own brother Barin Ghose, too, to come from Baroda and assist Banerjee. After a period of collaboration between the Anushilan and Banerjee’s club, Pramatha Mitra could not tolerate Banerjee’s extremist stand. At each new advance of the Boers against the English in Central Africa, Banerjee’s supporters rejoiced and, more directly, from February 1904, every defeat of the Russians at Port Arthur by the Japanese—a brother people from Asia—nourished the newly-born patriotism of the

The Thinker in Action

143

Indians. With Pramatha Mitra as president, Sri Aurobindo and Chittranjan Das (friends since their first nationalist activities in Cambridge) as vice-presidents, Suren Tagore as treasurer, a revolutionary executive Committee was formed at Banerjee’s place. In spite of his obvious absence from this Committee owing to professional reasons, Jatin Mukherjee pursued his programme of organizing secret societies as Sri Aurobindo’s ‘right-hand man’ and privileged friend.20 In addition to the units that he had founded in Nadia and in the region of Calcutta, he had also formed others—since 1903—in Darjeeling and elsewhere in north Bengal. These centres would, on the eve of the First World War, constitute a vast revolutionary organization, then anonymous. It was blacklisted by the Police as the Jugantar Party because of the name of the Bengali weekly the Jugantar (March 1906-July 1908). This Sanskrit word means ‘epoch’s end’. In spite of five trials in which, successively, the editors, printers and publishers of the weekly were condemned, and the printing material wrecked or confiscated the organ maintained regular publication and became more and more popular. It was the symbol of the most daring nationalist press. Even after the proclamation of the discriminatory law—Newspapers (Incitement to Offences) Act of June 1908—some of Jatin’s valiant associates (such as Kartik Datta, Nikhilesvar Ray Maulik, Kiran Mukherjee) continued to publish Jugantar as booklets. At the end of the famous Alipore Case after Sri Aurobindo had been acquitted in May 1909, in a secret report F.C. Daly, Deputy Inspector General of Police, expressed his disappointment that nothing could condemn such dangerous personalities as Aurobindo and Nikhilesvar. Jatin preferred to act through intermediaries, maintaining the facade of an exemplary civil servant: his profession permitted him, first of all, to remain abreast of important governmental decisions and, then, to manage better the institutional progress of the secret society, according to Sri Aurobindo’s own policy. In the name of a decentralized federation of autonomous units, the Jugantar had published an article on the organization

144

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

of a secret society (mandali gathana), defining the ideal character of a revolutionary group. Jatin had been one of the first theoreticians and champions of this ideal. Counting on a thousand volunteers out of 80 million Bengalis, this manifesto hinted at regional groupings under local leaders who would have their district-wise headquarters. These regional leaders would belong to a national committee with its seat in Calcutta. Hierarchized, the regional units would thus take care of dovetailing plans and activities of every region precisely towards the goals of a common struggle for national independence. Aware of the necessity of this independence and ready for any sacrifice to arrive at it, every citizen at the minimum age of sixteen was eligible to enroll in a regional branch. Through a judicious sorting, every member, according to his personal qualities, would receive from the regional leader some responsibilities. Thus, ignorant of the activities and the identity of members of other units, if some volunteers happened to get caught they would not be in danger the members of other branches. The only organization that did not adhere to this policy of a decentralized federation was the Dhaka branch of the Anushilan, founded in 1905, by Pramatha Mitra, Bipin Chandra Pal, and Taraknath Das. Protesting against it, Pulin Das, the regional leader, isolated himself from the rest of the secret network, getting increasingly involved in an overt and inopportune terrorism, under the command of a highly centralized and reactionary party. Sri Aurobindo denounced in the pages of the Bande Mataram how, in a servile nation— very little accustomed to a free man’s attitude—the party becomes the master and is no more an instrument; the party is but a curse when it becomes a faction. What mattered for the rest of the Extremists—later known as the Jugantar—was that it was not a party, but a movement to free India through the progressive creation of a revolutionary climate.21

*

The Thinker in Action

145

Under Sri Aurobindo’s influence, Barin Ghose, in his manual, Bartaman Rananiti (Modern War Strategy) proclaimed that karma (the just action) was progress towards salvation and wealth; in order to affirm this law of karma, the Hindus had instituted the cult of Shakti (the divine Energy). Modern Indian worshippers of Shakti should not lose sight of their karma. The action was compulsory; glory was its salary, although this salary required great sacrifice. Barin deplored that Indians had been disarmed under the king’s order. This foreign king disarmed all peoples of this country out of fear for his life, fear that his subjects, distraught by oppression, would come to demand his head. The English used the Sikhs, the Mahrathas and Rajputs as soldiers, but did not give them any military training. Bengalis and the cerebral Brahmans of Pune did not even have the right to hold a bamboo-stick. It is true that Indians did not have any right to learn overtly and in a legal way any military practice or manoeuvre. Nevertheless, if the Bengalis chose to undertake this instruction by their own means, they would become by the exercise of self-improvement expert riders and would acquire courage, strength of arms, endurance and other heroic qualifications. They could master all principles underlying the science of the warfare in their own country, by their own studies and by initiation. Elaborating weapons of wars, organization of the army, strategy of guerrilla warfare, the author coveted them as the means of fighting that a weakened nation adopts, disarmed and oppressed by the conquerors, but determined to shatter his chains of bondage. Insisting on the intellectual superiority of such a war, he attested that to be the way the Japanese, less important and smaller in size than the Russians, proved their superiority. This is how, for three years, 60,000 Boers, most of them no more than peasants, trampled upon millions of British soldiers. That is why the British did not enrol any Bengali and/or any Brahman of Pune in the army. Last, about the question of how a nation, diminished and disarmed, could ever fight against armed and trained soldiers,

146

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

the author observed that there were numerous examples in world history proving that it was not impossible for a subject people to be victorious. It mattered little that a nation was disarmed and under foreign domination. If determined to taste liberty. It would be possible for them to start an open struggle. (1) Carried away by patriotism, the native regiments would agree to desert the foreign king and take the side of the heroes. (2) The highland tribes would be stirred by the passionate and flaming call of revolution and would rush to the battlefield. (3) The country’s youth waging an irregular struggle, would become progressively audacious swordsmen. This irregular battle therefore, would only be a test for them. By dint of coping constantly with dangers for the sake of the Motherland, they would develop heroic qualities. (4) During a long span of anarchy and conflicts, people would grow in number and accumulate weapons and other equipment. (5) A prolonged war would provide as much suffering to the enemy. Soldiers killed in numbers, commerce, taxes and other sources of income would stall famine would prevail in the country, and other great powers would take advantage of the confusion. Under such circumstances, would anybody spare such worn-out adversaries?22

* Jatin Banerjee had decided to remedy the government’s injustice and, with Sri Aurobindo’s help, he entered the Baroda State army and had a thorough military training. Jatin Mukherjee’s will to ‘nationalize’ the Indian regiments took a particular turn in that direction because of his contact with Banerjee, in 1903. Hiralal Ray, former teacher at Magura (Jessore) and active member of the Extremist central committee called

The Thinker in Action

147

(Swadesh) Bandhaba Samiti, and of the associations founded by Jatin in Darjeeling and elsewhere was exceptionally receptive to Jatin’s projects and activities; it is he who supported Jatin in his look out for necessary funds to send some meritorious students abroad with precise missions. In addition to advanced military practice and a training in manufacturing explosives, under an apparent urge for higher studies in commerce and technology, emissaries were to prepare public opinion in the West in favour of India’s struggle for independence. Better even, they could contact representatives of great Western powers hostile to British interests, attracting financial and other supports available. Hiralal’s patriotism, looked down and suspected by the English magistrate who was also the Secretary of the Magura High School, had cost him his teaching job. But he earned popularity among the students and their parents. In 1905, at Muhammadpur, not far from Magura and near the former capital of Sitaram Ray (the Hindu prince who had challenged the Mughal reign), Hiralal convened an annual festival to commemorate this national hero, closer to Bengali feelings than Sivaji. Shouldered by Surendra Mitra, professor at the Brajamohan College (Barisal) and disciple of Asvinikumar Datta, Hiralal invited Jatin Mukherjee as the chief guest for the festival in 1906. After Jatin’s visit, Hiralal’s association was taken by an intense activity, managing fourteen branches, twenty-eight village unions and a national school at Kamargram.23 Hiralal introduced Taraknath Das, a remarkable organizer, to Indubhushan Mitra, manager of the principality of Narail (Jessore) and a friend of the physician Bijay Ray (who was also a regional leader and Jatin’s man of confidence). Shortly after, Indubhushan pinched the tidy sum of more than a hundred thousand rupees from his employer’s account and sent it to Jatin, for some urgent business. He was caught and convicted to three years of prison. Indubhushan never revealed the real purpose of his act, preferring to suffer silently serious social prejudice. Jatin called a secret meeting of a great importance

148

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

with Hiralal, Bijoy, Taraknath Das, Adhar Laskar, Srish Sen and Satyen Sen. Successively, after Taraknath’s hurried departure for the USA in 1906, G.D. Kumar (Taraknath’s friend), Adhar, Srish and Satyen—followed by a few others, at regular intervals—left for Japan as emissaries in transit, to attend Taraknath in the USA; others left for Europe. Bhupendra Kumar Datta24 was informed later that it was with the money supplied by Indubhushan that Jatin could not only pay for the trips but also enable Taraknath to publish from New York the Free Hindustan. When, after forty-six years of exile, Taraknath Das returned to India for a short visit in 1952, at the end of a career entirely dedicated to his initial mission, he recognized in a public homage to the memory of Jatinda how necessary it was for youth to keep in mind the real task: from district to district, Jatinda had moved and crystallised units of his organisation. In his method of work, there was a military discipline. Foreign to all partial discipline, he expressed through his deeds, an unconditional attachment to perfect discipline. Jatinda had dreamed of founding a secret and parallel government in India within the British administration. It will be necessary for us to reinstitute all over the country an organisation based on the discipline of almost a military organization that Jatinda had founded. That will be the only way to pay him the tribute that we owe him.25

In January 1907, Jatin’s idea seemed to be echoed in the great Tilak’s proclamation that the governerment functioned entirely thanks to Indian collaboration, of which they remained ignorant; let Indians refuse to collaborate in collecting the national revenue and maintaining peace; let them refuse to collaborate by fighting abroad as soldiers away from their frontiers, with Indian blood and money; let them refuse to collaborate in the administration of justice. Let them have their own law-courts, and in due course they would not pay taxes.26 In conformity with this idea to reinforce revolutionary efforts by drawng Indian regiments of the colonial army toward collaborating with the patriots, Jatin had presented

The Thinker in Action

149

some Indian officers of the Jat regiment posted at the Fort William of Calcutta (mainly Ram Gopal and Surjan Singh) to his associates, Naren Chatterjee and Nikhilesvar. These officers, in company of members of their regiment and even those belonging to other regiments, started meeting Naren Chatterjee regularly at Bhuvan Mukherjee’s house, in Shibpur, a near suburb of Calcutta: that was the headquarters of Nanigopal Sengupta, a regional leader who faithfully followed the direct instructions of Aurobindo, as did Jatin. Realizing the risks of crossing the Ganga with soldiers, Jatin appointed Naren Chatterjee to assemble them at Doctor Sarat Mitra’s place, close to the dock in Khidirpur. During a tour in northerm India, Surjan presented Naren to other colleagues of different cantonments. Let us not forget that, disappointed by the divergence of principles with Pramatha Mitra as well as Barin Ghose, Jatin Banerjee had left Bengal in 1906 and, under the name of Niralamba Swami, had undertaken a tour from Tibet through the mountain regions of Garhwal up to Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. Bearer of Sri Aurobindo’s revolutionary ideas, he contacted and inspired leaders such as Sardar Ajit Singh and Kishen Singh (father of the future martyr Bhagat Singh), Lala Lajpat Rai, Har Dayal, Sufi Amba Prasad, Obeidullah Sindhi, doctors Haricharan Mukherjee of Ambala and Charu Ghose of Peshawar. Each of them collaborated with the Extremists of Bengal and encouraged the activities of Jatin Mukherjee’s emissaries as much in these regions as abroad. During the historic Howrah Case (1910-11), Jatin was accused of having ‘waged war against the King-Emperor’ and to have ‘tampered with the loyalty of the native regiments’. The 10th Jat Regiment was dismantled and many of its officers executed. After acquittal in 1911, Jatin encouraged his associate Panchugopal Banerjee to renew contacts with other regiments of the Fort William. Panchugopal looked after the Arya Nivas boarding house, close to the Sealdah station of Calcutta: his address also acted as cover for numerous militants. Dr Mitra having not been yet acquitted, the direction

150

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

of the Khidirpur unit as well as the task of indoctrinating soldiers fell on Durgacharan Basu and Professor Asutosh Ghose. Advised by Jatin—who personally knew the famous scientist Sir Prafulla Chandra Ray (1861-1944)—Bibhuti Chakravarti, a chemistry student at the university and a member of the regional unit of Nadia, manufactured the first bombs for the experiments of Barin Ghose. Another member of this unit, Basanta Biswas, went in 1911 to warn Rash Behari Bose in Dehra Dun that it was necessary to relieve Naren Chatterjee: in spite of a high reward announced by the police for his arrest, Naren had been pursuing his secret mission of coordinating the sympathising soldiers in the northern barracks. After staying aloof from nationalist activities for some years, Rash Behari came back to meet Jatin.27 It was under Jatin’s influence that, on the eve of First World War, Rash Behari began preparations for occupying Fort William, symbol of British domination over India: this was one of Jatin Mukherjee’s most cherished objectives. Even when, under the joint direction of Jatin and Rash Behari, the All-India uprising of 21 February 1915 failed, a number of regiments, participated in the revolutionary project: the 12th and 23rd Cavalry, the 128th Pioneers, the 7th and 14th Rajputs inside India; the 5th Light Infantry and the Malaya States Guides in Singapore.28 The last two regiments maintained a one week state of siege, after having occupied the Singapore fort.29

* It was at Yogendra Vidyabhushan’s house in Calcutta that Jatin had met two great leaders from north Bengal, Avinash Chakravarti and Ananda Ray, who gave a definitive turn to the revolutionary units of these regions, thanks to their proximity with Darjeeling.30 Having known about Jatin’s intimacy with Ishan Chakravarti of Rangpur, the young and future martyr Prafulla Chaki (Ishan’s pupil, working in Calcutta under Barin Ghose), went to consult Jatin in Darjeeling in 1907. Barin had asked Prafulla to get Jatin’s help in his mission of

The Thinker in Action

151

murdering Andrew Fraser, the Governor of Bengal, then residing in Darjeeling.31 Judging the operation and the moment to be inopportune, Jatin dissuaded Prafulla and promised he would intimate him when the moment was ripe.32 Hurt by this refusal, Barin seems to have chuckled in Prafulla’s face with the comment that the revolution could not expect anything from a government servant. This response shocked a number of volunteers, young and old, for whom Jatin’s influence and personality deserved an altogether different appreciation. In the meantime, Phani Chakravarti33 had spent a few days with Jatin, in Darjeeling, and, impressed by his magnetism and generosity, started speaking of him. Naren Battacharya (the future M.N. Roy), Harikumar Chakravarti, Sailesvar Basu and Satcowri Banerjee, all hailing from Chingripota and were members of Barin Ghose central unit. When, in the presence of M.N. Roy, Barin accused Phani and Prafulla Chaki of continueing to frequent Jatin Mukherjee, Prafulla had answered, ‘But why do you stop me from visiting him, whereas he always encourages me to serve you and that he never asks me to join his party? Besides, he does not even have party!’ Curious to meet this exceptional leader, Roy was finally presented to Jatin. He wrote later that all Dadas practised magnetism; only Jatin Mukherjee possessed it; he was, therefore, an enigma and a despair for those who took him for a rival in the game of hunting for followers (cheladhara). Since then, Roy had the privilege to make the acquaintance of numerous other personalities, Lenin, Trotski, Stalin, Sun Yat-Sen, among others, and thought that they were great men; his Jatinda was a good man, and he could not find a better man.34 Later M.N. Roy was to learn about Jatin Mukherjee’s direct intervention in 1907 to protect Roy (at the time, a fresh recruit) against the Police. Roy had been arrested during a holdup organized by Mokshada Samadhyayi, the Vedic scholar and a great Extremist chief. Coming from Darjeeling, Jatin had requested his faithful friend, the barrister J.N. Ray, to defend this young revolutionary and to get him out of a tight spot. Similarly, J.N. Ray defended two of Jatin’s childhood friends, Kunjalal

152

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Saha and Bhavabhushan Mitra, accused in the Alipore Case of 1908, as well as Jatin himself in the Howrah Case, in 1910. J.N. Ray was among those nationalist lawyers and judges such as Chittaranjan Das, Suren Haldar, B.C. Chatterjee, Rajat Ray, Apurba Ghose and A. Banerjee, who were intimate with the Extremists of Calcutta. In the same way, as we have seen, the scientist, Sir Prafulla Chandra Ray (another admirer and personal friend of Jatin), helped a whole generation of young scientists—like Meghnad Saha, Satyendra Bose (author of the Bose-Einstein theory), Sailen Ghose, Jatin Seth, Jnan Ghose, Rasiklal Datta, Jnan Mukherjee, Sisir Mitra, Bidhu Ray, Biresh Ghose, the brothers Jibanratan and Nilratan Dhar—to participate actively in these revolutionary preparations. Equally, around the famous Sir Ashutosh Mookerjee (Jatin’s close relative), the University of Calcutta had historians, economists and researchers in human and social studies such as Benoy Kumar Sarkar, the brothers Radha Kumud and Radha Kamal Mukherjee, Benoyendra Sen, Rabindra Ghose, Panchanan Sinha, who had embraced the Extremist cause. The efforts of the elite led people to believe that it was about to become the people’s movement. In the exchange of diplomatic mail between Viceroy Minto and the Secretary of State for India Morley are such testimonies of their feeling that they were there only for a short stay in this country—nothing more than a bivouac before taking the walk.’ Morley wrote, ‘Your way of putting this helps me to realise how intensely artificial and unnatural is our mighty Raj and it sets one wondering whether it can possibly last. It surely cannot.’35 II.1.3. Foretaste of Insurrection: 1905

When George Nathaniel Curzon (1859-1925) was appointed Viceroy of India on 7 November 1898, he declared that his own distraction for several years had been the study of India’s geography, with its physical as much as political and commercial aspects, and he could frankly admit that the honour he appreciated the most was the gold medal of the Royal Society

The Thinker in Action

153

of Geography he had received. Asking the historic question, ‘Why had we been first driven towards Egypt?’, Curzon answered: ‘Because it was on the way to India.’ So also according to Curzon, the old politics concerning Constantinople and the Turkish Empire, the onerous establishment in Persia and the supreme control on the Persian Gulf, the British colonies of the Cape, the subsidies to Afghan Emirate and the military pageants in this fatal country, the British interests in the dreary and inhospitable Pamir deserts, the guarantor of the Kingdom of Siam, of the Yangtse Superior and the Szechuan and the Yunnam—border regions of Burma—came because of India. Curzon counted himself among those who thought that the British rush towards the East would intensify instead of diminishing. It is because of the ardour of his convictions on these subjects that all his journeys, studies and writings, revolved round India and neighbouring countries. Referring to the character and the temperament of the native tribes of India—these wild men lived in clans and had an individuality of their own—Curzon agreed, because in their patriotism there is a virility, and a love of independence in their blood, which are of the same nature as that of the British. Curzon held that if someone asked him the secret of a good treatment for these tribes, or for the oriental races in general, his answer would be to treat them as if they were men of same composition as the British. Earlier, on 25 October 1898, at a party organized by the former students of Eton in London, Curzon defined the duties of a Viceroy to be to keep in mind that all these people did not belong to the same race, nor the same faith, nor to the same climate as the British, and that it was only out of consideration for their feelings, respect for their prejudices—he would even go as far as saying by the deference with regard to their scruples—that the rulers could get the compliance as well as the submissiveness of these subjects.36 In spite of all precaution, in spite of four previous stays in India, in spite of having been undersecretary for Indian Affairs (1891-2), in spite even of his liberal stand against the racism

154

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

prevailing among British soldiers and civil servants in India, Curzon’s transfer as Viceroy of India proved to be ominous. Unknowingly, Curzon was to act as a catalyst to accelerate the rise of nationalism in India; an acceleration that would look more like a revolution. Indifferent to the mutations in process in Indian society, inflexible before all institutionalized laxity of the British in India, this ‘Proconsul’ with an iron grip a became the target of the most bitter hostility of the AngloIndian and nationalist press. Indignant before the progressive and argumentative opinions of the Bengali Hindus (and their Extremist threats fnding more and more echoes in the different strata of Indian society), the British government looked for the most efficient solutions to curb and to subdue the upsurge of nationalist fever. Since 1896, W.B. Oldham, Commissioner for the District of Chittagong in East Bengal Oriental, suggested that the creation of a new province where the united Muslim population of East India—on the whole pro-British by its political apathy and by lack of education—could turn the Hindu agitators of Bengal into a minority. The administrative pretext came to be added to this political necessity, in a sufficient manner, camouflaging the true reasons for dividing Bengal. Since the creation of the province of Assam, in 1874 by annexing the three Bengali-speaking districts Goalpara, Cachar, and Sylhet, the province of Bengal comprised, in addition to Bengal proper, the provinces of Bihar, Orissa and Chota Nagpur. With an area of about 332,000 sq. km and a population exceeding 76 million, Bengal represented the most imposing province from the administrative point of view. Convinced about the necessity of a new province called East Bengal with the totality of Chittagong, Dhaka and Mymensingh annexed to the Assam, Lord Curzon submitted at end of 1903, a first draft to the government. This move to dismember the linguistic unity of Bengal released a spontaneous and visceral upheaval from both the Muslim and the Hindu communities. Even the imperialist press of India (such as the dailies, The Englishman, The Statesman, The Pioneer and The Capital)

The Thinker in Action

155

and the Bengal Chamber of Commerce (composed of British enterprises) gave a voice to popular dissatisfaction. After a tour through the eastern regions, Curzon could estimate both the weight of this opposition and the powerful impact of Bengali nationalism at work. Lord Curzon, now ferociously allergic to Indian nationalism—after having identified the anglicized Bengali Hindus to be its cradle—felt tempted by the perspective of reducing Hindu influence in East Bengal, before a Muslim majority and, in West Bengal, before the Biharis and the Oriyas. When the news of this partition of Bengal as a settled fact was published by The Standard of London, in May 1905, H. Roberts challenged its legitimacy in parliament; Mr. Brodrick (Secretary of State for Indian Affairs) pacified him while affirming that the question was still under deliberation. But when—supported by a note of protest signed by more than fifty thousand Indian citizens—Mr. Roberts seized Mr. Brodrick again, on 4 July 1905, the latter confessed, in exemplary contempt of all parliamentary procedure, that in fact the proposal had been approved by the Council. This news, published by the press of Calcutta on 6 July and officially confirmed the following day set ablaze public resentment. Even the most moderate voices of the Indian delegation at the Legislative Council of Bengal took note of this popular anger, stressing that even the most infamous criminal had a right to be notified of the judgement of his conviction, whereas the government toyed with the fate of more than thirty million of innocent citizens without the least possibility of a dialogue. According to A.J. O’Donnel, this indignation was shared on all sides, as much by the Hindus as the Muslims, including the peasantry.37 The London Daily News attacked this one-sided decision incompatible with constitutional uses: . . . The inhabitants of Bengal contain a large proportion of educated persons, very many of whom occupy positions of influence and responsibility. What was there to prevent Lord Curzon taking counsel with the leading citizens and ascertaining the views of the localities concerned before enacting this tremendous change? We

156

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

are afraid the only answer is, that Lord Curzon well knew the views of the people, but declined to argue with them or to endeavour to persuade them (…). That a re-consideration is desirable, is obvious from every point of view. It cannot be good statesmanship to launch these new provinces in a condition of seething discontent, or to alienate a third of our fellow-subjects in India.38

Judging that the Herculean effort of Curzon to reinforce English monopoly in India and to subdue popular agitation and discontent had come to a miserable failure, G.K. Gokhale (the most Moderate of the leaders), in his presidential speech at the Benares session of the Congress, in 1905, admitted that the far-reaching discontent in India was at its climax, whereas the monopoly of the bureaucratic power was flagging hopelessly. In 1907 he accused Curzon for his policy of centralization; for his contempt of all norms of ethics, specifically Indian; for his refusal to behave up to Victoria’s proclamation of 1858; and for having trampled popular feelings, to the point of alienating a large majority of Indian intellectuals. Gokhale made allusion to Curzon’s speech at the convocation of the University of Calcutta, on 15 February 1902, when the Viceroy had advised the graduate students to avoid, first of all, the insidious tendency to exaggeration; he insisted that if he was asked to reassess in a single word the most prominent of the Orientals’ characteristics—physical, intellectual and moral—he would answer that the word was exaggeration or extravagance.39 Irish by birth, but respectful of Indian ethics, Nivedita was present in the meeting. She left the hall in fury, got hold of the copy of Curzon’s, Problems of the Far East, extracted passages where the author bragged how easily he had lied, how often he had exaggerated throughout his career in Asia. On the following day, Nivedita published them in the Amritabazar Patrika of Calcutta. There followed a series of articles and most acrid commentaries (such as the essay entitled ‘Exaggeration’ by Rabindranath Tagore, published shortly after, laying stress upon the suffering and injuries in India’s relationship with England). Three years later, at the University of Calcutta again, on 11 February 1905, Curzon

The Thinker in Action

157

reiterated that undoubtedly truthfulness found a high place in the moral codes of the West, long before it came to be honoured in the East, where shrewdness and diplomatic cunning had always been held in high esteem. He claimed that he could prove it thanks to the allusion contained in the words Oriental diplomacy, that expresses something devious and subtle.40 These remarks were the last straw on Indian tolerance, precisely in the context of the imminent partition of Bengal. As a significant answer of the people’s will to the Viceroy’s unending provocations, on two occasions, once in Simla, then in Chittagong, two of Jatin Mukherjee’s men Jyotish Majumdar (alias Chandi) and Shrish Chandra Das (zamindar of Samrail in Faridpur), attempted, in vain, to assassinate Curzon. Bruised by the mutilation of the Motherland the people observed a ritual mourning all over India, accompanied by an act and an unusual vow to boycott British goods, burning them in bonfires, and to use home-made products only. Nobody purchased Manchester textile any more, carrying such a terrible blow to the turnover that a petition of importers demanded the government to revoke the Partition of Bengal. The native factories managed to provide for the general need of cotton fabrics: in spite of their rough homespun look the patriots’ hearts derived out of them a new joy and pride. A garment could abolish, all of a sudden, distinctions of class. The songs of Tagores and other patriotic poets will add a leaven of devotion to this experience: Accept on your head, o brother, This coarse cloth, your Mother’s gift. Miserable, our little Mother Can offer you nothing better!

Following Curzon’s speech of February 1905, in response to the call of the nationalist leaders, the students of universities and even of high schools started deserting their classes, rejecting the British system which manufactured ‘pen-pushers’ only, indispensable for perpetuating the imperialist regime. In order

158

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

to prevent teachers and students from joining any nationalist demonstration, the government issued three bills, which were going to be implicitly in vigour, laws known after their signatories: Carlyle (in 1905), Lyons (in 1905) and Risley (in 1907). In order to challenge these arbitrary laws, the Nationalists created, on 4 November 1905, the Anti-circular Society, having for president Krishna Kumar Mitra, Aurobindo’s uncle. On 1 March 1906, an assembly of ninety-six patriots—Moderates and Extremists—composed of eminent judges, lawyers, educationists, physicians, publicists and sponsors constituted the National(ist) Council of Education and elected Sri Aurobindo as Principal of the National College (transformed later into the University of Jadavpur in Calcutta), to initiate a teaching appropriate for the intellectual and emotional development of the national genius.

* Desperate, before the rise of militant nationalism, the colonial authorities organized towards the end of 1905, the Indian tour of the Prince of Wales (future George V), hoping to exploit vestiges of the people’s loyalty to Queen Empress Victoria. Wishing to keep the Queen’s grandson informed about the people’s real attitude towards the behaviour of His Majesty’s civil servants, Jatin Mukherjee joined the crowd of the curious to see the royal convoy parade in Calcutta. At the approach of the Prince’s coach, he discovered a civil cabriolet inside which some Bengali ladies were sitting, ‘bothered’ by the presence of a few military officers settled on the roof: quite amused, they let their boot shod feet dangle before the windows, before the occupants’ faces. In a way visible to the Prince, Jatin asked the officers to move away immediately. As usual, in a gesture of solidarity among themselves, the officers tried with their customary brutality to oust the intruder, covering him with generous strokes of their whips. In no time, Jatin seized the heads of the malefactors, knocked them against each other, and shoved them with agile and measured

The Thinker in Action

159

kicks and tremendous slaps till the police came to control the situation. In reply to Bipin Chandra Pal’s articles in New India (such as ‘European Criminal in India’, 12 May 1903), Rabindranath Tagore had been thinking aloud in the Bangadarshan (i.e. ‘ghushaghushi’ or ‘Exchange of Blows’, 18 August 1903) about the pertinence of a tit for tat under the degraded conditions of the native citizens, living at the mercy of the conceited English officers. He admitted that there is no better remedy than that from a clenched fist. But he was lucid enough to underline that the English community reckoned every blow on an English person a blow to the prestige of the Ruling Class. On returning to London, the Prince of Wales evoked the scene to Morley (Secretary of State for Indian Affairs) in a long interview, not concealing his disappointment with this lack of decorum towards the citizens of India. In disgrace before the Crown, Curzon was replaced by Minto as Viceroy, to whom Morley wrote: ‘It may seem a trivial business, but I have read history enough to know what harm may come of bad manners.’41 The archbishop of Canterbury had compiled, for Morley’s information, a file containing reports of British missionaries on the English abuse of power, encouraged and supported by the Military Attache, Kitchener.42 When Jatin taught a similar lesson to officers in a train, Morley was informed about the affair, and it made his ‘blood boil’. ‘I wish I know’, he wrote to Minto, ‘which of the divisions of the European community has worst feeling and worst manners towards Indians? Officials, the traders, soldiers, artisans?’43 The state of the things will not have changed an inch when in 1910, Annie Besant, founder of the Hindu Central College of Benares, in her appeal to the government will exclaim: Your Excellency, your Indian and English children are bruising each other’s hearts to the death and wrecking the future (...). Speak strongly, as you alone can do, to these lower English who are destroying your work and undermining the Empire. Bid your

160

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

officials everywhere to guard your Indian children, and to shield them from outrage and from wrong.44

On 13 December, 1905, hardly arrived in India, the new Viceroy Minto wrote to Morley: There is no doubt a great deal of truth in the assertion that the agitation has been unscrupulously fostered and that influence has been brought to bear on the student class and the Universities to join in the movement. But at the same time I cannot but think there is much more genuine feeling in the movement than the official mind is prepared to admit. . . . But I cannot help suspecting that local feeling has been treated with some want of sympathy in aiming at what in the official mind is considered necessary for administrative machinery. The population of Bengal has no doubt resented the action which has taken so large a slice from the province. . . . If the East Riding of Yorkshire was for the best possible administrative reasons handed over to Lincolnshire, I think we should hear a good deal about it, and I believe it is incorrect to deny the existence of a somewhat similar feeling here.45

Having closely examined the nature of revolution that was going to shake India, Minto noted that it was not a case similar to that of Gambetta and Clemenceau, nor to that of Cavour, Garibaldi and Mazzini, because, in India, there was no people’s movement to back the elite’s effort. To that, Morley replied, on 30 November 1906: ‘Every revolution that I ever heard of came from above and not from below in the first instance—a few applying a match, the many bringing torches after. Try this in USA, in our Civil War, in the work of Cavour, of Mazzini, & of Rousseau; and so on.’46 Whatever administrative reasons the British government could evoke to justify the Partition of Bengal, the main objective was to dismantle, as thoroughly as possible, the growth of nationalism in India. Friedrich Bernhardi (1849-1930), in his book on the imminent First War, will discover a subtler and more devious ulterior motive. According to him, in the wake of a nationalist struggle in India and in Egypt, other great colonies would try to wriggle out of the British clutch.

The Thinker in Action

161

Above all, according to Bernhardi, if seventy million Indian Muslims supported the nationalist agitations in Bengal, they would also win the sympathy of the pan-Islamic movement, thus striking a telling blow to England’s supremacy over other Western nations, while sapping the vitality of the British Empire.47 II.1.4. Violence, an Antidote

As a sequel to the rush in Calcutta—artificially created by the government for the royal visit, to prove the popularity of the Prince—an epidemic of cholera devastated the capital in January 1906. This contagion carried away, among the victims, Jatin’s eldest son, Tobu (Atindra), at the age of two and half. Kunjalal Saha, Jatin’s childhood friend and revolutionary colleague, shared with him also his inner aspirations; temporarily subject to an existential uneasiness, swaying between his duty as a family man, and his role as a patriot, he proposed Jatin to set out, together, on a pilgrimage, to perform the rites prescribed to every Hindu. While visiting, on foot, the holy shrines in the Himalaya, one evening, on the bank of the Ganga in Hardwar, Jatin met a radiant personality who chided him for being overwhelmed by grief. On exchanging a few sentences, recognizing in this monk the spiritual master he had been looking for, Jatin asked for initiation. This was the illustrious Bholanand Giri. Bholanand assured him that the greatest spiritual need of the moment was the political liberation of the Motherland. Adept of the vision of Swami Dayananda, Bholanand—a man of knowledge—put his decisive seal on the mission and the life of Jatin. Soon, Vinodebala and Indubala, too, found their hearts appeased at Bholanand’s feet. Jatin confessed that just as Hanuman felt invincible merely by thinking of Rama, Jatin, too, was suffused with an immense power, every time that he recalled the presence of his Guru. Similar to Swami Ramadas acting through his disciple Sivaji, Bholanand seemed to have waited

162

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

for Jatin, to accomplish through this outstanding disciple, his own regenerating project for India and for humanity.48

* In April 1906, on a visit to his native village of Koya, Jatin received a delegation of villagers to bring to his notice the weal and woe of the area: some would like to send their sons to Calcutta for study; some other would need a bit of help to renovate their straw-roof before monsoon; another could not get his daughter married, due to insufficient dowry. Three peasants spoke of a tiger that had been ravaging the farms around Radhapara, about 6 km from Koya. Curious to reconnoitre the area armed with a small Darjeeling dagger, Jatin accompanied them up to a plantation of sugarcane and found at the distance of about 100 metres from them a Royal Bengal tiger basking peacefully under the morning sun. Two of his young cousins, Amulya and Phani, had followed them stealthily, the latter with a small carbine. Unnerved at the sight of the tiger, the boy fired. The bang woke the tiger up: furious, it charged in the direction of the report. Without losing a second, Jatin pushed Phani aside and received on him the leaping beast. After a combat of about half an hour, exhausted, Jatin managed to thrust with his dagger a deadly blow on the tiger’s nape while its jaws caught hold of Jatin’s right knee. Deeply wounded and mauled by the tiger’s claws and teeth, Jatin was transported by the villagers on a scratch stretcher. This episode received immediate publicity. It was celebrated by the press in 1906, especially because of a silver shield— with a stylized scene of Jatin’s killing the tiger engraved on it—that the Governor awarded him publicly. In the context of the partition of Bengal, it served as an intoxicating leaven for the people: he was, henceforth, nicknamed Bagha Jatin (Valorous as the tiger).49 As the small procession with wounded Jatin crossed the hamlets, testimonies of the generosity and the sympathy

The Thinker in Action

163

of the man were narrated by individuals from the growing crowd: an old Muslim widow of the vicinity, without children dashed forward requesting to stop the cortege; she wanted to have a last look of her son. She informed that once, she had gone to fetch fodder for her cow near the jetty; it was late in the morning; no one cared to help her by putting the bundle on her head. This son of a good family had listened to her; having found the burden too heavy for her to carry, he had taken it on his own head and had proposed to accompany her. Arrived at her hut, in beginning of the afternoon, he said, he was hungry; having only the left-over rice of the evening soaked in water, she did not know what to offer him. Obstinate, he had settled down and had shared with her the earthen platter, with salt and a chilly. Saddened to learn that she had had a son of his age, ‘this kind-hearted boy’ had asked to accept him like her son; since then, regularly, he had been coming back to leave some money for her daily life. On hearing her lamentation, Jatin laughed out, saying her son was not going to die.50 Lest people worried too much for him, Jatin had not only maintained the vivacity of his spirit to the point of cutting some jokes to alleviate tension around him but, also, whenever the pain became intense, he recited with devotion verses from the Gita that he knew by heart. In Calcutta, intimated that the surgeon Suresh Sarbadhikari, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, was going to amputate his right leg, Jatin insisted on a simple operation; knowing exceptional merits of the patient, a nephew of his colleague and friend—Dr Sarbadhikari, who was one of the first names of the time for his professionalism, gave up the idea of the amputation. Jatin valiantly underwent the painful operation without anaesthesia. The doctor ‘took the trouble of coming twice to his (Jatin’s) house daily to dress his wounds’.51 Admiring the superhuman will of his patient, Dr Sarbadhikari published an article entitled ‘The Nemrod of Bengal’. After about six months of moving about with crutches, little by little, Jatin recovered the use of his legs. ‘Dedicated to the cause of the

164

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Motherland’, wrote Vinodebala, ‘Jatin was destined to die in a more glorious way.’

* On the foil of the partition of Bengal, on the look out for a national symbol, the Bengali Extremists had welcomed from Tilak the idea of celebrating the Sivaji festival. Jatin had appeared to be especially enthusiastic about this cult. In 1905, Lalitmohan Das of Calcutta had organized the first festival at the Alfred Theatre near the crossing of College Street and Harrison Road. Sarala Devi Chaudhurani, niece of Rabindranath Tagore, was to preside over the ceremony and offer a garland to the sword placed in the middle of the podium. She was unable to honour this appointment and Jatin Mukherjee was requested to preside. In his homage to Sivaji, Jatin designated this sword as a symbol of the strength that the people needed, the strength capable of leading them towards the freedom of the Motherland.52 In a file entitled Seditious Newspaper Articles, the police preserved an excerpt of the Yugantar (17 June, 1906) giving an account of the Sivaji festival in Kushtia, organized by the local branch of the Anushilan Samiti and presided over by Pandit Srinath Bhattacharya. Two thousand men assembled at the meeting. The number of the Musalmans exceeded that of the Hindus. The members of the Samiti charmed all men by the display of heroic sports like wrestling, lathi play, gymnastics, etc. Everybody thanked Sj Kunja Lal Saha, the teacher of the Samiti. Sj Satyendra Nath Ray and Jatindra Nath Mukhopadhyaya [Mukherjee] (who once wrestled with a tiger) were awarded silver medals. The members of the Samiti distributed plenty of rice and Karkatch salt to the beggars for two days.53

One finds in this file other dispatches of a great interest. For example, the Yugantar of 15 July 1906 reserved an article to the Chhatra Bhandar (The Students’ Store), announcing that this famous shop of indigenous products

The Thinker in Action

165

(swadeshi)—officially registered—had come to the maturity of a commercial enterprise. In order to collect Rs. 20,000, its present directors were selling 4,000 shares at the rate of Rs. 5 each. For the first few years the store had made plenty of profit. Long before the Swadeshi agitation started, the youthful agents of the Chhatra Bhandar travelled in different districts carrying Swadeshi cloth on their shoulders. The story of that silent effort of the Chhatra Bhandar is not unknown in many places in the Muffasil (provinces). The agents sent by the Chhatra Bhandar are to be regarded as the foremost among those patriot persons through whose efforts the taste of the country was gradually undergoing a change and demand for Swadeshi articles of trade was increasing before the Swadeshi agitation (was commenced). We desire for welfare of the Chhatra Bhandar with all our heart, and hope that many will encourage the Chhatra Bhandar by joining this profitable concern. Prospectus, etc., may be had at 113 Harrison Road.54

Evidently, in on 19 August 1906, the Yugantar pushed the plug further with an overt prospectus, with a very audacious layout: THE CHHATRA BHANDAR, LIMITED Established and conducted by Students and Youths. No.113 Harrison Road, Calcutta Registered under Act VI of 1882.55

Most of its leaders belonged to Jatin Mukherjee’s immediate circle and connected with the Yugantar: the Ayurvedic physician Anandaprasanna Ray of Sthalbasantapur (Pabna), Pabitra Datta (Chinsura), Raghunath Banerji (12 & 13 Wellington Lane, Calcutta), Indranath Nandi (37 College Street, Calcutta), Nikhilesvar Ray Maulik (Dhamrail, Dhaka).

* Barin Ghose was impatient to use the student effervescence with a series of sensational terrorist actions—even inopportune

166

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

and suicidal—against the government. Surrounded by a handful of followers, he moved away to concentrate on his laboratory in Maniktola (Calcutta) to manufacture bombs. We have already seen that in spite of his disagreement with Barin on this point, Jatin allowed Bibhuti Chakravarti to prepare for Barin bombs to be used for ‘operations’: to track and murder Bampfylde Fuller (the Governor of the new province of East Bengal, who showed his favouritism towards the Muslim community); attempt against the Reverend Hickenbotham of Kushtia, and against M. Tardival (French Mayor of Chandernagore); and for an attempt to derail the train of Fraser, Governor of Bengal. In 1908, the Reverend J. Harvey Hickenbotham of Kushtia, by running an industrial exhibition with British materials, had dissatisfied the local Swadeshi people. He was also suspected of acting as a government spy. Apparently interested in the Bible, Baladeb Ray and some other young men started visiting the Missionary. On 4 March 1908, the Missionary was killed late in the evening. Baladeb, Ganesh Das and two others were arrested. The case was tried by Ashutosh Biswas, Public Prosecutor. The jury acquitted the accused. Whereas this outrage is believed to have been committed by Barin’s party, a confidential deponent informed Denham that this was the work of the Kushtia Society, of which ‘Jatindra Nath Mukharji was the leading spirit’.56 Later, on 25 June 1908, the approver Naren Gossain told the Magistrate of Alipore that Barin and Upen Banerjee had informed him of this murder and he had learnt that ‘Bhavabhushan [Mitra] of Jessore or Khulna, and Kshitish [Sanyal], both residing in Kushtia, were concerned in it.’ Bhavabhusan Mitra ‘was very much mixed up with the Deoghar conspirators’.57 While searching Sri Aurobindo’s house, in May 1908, the Police discovered there a bicycle from Kushtia, belonging probably to Bhavabhushan. According to W. Sealy’s Report on the Revolutionary Organization in Bihar and Orissa (1906-16), in Deoghar where resided Rajnarain Basu, the grandfather of Barin Ghose, the

The Thinker in Action

167

latter had rented a garden-house named Sil’s Lodge for manufacturing empty bomb cockles for the use of his laboratory in Maniktola. Towards 1904, the association Golden League was founded at Deoghar by a group of teachers and it put at the disposal of its members a gymnasium. At its heart was a personality, high in colour: Mani Basu, Rajnarain’s youngest son and Barin’s uncle. Behind Sealy’s Victorian tone we must not forget that Mani was a very capable organizer: ‘He has all along lived practically as a pauper doing no regular work and living on funds given by relations, earning a pittance from time to time by writing cheap Bengali fiction. He is in touch with the lower class bad characters and is believed to be a receiver of stolen property.’58 In addition to the brothers Naren and Phani Chakravarti of Changripota as well as the adherents of different cells of Bengal of the north and Nadia (managed directly by Jatin Mukherjee) others who will be part of this centre: the ‘dangerous’ Bhavabhushan Mitra (childhood friend of this one), the two Prafullas (Chakravarti and Chaki), Nalini Gupta, Upen Banerji, Sri Aurobindo’s three cousins from his father’s side, the Ghoses of Sagardanri in Jessore (Hemendra Prasad—one of the future editors of the Bande Mataram—Biren and Sisir), Sudhir Sarkar (recruited by Sisir) and Bijoy Nag, both of them from Khulna. Among the documents seized in an apartment at 134 Harrison Road of Calcutta, the police discovered a heap of junk ready for melting, sketches of relative positions between Baidyanath, Madhupur and Deoghar, very important personal ‘notes regarding members of the society, references to religious, moral and political training, study of revolutionary histories of other countries, the art of war, etc.’ Some technical instructions for U.D. [Ullaskar Datta]. On searching Sil’s Lodge, ‘among other things found, there were 9 small pieces of metal similar to a quantity found at the “garden” and ready for melting. A label of the London Chemists, Hewlett & Sons, similar to others found at Calcutta. A post-card to Upendra Nath Banerji asking him to come at once, under orders from

168

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Bara Karta (Aurobindo’s title-’the Great Boss’).’59 “‘Jatin Mukherjee visited the place also and left his family there on one occasion.’60 Theoretician of quality, Barin Ghose had written the manifesto of the revolutionary politics in the pages of the Jugantar with the help of local young intellectuals. He was of spontaneous temperament but perfectly honest. Partisan of the federation of a network of cells centralized, Barin ended up transforming his pavilion of Maniktola to a highly central general district where he reigned in sovereign. Arriving at an extreme degree of quest of sensations, Barin threw in the pages of the Jugantar (26 August 1907)—published then by a team dedicated more directly to the projects of Jatin—a call in the vein of Bankim Chandra’s ‘Kamalakanta’: ‘Mad I am, cracked in the brain, intoxicated of sensations! My glass of ecstasy is overflowing; when I see the agitation surging in all directions, news arrives from all sides and I am thrilled while dreaming that some guerrillas are busy robbing everything.’ Diffident about the turn of events awaiting the users of the Maniktola garden house, Sri Aurobindo advised Jatin to sever momentarily all contact with this centre, approving the latter’s forming small units in different regions, so that after the failure of the first attempt, he could start on a bigger scale.61

* The increasingly aggressive behaviour of Magistrate Kingsford with the patriots made Barin designate, on 30 April 1908, two young revolutionaries—Prafulla Chaki and Khudiram Basu—to follow him to his address at Muzaffarpore, armed with bombs manufactured by Hemchandra Das (who had just returned from Paris, after his apprenticeship under Nicolai Safranski, a Russian anarchist). The police of Calcutta had full knowledge of this. The mission transformed into a tragedy. Having aimed at the coach of Kingsford, the bomb found for victims two innocent women: the wife and the daughter of the Barrister Kennedy. Having served Kennedy

The Thinker in Action

169

as a secretary, Jatin had a great esteem for this family and felt distraught Khudiram did not have the time to do away with himself, as did his colleague, the martyr Prafulla Chaki. Arrested, he underwent torture and accepted his hanging with exemplary courage. In the wake of this arrest, before 2 May, the police succeeded in sequestrating the garden house and took prisoner not only Barin and his group but also Sri Aurobindo and several other suspects. During the historic Case of Alipore, Barin and his followers, seized with a defeatism, pleaded guilty of fomenting war against His Majesty’s regime. They accepted, heroically, their sentence to life-long exile (to the dangerous prison of Andaman). Silent by nature and, especially, out of respect for the principles of a secret society, Sri Aurobindo refused all commentary concerning the charges against him put forward by the Crown, Judge S. P. Beachcroft—who had stood second to Sri Aurobindo in Greek, at Cambridge. Defended by his friend Chittaranjan Das, Sri Aurobindo relied on the Divine will for the outcome of this case, withdrawn and radiating a mystic light. Pleading before the court, Chittaranjan pronounced an inspired and prophetic speech: . . . Long after the controversy will be hushed in silence, long after this turmoil, the agitation will have ceased, long after he is dead and gone, he will be looked upon as the poet of patriotism, as the prophet of nationalism and the lover of humanity. A long time after he is dead and gone, his words will be echoed and re-echoed, not only in India, but across the distant seas and lands, the most remote countries Therefore, I say that the man in his position is not only standing before the bar of this court, but before the bar of the High Court of History.62

Sri Aurobindo was to leave the jail in May 1909, enriched by the spiritual experiences of his ‘hermitage’. He retired in Pondicherry on 4 April 1910 and stayed there up to his last breath on 5 December 1950.

*

170

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Behind the façade of a civil servant Jatin Mukherjee held the reins of the clandestine Revolutionary organization. But a first incident in April 1908, was going to alter his image of loyalty before the authorities. Having to resume his post in Darjeeling, Jatin was travelling with its family and his associate, Bhavabhushan Mitra. In the compartment, a man was delirious with a high fever, asking for water. As soon as the train stopped at the station of Siliguri, a glass in hand, Jatin ran to fetch water. On the platform, a few English army officers in uniform were creating a ruckus. A batch among them accosted Jatin—who was slightly limping yet, owing to his right leg injured by the tiger bites—and, all amused, stopped him from running, one of them hitting his face. Jatin carried the glassful of water to his wife, and, returning to the spot, he questioned the officer: ‘Why did you hit me?’ Quite unusual a question. One of the four of the gang was about to greet him with a kick, when Jatin knocked the fellow out with a hard slap. The three others, all well-armed, quickly found themselves in the least privileged position—rolling on the ground—with jaws broken by Jatin’s blows. One of them drew his bayonet as the police arrived. Having recognized Jatin, the inspector had a start: ‘Ah it is you, Sir!’ Jatin replied that they could arrest him if they wished, but he had to join his office the next day. Released immediately, on signing the police report, Jatin proceeded to Darjeeling with his friend and his family. However, Captain Murphy, Lieutenant Somerville and their two accomplices drew up legal proceedings against Jatin.63 Taking advantage of this opportunity to demystify the superiority of the Englishman’s physical strength, the journalists of Calcutta amplified the event to the point where, fearing the ominous effects of the case, the government ordered the English complainants to withdraw it. The magistrate, from the top of his desk, in a befitting formalism, advised Jatin that he would have to behave properly in future. Jatin replied that he ‘could not give assurance that he would refrain in future from taking similar action in self-defence or in the vindication of the rights of his countrymen’. As a token punishment, in

The Thinker in Action

171

June 1908, Jatin was transferred from Darjeeling to Calcutta except when he was in Darjeeling and ‘in attendance upon’ Henry Wheeler, the Finance Secretary.64 Amused by Jatin’s spirited character, Henry Wheeler seems to have enquired with him one day about the number of aggressors he could cope with in such a clash. ‘Not a single one’, Jatin answered, ‘if they are honest people. But a good number of them, if they are malefactors.’ The accumulation of such lessons publicly dispensed to the particularly odious military officers, roused, in the political context of the country, a legitimate suspicion in the police’s mind. Suspicion that the sympathy and the esteem of Henry Wheeler towards Jatin could not dissipate, in spite of all his diplomatic diligence.

* The steady rise of militant nationalism all over India forced the government to revive, in 1907, the Regulation III of 1818, before deporting, in July 1908: Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh, Extremist leaders of the Punjab; Tilak from Maharashtra, for having justified the anger of the Bengalis, as expressed by the act of Khudiram Basu and Prafulla Chaki; and in November 1908, nine Bengali leaders—among them, Mahatma Aswini Kumar Datta, Krishna Kumar Mitra, Raja Subodh Mallik, Pandit Shyamsundar Chakravarti—were its first victims. Three new laws and a good number of others were promulgated after 1908 to throttle dissident all voices. (1) The Indian Arms and Explosion Act: declared it an offence, for an Indian to possess any kind of weapon; this Act proved to be efficient in the condemning a number of patriots. (2) Criminal Law Amendment Act (No. XIV of 1908) endowing the government with the powers: (a) to judge an accused by a scratch Commission, following a brief preliminary investigation; (b) to ban all organiszation and association (an Act that tried to paralyse most activist units notably in Bengal and Punjab). (3) Newspapers (Incitement to Offences) Act of 1908: Endowing the government with the power to confiscate all suspected printing pressesd—connected with spreading

172

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

‘seditious’ literature. From 1908, the classic index of accusations against the nationalists under arrest or absconding, was supported by some decrees of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Code of Criminal Instruction (CPC): (a) § 121 (IPC): intending to punish all conspiracy of waging war against the Government of His Majesty; very often applied to suspected groups; (b) § 124 (IPC): intending to penalize all ‘sedition’ whose definition included: ‘all effort by acts or by words—uttered or written—to foment hatred, contempt or disaffection of the government’. All nationalist topics related to selfgovernment and to the rights of citizens fell under the cleaver of this law, which was massively applied. (c) § 153 A (IPC): intending to penalize all effort to incite hostility between two communities or collectivities, or to disturb the maintenance of harmony. This law was lavished against all political discontent, whereas—by its policy of encouraging and protecting unconditionally the Muslims to the grief of the Hindu community—the government exposed itself, constantly, to the contempt of this law. It hushed up also, and often without any tact, the prejudices that the British officers caused to the Indians. (d) § 107, § 109, § 110 (CPC): usually intended for recidivist criminals and to vagabonds given to dubious living and to a criminal propensity, these decrees allowed the Government to exact a high bail for the convenient behaviour of a suspect: otherwise, or in case the Court found the bail to be insufficient, the person rotted in jail. The patriotic ideal that drove the Extremist militants out of their homes, provided ample pretext to the police to intern them at will and without explanation. (e) § 144 (CPS): allowed the government to ban all meetings; the slightest disobedience on behalf of a citizen exposed him to an immediate and automatic conviction.65

*

The Thinker in Action

173

While the people gave an impression to the Police that the government’s repressive measures discouraged and put an end to the nationalist demands with the failure of Barin Ghose’s programme, Jatin Mukherjee advised all regional leaders to suspend their political resistance, and to concentrate on an intensive project of social work—notably in the rural areas: to win over, by sincere work, the heart of the peasantry and the various professional corporations, awaiting an armed operation. In the beginning, polytechnic schools of the type started by Shashi Bhushan Ray Chaudhuri provided the model to create other centres of adult education. In the same way, a few hundred volunteers of secret units were mobilized to Gosaba (24-Parganas, close to the Sundarbans). Undercover of the Youngmen’s Zamindari Cooperative Society, duly registered—thanks to the guidance of Justice Sarada Charan Mitra, the Extremists bought at a moderate price some hectares of land belonging to the philanthropist owner Sir Daniel Hamilton.66 These militants were initiated to the problems of farming, running traditional workshops and swadeshi stores in direct and intimate touch with local artisans and the disfavoured social classes. Some of them kept apparently busy with academic studies in medicine, law, sciences and arts, living in the hostels directed by Nalinikanta Kar (one of Jatin’s associates), behind the Faculty of Medicine of Calcutta, visiting freely the farming centres. Very often, Jatin picked up a few of them to train them in shooting in the marshy regions. Jatin had also to look after the defence of the nationalists accused in the Alipore Case. Finally, between 1908 and 1910 he launched a programme of political holdups in order to collect some money. Simultaneously, to convince the people that the revolutionaries were still active, he organized a series of overt operations that required a heroic spirit, qualities that Vivekananda had tried to infuse in youth and that Sri Aurobindo noticed prevalent among the co-accused young men, ‘samples of a new generation’. In their company, he was reminded of Shri Ramakrishna’s prediction about a stream of

174

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

spirituality that was going to dawn on India, permitting even children to attain realization in three days of austere practice. And Sri Aurobindo concluded that by contemplating those boys one could believe how true this prophecy was. Sattvik waves, flooding the souls of those prisoners, filled them all with an intense joy.67 On 7 November 1908, Jiten Rai Chaudhuri, a student, fired on Sir Andrews Fraser, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, at the time of a public meeting in Calcutta; it was for Fraser ‘a miraculous escape’.68 The boy was arrested and convicted. On 9 November 1908, accused of having arrested the martyr Prafulla Chaki, an Inspector of Police was murdered in a street of Calcutta: ‘This murder (…) is in many ways much more serious even than the attempt on Sir Andrew’s life,’ wrote Minto, ‘it will, not unnaturally, strike terror into all other police officers who are doing good work.’69 On 10 February 1909, Asutosh Biswas, the Public Prosecutor under Beachcroft in the Alipore Bomb Case, fell under a salvo of bullets shot by Charu Chandra Basu, inside the High Court of Calcutta. Nivedita wrote: ‘Asutosh Biswas was the real strength of the prosecution, and his “removal” the most opportune thing that could ever happen.’ Earlier on 30 January 1910, Nivedita had written how awkward and ignorant Eardey Norton was and how helplessly he relied on Biswas for conducting the case; she further quoted Norton’s wife who was expecting to purchase a new car if the case continued for two more months.70 Charu Basu belonged to the village of Bogula in Nadia district. Newly married, a few days earlier, Charu had been to Singh’s studio in Calcutta ‘in his best attire’ for a photograph. He looked like a shy youth. The photo was to be published in the Bangabasi. Charu’s left arm was maimed at birth; having tied the revolver to this hand, he fired three shots with his right hand, killing Biswas at once. Arrested and tortured during the night with electric shock, Charu Basu supplied fictitious names as sponsors behind his act.71 Later, when he met the lawyer assigned to defend him, Charu

The Thinker in Action

175

declared in a lucid and formal tone that having judged the deeds of Biswas hostile to the interests of the Motherland, he had eliminated the man. ‘Hang me tomorrow, for having served my people’s cause. You do not have to defend me.’ On 15 February 1909, he was sentenced to death. The Indian Mirror commented on the next day: ‘The prisoner received the sentence with callous indifference.’ The disabled teenager went up to the gallows on 29 March 1910, as ‘a mumbled Bande Mataram escaped his lips’. The district magistrate did not allow the dead body out of the jail for cremation, refusing to add yet another name to the list of recent martyrs such as Prafulla Chaki, Khudiram Bose, Kanailal Datta and Satyendra Basu. Charu’s elder brother Sailendra lost his job as a booking clerk in the railways. 72

* On 24 January 1910, on the eve of the inauguration of the new Council of Morley-Minto Reform, Jatin—with Sri Aurobindo’s consent—chose for target the most hated personality of the moment, Shamsul Alam, the Deputy Superintendent of Police (Section of Criminal Investigation). On 21 January 1910, Alam had received the green signal to prosecute all the revolutionaries mentioned by the approver Lalit Chakrabarti alias ‘Benga’: the list was long and spared no active Extremist leader. Benga had placed Jatin at the top. He was assisted by thirty-two persons, including Jatin’s maternal uncle Lalit Kumar Chatterjee, his clerk Nibaran Majumdar, Suresh Majumdar alias Paran, Naren Bhattacharya, etc. At point blank range Birendranath Datta-Gupta did away with him, at about 5 p.m. when Alam was leaving the High Court where he was assisting the appeal in the Alipore Conspiracy Case, he was shot dead in the corridor’. Till late in the night, at the Waterloo Police Station of Calcutta, Daly (Deputy Inspector-General), Denham (Assistant Deputy Inspector-General), Haliday (Commissioner of Police) cross examined Biren about his identity. Later they learnt that he

176

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

came from East Bengal and lived at 61 Mirzapur Street with his brother Dhiren. On the following day, yielding to Charles Tegart’s shrewd pressure, Biren made a statement. Having importuned Jatin Mukherjee ‘for some work to do’, he had obtained the responsibility of shooting Alam. As soon as Biren’s mission was over, his companion, Satish Sarkar ran to inform Jatin and then Sri Aurobindo.73 On 25 January, ‘With the gloom of this assassination hanging over everyone’, Viceroy Minto made a statement concerning the successive waves of terrorism that pushed his government towards more and more pitiless repressions. In his speech for the opening ceremony of the new Council, Minto paid—unknowingly—a tribute to the ‘new spirit’, incarnated by Jatin Mukherjee, the supreme leader of the Extremist Movement, striving for the absolute political independence of India.74 These acts of violence and counterrepression—as antidote to the imperialists’ measures to crush the revolutionary audacity of Indians—were, indeed, issued by the unique brain of Jatin Mukherjee, as yet leading from behind the scene: outside an ‘intimate circle’ of leaders, few knew it because, ‘Secrecy was absolute in those days—particularly with Jatin.’75 Biren, too, showed evidence of an indomitable attitude inside the prison, since his arrest. On 27 January 1910, Jatin Mukherjee was arrested on suspicion of complicity and outrages. At the time of his arrest, late in the night, Jatin was nursing a sick relative. Producing the warrant, Charles Tegart (the future Commissioner of Police) stepped forward to approach him and, losing control of his nerves, stumbled as Jatin grabbed him by the wrist with a polite and sarcastic ‘Sorry, Mr. Tegart’! Tegart would never forget this humiliation throughout his life: several years later, having to arrest Kiron Mukherjee—one of Jatin’s associates—Tegart struck with his whip at a life-size portrait of Jatin Mukherjee hanging on the wall, till the portrait fell, and shattered on the floor.76 A search of the premises ‘produced some very comprising

The Thinker in Action

177

papers’. Jatin, Lalit Kumar, Nibaran and Poran were sent to Howrah jail on a charge under Section 400 IPC. Like Charu, Biren had refused his defence and had accepted the death penalty. His execution was fixed for 21 February; his appeal for mercy was rejected. On the 19th, the Police presented to him a counterfeit issue of a nationalist paper where Biren was described as a deserter. Seized by a momentary weakness, Biren protested: ‘I care a twopence for the opinion of the world, as long as I have Jatin-da’s trust’. Getting thus involved in a confirmation concerning the circumstances of his meetings with Jatin and his murderous mission, Biren discovered—too late—that he had been duped by petty manipulation. Jatin had been acquitted on 30 January 1910 by the Commissioner of Calcutta and rearrested under Sections 302 and 109 IPC, for having ‘belonged to a gang of brigands’. After ten days in the Howrah Jail, he was transferred to Alipore Central Jail on 9 February. Then, on the basis of Biren Datta-Gupta’s declaration, he was produced before the latter, on 20 February, inside the Presidency Jail. He was represented by his friend and counsel, the Barrister J.N. Roy. Before the Chief Presidency Magistrate, the Public Prosecutor cross-examined Biren. Roy refused to crossexamine and asked for an adjournment, but as the execution was to take place on the 21st, this was not granted. Attempts were made to postpone Biren’s execution but without success, and he was hanged on the 21st. Having had a last glimpse of Jatin, full of compassion, Biren is said to have regained full confidence in himself and welcomed his execution with a stirring Bande Mataram.77 James Campbell Kerr recognized that it was Shamsul ‘who got up political cases and manufactured evidence, and that he was therefore justly removed. This view was evidently strongly impressed on the Chief Justice in the Howrah-Sibpur case.’78 Nivedita wrote to Ratcliffe—reitering her comment on Asutosh Biswas—that Shamsul had deployed his inventive genius in supplying witnesses and training them so well that

178

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

he became an asset for the Chief Justice. Regretting the zeal of one Father Brown of the Oxford Mission, Nivedita revealed that the missionary had visited Biren in the prison to get a confession out of him on the eve of his hanging. Gokhale informed Nivedita that Biren had been one of Brown’s favourite pupils.79 The second historic trial—the Howrah Conspiracy Case— began in March 1910. The accused was Jatin Mukherjee and forty-six young militants, under the Sections 121-4, 302 and 400 of the Indian Penal Code. The motive was to prove Jatin Mukherjee the instigator to revolution against the Government of His Majesty, with the help of fellow citizens of various professions: students, workers and, especially, Indian soldiers and officers belonging to several regiments of the Royal army. Nixon reports that fifty-five persons were put on trial, including Moffusil [districts] members, Jatin Mukherjee himself, and members of the Atmonnati Samiti and Chhatra Bhandar. ‘The Chief Justice, Sir Lawrence Jenkins, tried the case, which resulted in a practical fiasco. . . .’80 II.1.5. His Majesty’s Prison

Locked up with ordinary criminals and exposed to most inhuman treatment, impertinent fingers fondling during a body search, severe corporal punishments extremely perfected in their sadism, moral torture, alternating starvation and ghastly food, the political prisoners till the beginning of the century did not have any special status, subjected as they were to most regrettable prejudices improvised by the jailers and the police. Speaking of the same bowl that served them to wash, in the lavatory, to rinse the mouth as well as to eat their disgusting soup (composed of wild herbs, of a handful of skinny maggoty lentil mixed with sand, small chunks of stone and mice excrement), Sri Aurobindo, in his reminiscences of the year passed in prison, immortalized this bowl:

The Thinker in Action

179

Is it possible to find a more versatile object? In addition to these worldly uses, this bowl became soon indispensable in my spiritual seeking: where could I have found a worthier object and adviser to learn the conquest of disgust? . . . Thanks to this bowl, I had learnt to overcome this undesirable movement of disgust.’

Evoking his prison cell, 9 feet in length and 6 in breadth, Sri Aurobindo wrote: I know well that to possess the water-closet attached to one’s room may be a part of the riches of Western civilisation; but to possess inside the same cell one’s room, one’s dining room and one’s lavatory, one can call it too much of a good thing. Indians with bad habits, we found it difficult to go up so high on the ladder of civilisation.

What Sri Aurobindo described delicately as a lavatory, was composed of two small tarred baskets in a corner of the cell, source of ‘uneasy feeling’ especially during the meals and throughout the night. The preliminary ‘treatments’ we mentioned consisted of remaining available during five to twenty days at the police custody—a variable lapse, according to the attitude more or less of the guest—deprived of everything (sleep, food, right to evacuate, to sit down, to lie down), handcuff at the wrists and fetter at the ankles, receiving blows, kicks, pulled by hair or by the genital, tied to a rope, stabbed with pins under the nails, buckets full of night-soil fermenting in urine discharged on the head, jostled like a ball from one end of the room to the other, till fainting and collapsing under a bout of fever, waking up with the atrocious attempt of penetrating a stick inside the rectum. Day and night, in rotation, this treat was repeated.81 Often in the evening, after a liberal swill, officers like Tegart himself joined them, boisterous with filthy jokes. In one of his letters (dated 4 April 1910), Jatin made allusion to the treatment he had received in prison. He wrote to Vinodebala that having been ‘ill’, he was doing better: after a temporary feeling of physical ‘weakness’, slowly he was recovering his strength. Censored by the Authorities, the convict’s

180

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

letters could not be more eloquent: they had no right even to meet their lawyers freely. The Crown’s Council had classified, during the case, most of the forty-six Extremists into seventeen units, each functioning under highly competent regional leaders. Singled out as ‘the most dangerous’, the unit of Howrah-Shibpur—in collaboration with the Khiderpore branch—had the role of coordinating soldiers from different regiments stationed in Bengal and north India. Dr Sarat Mitra (Accused No. 11), responsible of the Khiderpore unit, had a supplementary role connected with his profession: for desperate missions, he provided the revolutionaries with capsules of potassium cyanide with a view to their committing suicide before arrest. Narendra Chatterjee (Accused No. 14) frequented several of these units and received, at the centre of Chhatra-Bhandar (one of Jatin’s headquarters), the operational instructions. Ganesh Das (Accused No. 8) of the Calcutta unit had been noticed for his zealous distribution of the Bengali Jugantar and had already been cited in the Alipore Case. Rajani Bhattacharya (Accused No.22)—and his brother Satya—of the Mozilpore unit accompanied Hemchandra Sen of Netra, one of the founders of the Chhatra-Bhandar and a popular bard (charan) who turned rustic operettas into revolutionary propaganda: he held an important position within the central office of the Extremist leaders. The complementary unit of Kodalia—with Naren Bhattacharya (Accused No. 29, later known as M.N. Roy)—was directly guided by the teaching of Rajnarain Basu (‘self-government is the only government that God created for every country’): it included very important revolutionaries like Mokshada Samadhyayi (a specialist in the Vedas), Bhushan Mitra (Accused No. 30), Phani Chakravarti, Harikumar Chakravarti and Saileshvar Basu among others. Bhushan had been an efficient deputy of his uncle Charu Ghose (Accused No. 40), regional chief of the Chetla unit: in 1907, Charu had received from Jatin Mukherjee a first remittance of Rs. 17,000 (from the sum stolen by Indubhushan Mitra in 1906) for purchasing an important number of revolvers from Nur

The Thinker in Action

181

Khan, a notorious smuggler of his area. By April 1909, they were delivered to Jatin. Charu and Bhushan accompanied Jatin during lessons of shooting in the swampy region of the Sunderbans. Charu Ghose succumbed to police ‘treatment’ and died during the trial. Lalit Kumar Chatterjee (Accused No. 31), regional leader of Krishnagar unit, was—like his nephew, Jatin Mukherjee—Sri Aurobindo’s personal friend. According to Lalit Chakrabarti alias Benga (Accused No. 27, turned approver under pressure from the police), Lalit Kumar had been a screen to some of Jatin’s activities: it is he who had organized, in 1907, a public reception to greet like a hero Kartik Datta (Accused No. 61) and congratulate him for the murder of Hickenbotham, and for having been acquitted by the court. As one of Jatin’s messengers, when Benga had been to Krishnagar, Nimai (son of Basanta Kumar Chatterjee and Jatin’s cousin) received him.82 The police had formal proof of Lalit Kumar’s complicity with Aurobindo and Barin Ghose. Suresh Majumdar (alias Paran, Accused No. 33) and Nibaran Majumdar (Accused No. 34, employed by Lalit Kumar as his clerk) played a considerable role in the region (especially concerning the ‘Chemicals Arya’, apparently a laboratory for cosmetics but, actually the first factory of bombs used by the Extremists). This with the complicity of Biharilal Ray (Accused No. 64), Haradhan Banerjee (Accused No. 65) and the chemist Bibhuti Chakravarti. Described as ‘a suspicious character’, Paran had known Jatin very early in his life and had been active in Calcutta. On 19 December 1909, for the use of Shams-ul’s murder, he had stolen a revolver belonging to his relative P.C. Maulik, Magistrate of Jajpur in Orissa: this weapon was later recovered in possession of Biren Datta-Gupta. With the money of the party, in 1923, Paran (Suresh) began a Bengali daily of national importance: the Anandabazar Patrika, to be followed by the Hindustan Standard in English. Several editorials penned by Prafulla Kumar Sarkar on Jatin Mukherjee since 1923, exposed them to new persecutions. Two officers of the police, Cleveland and Daly, insisted in

182

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

their confidential reports on the revolutionary activities of the Krishnanagar unit; they specified that from this centre three trunks full of arms and ammunition were despatched to three destinations and were transported by Naren Basu (Accused No. 62) for a few terrorist actions. Naren Basu was very often accompanied by Naren Chatterjee (Accused No. 14) to Calcutta and Benares, pursuing their seditious activity among the soldiers. Associated with Indranath Nandi Naren Basu served as link between Jatin Mukherjee and Sisir Ghose (accused in the Alipore Case). Manmatha Biswas (Accused No. 45) of the north Nadia unit put at Jatin’s disposal two of his cousins, Jnan and Basanta Biswas: the latter was later implicated in the attempt on Viceroy Hardinge’s life, in 1912, by the side of Rashbehari Basu in Delhi. As we have already seen, Satish Sarkar (Accused No. 48, absconding) of the Natore unit was present with Biren Datta Gupta at the time of Shams-ul’s murder inside the Calcutta High Court: he acted as a messenger between Sri Aurobindo, Jatin Mukherjee and several leaders of the central office. Ramapada Mukherjee (Accused No. 51) of the Rampur-Boalia unit had been a roving lecturer in the rural areas, utilizing ‘bioscope and magic lanterns’ to incite the peasantry to participate in the revolution. A personal friend of the martyr Satyen Basu, Pavitra Datta (Accused No. 56) was the secretary of the Chhatra Bhandar unit: in this centre Jatin met the regional leaders. Ananda Ray (Accused No. 59) of this centre was an Ayurvedic physician and a very zealous promoter by the side of the Munsiff Avinash Chakravarti, the unforgettable sponsor from North Bengal. They both belonged to the Foundation that owned the press where the daily Jugantar was printed. Shaking off the revolutionaries’ disappointment and daze caused by the massive arrests in 1908, Avinash Chandra Chakravarti of Pabna and practising at Monghyr, Ananda Ray, Kartik Datta, Kiran Mukherjee and Nikhil Ray Maülik relentlessnessly followed the strategic plans of Jatin Mukherjee. Avinash ‘was a deeply learned man and drew up a blueprint of the future constitution of a free Indian republic’.83

The Thinker in Action

183

Furious about the persistent and clandestine diffusion of the Jugantar—in spite of repressive laws—M. Adamson, Secretary to Government, exclaimed: ‘In spite of five Cases, the Jugantar exists still, more violent than ever.’ Sailen Das (Accused No. 9), turned approver, declared during the case that the life insurance company, Hindusthan Cooperative, was a part of the revolutionary movement and its mission was to ‘protect and shelter the volunteers working for the patriotic cause’. His depositions drew the Government’s attention to the activities of Surendranath Tagore and Ambika Ukil. Consulting the depositions by the informers already quoted, as well as those of Jotin Hazra (Accused No. 16) and Robi Bhaduri, the Crown’s Council was convinced that the real brain behind all these apparently disparate activities could only be Jatin Mukherjee, the ‘notable leader’.84 As we have already seen, designating Jatin Mukherjee as the most dangerous enemy of the empire, the new Viceroy Hardinge asked the government to concentrate all efforts to condemn this real criminal, instead of prosecuting 46 misguided young men.85 Justice S.A.T. Rowlatt, in his famous Report, showed no hesitation in naming this ‘real criminal’, Jatin Mukherjee.86 Ignoring Jatin’s exact role in the movement, the Accused No. 27—Benga, the approver—identified him as the one who gave instructions, very often at the Shibpur-Howrah headquarters and, once only, at the Central Secretariat. Guessing vaguely Jatin’s influence on the regional leaders, the informer cited him as the head of several regional units, notably those of Rajshahi, Nadia, Jessore, and Khulna. F.C. Daly in his report did not fail to note the sharp moral contrast between this man and the average Extremist volunteer, and wrote: One young man named Lalit Chakravarti alias Benga, of the village of Netra, had been suspected. He absconded and was lost sight of, but was subsequently arrested on the 27th October [1909] at the Lowis Jubilee Sanatorium in Darjeeling, where he had been making himself conspicuous by taking an active part in the Partition day celebration on the 16th October. This Lalit Chakravarti was a youth of very degenerate type, addicted to perpetual cigarette smoking

184

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

and drinking strong tea. He had grounds for great bitterness against the other members of his party at the time of his arrest, as they had failed to supply him with funds sufficient for his requirements after he had to leave his home and go into hiding. It was doubtless a strong resentment he felt towards them for their behaviour that made him volunteer information regarding the constitution and the doings of the dacoity gang.

On information furnished by Benga, Taranath Ray Chaudhuri, ‘absconding then for 18 months’, was arrested in Benares. ‘He gave information regarding several undetected cases and narrated the vows of the society, which . . . had among its members men of the 10th Jat Regiment, then stationed at Alipore. . . . The statement of Lalit Mohan Chakravarti made before the committing Magistrate of the Howrah gang case, Mr Duval, is well worth a perusal.’87 According to Daly, Sailen Das (Accused No. 9), in his confession told a story about the party that ‘corroborated in most of its details the story given by Lalit Chakravarti’. Sailen described Jatin as ‘someone very strong, who worked at the Secretariat of Bengal’. The witness, Robi Bhaduri claimed to have known Jatin in a gymnasium of Kushtia, in company of well-known dangerous characters like Bhavabhushan Mitra (Accused in the Alipore Case) and Suresh Majumdar alias ‘Paran’ (Accused No. 33). Among the exhibits, the Police had intercepted a letter of the scientifist Prafulla Chandra Ray offering his service to the Director of the Jugantar to distribute the daily; he said that Jatin Mukherjee knew him personally.88 At the time of Jatin’s arrest, on 27 January 1910, Tegart had found in his room a typed manuscript in English, The Formation and the Development of the Vigilance Committee. This was sufficient proof for the police to indict him as instigator of an armed uprising against the established regime, and as promoter of terrorist activities by raising militants and funds. Benga held that in Bengal alone there were five to six thousand civil members in the revolutionary party and many native officers of the 10th Regiment of Jats.

The Thinker in Action

185

Before the impossibility of making the best use of so charges against Jatin, a member of the Crown’s Council noted his great exasperation: ‘Contrary to the Case of Aurobindo, we never succeed in hitting the real leaders of the Party.’ We have already seen what Viceroy Hardinge wrote to Valentin Chirol, blaming the turn that the case took against Jatin. He seems to have known how helpless his position was. In spite of diligence ‘to pin’ him down, in his major role of ‘seducing the native army officers to wage war against the Crown’, the Viceroy’s advisers had evoked two major reasons to dissuade him. First of all, they considered it imprudent to attach publicly so much importance to a charismatic leader: had not the government already made, to their retrospective regret, Sri Aurobindo a hero and a saint? Were they going to present before the world a second national hero? Then, in second place, would not all this uproar on the internal politics risk exposing on the international front the chink in the British armour? That the Indian army—the dangerous watch-dog of the British empire throughout the world—could be so vulnerable and that the very loving ‘Indian subjects’ could reach such a degree of intolerance before the ‘benevolent’ mission of His Majesty? These would certainly not tally with the picture of the ‘idyllic household’ that England displayed in the West about her relationship with India. Acquitting Jatin and most of his associates on 21 February 1911, the government proceeded to dismantle the entire 10th Jat Regiment, after having transferred it secretly to Karachi, and after having hanged discreetly the main suspects. Set to liberty, awaiting a new clarion call, the rest of the soldiers regained their ancestral fields to sow, simultaneously, seeds of their cherished ideology in the countryside. As we have seen, Viceroy Hardinge confessed in his letter to Chirol that the 10th Jats case was part of the Howrah Case: the accumulated failure in both these cases created a particular condition in Bengal and East Bengal. ‘There is practically no Government in either province. . . .’89 Jealous of the Indian army, the precious key to their monopoly, the Government hushed up the

186

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

episode. ‘By this use of light and shade’, wrote Bhupendra Kumar Datta, ‘they took care not to mention Jatin Mukherjee too overtly as the supreme leader of the Party.’90 This policy of the British Authorities to suppress all hints of complicity of the army with an insurrection, became manifest in a letter of M. Arsenyev—Consul-General of Russia posted at Calcutta—who wrote to St Petersburg, on 6 February 1910: ‘At present, despite the British Authorities’ desire to keep the affair from becoming public, some details have come to light, and it was beyond any doubt that the existence of a conspiracy was disclosed, and that the conspiracy was connected with the liberation movement which has been gaining momentum in India in recent years.’ This same diplomat, in his letter of 11 March 1911, wrote, following Jatin’s acquittal, of a ‘belated official statement’ in the Indian Press to the effect that 35 to 42 military officers had been tried, accused of belonging to a revolutionary party. There again, M. Arsenyev stressed that the British had weighty reasons for hushing up the case. On the occasion of Christmas 1909, the Governor of Bengal had invited at his residence the Viceroy, the Commander-in-Chief and all the high-ranking officers and officials. Requisitioned for the sentry duty during the ball, the incriminated Regiment of the 10th Jats had arranged with the Extremists to blow up the ballroom. The Russian Consul believed that it had been intended to ‘arouse in the country a general perturbation of the mind and thereby afford the revolutionaries an opportunity to take the power in their hands.’ A report published in the Russian paper Zemshchina, based on echoes from contemporary foreign press, paid homage to the great poise of these officers at the trial. They declared having joined a revolutionary programme led by Bengali patriots: ‘Don’t think there are only 25 such sepoys. . . . There are many more, and the fate of British domination in India is in our hands.’91 Count Thurn, The Consul-General of Germany submitted Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1914 a detailed report on the political situation of India. Evoking the circumstances of an attempt on the life of even Viceroy Hardinge followed by a public profession of loyalty issued by Rash Behari Bose, the Extremist

The Thinker in Action

187

chief directly implicated in the affair, the Count explicated the total absence of any such feeling among Indians that could be called favourable to the British regime. Behind the apparent loyalty of the Indian army, there is not a grain of sincerity, however relentless be efforts of the English Press before the world to prove this attachment of Indians to the British empire. It is easy to guess the true reasons of the attitude and the present behaviour of the Indian army judging from the degree of success known by the Bengali Extremists among the Sikh and in particular the Jat communities, as far as the propagation of the insurrection is concerned. Taking full notice of its implications, the colonial Government did not hesitate to issue the deadliest measures against these revolutionaries thirsty for their independence. Determined to bring the Hindus and the Muslims closer, the patriots have declared a holy war against the regime. The Police at Calcutta is impotent in its vain pursuit of the revolutionaries in Bengal, who have a total control of the anti-regime movement, which is abroad in all the regions of India.

The Report continued: There exist everywhere in India no less than 250 active centres of revolutionaries that militate for a struggle opened in the name of an absolute independence; most of them possess sufficient arms, as evident from the enclosed cuttings of the local press. If the German authorities want the Indian revolutionaries to bring this insurrection to a satisfactory conclusion, it is imperative to support them by fulfilling tacitly our promises as regards their independence. If we succeed in intensifying this revolution, the English will find themselves compelled to leave India. For so doing, we have to expedite help to the Indian revolutionaries from outside. Keeping this possibility in view, I propose that we proceed together, Germany and Turkey. If in this historic conjuncture we do not afford to assist India, we will be amply ridiculous in the eyes of the Indians.92

* In prison, among other material that Jatin had received from his emissaries abroad, there were important excerpts from Germany and the Next War by Friedrich von Bernhardi

188

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

(1849-1930), and a clipping, ‘The USA and War Clouds in Europe’ by T. Schiemann (MacClure’s Magazine, June 1910). The knowledge that Jatin had had probably from the political treatises of Kautilya had been brought up to date—thanks to Pringle Kennedy—by studying the Prussian General Clausewitz (passionate admirer, dreadfully hostile to Napoleon Bonaparte). Among the great Western powers, some ideas had been promoted by a few French thinkers in social science, German economists and Russian revolutionaries; Jatin’s immediate goal was to tend the patriotic flame in India. Trusting Voltaire’s politics to glorify all implications in the war capable not only of shaking the West but the whole world, Jatin seemed to read therein the dreamed of opportunity to wriggle India out of the British empire in the case of a war in Europe, when the British forces would be mobilized far from the borders of India. Despite the absence of some regional leaders (imprisoned or in exile), Jatin insisted on ‘infusing more cohesion and a sense of oneness among the different groups from which the accused were drawn’.93 In answer to skeptical voices questioning the utility of such preparations, Jatin explained that having been guided by the Gita, he had the decisive choice between total inertia, on one hand, leaving the fate of the millions of Indian to the mercy of a pitiless bureaucracy and, on the other, a well conceived action, executed conscientiously—indifferent to consequences—to relieve them of the yoke of slavery: ‘It is imperative for us to take advantage of this war, if we do not want to sink into total oblivion.’ For thirteen months, confronted with ever complex investigations, Jatin appeared before the Magistrate of Howrah for the conclusion of the case. Finally, it was presented before the Chief Presidency Magistrate, in a Special Session of the Calcutta High Court. On the advice of the Legal Remembrancer, the case against Jatin was withdrawn and the evidence used in the Howrah Gang Case. Jatin was acquitted on 21 February 1911, even before the case was over. His followers celebrated this release immediately with murder of an over-active Head

The Thinker in Action

189

Constable.94 A member of the revolutionary party in 1908, this man had turned an informer. ‘He had furnished to the police with a large amount of valuable information . . . still associating with the members of the revolutionary party. It is a singular coincidence, if it is only a coincidence, that this murder took place on the evening of the day on which Jatindra Nath Mukherjee . . . was set free from the dock at the High Court. . . . It is likely that Jatin’s release put fresh heart into the people who had been contemplating further outrages but hesitating to act.’95 Dismissed from government service, Jatin wrote to the Viceroy Hardinge personally, claiming his innocence. After nine months of house arrest Jatin ‘eluded his watchers in November 1911, and was found at Damukdia, where apparently he had obtained contract work in connection with the Sara bridge; he appeared to have settled down to an honest livelihood’.96 J.C. Nixon—as already mentioned—affirms in his Index to Notes on Outrages, in 1917, that Jatin Mukherjee had—very early—foreseen the ‘splendid opportunity’ that the war was going to provide to the Indian nationalists.97 II.1.6. Secret Revival

When, on 6 May 1910, Edward VII died and George V acceded to the throne of the Empire, Morley wrote to Minto that an amnesty could be extended to convicts under trial. But, on the contrary, George V, in his letter to Minto, announced his firm decision to eradicate, in the most authoritative way, all traces of insurrection on Indian territory. Following up this robust take over, in November 1910, he appointed Lord Hardinge the new Viceroy of India: privileged adviser to the Emperor for four years, Hardinge took the reins of Indian administration with an assurance and means that few of his predecessors had hitherto known. Conscious of this new state of the things, Jatin wanted to dot his i’s, while protesting the government’s decision, issued on 26 June 1911, to relieve him of his duties as civil

190

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

servant of His Majesty. In a Memorial dated 2 September 1911 addressed to Hardinge, he elaborated 26 irrefutable points (with 9 Appendices), underlining the unconstitutional character of the government’s decision, judging from his legal innocence in the Howrah Case. Promoted Secretary of State, Henry Wheeler—Jatin’s former employer and admirer—discussed this file with the Viceroy, with an equal insistence supported by 8 arguments, demonstrating why the maintenance of Jatin Mukherjee in his post was impossible. The most obvious reason was the testimony of Biren Datta-Gupta against him, as ‘anarchist in chief’ hostile to the regime of His Majesty.98 In a confidential Report 1907-17, James Campbell Ker (Indian Civil Service)—retracing the evolution of Extremism—admitted that in 1907 the militants of Bengal, in addition to setting fire on foreign goods and attending political gatherings, went to the great fairs and the religious communities to facilitate the life of the participants and pilgrims. It is interesting to note that on several occasions their interventions were very useful, notably—as the Bengali press goes on hammering—at the time of the Ardhodaya Yoga in Calcutta in February 1908. It was a religious festival that attracted thousands of pilgrims from all corners of Bengal and about one thousand simple volunteers and two hundred doctors were on the spot. Since the organizers had for goal to prove that that the militants were not only innocuous but useful: they and their exemplary behaviour have been congratulated even by Commissioner of Police. Their presence in these places served three purposes: to offer to the youth a training in organization; to revive the popular militant movement; to insinuate before the public that the performance of the militants was superior to that of the police. This English administrator cites an excerpt of Bande Mataram of 7 March 1908, concerning a pilgrimage in Chittagong: The organisation was a perfect success, and for some days it was as if the Government of the Sitakunda had come into the hands of the

The Thinker in Action

191

volunteers, composed of pleaders, dictors and traders. . . . Pilgrims were heard saying that when Bande Mataram has come there is no fear. . . . The police acted in cooperation, and helped the work of the volunteers.99

In another Report, W. Sealy noted that to celebrate Jatin Mukherjee’s coming out of the jail, the Extremists executed a particularly odious police officer. Anticipating a miserable end to his term in India, Curzon had maintained still the illusion that he could perpetuate the same Victorian politics, making serious abstraction of the rise of a popular will of parity and independence. Also conservative in his convictions, Minto had the thankless task of repairing the state of the things that Curzon’s regime had aggravated in India and, at the same time, to moderate the liberalism of the minister of Indian Affairs, Lord Morley. Grown wise by Edmund Burke’s impeachment of Warren Hastings, Minto had, however, tried to gain the confidence of the parliament. Morley would have wished that the Viceroy posted in India had less philosophical, legal and historic knowledge: he tried to make Minto understand that he belonged to the new Liberal majority, a party that aimed at settling Indian affairs according to its own policy. Morley’s constant interference had slowed down Minto’s initiatives. Shocked by Morley’s intention to confer some responsibilities to Moderates (like Gokhale) who managed the Indian Congress, Minto had appealed to his conservative principles that paid little attention to the Moderates’ demands. They were quite capable of denouncing the Extremists’ revolutionary actions. Coming from Minto, capable of dividing Indian patriots in favour of imperialism, this refusal of understanding gradually diverted Morley from all desire to collaborate with the Viceroy. Because, behind a liberalism, Morley attached the greatest price to the maintenance of British imperialism in India, whereas Minto’s lucidity admitted without hesitation that even though the withdrawal of the English would leave in India a temporary confusion, ‘an embryonic idea of something more independent’ had just

192

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

dawned in India.100 Confronted with the concrete realities of 1910, a curiously tormented year as far as the parliament was concerned, Morley and Minto had realized they had wasted their time and energy to the detriment of the interests of their government. Hardinge, the new Viceroy, having a free hand, was impatient to catch up with lost time.

* During his years at the Secretariat, having had a first hand experience in appraising the different standpoints of the rulers, when he was released Jatin put an immediate end to all acts of intimidation against the government. No political ‘crime’ was perpetrated in West Bengal up to the declaration of the War in August 1914. In East Bengal, on the other hand, the authorities failed to understand that Jatin Mukherjee retreated only in order to wait for the strategic moment. Far from the capital, first settled with his family at Gopalnagar (Murshidabad), Damukdia and then in his ancestral home in Jhenidah (in Jessore). Jatin had some success with his agency of contractors for bridges and railways. In addition to the Bridge of Sara, he was associated with constructions of the Jessore-Jhenidah railway, the drawbridge of Jhenidah and, finally, the new law-court of Magura. On bicycle or on horseback, Jatin traversed the adjacent districts of Khulna, Faridpur, Pabna and Nadia. Under cover of his business, he revived contact with the regional revolutionary leaders and preparations for a general insurrection. Assisted by Kshitish Sanyal of Kushtia, Gopen Ray of Pabna, Nalinikanta Kar of Etmampur (Nadia), and Jatin Ray of North Bengal, Jatin Mukherjee resuscitated the underground network in the districts. His right-hand man in Calcutta was Atul Krishna Ghose of Jadubaira (Nadia), with Naren Bhattacharya (M.N. Roy) and Harikumar Chakravarti in the 24-Parganas. Jatin stopped over at Vrindavan in 1911 where his erstwhile colleague, the famous leader J.N. Banerjee led the life of a monk under the name of Niralamba Swami: Banerjee had been in

The Thinker in Action

193

constant touch with the revolutionary units of the Punjab and the UP, and he put at Jatin’s disposal some active leaders. Also at Benares, Jatin met some absconding colleagues who had remained active in spite of warrants dogging them. In Calcutta, Jatin convened a secret meeting of delegates from various regional units, and informed them about the new phase of his project. Amarendra Chatterjee in collaboration with the untiring Nikhil Ray Maulik had founded in Calcutta the Shramajibi Samabaya or ‘Cooperative of Workers’, to replace the former ‘Students’ Enterprise’ or Chhatra Bhandar (banned by the government): apparently, this boutique of traditional native products was also a meeting place and lodge for the regional militants and for despatching messages from Jatin. Jatin used his earnings more to promote the revolutionary cause than that of his family. He had been detaching himself progressively from his family to care more for the patriotic pursuit; at this juncture, one of his partners stole more than Rs. 40,000 that he had earmarked for the revolutionary organization. Two years later, in July 1913, Jatin with his old friend Amarendra and two associates (Atul Krishna Ghose and Karunamoy Sarkar)—all very close to the Shri Ramakrishna Mission, went to organizing relief for the victims of the Damodar floods in the districts of Burdwan, Hughli and Midnapore. Sealy did not fail to detect that Cloaked under the guise of philanthropy, these bands of youngmen were as a matter of fact sent with the main object to spreading discontent, embarrassing Government officials by minimizing their work and poisoning the minds of the peasantry by spreading malicious stories as to the real cause of the floods.101

Other revolutionary leaders such as Satish Basu and Kiran Mukherjee of the Calcutta Anushilan, Makhanlal Sen of the Dhaka Anushilan, Ramchandra Majumdar, Jnanendra Banerjee, Rasiklal Datta, and Sushil Mitra came to join them very soon. According to the Nixon Report, impressed by the sincerity of these first-aid workers, Motilal Ray, coming to

194

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

observe on the spot in September, proposed to send some emissaries to Professor Charu Chandra Ray in Chandernagore to collect funds. In a confidential note (dated 22 April 1914) on the Shri Ramakrishna Mission, having described the Extremist leaders’ care to shelter this organization from political controversy, Charles Tegart provided the list of revolutionaries of a dangerous character who frequented Belur, near Calcutta, or its different branches all over India: right from Sri Aurobindo, Jatin Mukherjee, Amarendra Chatterjee, Makhan Sen, Upendra Banerjee, Rishikesh Kanjilal, Kunjalal Saha, Bhababhushan Mitra, Debabrata Basu, Sachin Sen, and so many others. Amarendra and Makhan seemed to found branches of this establishment wherever the police saw them busy with their nationalist activity. Saradananda, the Mission Secretary, advanced important subsidies to Amarendra for the Damodar relief fund. To celebrate Shri Ramakrishna’s birthday at Belur on 1 March [1914], in the presence of a very large assembly, Jatindra Nath Mukherjee and other eminent members of the revolutionary party were seen serving food to the poor and helping the monastery authorities by taking care of the guests. Amarendra had come with a great number of volunteers on this occasion. While underlining that Saradananda’s own brother was an active and dangerous revolutionary, Tegart noted how easy it was to demonstrate that many passages of Swami Vivekananda’s writings are pregnant with insurrection, that their potential for harm had reached a climax.102 These social service missions provided an enormous enthusiasm to the young patriots who had been champing at the bit waiting for fresh actions. Arun Chandra Guha—at the time a young regional leader from Barisal—held that this relief work on the banks of the Damodar permitted Jatin to work out the real reunification of the Jugantar Party. The pro-governmental press could but congratulate the humanitarian initiative of the Indian youth on these calamities, in the teeth of the new policy adopted by the Viceroy Hardinge, solely interested in

The Thinker in Action

195

the brand image of the regime in the West. Again, according to Sealy, while guiding the humanitarian expedition, since November 1913, Jatin encouraged his inseparable assistant Atul Krishna Ghosh to accelerate recruitment.

* The Moderates of the Congress—including Gokhale, their senior—were disillusioned finally by the imperial attitude to divide Bengal for bureaucratic profit alone. They did not halt their protests. On 11 December 1911, George V revoked the partition of Bengal, as a condescending and understanding gesture to celebrate his coronation. This gesture won him the Moderates’ acclaim. Determined to isolate Bengal from all political responsibility, the government transferred the capital from Calcutta to New Delhi. Voicing the popular indignation before this new arbitrary measure, Rash Behari Bose organized an ‘operation’ in Delhi, in collaboration with the Shramajibi Samabaya of Calcutta and revolutionaries working in north India: while the Viceroy opened the parade of the new Emperor’s coronation, on 23 December 1912, a bomb hurt him while whizzing past and exploding in the midst of the cortege. Hardinge miraculously was saved his life. The whole country and the world watched the event intently.103

* Rash Behari had fled from Calcutta, to escape the arrests of May 1908 and, thanks to an arrangement with Shashi Bhushan Ray Chaudhuri and with Jatin’s consent, had found a job of head clerk at the Forest Research Institute in Dehra Dun. Basanta Biswas, Rash Behari’s associate in the attempt against Hardinge, belonged to the Nadia unit, under the direct control of Jatin. Counselled by him, since 1911, Naren Chatterjee relayed to Rash Behari his own contacts as a link between the revolutionaries of Calcutta with the north Indian cantonments. After a period of inactivity, this renewed

196

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

contact with Jatin Mukherjee gave back an impetus for revolutionary initiatives to Rash Behari and ‘added a new impulse to his revolutionary zeal’. In him Rash Behari discovered a real leader of men.104 Jadu Gopal, one of Jatin’s assistants, will write: ‘So often I wondered if I was not hypnotised (by him); I tried to look for his shortcomings. But I did not find in him any defect (…). In his presence, all notions of impossibility vanished.’ He will remember how, at the time of a secret meeting near Calcutta, in 1913, after having clarified his plan for the pan-Indian uprising, Jatin entrusted to Rash Behari the occupation of Fort William—symbol and bastion of the British imperialism in India. Having accepted, in fact, Rash Behari had gone to negotiate there with the officers to establish an adequate operation.105 We have already evoked the terrorist activities of the Dhaka Anushilan Party. Originally, a branch of the revolutionary organization of Calcutta (the Jugantar Party), the Anushilan became narrowly centralized and reactionary under Pulin Das, more and more partisan of free violence. He lost sight of the essential principles of a humanist nationalism. Having founded about 500 regional units in East Bengal and in some districts of north Bengal, the Anushilan developed its methods and its allergy to the democratic aspirations of the Jugantar. It continued, however, to enjoy Jatin Mukherjee’s liberalism. Condemning Pulin Das, his successor, Makhan Sen, deeply religious and attracted by Vivekananda’s social work, tried, in vain, to rectify the Anushilan’s programme. Ousted by a faction of the party devoted to bloody and sensational acts, Makhan yielded to Naren Sen and settled in Calcutta, by the side of Amarendra Chatterjee at the Shramajibi Samabaya. Similarly, Hemendra Kishore Acharya Chaudhuri and his vast organization in Mymensingh; Naren Ghosh Chaudhuri with the Barisal units (formerly led by Swami Prajnanananda, who controlled also units in Tipperah, Noakhali, Sylhet and parts of Faridpur); Purna Das with the rest of Faridpur units; Avinash Chakravarti and Ananda Kaviraj (friends of Jatin) with most of the units in North Bengal; the adjacent

The Thinker in Action

197

districts of Calcutta (Jessore, Nadia, Khulna, 24-Parganas, Howrah, already acting directly under Jatin), all opened their hostels in Calcutta, in adherence to the confederated efforts of the Jugantar of Jatin Mukherjee. Among other apparently autonomous Calcutta units, the Atmonnati centre, led by Bepin Ganguli (disciple of Indra Nandi and trained by Sirish Das, both of them having been Jatin’s associates), brought to Jatin’s programme a new vigour. So widened, the Jugantar represented a powerful network of revolutionaries propelled by the vision and the modern techniques of Jatin Mukherjee .

II.2. Revolutionaries Abroad II.2.1. In England

The central personality around whom clustered a nucleus of Indian nationalists in England was Shyamji Krishna Varma (1857-1930). Hailing from Kutch, Shyamji went to Wilson High School in Bombay and, at the same time, had a solid initiation in Sanskrit. He acquired fame as specialist of the Hindu scriptures, in the context of reforming and modernizing India. Three major events in 1875 marked his life. He got married, met Swami Dayanand of the Arya Samaj and got an invitation from the Sanskritist M. Monier-Williams, on visit to India—to collaborate with him at the University of Oxford. On reaching Oxford, in 1879, with the help of Monier-Williams, he founded the Library and the Institute of Indian studies there. The first Indian graduate from the University of Oxford, in 1883, he assumed there the post of associate professor in Sanskrit, Gujarati, and Marathi. Simultaneously with his studies in law, he learned Latin and Greek. Thanks to his discourses on the Vedas at the Royal Asiatic Society, he was invited to present a paper on ‘Sanskrit, a Living Language’ at the Congress of Orientalists in Berlin, in 1881. It was the beginning of a lightning career.106 Once a jurist he returned to India and held various posts of responsibility between 1884 and 1897. But frustrated by

198

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

the political turn that the country was taking, especially with the case against Tilak in 1897, he left India with his wife, to settle in London. He did not hide his feelings against the total absence of individual liberty in British India, and characterized British justice in India as suffocating. Also, bitterly critical of the policy of the Indian Congress, he defended wholeheartedly the political insight of Tilak. Admired by British Socialists and Irish democrat-revolutionaries, Shyamji shared with them the cult of individual liberty (as taught by Herbert Spencer): he established a causal relationship between the teaching of the Gita and the revolutionary rationalism of Spencer. At the same time, he criticized the English use of brutal force in India. He was furious to learn about M.K. Gandhi’s collaboration with the British army to crush the Boers. In an article published in the Gaelic American (organ of the Irish revolutionaries in the USA), he wondered how someone could forget the pathetic condition prevailing in his own Motherland where the native population was prey to British imperialism. He felt ashamed that someone who could take arms to assist Great Britain was indeed, ‘deprived of all sense of justice and duty (dharma)’. From this moment on, Shyamji’s preference went more and more to the Extremist nationalism advocated by Tilak and Sri Aurobindo. quoting Herbert Spencer, he preached, ‘resistance to aggression is not only justifiable, but imperative. Non-resistance hurts both altruism and selfishness. Shyamji offered to the University of Oxford an annual scholarship of £ 1,000. The year after, again to perpetuate the memory of Spencer and of Swami Dayanand, he confided to Sir William Wedderburn a message for the National Congress of India: it announced an award of seven scholarships to Indian students for higher education in Europe, provided that, on returning to India, they did not accept any job as servants of the State.107 In 1905, during the turmoil around the partition of Bengal, Shyamji issued from London the Indian Sociologist, a ‘review for the liberty and for the political, social and religious

The Thinker in Action

199

reforms’. At the same time he founded the Indian League for Self-Government and welcomed, in his cottage at 9 Queen’s Wood, Highgate (London), about twenty Indian personalities whose goal was to work for ‘an Indian Government for the Indians and by the Indians’. Again, on 10 July of the same year, he invited the British Socialist leader, H.M. Hyndman to inaugurate in one of his properties—at the building No. 65 Cromwell Avenue, in Highate (London)—the India House: it was a home intended to shelter Indian students and to grant them a propitious cultural and revolutionary ambience.108 In agreement with Shyamji since the very first number of the Indian Sociologist, Hyndman had recommended: ‘Indians must absolutely count on themselves and must organise themselves for their ultimate emancipation, without counting on their foreign rulers.’109 Appealing to the Indian students at India House, Hyndman expressed freely his feelings: ‘To judge from the state of things, any loyalty to Great Britain can only mean treason to India. . . . Those who are immoderate, those who are fanatic, will know how to save India by her own means.’110 In addition to numerous British dignitaries, Dadabhai Naoroji, Madame Bhikaji Cama, Lala Hansraj, and Lajpat Rai (both disciples of Swami Dayanand) represented India at this meeting. In May 1906, to protest against government repression in India—and, in particular, in Bengal—Shyamaji invited at the India House a nationalists’ meeting representing all regions. He announced, along with S.R. Rana, the creation of nine posts of lecturers and scholarships to facilitate Indian authors and journalists to visit Europe in the national interest.111 The year after leaving behind him a subcontinent in turmoil, Lord Curzon proposed that the Government of India should celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Revolt of the Sepoys (intending to humiliate publicly the memory of the Indian nationalists) and the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Plassey by inaugurating in India a statue of victorious Lord Clive. Astonished by his predecessor’s base attitude, Viceroy Minto presented a prompt analogy to Morley: What would the

200

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

popular reaction be if someone, as former Governor-General of Canada, issued a letter in the Canadian press, proposing to inaugurate a statue of Wolfe in Quebec or in Ottawa to celebrate the bicentennial of the Battle of Abraham’s Plains? ‘What would people think of me, besides setting the totality of French Canada ablaze?’112 In the meantime, in 1906, in the company of other scholarship-holders, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966) arrived from India: deeply impressed by the example of the Chapekar brothers who, in 1897, had sung the victory of the Motherland and the verses of the Gita at the time of their capital punishment, Savarkar with his own brothers, Narayan and Ganesh, had taken the oath before an image of the Divine Mother, to revenge the Chapekars in their struggle for the independence of India. The three brothers were members of a secret society of Pune and, thanks to Tilak, were in contact with the revolutionaries of Bengal. Tilak had recommended Savarkar for the scholarship. Translator of Mazzini in Marathi, Savarkar considered the Revolt of 1857 to be a full-fledged war of independence. His book on that event, reprinted clandestinely in Holland, circulated all over the world. Advised by Shyamji, Savarkar also wrote an illustrated booklet on the Indian nationalists who, since 1857, had sacrificed their lives in the name of India’s political liberation. The enormous popularity of the booklet—with that of the Indian Sociologist—marked Shyamji’s success in foiling British intentions to humiliate these heroes. Among the festivities organized by Indian students, there were several demonstrations during 1907-8. Here is a letter of invitation printed in red ink: BANDE MATARAM TO CELEBRATE THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE INDIAN NATIONAL UPRISING OF 1857 A MEETING OF INDIANS LIVING IN ENGLAND WILL BE HELD AT THE INDIA HOUSE 65 CROMWELL AVENUE, HIGHGATE N.,

The Thinker in Action

201

THIS SUNDAY, 10 MAY, 1908 PRECISELY AT 4 P.M. YOURSELF AND ALL YOUR INDIAN FRIENDS ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO JOIN US.

Aware of Shyamji’s activities, some members of the British Parliament voted an urgent motion in July 1907 censuring this hostile propaganda. Informed on time, he settled at 10 Avenue Ingres, in Paris, to pursue his revolutionary programme more freely. After another two years of publication in England, the Indian Sociologist was banned on 23 July 1909, and its printer Arthur F. Horsley convicted. Guy Aldred, one of Shyamji’s friends (already sentenced to one year of prison), took the responsibility of printing it from the Bakunin Press, No. 35 Stanlake Road, London, up to September 1909. As a champion of the liberation of India, Aldred was convicted again. In the meantime, on 30 April 1909, Shyamji was dismissed from the British Bar, owing to his seditious publications. Almost simultaneously, the University of Oxford attempted to suspend the Herbert Spencer scholarship that he had sponsored; but no legal reason could invalidate it. Shyamji continued publishing the Indian Sociologist in Paris, printed by Georges Pagnier, 25 Boulevard Magenta. Moreover, having invited Har Dayal to come from London, since 1908, he edited a new magazine in English, the Bande Mataram, resembling its epoch-making and homonymous journal published by Sri Aurobindo in Calcutta, that had just ceased publication. This new magazine, with Madame Cama’s collaboration, was printed in Geneva. In spite of the formal ban by the Government of India, a host of clandestine copies of the Indian Sociologist and the Bande Mataram flooded India, thanks to S. Srinivasachari, editor of the magazine India, brought out from 58 Rue des Missions Etrangères, in Pondicherry, as an international echo of the revolutionary happenings in the country. Supporting the deeds of the Bengali martyrs—Khudiram, Prafulla Chaki, Satyen Basu and Kanailal Datta—Shyamji in an editorial of the Sociologist proposed, in July 1909, to erect a monument in London as a tribute to their patriotic conscience.

202

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Among the contributors of the Sociologist, foremost stood Sir Walter Strickland, a Baron of Yorkshire. Considering that the despotism of England was as unjust in England as it was in India, Strickland had sided with the Indian revolutionaries. In August 1909, rejoicing at the news that guided by Savarkar, the young Indian revolutionary, Madanlal Dhingra, had just murdered Sir Curzon-Wyllie, a British civil servant, Strickland got a wreath of flowers delivered to Shyamji with a letter encouraging the Indians ‘to beat the English till their blood ran out of their pores’.113 Received at the Bar of London, Savarkar succeeded Shyamji. Arrested in connection with Dhingra’s martyrdom, he was sent back to India on board the Morea, but escaped from the steamer on 8 July 1910 and swam up to the Port of Marseilles asking for political asylum. But the French Police, apparently unable to appraise the implications of this flight, surrendered him to the Captain of the Morea, while Shyamji, Madame Cama, and Chatto in company of other Indian revolutionaries, waited for him in vain in Marseille. The action of the French Police was severely criticized by L’Humanité, Le Matin, Le Temps, and other dailies. Having turned public opinion in France hostile to this brainless act, the Indian revolutionaries in Paris got from the French government a promise of dialogue with London in favour of bringing Savarkar back to Paris.114 Guy Aldred, released in July 1910, organized a Committee of Support for the release of Savarkar. In Copenhagen, on 27 August, 1910, Shyamji himself, in the capacity of a delegate at the International Congress of the Socialists, got a resolution passed in favour of Savarkar’s return to France.115 Under a common agreement between the French and British governments, the Savarkar Affair was presented before the international Permanent Court of The Hague: but its verdict could only please the British.116 Offended in his heart of hearts, solitary and embittered, Shyamji concentrated on the regular publication of the Indian Sociologist. At the approach of the World War, sensing the British alliance to intensify against Germany and a possible

The Thinker in Action

203

persecution of political refugees hostile to British interests, Shyamji made arrangements to leave France. Disgusted by the warmth with which George V was welcomed to Paris, on 21 April 1914, he decided to settle in Geneva. Till his death on 30 March 1930, he lived in an apartment situated at 1 Rue de Vollander. His ashes, kept in an urn at the St George Colombarium of Geneva were repatriated with due ceremony more than seventy years later. II.2.2. In France

Two Indian personalities belonging to Shyamji’s circle crystallized a unit of Indian revolutionaries in Paris, first of all with the double objective of creating there a political springboard to influence more freely public opinion in the Continent and, finally, of opening a shelter for the active Indian militants fleeing England: they were Sirdarsingh Raoji Rana and Madame Bhikaji Rustomji Cama. Born to a family of warriors in Saurashtra—one of his forefathers had been comrade-in-arms of the famous Rajput Prince and hero, Rana Pratap, deadly enemy of the Mughal regime in India—Sirdar Singh Rana had left India in 1897, for higher studies in law and to collaborate with the Indian revolutionaries. Promptly singled out by Shyamji, in London, he had direct contacts with Allan Hume (founder of the Indian Congress party), Dadabhai Naoroji, Wedderburn and other champions of Indian problems. On completing his studies, he joined the Bar in London and settled in Paris, in 1899, as managing-partner of an Indian Enterprise specialized in precious stones. This cover was necessary and sufficient to enable him to shuttle between Paris and London where, serving as Shyamji’s associate, he provided the latter with funds and helping hands. Since 1901, Shyamji offered him the diligence of another compatriot: Munchershah Burjorji Godrej, trader and Extremist militant. Also assisted by Therese Liszt, his German wife (suspected by the British to be a spy), and his own son Ranajit Singh Rana hosted in his Paris residence,

204

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

at 46 Rue Blanche Rabindranath Tagore, Lajpat Rai, Har Dayal, Bhai Paramanand, Vithalbhai Patel, Chatto, and many others. It served also as the registered office of the Indian Association. Encouraged by Shyamji’s example, in January 1901, Rana, too, had proposed three scholarships of Rs. 2,000 each, to allow Indian students and journalists to visit Europe ‘in the interest of the Motherland’. In addition to the distribution of important pamphlets, Rana published revolutionary magazines such as Bande Mataram, Indian Freedom and Madan’s Talwar. In 1906, asked by Shyamji, he took under his care Hemchandra Das and Senapati P.M. Bapat, emissaries from the revolutionary cells of Calcutta and Bombay. Rana arranged for them an adequate training in the manufacture of explosives by Polish and Russian anarchists living in Paris. One of them, Nicholas Safranski, for communicating with his camarades noirs from India, is known to have learnt Hindustani at the Ecoles des Langues Orientales.117 For them, he had duplicated in French and in English a manual of explosives to serve as a guide to Indian revolutionaries working in the USA and in India. More concretely, Rana was busy purchasing revolvers, guns and munitions through his Parisian contacts: these weapons were distributed to the Extremists in India through the mediation of V.D. Savarkar of the India House of London. In February 1909, Rana had sent to Ganesh Savarkar in Bombay a package of twenty automatic Browning guns, to be used in Nasik on 21 December 1909 to murder the magistrate Jackson. Rana found other more suitable solutions for sending these much awaited arms to India. In February 1912, taking advantage of the tepid Anglo-Japanese relationships, he tried with Madame Cama to smuggle some weapons to India through Japanese tradesmen. A copy of the manual of explosives seized in Calcutta in May 1908 was recovered— with 45 additional sketches of bombs and mines—at the time of a house search at Ganesh Savarkar’s on 2 March 1909 in Nasik.118 Rana had made acquaintance of Madame Cama (18611936) at Naoroji’s place; she was the daughter-in-law of the

The Thinker in Action

205

latter’s friend, a Parsi. Separated from her husband because of her radical political outlook, she had left India in search for a more propitious activist field. Thus presented to Shyamji, Cama by her dynamism and her impetuous patriotism was immediately a respected figure among the Indian revolutionary leaders in Europe, as much in London as in Paris, where she lived in an apartment at 25 Rue de Ponthieu. By 1907— she had become the indispensable link between Savarkar, Chatto, Tirumal Achari, V.V.S. Aiyar and Western revolutionaries such as Rosa Luxemburg, Jean Longuet, Hyndman and others. Having met Lenin through the intermediary of Luxemburg, Madame Cama commanded a network of considerable responsibilities. Invited in the company of Rana and Chatto, at the international Socialists’ Congress in Stuttgart, in August 1907, Madame Cama deployed the flag of Free India that she had designed. There she characterized the British regime in India as ‘positively disastrous, ‘extremely injurious’ to the interests of the country. She urged the worshippers of liberty from all over the world to participate in this struggle for India’s independence, which represented the liberation of ‘one-fifth of the population of the world’. Supported by Jean Jaurès (1859-1914), Rosa Luxemburg (1870-1919), August Bebel (1840-1913) and Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919), Madame Cama received, in this decisive meeting, a suffrage without precedent. Not discouraged by the momentary defeat of the Extremists before the Moderates’ manipulations in the annual session of the Indian Congress at Surat in December 1907, Madame Cama organized in London a national conference, bringing together Bipin Pal, Lajpat Rai, Khaparde and even the Aga Khan (known as a pro-British pawn). Among the speakers, V.V.S. Aiyar won enormous success by his tribute addressed to the young democratic State of Turkey (congratulations assisted cordially by the Aga Khan); Cama received also the approval of the assembly for her proposals to maintain passive resistance and the ‘boycott’ in India. Savarkar defined the precise objectives of independence (swaraj), marvellously elaborated, impromptu, by Ananda Coomaraswami.119 In

206

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

correspondence with her, Maxim Gorky invited Madam Cama in 1912 to write an article ‘on Indian women, their present status and their role in the national liberation movement’.120 Rana and Madame Cama were placed under house arrest since the declaration of First World War (one in Bordeaux, the other in Marseille). In fact, Madame Cama tried to indoctrinate Indian soldiers disembarked at Marseille with her militant ideology. Arrested in October, Rana, his German wife and his sons were deported to Martinique in January 1915. On 25 October 1914, Madame Cama was herself expelled from Marseille, to be detained at the jail of Vichy. Owing to failing health she was released in 1919. On returning to India in 1935, at the age of seventy-four she was rejected by her family and her community; most of them sympathetic to the established regime. After her death in 1936 in a Parsi hospital in Bombay, her own husband refused to attend her modest funeral.121

* It can be noted here, briefly, that the orientations of four exceptional personalities who had known in the seditious nursery of Shyamji, Rana and Cama—first in London, then in Paris—were indeed unpredictable. Tirumal Achari, V.V.S. Aiyar, Har Dayal, and Chatto: four destinies that were to leave a permanent seal on the national struggle for independence. On this subject, the Report of S. R. Cleveland pays historic homage to the genius of Shyamji Krishna Varma: ‘one can, understandably, consider him to be the founder of the Indian freedom movement abroad’.122 (a) Mandayam Parthasarathi Tirumal Acharya was the remarkable director and printer of the extremist magazine, India, started in 1907. Threatened by the police, in July 1908, he transferred his press to Pondicherry. After a year of activities by the side of Savarkar in London, he was found attending Madame Cama in Paris. Mandated by the Indian

The Thinker in Action

207

revolutionaries of England, he left for Morocco via Gibraltar, to assist the uprising under Abd al-Karim. Celebrated in Tangiers, he came back to Paris, left for Berlin in November. In April 1911, he rushed back to Munich, before leaving for Constantinople in October. After two years in New York, he worked in Berkeley, among the extremist members of the Ghadar, in 1914. The year after, he integrated Chatto’s group in Berlin, before meeting Lenin in person and embracing the Bolshevik ideology for five years of uninterrupted and singular service in the Middle East. (b) Varganeri Venkatesa Subramania Aiyar (1875-1925), the illustrious V.V.S. was native of Trichy and a law graduate of the University of Madras. After a year of practice in Rangoon, he reached London in 1908. Considering acts of violence as the most radical method against the state of things in India, he attracted the approval of Savarkar and Madame Cama. As spokesman of the revolutionaries, he returned to India in October 1910, to meet Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry. Anticipating the coronation of George V, in May 1911 he issued a series of pamphlets in Tamil that incited people to an immediate armed uprising. The Bande Mataram of Madame Cama had professed the same ideologies in an excessively violent language. His correspondence with Madame Cama was a warning to the British authorities. Indoctrinated by V.V.S. in Pondicherry, on 17 June 1911, the young Vanchi Aiyar murdered Mr. Ashe, the English Magistrate of Tinnevelly, before committing suicide. In a scrap found on the person of Vanchi, the police read his will: The beef-eaters of England, who turned our Motherland into a slave, are trampling on the sanatana dharma (the Perennial Duty) of the Hindus; every Indian tries today to chase the English out of our country, to restore this dharma while fighting for svaraj (the independent Government). Three thousand children of Madras have taken the vow of murdering George V, as soon as he will land in this country. I committed this act to inform our compatriots of our intentions.123

208

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Nilakantha Aiyar, recruited by Taraknath Das and known also as N. Brahmachari, visited V.V.S. in Pondicherry, where he was sought by the police with a reward of one thousand rupees for his capture. Incapable of pursuing Mr. Ashe’s assassin, the government improvised a case against fourteen persons accused of having participated in ‘war against the King’: the first on the list, Nilakantha was condemned to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment with forced labour. Under the pressure of the British, V.V.S. was deported by the French government from Pondicherry to Algeria: this was in fact a symbolic measure of complaisance, for a short period. Thanks to an amnesty, V.V.S. came out of Pondicherry and, unable to collaborate with Gandhi, maintained his extremism until his arrest in 1921. Accused of insurrection, he spent a year in preventive detention. However, he continued to supply to the Nationalists of Madras weapons smuggled from Pondicherry. Exquisite in his Tamil and practising English of a high level, V.V.S. was editor of magazines and author of many works (with a biography of Napoleon in Tamil—proscribed in British India—and essays on Thiru Valluvar and on Kamban (translating into English two of his masterpieces: the Kural and the Ramayana). Attached to an Arya-Samaj school in the district of Tinnevelly, V.V.S. dreamed of creating in south India a Sikh-like warrior class. Great admirer of both Sri Aurobindo and S. Bharati, he looked for the multimillennial spiritual roots of the country in the language and tradition of the Hindus. (c) Lala Har Dayal (1884-1939) was an indefinable character, as ‘heroic, incisive, imaginative, exciting and provocative’ as he was ‘selfish, devious, petty and pedestrian’.124 He had been a brilliant student at the University of Delhi. Along with his studies, he concentrated more and more intensely on the spirit and the letter of the Gita, the ethical codes of Manu, and the Vedas. Standing first, in 1903, in the Master-of-Arts of the University of Lahore (with English literature), he got a scholarship for higher studies in England. On reaching Oxford in 1905, he followed courses in modern history; got

The Thinker in Action

209

his doctorate at the University of London. Har Dayal then gave up his scholarship, declaring his shame in accepting favours from an oppressive government. He went back to India in 1908 for some months, but neither family life, nor the love of a devoted wife and a young daughter could comfort his growing malady. He lived with Lajpat Rai. This disciple of Dayanand was a friend of Tilak and Sri Aurobindo who had known Jatin Banerjee (Niralamba Swami who happened to be in Lahore then). The impact of the Bengal agitations transformed Dayal. He left India in the same year, to join Shyamji in London: he infused a new enthusiasm in the working of this unit in Europe. Having learned that the Bande Mataram of Calcutta edited by Sri Aurobindo had stopped he undertook under Madame Cama’s direction to maintain the spirit of this spit-fire organ, issuing an edition from Paris, printed in Geneva. Having to share with Chatto the succession of the trio—Shyamji, Rana, Cama—and seeing himself more attracted by the anarchist thoughts of Bakounine (1814-76), he left Paris on 28 September, 1910, stayed for a while in Djibouti and in Martinique, before emerging at Berkeley in February 1911. (d) Virendranath Chattopadhyay (Chatterji), nicknamed ‘Chatto’ (1880-1946125), was the last of the famous collaborators and emulators of Shyamji’s school. Chatto’s father Aghorenath Chattopadhyaya—a brilliant scientist, mathematician and educator, Doctor-of-Philosophy of the University of Zurich with deep patriotic commitments, was dismissed for ‘intriguing but reinstated’. He was in touch with K.K. Mitra and Bipin Chandra Pal.126 A former Professor in the Presidency College (Government) of Calcutta, Aghorenath was, when a Professor in the Nizam’s College, Hyderabad, in the habit of advising the students to use only swadeshi goods. His house was searched in May 1910, when some correspondence was seized, proving a conspiracy between his daughter [Mrinalini alias Gannu] and the extremists abroad to try and smuggle arms into India.127 Chatto was born in Hyderabad, and got his diplomas of letters in the universities of Madras

210

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

and Calcutta. He remained faithful to these contacts upto late in his life.128 Arriving in London in 1902, half-heartedly and in vain, he spent two terms competing for a coveted Civil Administrator’s post in India (ICS). Following courses in law, in 1906 he discovered Shyamji’s group and was picked up for his Extremist patriotic views; this fact owed him, in 1910, exclusion from the Bar. This news led his sister Sarojini Naidu, anxious to protect her family from any political and social harm, to censure him categorically in the Indian press as ‘wayward’. Worthy emissary of Madame Cama, in London he contracted a privileged relationship with Polish, Turkish, Egyptian and Irish revolutionaries. At the end of the International Socialists’ Congress at Stuttgart in 1907, he left for Poland in the company of some socialists of this country and, during his stay in Warsaw, he valued the complex struggle that this people led there: first of all against the German authorities; then, against the Austro-Hungarian blackmailers; finally, against the multiple aggression that the wild regime of the Czar Nicolas II imposed on them. Compared to this stifling situation in Poland, the Indian struggle appeared to him to be infinitely simpler. A further stay in Dublin gave him the conviction to be able to lead adequately the Indian Extremists’ demands against England’s oppression. Sheltered by Madame Cama at 75 Rue du Faubourg de Temple in Paris, Chatto provided an indispensable leaven, in 1909, to Bande Mataram and Talwar, printed in Rotterdam and distributed by Mrs Reynolds—a rich English woman become Chatto’s wife. In September 1912, the Police enquired particularly about Chatto and Indian revolutionaries in connection with the suicide, at Enghien, of Govind Amin, brother of Chaturbhuj, aforementioned associate of Savarkar. Govind conducted lessons for his compatriots at the trapshooting venue of Tottenham Court Road (London) and had had Dhingra among his pupils. Pursued after the latter’s martyrdom, Govind had fled to Paris, found shelter with his old friend Chatto, and received training at a gun and ammunitions

The Thinker in Action

211

factory. The efforts of the Victorian Police to insult the memory of Govind with doubtful insinuations,129 led everybody to the hypothesis that in truth the initiatives of Govind headed for very concrete results: on his person, the Police found a folder with photos of Indian leaders and martyrs (i.e. Khudiram, Prafulla, Dhingra), a manual in English containing sixty typed sheets and three sheets of illustrations to help the manufacture of hand-grenades, and eighty sheets on the manufacture and repair of revolvers, rifles, and cannons. The police also noted a bank account in Paris, held by Madame Cama, V.V.S. and Chatto: some important sums out of this ‘kitty’ were spent ‘for the Bombay invoice’, for (expedition of arms with Chaturbhuj Amin) V.V.S., and his ‘luggage’, and for the use of Mr Jean Longuet, lawyer at the Paris Court of Appeal (to defend Savarkar). The British Police could not forgive Chatto’s virulence in his editorials in Talwar: some excerpts remain unforgettable as pieces of patriotic literature. In December 1909, speaking of the accusations against the revolutionaries of Bengal, called anarchists, Chatto wrote: If it is anarchy to be ashamed of tolerating the rule of a handful of foreign and petty vandals; if it is anarchy to want to wipe them out, under the noble desire to institute our national liberty on the basis of a people’s sovereignty, justice, charity, straightforwardness, and of humanity; if it is anarchy to revolt in the name of everything that we hold as sacred in our homes, for the integrity of our life, for the honour of God and of our Motherland, and to murder all—foreigners or natives—for their oppression which seeks to perpetuate the slavery of this great and noble people; if it is anarchy to conspire constantly, to put an end to such human lives, with the only goal of liberating our very beloved Mother, we must proclaim: Curse on he who is not anarchist! Curse on the man who sleeps with a clear conscience or feasts gleefully in lounges on wines, women and songs, whereas the foreign parasites swarm and fatten themselves of the scarlet sweat of our forehead, that the bloodsuckers ravage the country and, peacefully, in silence, and drain the very sap of the our nation’s life.130

212

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Taking a cue from these themes dear to Chatto, V.V.S. proclaimed before the members of the London circle, that terrorism and individual murders were only the first phase of a revolution that finally aims at an armed national uprising, against the English forces.131 Chatto had met, again in London in 1908, S. Srikishen Balmukund, son of a judge of the principality of Hyderabad: a law student and intimate friend of V.V.S., Savarkar, and Chatto (whose sister, Mrinalini, in addition to her patriotic zeal, cherished a privileged friendship with Balmukund). Dismissed in 1910 by a father who little appreciated the political commitments of the young lawyer, Balmukund continued to receive coded instructions from Chatto and shuttled between Hyderabad and Calcutta where lived Mrinalini and her bosom friend, Miss Kumudini Mitra, first cousin of Sri Aurobindo, and author of a number of proscribed works and editor of the patriotic magazine Suprabhat (auspicious Dawn) it published in the very first issue, in 1907, its manifesto put in a poem by Rabindranath Tagore: I hear emerging on the side of the rising dawn A voice that comforts us: ‘Stop fearing, stop fearing! He who will learn to sacrifice all Shall never die, never die!’

Interpreted by the specialists of the judicial police, this voice was that of Krishna who in the Gita encouraged Arjuna to fight a just war for the triumph of truth. Sri Aurobindo approved this vision. A vision that Kumudini commented in her editorial, ‘The whole nation succeeds progressively in realising what glory and what privilege lay in sacrificing oneself as a service to the Motherland. This desire, this sacrifice for such a cause, always precedes the advent of a nation to power and to play an influential role.’ In addition to illustrated essays in homage to the martyrs of Bengal, this magazine published narrations about the independence of Spain through clandestine struggles, with the revolt of the

The Thinker in Action

213

Portuguese against an indignant king, and the exploits of Indian revolutionaries of 1857. In his letter of 17 June 1910, Chatto proposed to Balmukund to send arms and munitions to Sukumar Mitra (brother of Kumudini), provided he opened as a façade, a boutique of imported furniture, in Calcutta or in Chandernagore.132 Four months before the declaration of the War in April 1914, tracked by British agents, Chatto left Paris and went to Halle, in Germany, as a candidate for the Doctorate of Philosophy. This stay will be of a fundamental importance which we shall now examine. II.2.3. In Germany

Attending courses in comparative linguistics at the University of Saxe-Anhalt, in April 1914, Chatto met Dr Abinash Bhattacharya alias Bhatta (1885?-1967), Doctor-of-Sciences and Researcher, since 1910, at the Institute of Chemistry attached to this university. He knew many patriotic Indian students. In addition to his scientific work, wanting to present a cultural image of India before the German people, Bhatta had been contributing articles in Frankfürter Zeitung, Berliner Tageblatt and other important newspapers. In the midst of a public grievance in Germany against awarding the Nobel prize to Rabindranath Tagore instead of the Austrian playwright Peter Rosegar, some papers published by Bhatta in the German press allowed the readers to discover in Tagore the prophetic face of the East. On reading one of these papers, the extremist patriot S. Padmanabhan Pillai—editor of the magazine German Pro-Indian of Bern—had contacted Bhatta on telephone, while offering him a syndicated publication of his paper on Tagore in Italian and in French. Pillai, too, promoted Indian culture to the illuminated minds in Switzerland. Through Bhatta, Pillai had made acquaintance with other Indian revolutionaries, mainly Dhiren Sarkar (brother of the famous economist Benoy Kumar Sarkar, professor at the

214

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

University of Calcutta). More motivated by his political project after a stay in the USA in 1911, Dhiren had joined the University of Berlin. Bhatta was aquainted with influential members of the Kaiser’s immediate circle. Hence he presented Chatto to Klemenz von Delbruek, Secretary of the Interior and uncle of one of his close friends. Since July 1911, in the company of some industrialists in Hamburg—such as Niedermeyer, Albert Ballin (a personal friend of the Kaiser and owner of the Hamburg-America Steamer Company) and the sinologist Herbert Mueller—Bhatta had been organizing meetings of patriotic Indian students, with the hope to secure help for revolutionary efforts in India. In 1913, while Jatin Mukherjee had been accelerating preparations anticipating the imminent World War, Dhiren had announced this hope to the latter’s emissaries. A Parsi friend of Dhiren had come from the University of Iowa (USA) for higher studies in Germany and had settled in Berlin in 1912: Dada Chanji Kersasp. He had acquired a good formation in manufacturing and handling of various explosives, along with the Indian revolutionaries of the Ghadar Party in San Francisco. Simultaneously, Sambhushiva Rao of Madras, a Brahmo missionary brought up in Calcutta, offered to his compatriots the fruits of his long experiences in Austria and Hungary. Among other revolutionaries, of all social and religious origins and coming from the four corners of India—who united under Chatto’s leadership— foremost were Dr Joshi, Gopal Paranjape, Vishnu Suktankar, Abdul Hafiz (Doctor-of-Philosophy, University of Leipzig), Raghunath Pandurang Karandikar (disciple and emissary of B.G. Tilak, and a former member of the London Centre), Moresvar Govindrao Prabhakar (Professor of Chemistry at the University of Cologne), Satish Ray, Narainswami Marathe, Dr Jnan Dasgupta (chemist at Hoffman-Laroche in Basel), Professor Srish Chandra Sen (Sanskritist and philosopher, a direct emissary of Jatin Mukherjee), Abder Rahman (University of Freiberg), Siddiqi (hailing from the principality

The Thinker in Action

215

of Hyderabad, working at the University of Göttingen) and Mansur Ahmed (PhD student in Arabic philology). Early in September 1914, in the collaboration with Baron Bertheim of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with Baron Max Freiher von Oppenheim, expert in Middle Eastern affairs in the German Foreign Office, they founded at Charlottenburg, an Association of Indian Revolutionaries, the ‘German Friends of India’. It was composed of patriots from all corners of Germany and Switzerland. Chatto informed Indian students in thirty-one German universities about the Association’s plans. On 30 September 1914, in the presence of the Baron Oppenheim, Albert Ballin, and minister Klemenz von Delbrük, the Prince Heinrich—brother of the Kaiser—received Chatto and Bhatta, to notify the solemn assurance of the German government in favour of the immediate execution of the following Contract. The terms of German intervention solicited by the revolutionaries and granted by the Government of the Kaiser summed up thus: (1) To send money, arms and—if need be—some experts in military strategy to sustain and to strengthen the revolutionary effort already set on foot by the Extremist leaders in India. (2) To facilitate the repatriation of the Indian patriots working in the West, to assist the uprising foreseen in India. (3) To train young Indians to Spandau and to other German military bases. (4) In the same way, to Kiel, to Bremen, to Lübek and elsewhere, to train Indian specialists in submarine mines. (5) To write, print and distribute subversive literature in Indian languages under the care of specialized German establishments. (6) To make available to the Indian revolutionary Committee some airplanes useful for this propaganda. (7) To deliver rapidly materials and military facilities on Indian ports.

216

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

(8) To secure banknotes of 10 rupees denomination for the use of the secret preparations in India. (9) To endow the Indian Revolutionary Committee, installed in Berlin, of all possibility to control by radio and to facilitate the effort of the extremist patriots in India. (10) In case of a successful revolution, to allow Indian Revolutionaries to form their own Socialist Republic of India,133 without any Austro-German intervention. (11) To make no concession to the Indian Principalities wanting to oppose this plan. (12) To grant necessary protection to Indian revolutionaries who would ask political asylum in Germany in case the operation failed. (13) Contrary to the antecedent of the Savarkar case, Germany would yield to no Allied pressure to expel anybody belonging to this revolutionary effort in India. (14) Same precaution will be valid for the families or the children of the revolutionaries who would need the protection of the Kaiser’s government.134 Historian Arun Chandra Guha admires, pertinently, in this Contract, the explicit precaution of the Indian revolutionaries not to call on armed intervention from Germany and he observes that this desire to found a Socialist Republic in India preceded by three years the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.135 The Archives concerning Germany’s foreign policy (18671920), as constituted by the American Committee for War Documents Studies, within the National Archives in Washington, permitted me to widen my knowledge of such documents thanks to more microfilms composed of despatches, correspondence and telegrams exchanged from all over the world between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Berlin) and the Embassies, Consulates and Legations of the Kaiser’s government. Many of these had been intercepted by the Allies between 1914 and 1918 and had been grouped under the general title of Deutsches Auswartiges Amt. Abt., Weltkrieg 11f (evoked here as AAWK). They bring ample proof of

The Thinker in Action

217

the efforts made by Germany to execute the Zimmermann Plan, that is to say to encourage the revolutionary uprising in India against Great Britain. On 7 September 1914, Von Oppenheim prepared a list of German bankers in collaboration with the Directions of the Germano-Asian Bank, 31 Unter den Linden, Berlin; of the Bank Hongkong-Shanghai of Hamburg; of the Egmond Hagedorn Bank of Hamburg), and with their branches in the Near and the Far East, as well as with German industrialists managing enterprises such as Elberfelder Farben-Fabrick and Friedriech Baier of Berlin. The immediate intention was to transfer important amounts of money to help the Extremist leaders of Calcutta, Bombay and Lahore.136 On 22 September 1914, Dhiren Sarkar and Marathé left for Washington with a message for the German Ambassador, Count Von Albrecht Bernstorff, to inform Taraknath, Herambalal and other India leaders awaiting these developments. Von Bernstorff contacted Von Papen, his Military Attaché, to arrange for steamers, to purchase arms and ammunition, to be delivered on the eastern coast of India, via Batavia. Von Papen in his despatches from New York (7 December 1914; 11 February and 27 March 1915) reported having purchased 11,000 rifles and 250 Maüser revolvers with munitions, stocking them in the schooner Annie Larsen and Maverick, a cargo capable of transporting 200 tons of materials) for the revolutionaries in India.137 Before the end of September 1914, Dr Joshi, Professor Srish Sen, Bhatta, Rao and Satish Ray and other compatriots—left Berlin in two expeditions to meet the leaders in Calcutta, to keep them abreast of the essential developments of the Zimmermann Plan. It was urgent to create a core of Indian revolutionaries in Batavia, where representatives of the German government—in collaboration with the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs of Berlin, via the German Consulate of Shanghai—waited for them. Among prominent revolutionaries who soon found their way to Berlin were Har Dayal, Taraknath Das, Mahomed Barakatullah, Bhupendranath Datta, Chandrakanta Chakra-

218

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

varti, M.P. Tirumal Achari, Herambalal Gupta, Jodh Singh Mahajan, Jiten Lahiri, Satyen Sen (both Jatin Mukherjee’s emissaries), and Vishnu Ganesh Pingley.138 On 20 November 1914, Chatto sent Satyen Sen to Calcutta with Vishnu Ganesh Pingley and Kartar Singh (Sarabha) with a report for Jatin Mukherjee; the latter conveyed a note through Pingley and Kartar Singh to Rash Behari Bose in order to expedite preparations for the proposed armed rising.139 In his Report Tegart mentioned Jatin Mukherjee’s visit with Satyen Sen to the gunpowder magazine at Dakshineshwar, interviewing the Sikh officers of the 93rd Burman Regiment.140 In 1915, when Chatto went to meet Raja Mahendra Pratap in Switzerland and conveyed to him the Kaiser’s personal invitation, there was an attempt to murder Chatto, dogged by Donald Gullick, a British agent.

* The enthusiasm of a handful of German ministers and officers, and the idea of collaborating with Indian revolutionaries did not, however, much excite the average members of the Kaiser’s government. They did not seem to anticipate any long-term confrontation. Thereafter, from this decisive turn, the general German opinion started giving a second thought to the contract signed with Indian revolutionaries.141 This contract will be referred to as the Indo-German Conspiracy in the records of the British Indian police142 and, in the United States, as the Zimmermann Plan.143 Taking into account the superiority of the British navy (which did not stop the German submarine Emden from creating havoc on the eastern coast of India immediately after the War was declared), the Germans decided to help Indian revolutionaries to raise a liberation army in Turkey, cross Iran and Afghanistan, and invade India while the insurrection would be shaking the interior of the country. Simultaneously, at Bangkok members of the Berlin Committee, the Indian Revoltuionary Party, and the Ghadar of San Francisco—would be received by emissaries from

The Thinker in Action

219

Calcutta and march through the Burmese frontier to occupy Fort William in Calcutta (as yet the vital centre of the army), before joining the vortex of the insurrection in north India.144 II.2.4. In the United States II.2.4a. Taraknath Das (1884-1958)

Two consecutive departures from Calcutta, before the end of 1906, had strengthened in an extraordinary way the development of the Extremist project as regards a possible uprising. The first had been that of Jatin Banerjee (Niralamba Swami), who trained with the Baroda Army thanks to Sri Aurobindo. In the United Provinces (UP) and in the Punjab, he found a favourable field among the warrior classes—enlivened by the patriotic teachings of Swami Dayanand—through the Arya Samaj. His contacts with Lajpat Rai, Hans Raj, Gurdas Ram and other leaders accelerated the indoctrination of native soldiers in the British Indian Army. Viceroy Minto attracted Morley’s attention to this concrete turn and confessed: In fact, truly speaking, the efficiency of the army is the real guarantee for the safety of British administration, and any loss of power in that direction would not only mean the loss of actual military strength, but an indication of weakness would be answered at once by an increase of disaffection.145

The discovery in the central barrack of the Punjab of a circular issued by ‘some’ Indian revolutionaries who were collaborating with their Irish counterparts in the USA pushed Minto again to turn towards Morley, before obtaining confirmation from Lord Kitchener, the Commander-in-Chief, that ‘the seditious propaganda which has been raging so violently during recent months must in course of time have affected the feelings and perhaps even the loyalty of some of the native troops’.146 According to the Secret Police Abstract of Intelligence (237 and 355 of 1907), Sardar Gulab Singh (officer of the 9th Bhopal Infantry) and Nanhe Jee (lawyer of

220

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Delhi) overtly held meetings, first in Allahabad then in Meerut delivering inflamed speeches before an audience composed of Indian soldiers. Another report informed that two other officers, from the 4th Rajput Regiment and the 5th Cavalry, met Gokhale, in February 1907, to intimate him about these regiments’ impatience to participate in an uprising.147 Struck by other similar reports, the Commander-in-Chief submitted to the government a secret project, judging the time ripe ‘when it is absolutely necessary that we should take steps to put end to, or at least to modify, the very mischievous effect which the native press is now, unfortunately, having on the Indian army’.148

* The second departure was that of Tarak Nath or Taraknath Das (emissary of Jatin Mukherjee) for the USA: this reveals the nature of the activities of revolutionaries whose reports have been mentioned earlier. After a stay in Japan, hardly arrived in San Francisco, Taraknath enrolled at the University of California, passed rapidly and successfully the competitive examination to join the civil administration of the USA, and was appointed interpreter in the Immigration Office in British Columbia. Before leaving San Francisco, Taraknath had founded there—with the help of Panduranga Khankhoje (emissary of B.G. Tilak), Ramanath Puri and a few other compatriots—the League for the Independence of India. Their express object was to unite the Indian emigrants, to give them an exact idea of their rights, to serve as their mediators to the American authorities and, especially, to remind each of them their duty towards the Motherland. The example of this unit was very fast taken as a model for other groups of Indians settled on the Californian coast. In spite of the discriminatory restrictions of the Immigration Service, this coast sheltered many farmers and workers from northern India. In addition to their high standard of living and their moral and physical stature these immigrants had brought to America a traditional

The Thinker in Action

221

know-how that proved to be of considerable importance. For example, their experience of growing rice and the culture of cotton, was to bring to American agriculturists methods of bumper productivity: after some mediocre results, they were to make of Californian rice a prestige product: one-fifth of the American national product. They introduced also some vegetable and fruit cultures hitherto unknown in the USA. Among their obvious assets, people recognized: (a) their satisfaction even with a low salary (already at rock-bottom in relation to the mild grievances from the Mexicans and the Japanese or Chinese emigrants), (b) their robust health, their physical constitution (usually very tall), (c) their will to adapt to the new conditions of work, (d) their endurance, (e) their dexterity and fast output, and (f) their intelligence.149 Another report of the US Immigration Office states that the nationals of Indo-Pakistani origin, in 1950, hardly exceeded the number of 2,649 individuals (counting 1,000 temporary residents: students in the America universities, diplomatic staff or United Nations employees) against 70,000 Chinese and more than 50,000 Japanese, born abroad. At the origin of this rarity of Indian emigrants with their princely gait—often singular in their bearing of turban, bearded, long-haired, according to their religious conviction, the very features so strongly appreciated by the rest of the West—lurked a political discriminatory psychosis created in British Canada and perpetrated in American mentality of the Pacific coast: numerous demonstrations and tendentious American publications condemned these Indians—mostly pacificists, vegetarians—to an inhuman hostility. Racist organizations like the Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco, the League for the exclusion of the Asians and others justified the attempts of the workers of Belligham (State of Washington, adjacent to Vancouver), on

222

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

4 September 1907, to attack 200 Indian nationals.150 Away from their family in India, forbidden and declared undesirable by the Council of American and Canadian Women, they were accused of anti-social activities such as polygamy. Moreover, thanks to their savings encouraged by a temperate life style, some among them—who had already owned farms in their country—had started settling down as farm-owners. Deeply impressed by the instituted injustices under the British regime in India, Taraknath was transferred to Vancouver, where he founded in January 1908 an evening school for the ‘Hindu’ nationals in Millside, New Westminster, close to Vancouver. Warned about this, Calcutta mandated a spy called William Charles Hopkinson, to watch and report on the activities of these ‘Hindu’ patriots. This agent provocateur of the Empire made the life of the Indian patriots extremely difficult. Born in Delhi, son of an English sergeant of Allahabad become teacher, Hopkinson was paid to establish a direct causal tie between the revolutionary agitations in India and the indoctrination of the Indians in Canada and USA. Judging it appropriate to have a more direct contact with his compatriots—most of them speaking Punjabi and Hindi—Taraknath turned to his colleague Guran Ditt Kumar, alias Kumar: native of Bannu, on the North-West Frontier of India, he had taught Hindi in the National College of Calcutta. Kumar took charge of Taraknath’s school, that operated under the cover of the hostel, Swadesh Sevak and published immediately, in Gurumukhi, the paper Swadesh Sevak, repoducing, in simultaneous translation, the content of Taraknath’s paper in English, Free Hindustan. Distributed generously among ‘Hindus’ in Canada, in the USA, in Europe and in India, these two magazines exacted from Taraknath and Kumar an increasingly rigorous vigilance.151 Meanwhile, familiar with several Indian languages, Hopkinson had started dogging Indian emigrants and, abusing his position, forcibly took bribes from them: cunningly, he succeeded in getting Taraknath accused of corruption and, under the pressure of the British Authorities in India, had him fired from his

The Thinker in Action

223

official post. Taraknath moved the office of Free Hindustan to Seattle.152 He entrusted to G.D. Kumar the responsibility of defending the cause of the compatriots against the injustices of the Immigration Office and against the racist attempts. Another colleague of Taraknath assisted Kumar: Professor Surendramohan Bose, with whom Taraknath had founded in Vancouver the Indo-American Association, its purpose to explain to the local population the true objectives of the Indian nationalism.153 Before leaving Vancouver, in 1908, Taraknath had measured the plurality of the Indian presence there: the majority being divided into two communities (Hindus and Sikhs), he had created a committee for the management of the temples and gurdwaras.154 This organization was progressively to acquire the role of negotiating with the Canadian government all decisions concerning the fate of Indians in this country.155 In November 1908, Teja Singh (alias Niranjan), more moderate by temperament and with a greater leaning for welfare reforms, founded in Vancouver the Guru Nanak Mining Enterprise, to grant a minimum material well-being and security of jobs to Indian nationals.156 Faithful to its motto, ‘Resistance to tyranny is a service to humanity and a necessity for civilisation’, Free Hindustan had somewhat subdued its vehemence against British imperialism as long as Taraknath had been in Vancouver. Since his settling in Seattle, he gave free rein to his most intimate convictions, notably in elaborating a project of infusing patriotism in the regiments of the Indian army and to prepare them for an insurrection by the side of the Indian revolutionaries—against Great Britain. Constantly in touch with major Extremist leaders in India, with Shyamji and Madame Cama in London and in Paris (he had been contributing articles in their papers) and with famous personalities such as Count Leo Tolstoy, Taraknath was contacted by George Freeman (‘Fitzgerald’), the seventy-two-year old editor of Gaelic American in New York. A champion of Canada’s freedom, and one of the brains behind the Celtic movement Clan-na-Gaël, Freeman took

224

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

charge of the publication of the Free Hindustan from New York in 1908. The address of its new office was henceforth at the building No. 749 of the 3rd Avenue. At that time, Freeman had been a subscriber to the Amritabazar Patrika, and he regularly met Mahomed Barakatullah (1864-1928), the famous Indian patriot, in the company of Samual Lucas Joshi, founder of the pan-Aryan Association situated at 1 West 34th Street of New York. They shared a passionate animosity against the English regime in India. In the same way, Freeman frequented Myron H. Phelps, lawyer of Broadway, founder of the Society for the Advancement of India, also particularly known for his anti-English activities since the Boer war.157 In the midst of all this, Taraknath went to New York, on 16 August 1908, to welcome his former colleague from Calcutta, Bhupendra Nath Datta (18811961), Swami Vivekananda’s younger brother. The British authorities had just acquitted him in the Alipore Trial and Nivedita sent him abroad for higher studies. Hinting at Swami Vivekananda’s patriotic influence on Indian leaders, the British police did not fail to be doubtful about the prosperous Vedanta centres founded by the Swami in New York (No. 135 West 80th Street) and in other important cities in the USA. Abhedananda, the main successor of Vivekananda, ‘for a longtime a very successful high priest’, did not hide his opinions concerning the political slavery of his Motherland and hardly had he published a compilation of his speeches— India and Her People—when it was proscribed in India, under the Press Act of 1910.158

* In 1895 in Liverpool, Barakatullah had counted among his friends, Sirdar Nasrullah Khan, brother of the Emir of Afghanistan and during 1896-8 he wrote for the Emir’s information, a weekly secret despatch on English politics in India. In London, in 1897, he had known Shyamji and also participated in the patriotic League of the Muslims. After spending

The Thinker in Action

225

six years in the USA, this scholar was to leave for Tokyo in February 1909 with a post of professor of Hindustani at the university. From 1910 on, inspired by a possible pan-Islamic alliance, Barakatullah himself published from Tokyo the paper Islamic Fraternity. In 1911, during a four-month tour through Cairo, Constantinople and Petrograd, he contacted Shyamji before returning to Tokyo in October. The December 1911 issue of his paper published sensational news—about the conversion to Islam of his Japanese admirer U. Hatano with his wife and his father-in-law, the Baron Kentaro Hiki. The paper was proscribed in India after July 1912 and, before the end of the year, stopped appearing. Yet Barakatullah was to publish, from September 1912, the El Islam edited by his emulator Hassan Hatano, to take the relay of the previous paper. Again proscribed, in June 1913, he issued some tracts in Urdu against British depredations and offences to Islam in general. He urged all concerned to revolt against Britain, to dissipate its ‘tissue of lies and tyranny’; to take advantage of the imminent war between the Germans and the English. Dismissed from his Japanese appointment, Barakatullah went to help Taraknath Das in San Francisco, before the War was declared. Thrown out of Vancouver, Taraknath had not been content to publish the Free Hindustan from Seattle: according to British official data, he worked to establish a brotherly relationship between ‘anarchists and manufacturers of bombs’, in addition to his usual concern for the Indian communities. Alerted by the state of things in India (where B.G. Tilak overtly supported young patriots going abroad for training in specialized military academies of Europe and the USA) the British police were astounded with the news that Taraknath Das had joined ‘an establishment of high reputation that assures the formation of engineers and soldiers’. Worried, Lt. Col. B.R. James (British military Attache in Washington, DC) solicited General Wotherspoon, Chief of the 2nd Section of the American army Central Office, for further information. Wotherspoon, accompanied by the Regimental adjutant-general J. Franklin

226

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Bell, had just returned from a prolonged tour in the Far East, invited by the British army: that tour had impressed both of them, and inspired in them a particular sympathy for Great Britain’s colonial policy. Captain Leslie A. Chapman, Assistant Professor at the University of Norwich, Vermont, confirmed in his report that Taraknath had been effectively attending an advanced programme of military training. Taraknath had also applied for a post at the Vermont National Guard, a logical sequel to this training. Chapman realized the danger of enroling ‘these people who would misuse their knowledge against a power with which we have peaceful relations’.159 Frustrated in his efforts to expel Taraknath immediately from the university, Chapman managed to suppress his candidature from the list. Wotherspoon congratulated Chapman and recommended the strictest surveillance on the agitator’s conduct. However, Chapman discovered in Taraknath a brilliant as well as a popular student: founder of the Norwich Tribunal—a forum for political debate—he had been writing fundamental studies for the students’ magazine. He was known to be one who ‘drew a great number of students to support his views’. Discovering the presence of another of Taraknath’s compatriots in the establishment, Panduranga Khankoje, Tilak’s emissary, Chapman saw that many others were invited for the same purpose, and he felt surprised to note how friendly was the attitude of the white-skinned students towards these people. According to several despatches from Hopkinson, Adhar Laskar (also an emissary of Jatin Mukherjee) and Jnan Chatterjee had been taking military courses in another specialized American establishment. On the basis of all this information, Viceroy Minto handed to Morley, in 1909, an urgent request to depose through the British Embassy in Washington to the American authorities against the military education given to a band of Hindu agitators at the University of Norwich and elsewhere in the USA. In June 1909, the University of Norwich expressed its inability to renew Taraknath’s enrolment, because of the ‘agitations he

The Thinker in Action

227

had created against Great Britain’. He was advised to seek admission in a more neutral university, such as Harvard, to begin with. In his letter of thanks and satisfaction, James did not forget to draw Wotherspoon’s attention to supervise the University of Harvard lest, in its turn, it should also become a nursery of such Hindu agitators.160 Pressure had also been exerted against Taraknath’s Free Hindustan. Freeman received the order, in September 1910, to suspend it at once: ‘Although there is nothing criminal in it, we are on the verge of it.’ Freeman continued to be harassed even after the paper was suppressed in November 1910. Old and in need, Freeman received from Madame Cama—they had met in 1907, during her lecture tour in the USA—a monthly allowance, after the end of 1911.161 Taraknath went on to constitute in Seattle, since January 1910, an Association for the Promotion of Education in India, under the presidency of Edward McMahon, professor of history at the University of Washington. Having learned from Kumar the adoption of a new bill, on 9 May 1910, forbidding Indian nationals to bring their families into British Columbia, Taraknath decided to react against such steps. Kumar’s letters sent to the prime minister of Canada remained without answer, when Taraknath reappeared on the Canadian arena in September 1910.162 Presumably with funds from the Gaekwad, of Baroda, on a visit then to the USA, and inspired by the India House that Shyamji had inaugurated in London with burning revolutionary aspirations, Taraknath and Kumar founded in Vancouver the United India House.163 To do away with Kumar’s ominous influence through the Swadesh Sevak—his pen dipped in vitriol, closely similar to that of Taraknath’s, infuriated especially the Sikh patriots— the Indian government proscribed it in March 1911. Kumar fled to join Taraknath in Seattle, confiding his task to Chagan Khairaj Varma, better known by his Muslim pseudonym, Husain Rahim, who hailed from Porbandar. After having spent about fifteen years in Japan and in Honolulu, he had settled in Vancouver in January 1910 and, by dint of his

228

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

familiarity with legal matters and his capacity to juggle with them, he acted as an efficient spokesman before the immigration authorities. On 15 December 1911, while he inaugurated in Vancouver the League of United India, the moderate Teja Singh—a prophet of Sikh separatism—founded there, on the same day, the Khalsa Diwan Society: a bit of news that would make British observers, rejoice champions of the policy to divide in order to reign better.164 But Rahim’s unifying vision and expertise ended up in converging the objectives and the actions of the two organizations that amounted mainly to sticking together against governmental malevolence and to send, fraudulently, arms to buck up revolutionary preparations in India. In February 1913, Rahim, in a common meeting of the two organizations, nominated a delegation of three Sikh revolutionaries to open a dialogue with the men in London demanding the right of Indian emigrants to have their families brought to Vancouver. This delegation, while visiting India, was received by MacMunn, the Governor of Punjab.165 Working by the side of Indian workers in the farms, in the chemistry academic laboratory in Berkeley or in infirmaries of various hospitals—for earning his livelihood and pursuing his solitary projects of uprising against British imperialism, Taraknath had never given up his academic studies: appointed Research Fellow at the University of California (Berkeley), he enrolled in 1911 for his PhD in Political Sciences and International Relationship and, highly appreciated by his professors, obtained, in 1914, his naturalization as an American citizen. He was at last rid of the persecutions of the British police and as a free man, continued his sacred mission to serve the cause of India.166 The East India Association that he formed, in 1911—was, in fact, a federation of different associations composed of Indian nationals in the USA and in Canada—it was the first unit of a common programme undertaken by his compatriots (Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims) in order to strengthen the revolutionary aspirations of India.167

The Thinker in Action

229

II.2.4b. Ghadar, the Revolutionary Formation

During his trip to Canada, in August 1907, G.D. Kumar had travelled with Harnam Singh (Sahri), a former member of the 4th Cavalry in India, having worked for three years with the electric Tram Company in Hongkong. Shuttling between Taraknath and Kumar, having followed specialized courses in Seattle, Harnam shared with Kumar his apartment at Vancouver. While collaborating with Hussain Rahim, in 1911, he represented in Vancouver the combined will of Kumar and Taraknath, who were then active on the Californian coast. Whereas Taraknath—a rational temperament devoted entirely to revolutionary preparations—had just set on foot, at the cost of nearly six years of untiring labour, a vast network of associations composed of resolute Indian volunteers, on both sides of the American-Canadian frontier, he lacked that grain of patriotic madness capable of fuelling a simultaneous and concerted action. At this juncture, haunted by some degree of paranoia and acute megalomania, Har Dayal appeared in the USA, on the look out for an auspicious field of action. Sufficiently discouraged by Savarkar’s arrest and sentence in London, Dayal had tempted to help, during some months, Madame Cama in her activities in Paris. Then, finding himself inferior to Chatto’s revolutionary genius—whom he took for a dangerous adversary—he fled to his retreat in Martinique. Then the discovery of Marx and the deepening of anarchist utopias gave him back the robustness to return to active life. Aiming for an academic career as a Sanskritist, he spent a while at Harvard where, the erudition of Professor J.H. Woods at the head of a seminary on ancient texts (notably on the arduous Yoga aphorisms of Patanjali)—appealed to him. Temperate and austere in his habits, addicted always to a myriad centrifugal and passionate reflections, excellent speaker and writer, Dayal impressed Arthur W. Ryder (Department of Sanskrit), A. Upham Pope (Department of Philosophy) at the University of Berkeley, as well as Professor Stuart at the University of Leland Stanford,

230

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Palo Alto. Invited by David Starr Jordan, president of this last university, in January 1912, Dayal accepted the honorary post of readership in Indian philosophy. Beset by a myriad problems, apparently adventitious—emancipation of woman, cohabitation of unmarried couples, Marxistanarchist radicalism—Dayal, at the height of his confusion, fell in love with a Swiss student of seventeen years, Frieda Hauswirth (hardly older than his own daughter, Shanti, left with her mother in India). Prince of contradictions, he had just denounced the martyr Dhingra, his heroic colleague in London, who was executed. Himself, admiring the spiritual mission of the Hindu monks established in different American Vedantic centres in the wake of Swami Vivekananda, Dayal once attacked Vivekananda in his class, accusing him sharply of an escapism, and of being oblivious to the miserable realities of the Motherland. Jiten Lahiri—emissary of Jatin Mukherjee, and brought up under the edifying principles of Vivekananda—was present among the students of this class. He accused Dayal of cowardice—to have shunned the obvious consequences of his prior revolutionary commitments, to have left his comrades-in-arm in the middle of persecutions, to have taken refuge 12,000 km away from of his Motherland in turmoil, to lead the lusty life of a lotus-eater. Young patriot disdainful of all base action—Dayal overtly recognized the contributions of Vivekananda in India’s nationalist struggle. He also learnt from Lahiri that a vast field of revolutionary action awaited him on Californian soil.168 Dayal then undertook an untiring tour through the industrial and mining centres along the Californian coast and visited all the associations of Indian workers and farmers. Taraknath received his telegram inviting him to attend a federated meeting of Indian patriots scheduled for 15 January in Berkeley. Taraknath and Dayal seized the opportunity to launch with all regional delegates a programme of action.169 The patriots’ headquarters—at 436 Hill Street, in San Francisco—was known henceforth as the Yugantar Ashram, in homage to the revolutionary Jugantar Party of Bengal; on learning about

The Thinker in Action

231

Rash Behari’s attempt to kill Lord Hardinge in 1912, Har Dayal seemed to have rejoiced and claimed to have belonged to this patriotic group. Soon, its own building was ready at 5 Wood Street, in San Francisco. However, Kumar, the elected editor of the new party organ, was to leave the USA in May 1915, to create a central office at Manila with branches on the Chinese coast (Hongkong and Shanghai).170 Assuming his editorial responsibilities, Har Dayal published, on 1 November 1913, the historic Ghadar. This title means ‘Revolution’. In the beginning, it was published in two weekly editions, Urdu and Gurmukhi. From the issue of 10 May 1914, there was a third edition, in Gujarati; and, since 1 March 1915, a fourth edition, in Hindi. In the meantime, other sporadic editions of the Ghadar appeared also in English, Pashtu, and Gorkhali.171 In the Far East in 1915, the distribution of every Ghadar issue despatched from San Francisco amounted to about 5,000 copies. Since the beginning, Har Dayal had defined thus the objectives of the Ghadar in its issue dated 1 November 1913: In what does our work consist? In bringing about a rising. . . . Where will this rising break out? In India. When will it break out? In a few years. Why should it break out? Because the people can no longer bear the oppression and tyranny practised under English rule and are ready to fight and to die for freedom. It is the duty of every Indian to make preparations for this rising. . . . It is now time that this spreading fire was extinguished, this plague put down, this base, rascally, evil-doing and vicious Government destroyed, and arrangements for freedom, peace, education, sanitation and progress made according to principles of civilisation. . . . Recently, Von Bernhardi, a German officer, has, after travelling in Ireland published an article which has caused a great sensation throughout the Fatherland. He has shown that were Germany to go to war with England the Irish would side with the Germans in order to secure their independence. Indians also should now prepare for a rising. The tyrannical English are about to be hard pressed from every side.172

In January 1915, analysing the reasons, the consequences and the political implications of Rash Behari Bose’s attempt to murder Hardinge, Har Dayal wrote a tract entitled Yugantar

232

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Circular, congratulating the action devised by the Bengali Extremists on the Indian front: published in Paris, this tract was generously distributed abroad and inside India, kindling an enthusiasm, more and more intense, among the revolutionaries.173 Dayal’s admiration for Marx’s thought granted him the presidency of a branch of the International Association of Industrial Workers at San Francisco.174 Under an internal decision of the State of California—in connivance with the British government—to stop foreigners from acquiring any real estate in January 1914—Dayal entrusted to Taraknath the management of the Ghadar (while Ram Chandra remained its editor), to make a better use of the public feelings of the country against this manifest hostility.175 President T. Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), however, did not hide his admiration for Great Britain and promoted English interests in his country, hurting the feelings of Chinese and Indian nationalists. According to the historian R.C. Majumdar, the British Consul in San Francisco compelled the government of the USA to take ‘sanctions against Dayal’.176 Arrested on 25 March 1914, he got bail, jumped it, and fled to Lausanne. By the end of 1914, an overhaul of the Committee of Indian Revolutionaries in Berlin led Chatto to maintain totally intact the moral and financial subsidies of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as the active sympathy of ‘Indophile’ friends. Time and again, he tried to attract Dayal, in vain, to sponsor him in Berlin. Finally, in January 1915—personally alerted by Dhiren Sarkar and Marathe (Chatto’s emissaries) Dayal conceded to leave Geneva and to associate with the united efforts of the revolutionaries in Berlin. On 10 February, they had among them the very dynamic nationalist prince of Hathras, Raja Mahendra Pratap. Received by the Kaiser and decorated with the Order of the Eagle, Raja proposed to Chatto his services as mediator (and Chief of Indian delegation) between the Kaiser and the Muslim authorities of the Middle East—notably Turkish, Iranian and Afghan—with a view to invade India with an army of liberation through Afghanistan.

The Thinker in Action

233

On reaching Istanbul, however, Har Dayal detached himself from this mission and, before November 1915, he put an end to his collaboration with the Berlin Committee. In the same way Taraknath, realized the discriminatory treatment of the Muslim authorities between the prisoners of war, Muslims and Hindus. He too left. Though the Berlin Committee had several genuine Muslim members, at the behest of the German government, most of its Hindu members took German, Swiss, Turkish, Persian or other passports issued in Muslim pseudonyms. This, first of all, was intended to draw sympathy of the pan-Islamic movement on support of the Indo-German Conspiracy, thus helping Germany win the confidence—of the Turkish authorities. Second, it worked against the British mischief of estranging Hindus from Muslims. In this connection, all through the documents connected with this Zimmermann Plan, we come across the following Muslim pseudonyms for eminent Hindu militants: (1) Bahadur Khan (Dr Taraknath Das); (2) Professor Mirza Osman (Lala Har Dayal); (3) Hasan Zada (Jodh Singh Mahajan); (4) Mohammed Hussen Sufi (Sufi Amba Pershad); (5) Zia Uddin (Rishikesh Latta); (6) Hasan Ali Khan (Champak Raman Pillai; elsewhere the same has been accredited to Dada Chanji Kersasp); (7) Mirza Ali Haider (Biren Dasgupta); (8) Mirza Hasan Khan (Sardar Ajit Singh; elsewhere it has been allotted to Shivdev Singh Ahluwalia); (9) Panduranga Khankoje; (10) Mohamed Akbar (Tirumal Acharya); (11) Hussain Ali (Laxman Prasad Verma); (12) Mohamed Ali (Agashe); (13) Dawood Ali Khan (Pramathanath Datta); (14) Abdul Aziz (Basant Singh); (15) Jan Mohamed (Chait Singh). Much earlier, in Vancouver, Chagan Khairaj Varma (born about 1865) of Porbandar, representing in Canada the Hindustan Association (founded by Taraknath Das), called himself Husain Rahim. Some of them, sooner or later, adopted Europeanized nicknames: (1) Ben Day (Bhupendranath Datta); (2) Binnie alias Chatto

234

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

(Virendranath Chattopadhyaya); (3) Charles A. Martin alias M.N. Roy (Narendra Bhattacharya); Pyne (Phanindra Chakravarti). The latent separatism between the Sikh and most of the Hindu leaders then took a regional turn: since Chatto—a Bengali—enjoyed an absolute confidence of the German authorities, since Gupta, another Bengali—represented in Washington the will of the latter, since Taraknath—again a Bengali—had been the pioneer of the political activities in the USA, the Ghadar tried to reshape its aspirations according to a new orientation capable of imposing the Sikh superiority on the movement. By interpreting this separatist spirit, there occurred even a troublesome dissidence among the Sikhs themselves: already contesting the political intentions of Dayal and Taraknath, all those who were more concerned with strictly social and religious activities, raised an objection to the financing of political activities with money generously contributed by the Sikhs to assure their own civil protection. On top of all that, the searching look of Hopkinson, the British spy employed by the Immigration Service of Canada, succeeded in isolating a handful of Sikh supporters of the Crown, constantly to track and denounce the patriotic activities. At the height of an unbearable hide-and-seek triggered by this craftsman of separatism, some patriots got fed up with Hopkinson’s pernicious play and murdered him, on 21 October 1914, in the Law Court of Vancouver.

* In India and elsewhere, the dedicated spirit and the honest devotion of a great number of Bengali revolutionaries had given to the Extremist movement its highest distinction, whereas ‘for their superior intellectual faculty’177 they were constantly solicited. In 1916, a Bengali adventurer of doubtful character, named Chandrakanta Chakravarti, with his cunning German accomplice, Ernst Matthias Sekunna, replaced Heramba Gupta as mediator between the Ghadar

The Thinker in Action

235

and the Berlin Committee: he would not only create an artificial enterprise to divert German funds to his bank accounts and to own real estate in New York, but also to facilitate double espionage. Moreover, intoxicated by his success, Chakravarti did not mistrust possible counterespionage: having stirred the curiosity and the jealousy of the Czech emigre’s in the USA, he left ample written proofs in his apartment at 364 West 120th Street (New York). Emmanuel Victor Voska and Ladislav Urban, associates of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk (1850-1957)—future president of Czechoslovakia—discovered that the watchman of the building was himself a Slovak from Moravia and an active member of a Czech revolutionary faction. Making use of free access to the apartment where—in addition to most valuable documents scattered all over—numerous meetings between the Indian revolutionaries and the German representatives were held, Voska engaged spies to trace the Indo-German chain up to China’. Some of his interlocutors, supposed Austrian patriots, communicated lightning information to Voska, right from the content of the despatches of Von Papen (German Military Attache in Washington), Zimmermann’s answers, the expedition of arms and munitions on board the Annie Larsen and the Maverick to be delivered on the east coast of India, up to the projects of the Germans to sabotage factories of American explosives.178 Transmitted on time by Masaryk, in London, this information had such a repercussion in the International Office of the Allies that—especially after having seized, through the diligence of the British navy, the first vital cargos containing arms and munitions intended to India—Masaryk got, in exchange, in addition to expected credits and prestige, the recompense he deserved. In a recent article in Czech,179 Ross Hedviþek confirms this information by narrating that in the beginning of First World War in 1915, Emanuel Victor Voska organized the nationalists among the Czech minority in USA into a network of counter espionage, spying on the German and Austrian diplomats against the USA and the allied powers. He described these

236

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

events in Spy and Counter-Spy. And these were not merely minor deeds, most of them having had international impact and historic consequences. On the movement of liberation and independence of India, for example, ‘Had E.V. Voska not interfered in this history, today nobody would have heard about Mahatma Gandhi and the father of the Indian nation would have been Bagha Jatin.’ Briefly, Bagha Jatin wanted to free India of the British but he had the idea of allying against them with the Germans from whom he expected to receive arms and other help. Voska learnt this through his network and, as pro-American, pro-British and anti-German, he spoke of it to T.G. Masaryk.180 The latter rushed to keep the institutions informed about it. Thus, Voska transmitted it to Masaryk, Masaryk to the Americans, the Americans to the British. Bagha Jatin died, killed by police bullets, on 10 September 1915. And India had to wait another thirty years for freedom.181

II.3. The Enemy’s Enemy: First World War II.3.1. Bengal Fireworks

Bhai Paramananda (1874-1947) had dedicated his life to promote the teachings of Swami Dayanand and the Arya Samaj; acting as Har Dayal’s friend and counsel, he brought from Berkeley, in 1913, a message for the Extremists of Punjab and Bengal confirming the decisions and the revolutionary steps of the Ghadar in the USA. The year after, on 29 August 1914, Jwala Singh and Nawab Khan (associate of Husain Rahim alias Chagan Khairaj Varma in Vancouver) went back to Punjab with sixty Ghadar members. Their mission was to welcome and to guide patriots returning to India en masse to join the extremists in the nation-wide uprising. On 20 November 1914, Satyen Sen, Jatin Mukherjee’s emissary in California, arrived in Calcutta, after having worked with Taraknath, Jiten Lahiri and other Ghadar leaders. Vishnu Ganesh Pingley, Kartar Singh Sarabha and 4,000 Ghadar

The Thinker in Action

237

members accompanied him. On his way, Satyen examined with Sun Yat-Sen (1866-1925), fallen president of the new Chinese republic, the opportunity of his collaborating with the Indians in the Far East: while waiting to settle scores with his rival Che-Kai Yuan (1859-1916), the new president, Sun accepted the proposal half-heartedly. Introduced to Jatin Mukherjee by Bijoy Ray (Satyen’s uncle and lieutenant of Jatin), Kartar Singh and the Ghadar members got back to Punjab. At this juncture, according to Tegart’s information, Jatin Mukherjee and Satyen Sen were found negotiating in a garden in Baranagar (where Jatin had a powerful and active party) with Sikh officers of the 93rd Burmans posted at the Dakshneswar gunpowder magazine. These troops were soon sent to Mesopotamia.182 After a long interview with Jatin Mukherjee and carrying personal instructions from him, Pingley left for Benares to meet Rash Behari. Educated in the Samarth Vidyalaya, the extremist school of Pune, Pingley’s diligence appealed to Rash Behari; with Sachin Sanyal, Manmatha Biswas, Nalini Mukherjee and other associates of Rash Behari, he set to prepare the north Indian units, acting as a link between Benares and Punjab where, already, a few thousands of Ghadar members were champing at the bit to begin action under the direction of Bhai Paramananda and Nawab Khan. They waited for the expected delivery of adequate arms. In the meantime, since the declaration of the War in August 1914, the federal party under Jatin Mukherjee had begun a series of contained terrorist acts such as hold-ups (for raising funds), political murders (to intimidate the conceited authorities) and surprise strikes (to acquire arms). On 26 August 1914, a group of revolutionaries succeeded in stealing from the warehouse of Rodda & Co—a British importer of firearms in Calcutta—fifty .300 bore Mauser pistols, convertible into long range rifles, with adapted 46,000 cartridges. According to an official Report, 44 of these ultramodern guns were immediately distributed among nine important units.183 This sensational renewal of defiance against the government’s

238

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

repressive measures inflamed the people’s imagination with optimism. The exodus of the Ghadar members from the USA to Punjab had consolidated it. In consultation with Jatin Mukherjee—on visit to Benares in January 1915—Rash Behari Bose with a team of Bengali experts in manufacturing bombs, installed two factories of explosives, one in Amritsar, the other in Lahore. To occupy the enthusiastic availability of the Sikh repatriates, by the side of indoctrinated soldiers from different regiments and students impatient to overthrow British oppression, Jatin Mukherjee and Rash Behari fixed 21 February 1915 for the first nation-wide uprising to spread simultaneously from Lahore to Calcutta. ‘Bombs were prepared, arms were got together, and, flags were made ready. Also, a declaration of war was drawn up; instruments were collected for destroying railways and telegraph wires. In the meantime, however, in order to raise funds for the financing the enterprise, some Punjab revolutionaries had committed various dacoities.’184 The likeness of style—already in force in Calcutta, as a part of Jatin Mukherjee’s programme—led to the discovery of the various types of Bengali bombs, declared the Rowlatt Report. Unfortunately, among the repatriated Sikhs, there was a spy—Kripal Singh, trained by Hopkinson— who, making use of the importance of his cousin Balwant Singh, an indoctrinated officer of the 2nd Cavalry, had been aware of the decisions which he transmitted progressively to the police. Warned about the role of this spy the revolutionaries advanced the date by two days; but this could only sow confusion in the chain. Pingley and Rash Behari disappeared before a general search in the districts revealed the existence of weapons, bomb components, and national flags. During massive arrests, Pingley was incarcerated in the night of 23 March, in possession of ten bombs; sympathizers had sheltered him in the barrack of the 12th Cavalry in Meerut. Among them, Nadir Khan (an Afghan officer, whom Pingley had presented to Rash Behari) assumed the role of police informer.

The Thinker in Action

239

Sir Michael O’Dwyer, responsible for the police in Ludhiana and specialized in the supervision of the activities of the eight thousand repatriated Ghadar members, had the impression that the British government in India sat on ‘a snarling volcano’.185 Having seized the high authorities, since December 1914, and having urgently renewed his demands in February and in March 1915 to remedy this inadmissible state of the things, he finally got, implementation of the Defence of India Act. This allowed the state to detain without trial all seditious suspects for as long as ‘necessary’. A vast campaign swung against the patriots, arresting them by hundreds or assigning them to home internment, striking Pingley, Kartar Singh and five other main personalities with capital punishment. In spite of precautions Kripal Singh was assassinated. Pursued by the police, Rash Behari left for Japan on 12 May 1915.

* Reports from the British police, indicate that the rebellion of the 5th Regiment of Light Infantry—composed notably of Indian Muslim soldiers—in Singapore on 15 February 1915, formed part of the project of the uprising in India, presumably organized by the Indian revolutionaries posted in Bangkok since 1910.186 While some historians see therein a direct consequence of the anti-British activities of Germany in the Far East, others categorically consider it a natural outcome of revolutionary preparations inside India.187 It is obvious that—as an emissary of the Extremist party reunified under Jatin Mukherjee—Bholanath Chatterjee had established active units in Penang and in Singapore in 1911 and, with Mani Basu, he had returned there in 1913 to consolidate them, to the extent of creating some more in Bangkok and elsewhere in Thailand, with the help of Kumud Mukherjee, a Bengali lawyer practising there.188 Since the beginning of the World War, the Commander-inChief189 of the Federate Revolutionary Committee—known

240

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

as the Jugantar Party in police reports was elected democratically. Jatin Mukherjee, faithful to his policy of autonomous units, distributed the responsibilities to several office-bearers, each controlled by a recognized specialist: i.

International Cabinet: controlled by Harikumar Chakravarti and Jadu Gopal Mukherjee: owner of a small import-export enterprise named Harry & Sons (41 Clive Street, Calcutta), Hari disposed of an office and his telegraphic address for exchanging messages; they maintained contacts with emissaries abroad like Naren Bhattacharya (alias M.N. Roy). A team of young scientists directed by Meghnad Saha and devoted to Jatin Mukherjee, set on foot a system of codes; some of them also were experts in explosives. Amarendra Chatterjee, Ram Majumdar, Khirode Ganguli took care of the Shramajibi Samabaya (Cooperative of the Working People) in Harrison Street, Calcutta, a centre of lodging and refuge, behind the facade of a commercial enterprise. This address served to receive and board militants, acting also as mail box for revolutionary units in different corners of India and in the Far East. ii. Military Cabinet: controlled by Naren Bhattacharya and Phani Chakravarti. iii Finance Cabinet: controlled by Atulkrishna Ghosh, Jatin Mukherjee’s right-hand man. iv. Security Cabinet: controlled by Satish Chakravarti, Bipin Ganguli, and Motilal Roy of Chandernagore. In order to avoid confusion in the eyes of the authorities between the revolutionaries and the criminals, Jatin Mukherjee had suggested military uniforms for the patriots on dangerous mission.190 While waiting for the weapons and the finances promised by the Zimmerman plan, Jatin had, once more and for a given period, resorted to a set of spectacular actions in Calcutta and the near suburb.191 These

The Thinker in Action

241

operations served to demystify the government’s hold and to stimulate popular admiration for the patriots. The police discovered the introduction of a singular and new element there: the automobile taxicabs. The first of these operations took place in Garden Reach, a suburb of Calcutta. On 12 February 1915: while an employee of Bird & Company, an English firm, transported from a bank to their factory the sum of Rs. 20,000, the revolutionaries, seized the pile and disappeared after having entrusted it to their man in Calcutta.192 ‘The dakaits who were in a taxi-cab (…) placed the bags in the cab, and after assaulting the chauffeur and pushing him out of the car, drove off at full speed.’193 The second operation occurred on 22 February, the day after the proposed rising: a few well-dressed gentlemen got off a taxi-cab, entered the premises of a wealthy merchant’s rice-store at Beliaghata (Calcutta), pulled out a revolver, took the sum of Rs. 22,000, and decamped without committing any violence to anybody. This novel technique—characterized by the British officers of police as the Jatin Mukherjee style— came into vogue.194 In all these operations, a handful of young volunteers would emerge and, mission accomplished, make their getaway by taxi-cab. No operation of the revolutionaries involved any shedding of blood or exceeded ten minutes. ‘That shows the quality of discipline and organisation manifested in these actions.’195 All measures of security holds by the government—checkpoints in the streets of Calcutta, accompanied by drop-gates used for railway level-crossings; armed surveillance of the entries and the exits of the Calcutta bridges; sirens and other devices of alarm at every police station; verifications and surprise searches of cars—proved to be ineffective. As circular, the revolutionaries sent letters to persons concerned, to explain that it was only a loan on behalf of the future national government of India. Here is an example reproduced from the Rowlatt report:

242

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

‘NO. 2250 BANDE MATARAM. Bengal Branch of Independent Kingdom of United India. Most respectfully and humbly we beg to say: Gentlemen, Six honorary officers of our Calcutta Finance Department have taken a loan of 9,891-1-5 rupees from you, and have deposited the amount in the office noted above on your account to fulfil our great aim. The sum has been entered in our cash book on your name at 5% per annum. By the grace of God if we be successful, we will pay the whole amount with the interest at one time. The kind treatment accorded to our officers can only be expected from great men like you. We believe that our officers have also behaved with you in the like manner as far as possible. Under our orders they did not lay their hands on the pledged ornaments,196 but at the time of counting your deposit, we got one locket and a maduly [a pendant and an amulet]. On enquiry made by our spies, we have come to know that these two articles are also pledged things. The meeting held in the night of the 13 ashadh197 decided their return to you. It is noted for your information, that these two articles will be sent to you within a fortnight. We warn you that if this is brought to the notice of the selfish police officers they will surely misappropriate them. Gentlemen! If you go against us by deeds, words or any other means, or hand over any one to the police on groundless suspicion, then we will not be able to keep our former promise; and we will not leave any one in your family to enjoy your enormous wealth.

The Thinker in Action

243

It is perhaps not unknown to you that all the police officers have stood in the way of our righteous cause. The Government of our United India have never hesitated to inflict adequate punishment on them and the foreign British Government could not save them despite the utmost precautions. Therefore we remind you again not to do anything to compel us to besmear the Motherland with the blood of our countrymen. A sound man like you may perhaps understand that to liberate the country from the yoke of the foreigners requires self-sacrifice, benevolence and sympathy of our countrymen. If the rich men of the country feeling the weight of our work subscribe monthly, quarterly and half-yearly to establish the rules and regulations of the Sanatana Dharma in India, then we would not have to trouble you in this way. If you do not accept our proposal then we shall be compelled to collect money in a like manner. Gentlemen! will you decline to spend something for us who initiated with Matri Mantra [mystical speech] determined to perform this Mahayajna [great Sacrifice] to liberate the country from the foreign yoke with the new vigour of Kshatriya. The improvement and power of Japan are due to the selfsacrifice and benevolence of the rich men of the country. Pray to God that He for the achievement of His great work may give strength to the heart and a right mind to our countrymen. (Sd) J. Balamanta Finance Secretary to the Bengal Branch of Independent Kingdom of United India.198

* The police looked for the brain behind this worldwide ramification of Indian revolutionaries. Mr. Cleveland, Director of the Central Criminal Police at New Delhi, deployed all his means to round on, in Calcutta, the network of the ‘terrorists’ at the origin of the hold-ups: following every operation, a new team of specialized officers, under the general supervision of Suresh Mukherjee of the regional police, was assigned the investigation. The more the police sped up, the more the

244

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

patriots proved their meticulous vigilance. Following the holdup in Garden Reach, having spent the night of 12 February at Prafulla Sarkar’s house, Naren Bhattacharya was arrested in Shyambazar (Calcutta) by Suresh Mukherjee and was sent directly to the Alipore Central Jail. Naren had been maintaining important contacts with the revolutionaries abroad. Therefore Jatin Mukherjee spared no effort to obtain his immediate release on bail. On 24 February, however, while Jatin Mukherjee was preoccupied elsewhere a spy sent by Suresh Mukherjee entered the apartment at No.79 Pathuriaghata Street in Calcutta and was shot down by Chittapriya Ray Chaudhuri. Discovered by the police when the assembly had dispersed, the spy in his dying declaration named Jatin as his assassin.198 At once, Suresh issued a warrant and a very high reward for the head of Jatin. Early in the morning of 28 February while Suresh took care of the security measures for the Viceroy’s imminent annual visit to the University of Calcutta, Naren Ghose Chaudhuri of Barisal and Chittapriya of Madaripur murdered him point-blank, before disappearing.

* At this juncture, early in March 1915, Jiten Lahiri and Atmaram came back from California, via Berlin, after having discussed with Chatto the detailed steps in progress under the Zimmermann Plan. On visiting Jatin Mukherjee in his hideout in the locality of Khiderpore in Calcutta, Jiten urged the sending of an emissary to Batavia for finalizing the modes of receiving the arms notably from the Maverick. Concerned about Naren Bhattacharya’s precarious existence in Calcutta, Jatin designated him emissary to Batavia. Henry Wheeler, promoted Secretary by the Government of India, in his letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in London, gave vent to his exasperation owing to his inability to arrest Jatin: ‘He is believed to visit Calcutta occasionally in disguise but as he is a man of desperate character and always carries arms, it

The Thinker in Action

245

is difficult to find informers who will watch for him.’200 In the midst of precautions taken by the police, always carefree, Jatin sometimes gave his associates appointments at relatively open places; astonished, one day a young patriot—Bhupati Majumdar, later a minister in the West Bengal cabinet after Independence—tried to protest. Jatin told him: How can you expect me to pursue the path of freeing India by pouring the blood of our heart on this soil—if we spend our time hiding? Know that someone who remains eternally available to court death does not die so easily. Are we not, all of us, already dead? The few days of reprieve that we have been granted do not allow us the luxury of shunning danger.201

Sensing the emergency of finding an adequate shelter for Jatin Mukherjee and some of his associates, Motilal Ray had thought of Chandernagore, the French pocket, as he had done for Sri Aurobindo in 1910. But, Jatin knew that, in spite of Motilal’s admiration for him, he had detached himself from the main project, probably lured by other offers more compatible with his temperament. He preferred some other hideout. Once Raimangal (in mouth of the Ganga) and Balasore (on the east coast, in Orissa) were chosen as ports suitable for delivery of arms from the Maverick and other ships, Jatin’s lieutenants requested him to retire in the neighbouring jungle of the last region, more appropriate for the distribution of the awaited delivery. Before accepting to move his headquarters to Balasore, away from the daily ambushes of Calcutta, Jatin made sure that arrangements for similar protection for each of his colleagues were made: among the representative personalities of the Extremist party under Jatin Mukherjee, Atul Ghose, Amarendra Chatterjee, Bholanath Chatterjee, Nalini Kar, Jadu Gopal Mukherjee, Satish Chakravarti were to accept, however, to go to Chandernagore. Jatin Mukherjee counted among his sympathizers an influential relative: Sir Ashutosh Mookerjee (1864-1924). Apparently aloof from the political agitations, he was heard

246

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

roaring: ‘Liberty first, liberty again, liberty always! I will not be content with anything else.’ Thanks to Sir Ashutosh, Jatin had known Professor G. Thibault, the German specialist of Vedanta, teaching at the University of Calcutta. According to a police report, when Frederic-Guillaume (1882-1951), Germany’s Crown Prince, visited Calcutta, Jatin had an interview with him, and received an assurance that arms and ammunition would be supplied for the revolution.202 Sir Ashutosh had a property in Raimangal and, at Jatin’s instance, he appointed as its manager Suresh Dhar, an extremist militant, to prepare the field for receiving the consigned weapons sent by the German government.203 The more the outside events assumed a dizzy acceleration, the more Jatin was seen—during the first months of the World War—progressively withdrawn. Bhupendra Kumar Datta, yet a student, saw him—at the Daulatpur College hostel—passing an entire night under the open sky, seated on the balcony of the first floor, in meditation.204 Harikumar Chakravarti, for his part, observed Jatin Mukherjee—seated before the window of his office at the Arya Nivas (Calcutta)—passing his nights in mute communion with the sky.’205 On the eve of his departure for Balasore, having learnt that his guru, Swami Bholanand of Hardwar, was in Calcutta, Jatin went to meet him, in the company of his associate Atul Krishna Ghose. At the entrance of the building, Jatin was welcomed by Bipin Chandra Pal and by Aswini Kumar Datta. Throwing himself at the feet of the spiritual master, Jatin stayed immobile. On coming down the stairs, Jatin told Atul: A regret had been gnawing my heart. That of leaving behind my wife, my sister, my three children! Just as some fish succeed in running away after having bitten to the fishhook, while they cannot forget the fishhook, a certain sense of duty towards my family kept on haunting me. Guru has just relieved me of my fishhook. He has asked me to go ahead and not to worry. God will look after all of you.206

The Thinker in Action

247

II.3.2. Balasore: Baptism of Blood

With the first government repressions raging in 1908, unable to carry on their revolutionary political plans, the Extremists of Calcutta had settled in farms to have a better idea of the aspirations of the rural population through some social services. Jatin Mukherjee’s great grandfather Ramasundar Chatterjee (1794-1890), as a friend of Devendranath Tagore, had looked after the latter’s estates in Cuttack and had maintained contact with Orissa. Fond of Puri, Jatin had often brought his offerings to the temple through a priest of his choice; once, on returning to Calcutta, he was asked by his young cousins what he saw at Puri, he replied, ‘I went to have the darshan of Shri Jagannath’. Jatin’s revolutionary associate Preonath Karar (later Yukteshwarananda) of Serampore—friend of Hrishikesh Kanjilal and of the restless Vedic Pandit Mokshada Samadhyayi—founded an Ashram at Puri in 1900; it was in connection with Lokamanya Tilak’s initiative to turn Benares and other Hindu shrines into seats of Extremist politics. Long before the hatching of Jugantar at Benares, Puri instituted a religious procession in celebration of the advent of the New Era. Sealy in his Report admits: ‘It would be extremely rash to argue that the place has not been freely used by the anarchist for sealing the compact of many a vow against the Government or that it has not been a recognized place of refuge for the fugitive from justice or surveillance by the police.’207 A fervent swadeshi, active member of the Calcutta Anushilan Samiti, Professor Krishnamohan Patnayak of Puri taught at the National College of Calcutta in 1906, and was in close touch with several of the Maniktala group, including the leader himself, Sri Aurobindo.208 Suranath Bhaduri of Benares, on reaching Calcutta after travelling all over Bengal, formed a central committee at the Sandhya office, with the help of Jatin Banerji and with Kartik Dutta; Mukhada Samadhyayi, Shyamsundar Chakravarti, Arabindo Ghose, Tarakhepa, Annada

248

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Kaviraj and others as members. . . . Measures are being devised for freeing India and for proclaiming the divine commands which have been received in the matter. . . . After this Suranath went to Puri with Preo Nath Karar. . . . Attempts are being made to get hold of such of the ruling Chiefs as are patrons of the Bharat Dharma Mahamandal. Raja Sasisekhareswar of Tahirpur . . . is being fully converted to this creed.209

The Maharaja of Darbhanga was the General President of the Mahamandal; Suranath’s father, Somnath Bhaduri, was the Maharaja’s Private Secretary; Sri Aurobindo’s and Jatin Mukherjee’s friend, Amarendra Chatterjee, was the son-in-law of Preonath Banerjee, the Manager of the Darbhanga Raj; the link was close owing to the fact that one of Preonath Banerjee’s nephews, Natbihari Chatterjee was munsif at Cuttack; another nephew, Dhiren Mukherjee, taught at the Ravenshaw Collegiate School. Amarendra had a free access not only to these patriots but, also, to the headmaster of this school (later Principal of the Ravenshaw College), Khirodchandra Ray Chaudhuri, who edited and published the ‘scurrilous’ (to quote Sealy) daily, Star of Utkal. Khirodchandra’s son, Sukumar, practised as a barrister at Cuttack and had married a daughter of Dr Aghore Nath Chatterjee ‘who was deported by the Nizam of Hyderabad for intriguing against the British Government’. The most illustrious of Aghore Nath’s children was Viren (‘Chatto’, the revolutionary of international reputation); among the others was the patriotic Mrinalini Chatterjee who formed a trio with Kumudini Mitra and Sarojini Ghose (respectively cousin and sister of Sri Aurobindo); the poet and actor Harindra Nath and the politician Sarojini Naidu were two other of Aghore Nath’s children. Another member of this circle was the pleader Bishwanath Kar of Cuttack who enjoyed a close friendship with eminent national leaders such as Dr Sundari Mohan Das, Surendranath Banerjee and Bipin Chandra Pal.210 These leaders had also been mentors for the revolutionary Bairagi Tripathi of Patia (district Cuttack). On reaching

The Thinker in Action

249

Calcutta, Bairagi had become ‘a troublesome agitator and lecturer of the Calcutta open air platform’. His first appearance was at a meeting presided over by Amarendra Chatterjee. After Liakat Hossain was served with an order under the Calcutta Police Act, Bairagi became vehement at meetings. He himself was evicted from Bengal and was eventually interned in Cuttack.211 In 1904, Utkalmani Gopabandhu Das had joined the Calcutta University for the study of Law, and—in the company of his friends, Ramachandra Das and Pandit Sudarshan Nanda he met several leading patriotic figures in the city; foremost among them was Shashibhushan Raychaudhuri (1863-1922), popular as Shashida. Shashida went to Bhubaneswar in the eventful year of 1905, to recruit. Gopabandhu returned to Orissa in 1906 and, with the above-mentioned friends, helped Shashida organize the Sevak Dal where, like the Anushilan in Calcutta, along with physical education, a field was prepared for patriotic and revolutionary activities. Ananta Mishra, Harihar Acharya, Nilakantha Das, Jagannath Mahapatra and Brajasundar Das were among important organizers of the Sevak Dal. Clothed like the Ramakrishna Mission monks, they went from village to village, opened centres for ‘spiritual culture’ (bhagavad ghar) to train militants. During the tragic flood of 1908 in Orissa, Madhusudan Das published an article in The Statesman of Calcutta and received an immediate response from everywhere. Requested by Shashida, Barrister P. Mitter of the Anushilan delegated volunteers led by Harikumar Chakravarti and Naren Bhattacharya, on their way back, they brought to Calcutta a good provision of seasoned bamboo sticks to be distributed in the regional units. On 12 August 1909, under Shashida’s guidance, Gopabandhu opened the Satyavadi Vidyalaya at Sakshigopal in Puri district; in 1911, it became an English medium high school, still following Shashida’s model, with evening classes for adults, teaching languages, coaching in small industries, agriculture, commerce, physical and moral

250

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

education. Basudev Mahapatra and Godabarish Mishra not only took lessons in gymnastics and self-defence but, along with the students, participated in these activities.

* The Ramakrishna Mission had a branch at Puri, known as the Sashi Niketan and this place had always been visited by suspicious strangers, including Jatin Mukherjee and Amarendra Chatterjee. According to Sealy’s Report, in 1910, the latter made a determined effort to establish in a building near the Jagannath Temple an Ashram at Puri, called Srikshetra Sevashram, ostensibly for philanthropic purposes but for the education and training of political missionaries. This institution, too, was under the patronage of the Raja of Tahirpur. Amarendra was helped by Basanta Biswas (later he was sent to collaborate with Rash Behari Bose to kill Hardinge), Sushil and Sushen, brothers of Satish Mukherjee (who had been sentenced in 1908 in connection with the Alipore Bomb Case, and came to be known as Swami Muktananda): all of them served as links with the Benares unit. During the ratha-yatra Amarendra and his associates wore red crosses and distributed medicines to pilgrims. The Temple Manager wrote to the District Magistrate in 1911 that he had ‘noticed signs of attempts by Bengali agitators to turn the temple into a centre for the Swadeshi movement and political agitation’.

* On 20 September 1914, a spectacular dacoity was committed by seventeen revolutionaries led by Naren Ghose Chaudhuri (the very active leader of Barisal unit) at Chainpur, P.S. Jajpur, Cuttack; they were guided by Lakhi Dhar, son of Adhikari Prahlad Das of Gurudaspur, Jajpur. Lakhi had been to Calcutta in 1912 to study and was initiated by Manindra Chaudhuri of the Mymensingh unit. The group used whistles, patakas (crackers), daggers, gas lamps and revolvers. Before

The Thinker in Action

251

the action they had cut the telegraph wires along the canal embarkment at Ganeshpur. They then made for Baitarani Road Railway Station. The only person who was arrested was Debendra Chaudhuri of Sylhet, and the police discovered that he had been living in a ‘notorious’ hotel of Calcutta, at 61 Mirzapur Street, with Biren Datta Gupta (Jatin Mukherjee’s associate), hanged in 1910 for having killed Shamsul Alam; other members from Barisal, Mymensingh and Sylhet units, too, were its inmates.212

* It has been mentioned earlier that in consultation with Suren Tagore, Justice Saradacharan Mitra and the nationalist sponsor Brajendrakishore Ray Chaudhuri, Jatin Mukherjee had acquired lands at Gosaba, in the Sundarban area, under the aegis of the Bengal Youngmen’s Zamindari Cooperative Society. At the same time, Jatin had delegated also his associate Deviprasad Ray (alias Khuro)—‘an agent of the Hindusthan Insurance Co., a concern which was organised by members of the revolutionary party for the benefit of their schemes’, according to Sealy—to Kaptipoda, about 35 km west of Balasore, to approach the Maharaja and explore the possibilities of opening a similar centre of social work there. Brajendrakishore knew very well Devendra Singha from Magura, the diwan of this princely state of Mayurbhanj. Kedar Chakravarti—elder brother of one of Khuro’s patriotic colleagues, hailing like him from Dadupur, P.S. Nakasipur in Nadia thanks to his singular diligence as inspector of the regional police against the brigands of the forest—had been close to the Palace and enjoyed a vast property, along with some hectares of forest in Kaptipoda. At the time of Khuro’s visit, in 1908, his brother Girin Ray had been living there with Manindra, actively favourable to the Extremist programme, since his schooling at Baripada. Though Khuro could not open a shop as he wished, satisfied with these speculations, in 1910, he had accompanied to this shelter of

252

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Kaptipoda two absconding revolutionary colleagues: his own friend Nalinikanta Kar (alias Gopal Ray) and Satish Sarkar (alias Purna Chandra Ray of Rajshahi), another member of the expedition to murder Shamsul Alam, who had been sent by Jatin Mukherjee to inform Sri Aurobindo that the mission was successful. In Sri Aurobindo’s circle Satish was nicknamed Kanishtha Papishtha (the youngest of Sinners): from here, towards the end of 1910, Kanishtha went to Pondicherry and stayed with Sri Aurobindo, till the assassination of Mr Ashe, Collector of Tinnevelly.213 They all stayed with Manindra, leased some land from his father and opened a shop, being joined subsequently by one Bankim Chandra Chakravarti of Dacca and a Hem Chandra Babu of Calcutta. . . . These men cultivated land and sold the products for some three years and during that period tried in vain to secure the lease of the Sendei jungles in Kaptipoda. . . .214

According to Sealy’s information, An independent attempt to acquire land occurred in 1913 on part of one Sarasi Lal Sarkar, L.M.S., son of Kishori Lal Sarkar of 121 Cornwallis Street, Calcutta, who owned some land in Mayurbhanj. His associates in this attempt were a Suresh Chandra Mazumdar, nephew [sic!] of Kishori Lal, afterwards identified as Poran Mazumdar—one of Jatin Mukherjee’s close associates—who was suspected in connection with the murder of Samsul Alam; he was accompanied by one Narendra Nath Bhattacharji (future M.N. Roy), of 6 Mirzapur Street, who worked as a naib [manager] for a short time on Kishori Lal’s estate in Mayurbhanj. Both these men visited Baripada several times, but did not succeed in securing the land they wanted.215

Contrary to Sealy’s hypothesis, this attempt was neither fortuitous, nor so independent. Kishori Lal’s daughter Sarala Bala Sarkar,216 in her autobiographical writings, noted that Poran was their neighbour in Krishnanagar and, having lost his father very early, he lived with them; Sarala Bala knew that both Poran and Narendra had been Jatin Mukherjee’s

The Thinker in Action

253

disciples. She speaks of Narendra’s prolonged stay at their Ghatsila house, which corroborates Sealy’s Report that in 1912, Phani Chakravarti, Harikumar, Naren Bhattacharya and Saileswar Basu (with his brother, Shyamsundar) often met and discussed politics, dakaitis, assassination. ‘Narendra with Poran Mazumdar had visited Ghatsila side, in Singhbhum district, to secure land for cultivation.’217 This district and the adjacent Mayurbhanj offered advantages in many ways for safe refuge: ‘Part of it is non-police tract, a great part is very jungly country, and there are in addition excellent opportunities for anyone with any claims to knowledge of science and engineering to secure himself employment in the very extensive Iron Works run by Messrs Tata & Co. at Sakchi.’218 Sarala’s elder brother Sarasi Lal had been thinking of creating, apparently, a Gosaba style of centre for the revolutionaries; one Mr Home had a sugar cane plantation at Baripada which he wanted to sell off before returning to England; delegated by Sarasi Lal, Narendra negotiated the deal with Mr Home, but the State of Mayurbhanj was hostile to this transaction.219 Bholanath Chatterjee and Parikshit Mukherjee had been working with Naren Bhattacharya under Jatin Mukherjee’s direct leadership. Since March 1915, they were ‘sent off to Sambalpur side, to prospect establishing connection along the Bombay line to Nagpur connected up with Nilgiri and Mayurbhanj’.220 Reminded that one of the addresses to which money from the Far East could reach the revolutionaries was Sonua Stone & Lime Co. with its office at 101/1 Clive Street, Calcutta, Sealy points out how its owner, Sudhangshu Mukherjee—one of the directors of the Shramajibi Samabaya—was ‘a puppet in Amarendra Chatterji’s hands’.221

* Amarendra (1880-1957) was the son of Upendranath Chatterjee of Uttarpara. While at college, he came to know two of his future revolutionary friends, Upen Banerjee and

254

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Hrishikesh Kanjilal. During the anti-Partition agitations, identifying with the boycott of British goods, Amarendra captained the National Volunteer Movement. Very soon he looked after the Poragacha unit in Nadia, giving assistance to Jatin Mukherjee. Progressively, they both collaborated in the formation of the Chhatra Bhandar (Students’ Store) and, later, the Shramajibi Samabaya (or Workers’ Cooperative). While Jatin Mukherjee ‘worked directly under the orders of Aurobindo Ghose’,222 Amarendra met Sri Aurobindo in 1907 and received initiation with these words: ‘Surrender yourself to God and in the name of the Divine Mother get along with the service of India. That is my diksha to you.’ He was further told by the Guru: ‘If we want to secure the freedom of the country, we have to sacrifice everything for it, and we should be ready to give up even our lives for it. If we want to free the country, we shall have to conquer the fear of death.’223 On 22 August 1909, one Sundar Lal delivered with Sri Aurobindo ‘mischievous speeches’ in College Square, Calcutta. The Karmayogi in Hindi was issued in Allahabad in September 1909: controlled by Sri Aurobindo, the Calcutta Karmayogi was edited by Amarendra Chatterjee who had introduced Rash Behari Bose to Sundar Lal. In 1915, Pingley will be received in Allahabad by the Swarajya group.224 Amarendra’s Bengali edition collapsed in 1910 after having published a violent letter. He adopted the guise of a monk. His next enterprise was the ‘Labour League’ (Shramajibi Samabaya), a flourishing Limited Liability Company, with the real object of defraying the expenses of the Nationalism project. In 1911, at Puri, he became the leader of a gang of sannyasis banded together to disseminate sedition. He was found selling a book entitled The Life of Aurobindo Ghose. In ‘A Note on the Ramakrishna Mission’, Charles Tegart recognized that flood relief in 1913 in the districts of Burdwan, Hooghly, and Midnapore ‘was eagerly seized upon by the revolutionary parties, both the Eastern and Western Bengal, who utilized the opportunity thus afforded to map out their future plans’. Describing Amarendra as an ‘exceedingly active and dangerous conspirator’ Tegart proved that the

The Thinker in Action

255

Mission financed him for these relief operations.225 Denham, in 1914, kept under observation for a considerable time Naren Bhattacharya’s mess on 133 Lower Circular Road in Calcutta, which was visited by Amarendra and Makhan Sen to confer with Jatin Mukherjee.226 In the same Report, dated 22 April 1914, Tegart states that even to date, the Ramakrishna Mission at Belur and its recognized branches were not entirely free objectionable features: For instance, on the seventy-ninth birthday anniversary of Ramakrishna, which was celebrated at Belur on the 1st of March last, in the presence of a very large gathering, it is reported that Amarendra Nath Chatterjee and Makhan Sen . . ., Jatindra Nath Mukherjee and other prominent members of the revolutionary party, were noticed feeding the poor and generally assisting the authorities of the Math in attending to the welfare of their visitors.227

In April, 1915, when Jatin Mukherjee agreed to leave Calcutta for Balasore, the first step up to Bagnan was to be looked after by Makhan Sen and Bepin Ganguli, while Amarendra and Ramchandra Majumdar supervised the expedition; they reminded the escorts: ‘Never forget that the Soul of Bengal is entrusted to you.’228 After spending a few days with the regional leader Atul Sen, headmaster of the local school, the party left with Pandit Hem Mukherjee for his village Kumar-Ada near Mahishadal. Then, via Balasore and Nilgiri, they reached Kaptipoda. At the top of a period of hectic preparations from the revolutionaries’ side, when on 7 August 1915, Denham searched Harry & Sons and the Shramajibi Samabaya, he had no warrant for arresting Amarendra, but warned the latter.’229 That was the last contact the police had with Amarendra before he absconded. Sealy’s Report would add: ‘In 1915 his very important share in the gun-running conspiracy [under Jatin Mukherjee] and its ramifications came to light but he disappeared and has completely baffled all efforts to trace him.’230 Disguised as a sannyasi, Amarendra went to Pondicherry to see Sri Aurobindo.

*

256

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

While giving a bird’s eye-view of the situation, W. Sealy in his long Report on Connections with the Revolutionary Organisation in Bihar and Orissa admits that early in 1915: hints of a combination between Indian seditionists and German agents in the Far East had reached India and in July of that year further information was received. An American steamer, chartered and manned by Germans, was said to be on its way from the Dutch East Indies, with a consignment of rifles, cartridges and powder, intended for the revolutionaries in India. . . . German agents in the Dutch Indies were found to be in communication with Indians in Calcutta. . . . Arms and ammunition were to be smuggled through Siam and Burma, Persia and Afghanistan and by sea via the Nicobar and Andaman Islands, in their last named case probably for landing at some selected spot on the Gangetic sea board or the Orissa coast. Indian troops in Burma and also the military police would rise and the natives of the Dutch East Indies were also to be incited to rise against the Dutch Government. . . . We are more immediately concerned with that part of the conspiracy which was connected with this province, namely, the attempt at gun-running, with all its ramifications and minor issues, a small but important part of which had its mise en scene in Balasore and the Feudatory States of Orissa.231

In his Report on Revolutionary Organisation Nixon refers to the presence of a mysterious German citizen named Meyer, appearing shortly before the War on the coast of Balasore: after having rented an island, he had been found making suspicious soundings around it. He disappeared from the neighbourhood soon after the War started. Investigation also showed that in the first week of August 1915, Saileswar Basu had undertaken a suspicious boat journey along the low river canal which follows the coast line of the district of Balasore to Chandbali, where the German Meyer formerly resided.

Enquiries showed that Naren Bhattacharya alias C.A. Martin had arrived at Balasore on 17 June 1915 and had received a visit there from Saileswar Basu.232

*

The Thinker in Action

257

When Nalini Kar—active partner in Jatin’s enterprise of constructions since 1911—was called back to Calcutta—most cordially he had recommended Manindra’s hospitality at Kaptipoda and asked Jatin’s lieutenants to name someone with whom he could return to see Manindra, to finalize the transfer of Jatin’s headquarters to Kaptipoda and to arrange for the leader’s stay. In the company of Naren Bhattacharya, Nalini Kar—known in the region as Gopal Ray—leased lands belonging to Maharaja Ramchandra Bhanja-Deo, son-in-law of Keshub Chander Sen, whom Khuro had met earlier. This locality was mentioned henceforth as GopalDiha where Nalini constructed for Jatin a large house with a spacious interior court and secondary huts as outbuildings. As a relay for verifying all visitors’ identity before leaving for Kaptipoda with adequate itinerary, Saileswar Basu was named by the party to open at the heart of Balasore—about 10 km off the beach—a branch of the commercial enterprise, the Shramajivi Samabaya of Calcutta: baptised Universal Emporium, this shop also served as relay for international messages received by Harry & Sons of Calcutta, the business farm where Shyamasundar, brother of Saileswar, assisted Harikumar Chakravarti.

* Gopal-Diha was situated on the verge of the forest that spreads up to the foot of the Meghasana chain of mountains in Mayurbhanj. During a reconnaissance Jatin Mukherjee— on the look out for a plateau dominating the landscape suitable for a trench fight—chose the twin hills of Dubhigarh: they were connected by a pier of about 10 m, made of rock and clay; according to popular belief, it was constructed by the Marathi army under Sivaji, and was accessible only on one side, that which hangs over the bushy pier. These two hills offered all the advantages of a natural fortress. On one summit of Dubhigarh, the flat enclosure could easily shelter a camp of five to six thousand guerrillas; two great pools formed by rain water could serve as abundant reservoirs.

258

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

This natural site would also be favourable for manufacturing explosives. Manindra regretted in the 1960s that protected as a reserve for wild animals, this site no longer contained as many varieties as previously, such as the lush shoots of bamboo that used to attract herds of wild elephants to this spot.233

* Presented to the villagers of the area as the hermit Ramananda Swami—dressed in an ochre tunic, symbol of renouncement to the world—Jatin Mukherjee ran a school for adults. His disciples, known here as Kalidas (Chittapriya Ray Chaudhuri), Sambhu (Nirendra Dasgupta), Yogananda (Manoranjan Sengupta) and Prabodh (Jyotish Pal) looked after a grocery store, cultivated their kitchen garden, received training in self-defence and Indian wrestling from the Guru, and accompanied him to the neighbouring river for ablutions. ‘Having to protect themselves against all possible attack of wild animals’, they practised also shooting and the use of other arms. Regularly, visitors came in batches with Gopal Ray—the ‘businessman whose boss Keshab Mukherjee had an important network of enterprises in London’234—and passed some days in the outbuildings. In addition to all these activities and discussions with the visitors, the Guru spent long hours conducting study classes for his disciples, mostly consisting of languages (Bengali and English). Till late in the night, when everybody retired, the Guru sat writing. Every afternoon, at sunset, Jatin Mukherjee meditated after reciting the Gita and explaining it to his disciples. Witness of these unforgettable sessions, Nalini Kar wrote: ‘The Gita was the very object of his life. Under the grove of the towering sala trees, seated on the rocky bed of Nature, when he uttered the verses of the Gita with his generous voice, from his intent and solemn face emanated an ineffable, radiant joy. We forgot ourselves, on contemplating this exceptional beauty.’235 One evening, towards the end of his stay in Kaptipoda, coming out from his meditation, Jatin seized Manindra’s hand and drew

The Thinker in Action

259

his attention to the top of a tree: ‘Do you see, there? Krishna is looking at us, smiling!’ Though incapable of having a divine vision, Manindra was overpowered by that beatific touch.236 Born in a family of great esoteric seekers, young Chittapriya had asked Jatin: ‘Can the service to the Motherland lead us truly to our spiritual realization?’ With a beaming smile of conviction, Jatin had replied: ‘Otherwise, I would have been the last to participate in this task. Here lies our most sacred spiritual mission.’

* Before setting out for the Far East, Naren Bhattacharya— after having brought to his colleagues at Calcutta the good news of Jatin Mukherjee’s settling at Kaptipoda and the exact mode of getting orders from Balasore for the route to Kaptipoda—returned there to receive blessings from his guru. With a passport issued in the name of A. Martin, he arrived at Batavia (Djakarta) on 30 April, and was welcomed by Erich Windels, the German Consul, who presented him to the brothers Helfferich, Theodor and Emil, officially designated by the German government to deal with the Maverick project. In addition to their family plantations, the Helfferichs looked after a flourishing business there; as manager of the Behn Meyers Company, Theodor took down from Naren detailed instructions sent by Jatin Mukherjee concerning the delivery of the Maverick consignment. He noted also the addresses of Harry & Sons and of Shramajibi Samabaya at Calcutta for all urgent communications. Satisfied with his trip to Batavia, on 15 May 1915, Naren sent a telegram to Harikumar (Harry & Sons) from Weltevreden, Java: ‘Sugar business helpful. Martin’. Having probably made a detour by China, on 29 May he sent another message to Calcutta: ‘Back here; business good; sugar contracted; shipment after 2 weeks; anxious for affairs there. Wire. Martin.’ having received from the Helfferichs a first remittance of Rs. 43,000, Naren worked out with Abdur Salam—a Kashmiri actively involved in the Extremists’ project—to transfer a great portion of this

260

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

money to Harry & Sons through the intermediary of the firm Chotirmull & Co, belonging to Sindhi tradesmen and, having branch offices in the Far East.237 Reaching the port of Negapattam on 14 June, 1915, then Madras on the following day, Naren tried to cash a draft of Rs. 18,000 ‘in the name of S.A. Martin, Esq., or bearer’ at the National Bank of Madras. Mr. Griffiths, cashier of the Bank, not having received as yet the necessary instruction from Batavia, asked him to come back on the day after, and communicated his description to G.S. Denham, Chief of the Central Police: Appeared to be, almost certainly a Bengali; age about 23-25 years; height about 5'6" or 5'7"; fairly well-built and having a slim and wiry appearance; thin face and hair cut in European fashion; noticeably dark complexion; clean-shaven; good-looking; sharp features; talked English very well and appeared to be a thoroughly bright and intelligent person; wore European clothes similar to those worn in India in the hot weather.

This same day, Naren addressed a telegram to Jadu Gopal: ‘Arrived here, starting tonight for Balasore, expect to see someone there. White.’ 238 Having dramatically poured at Jatin’s feet the content of a purse—a heap of gold coins—Naren gave him an account of decisions taken in Batavia. After two days of rest in Kaptipoda, Naren took from Balasore the train for Calcutta, carrying the leader’s instructions. In Calcutta, through the mediation of the intrepid Meghamala Basu, Naren could sell the gold coins, while waiting for the cashing of the aforementioned draft. In addition to the ‘scent’ of these transactions, the police intercepted, on 5 August 1915, a telegram from Harry & Sons to Chotirmull of Batavia, asking for 10,000 bags of sugar—meaning Rs. 10,000 and receiving confirmation of remittance from Batavia to the Chartered Bank of Calcutta. In the meantime, delegated by the Helfferichs, Kumud Mukherjee, arrived in Calcutta, met Naren and Jadu Gopal who, immediately, went to consult Jatin in Kaptipoda, before

The Thinker in Action

261

Kumud left for Bangkok via Batavia on 24 July. On reaching Batavia, Kumud learnt about the failure of the Maverick expedition (seized by the Allies at the Port Tandjong Priole, near Batavia). He sent to Naren a cutting from the Penang Times notifying this tragedy. When Jadu Gopal and Naren brought this sad news to Kaptipoda, Jatin laughed heartily and, as if it was nothing serious, exclaimed: ‘The salvation of our Motherland must come from within. We were following the wrong track.’239 Anxious to renew the efforts of organizing other deliveries, Naren—in company of Phani Chakravarti (alias Pyne)—went to see Jatin, on 15 August 1915, before leaving for Batavia once more. On hearing him say: ‘I will not again return without arms’, Jatin answered, ‘Come back soon, with or without arms’.240

* After about six months spent like a recluse in the forest of Kaptipoda, Jatin attained presumably a perspicacity about the situation: initiator and co-author of the freedom movement by the side of Sri Aurobindo, animated by the vision and the teaching of Vivekananda, Jatin had prepared a generation of patriots for a revolution. He had attained the phase of the guerrilla; he had created an opinion all over the world in favour of India’s thirst for her political liberty; he had taught the people how to organize themselves. Now a movement of the mass was imminent. Feeling no more indispensable, already noticing some of his ambitious associates coveting leadership unconsciously, Jatin only had two choices before him, to either retire as a hermit, bequeathing his succession to a comrade, or else, flaring up like a torch, to do away with this life in guerrilla warfare, stimulating for the last time the popular imagination and blasting definitely in the Indian subconscience the multiple knots of fear, of pent-up violence, of inertia acting as pretext for a refusal of activity. When, fatally jagged by the attacking tiger, in 1906, Jatin had read, on the

262

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

face of his near relatives, the grief and the resignation to let him die peacefully, he had protested, knowing that such a petty death was not for him. Come back to life, when he had had enough of the prudent voices coming from all sides, reminding him about his duties towards his family, Jatin riposted: ‘And if I died following the injuries inflicted by the tiger? Or, suppose that I die before you of a cholera epidemic, what will you do? If I have come back to life, Fate will reserve for me a more worthy, a more useful end. Know that my near ones are not only those who surround me since my birth; my family is the whole of humanity, my home is the universe.’241 Struck by famine, by cholera, bitten by snakes during their forest life in Kaptipoda, Jatin and his valiant disciples informed the other members of the Party, on visit, about their intention to court death heroically, in a guerrilla operation.

* According to the leader’s wishes, Manindra Chakravarti subscribed to the Calcutta daily papers in order to remain informed of the political developments. Thus Jatin learnt that on 7 August 1915, there was a police raid at Harry & Sons, arresting Harikumar and his associates. A fact that Naren corroborated before his second departure for Batavia. Foreseeing the end of their exile approaching fast, Jatin sent Nalini Kar with a message for his Calcutta headquarters: whatever may happen, they were to hold good, to disperse as soon as possible, while waiting to reorganize for further action. ‘It is with our death that we are going to make of India a Nation!’ he told Jadu Gopal. Contrary to the prophets of a unique and definitive uprising, Jatin believed in a gradual evolution of national awareness, preceding a movement of the mass. Reginald Kilby (the District Magistrate and Collector of Balasore) in his Deposition noted that early in the morning of 5 September, he directed the Superintendent of Police to collect armed constables and conduct a search of the Universal Emporium in Balasore town. Godfrey Charles Denham, DIG

The Thinker in Action

263

of the Central Intelligence Department, Leslie Newman Bird, and Charles Augustus Tegart, Commissioners of Police in Calcutta, had arrived by the midnight train on 4 August to hunt for the ‘brain’ of an international organization working against the Empire. Saileshwar Basu was arrested, along with his assistant Nimai Chakravarti and Narayan Brahmachari inspector of the Excise Department. On a clue, Tegart got restless to set out at once for Kaptipoda, fifty kilometres from Balasore. Kilby took up the responsibility of the expedition by summoning reinforcements from Mayurbhanj. The milkman of the Kaptipada ran to warn Jatin on the evening of 6 September, that an English delegation composed of an armed detachment in automobiles and on elephants, had arrived. A servant of the Raja of Kaptipoda—having carried the dinner for the guests at the bungalow—went to inform Jatin that the sahibs had come from Calcutta and were going to have a meeting with the local police authorities that very evening. In the dark, Jatin approached the bungalow and saw with his own eyes who the visitors were. Bhima, the local helping hand, had been ill since a few days; Jatin had personally nursed and looked after him. Having often met Jatin’s usual visitors and overheard their conversations, Bhima was quite aware of the nature of the mission but, disclosed nothing to the police. Shedding tears, he wished all the best to Jatin and his associates. While taking leave of Manindra, at about 10 p.m., the latter reminded them that if they took the route leading to the Meghasana hills across the Nilgiri jungles, they would be beyond the reach of the police. Jatin’s reply was: ‘I am going to face the situation as it stands.’ In spite of persistent rain, another local man, Suduria, particularly attached to Sadhubaba, proposed to lead Jatin and his party through the forest that night.

* On the night of 6 September, Kilby ‘wrote a letter to the Subdivisional Officer of Mayurbhanj in whose jurisdiction

264

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Kaptipoda lies. He turned up about 7 a.m. on the 7th.’ On reaching a house in the jungle, the officers surrounded it. The doors of the two rooms were broken open. They were empty. ‘We found books in English, some powder. . . . We reached a neighbouring house belonging to Manindra Chakravarti,’ declared Kilby. After interrogation, at about 1 p.m. the police took to searching Manindra’s house. Nobody in the region had ever before seen such a concentration of armed police led by Englishmen on elephants. Manindra was told that the government was going to confiscate all his belongings. Leaving Denham to make a more detailed search of the deserted house, Bird and Kilby returned to Balasore. Under Kilby’s orders, the Superintendent of Police took measures to patrol the Trunk Road and guard the railway stations. Manindra understood that the search at Jatin’s residence having led to no concrete finding, the authorities were desperate. Full of concern for the five revolutionaries, Manindra had gone to bed late in the evening, when he seemed to hear Jatin’s voice behind his window. Manindra asked Jatin once more to take refuge in the fortress of Meghasana because, everywhere else, police armed to the teeth looked for him. Recovering some of his weapons and a little money out of what he had given to Manindra, Jatin told him, before disappearing: ‘The time of hiding to protect our lives is over. We are going to die fighting.’242 Early in the morning of 8 September, Jatin and his four associates arrived at the station of Balasore, bought five tickets, settled inside the first train, then having judged it too empty to be a normal train, got off, heading for the rice fields at the west of the railway.

* According to witnesses cross-examined by T.S. Macpherson, ICS,243 after about sixty hours of non-stop running through the muddy furrows and the thorny bushes without rest, without food—other than jute leaves—the five revolutionaries stopped, on the strand of the river Bura Balam, in the district

The Thinker in Action

265

of Balasore. Soaked by rain, numbed by this strained chase, they asked Sanai Sahu, the boatmen of the Gobindapur village, to ferry them across. Alerted about the presence of five dangerous bandits and the high reward for their heads, the whole region watched the least signs to capture the malefactors. Having finally crossed the river at Nalpur Ghat on Duli Majhi’s boat, the five revolutionaries were about to return to the pathless jungle, southwards, when the villagers at Bhagua—more and more swelling into a crowd, more and more emboldened—stopped their advance. Thus surrounded, the revolutionaries tried to pave a passage; this triggered a chorus of frightened howling: ‘Arrest them. The bandits are here! The bandits!’ Jatin told them what it was about, that there was a mistake; they were not bandits. Jostled by the crowd towards the police station, the revolutionaries were constrained to whip out pistols from under their clothes to intimidate them. Taking advantage of an obstructed passage thus created, the revolutionaries moved on northwards along the embankment. The temptation of a reward of a few thousands of rupees had made some of the villagers forget their usual distrust. They followed the party maintaining a safe distance of about hundred yards. At Biro Babu’s Ghat, Raju Mohanti called out, ‘Let us catch them!’ In Dumda village, as soon as they started harrying Jatin, Manoranjan shot Raju dead. Thanks to the crowd’s momentary daze, the revolutionaries ran northbound, along the Mayurbhanj Road. Arriving at Sahupara and exhausted by this pursuit, they sat under a karanja tree to breathe a while. Before the very eyes of the approaching crowd, they loaded their arms. After crossing the road, about hundred yards farther, they sat down once more, under a tamarind tree, in the paddy field, for resting a while. In the mean time, some villagers had warned the Sub-Inspector Chintamani Sahu at the police station and some others had gone to the centre of Balasore to alert the Superintendent of the armed police. Chittapriya, Manoranjan, Niren, as yet in their teens, by

266

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

their own merits and their patriotic devotion, had been promoted to looking after Jatin’s security. They liked to boast: ‘We know only Dada and gada.’244 Once again they requested the leader to flee in the name of the Revolution, without worrying for them. Jyotish Pal, slightly older than the others, joined them and advised Jatin that by escaping from these dangerous and humiliating circumstances, he could better pursue the struggle against imperialism. But Jatin was adamant: a sacrifice was badly needed for the emerging mass movement. What he was looking for was a vantage point dominating the vast paddy fields and marshes all around. While waiting for the police, who would not be long to turn up, having found the associates exhausted, hungry, thirsty—Jatin advised them to look for a little snack in the grocery store nearby. Having no small change and impatient to leave the place, they paid the grocer with a ten-rupee note—a fabulous sum for a few handfuls of puffed rice—and, again, sat down behind a bush with the leader, to swallow quickly their first morsel of food after more than sixty-five hours of running. But before they could gulp the mouthful, they saw the grocer at the head of the aggressive crowd charging in their direction, waving gallows and clubs with the screams of Bandits, arrest the bandits! stop them from fleeing! Back on their feet, the revolutionaries resumed their race. But surrounded by the crowd under the instruction of a few armed policemen, they found it difficult to advance. At this juncture, an inspector of police caught hold of Jatin and was catapulted like a stone. The inspector’s fate served as a lesson to the crowd who, amazed, yielded a passage for the revolutionaries to escape, when other policemen were reminded about the thousands of rupees as reward for capturing these bandits. This renewed enthusiasm required some more blank fires on behalf of the revolutionaries, without wounding anyone. Proceeding eastward across the paddy fields, they hurried to the Amurthi River, which was about 50 m wide. The fugitives placed guns and clothes upon their heads and swam across. Chintamani and a few villagers, too, swam across and followed the

The Thinker in Action

267

party southward to the Grand Trunk (Jagannath) Road. The patriots, took up a position upon the slightly raised ridge of an old silted up tank in the village of Chasakhand called Daswa-Garia which commands the flat country around. They also took advantage of the cover afforded by one of the high anthills characteristic of the district and by a thick shrub or bush facing west or southwest which grows upon the anthill with a breadth of about two and half yards. The Sub-Inspector kept them in view and took up a position at some distance from them, eventually raising a flag as a signal to a European cyclist on the Grand Trunk Road to the south, who proved to be the District Magistrate, Mr Kilby,

informs Macpherson in his Judgment. Hiding behind it, the revolutionaries loaded their deadliest weapons: the Mauser pistols righted into very long range rifles.

* In his declaration, Kilby noted that on returning from Kaptipoda on the eve, he had been preparing with the armed police a massive operation against the fugitives: ‘On the 9th September, about 2 p.m., the Superintendent of Police came to my house and informed me that the five Bengalis had shot one villager and wounded another. I directed him to collect the armed police, and myself went to ask permission of the Proof Officer to use his motor car.’ Joined by Major Freath, his superior, ‘Sergeant Rutherford offered to drive the car, and I accepted his services. The armed constables having collected at my gate, we despatched some in a two-horse carriage. . . . The Superintendent of Police followed in his own motor car with some more constables.’ According to Rutherford’s deposition, he asked Mr Kilby what the orders were: ‘He said that they were going after five armed men and there might be trouble. . . . He said, “Certainly you may fire if they fire upon you. . .” I accompanied the Magistrate and six or seven armed police and a villager as

268

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

guide in the proof car.’ Kilby adds that at a spot—some two hundred metres beyond the crossing of Mayurbhanj Road and Trunk Road, they left the cars at Kalua Ghat; after ferrying them across, the guide took them by the Mayurbhanj Road for some 3 km. Then a policeman in the station informed them that the five fugitives that we looked for were seen on the right through the jungle. Kilby then divided up the constables: ‘Half of them with Rutherford in charge, I directed to continue, marching along the Mayurbhanj Road.’ With the remainder, he turned back to the junction of the roads, met a policeman with a bicycle which he took: ‘I then cycled on ahead along the Trunk Road, and directed the constables to follow me.’ Beyond a gutter crossing the road, on his left, Kilby saw a villager run towards him, shouting: ‘They are over there!’ Kilby understood that the revolutionaries were there. Persons collected round a flag pointed out the place. It was about four hundred metres from the persons; they were not then firing. Advancing about 100 m, Kilby sat down with the constables, dismissing the villagers. Then he saw Rutherford with his men approaching from west to east; they came up ‘frightfully out of breath’. Rutherford declares that on arriving there, he found Kilby with his party lying down in the paddy field. When questioned about what was best to do, Rutherford advised Kilby to open out and advance in extended order so as to surround the jungle. In formation, they made about 50 m more. Rutherford took the extreme right flank, while Kilby was on the left, with constables to his left, as well as between them. Having described this pincer movement, Kilby mentions: ‘It was quite light then. Yes, you could quite easily see 400 or 500 yards—it was full day light when they fired on us. We lay down. . . . I heard the shots passing by us. We then crawled forward. . . . I gave orders to fire.’ Rutherford reports: In order to get a view of the men behind the bush, I had circled round to the right. . . . A good many shots whistled past me and the

The Thinker in Action

269

coolie who was with me. . . . I got up and went fifty yards farther to the right to a spot where cover was better. . . . Presently a man got up and fired in my direction, and I returned his fire, but my shot fell short, striking in the mud. . . .

In possession of these depositions and other documents preserved at the National and State Archives of Orissa and West Bengal, after Independence, Bhupendra Kumar Datta— accompanied by Professor Nirmal Kumar Bose (Gandhiji’s Secretary), Upendra Ghose (pleader who defended the revolutionaries), Manindra Chakravarti and some other notable men—went to investigate on the spot. Their enquiries revealed a good deal of overtones and undertones deliberately left out by the blunt and the ‘matter-of-fact’ reports. It is surmised that these two Englishmen, though honest, had to make concession to the authorities’ refusal to grant Jatin Mukherjee any due recognition by posterity. A Hero in the context of a country ‘reeking with sedition’ was sure to find a place in the hearts of the citizens and become a martyr in the most sacred sense of the word. Therefore the official documents have been suspected of omissions (suppressing the exact number of casualty on the government side), additions (that the revolutionaries went on firing while the armed police advanced), exaggerations (the number of villagers killed by the fugitives) and under-statements (the real strategy adopted by Jatin and his associates since their taking a position behind the anthills on the raised land). . . . But, as far as the topographical details are concerned, they are remarkably accurate. Kilby’s observation of the natural trench that Jatin had selected for the pitched battle betrays a rare exactitude: As to the place whence the firing against us came, I could not see the persons firing. All I could see were four bushes which appeared in a line, and the firing obviously came from behind. When I got to the place, I found they were not really in a line, but dotted about, and they were white-ant heaps with bushes growing upon them . . . about the height of a man, or perhaps four feet. The anthills stand on the embankment of an old tank. The embankment is slightly rising above the level of the surrounding country. . . .

270

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Rutherford brings in further precisions about the bush which ‘was a very thick one, like a holly bush, and about two and half yards in length’. Datta and Bose held that the revolutionaries found the anthills convenient so as to serve as a trench forming an obtuse angle. It would prove suitable for them to aim at both the wings of the enemy forces. They waited until the enemy came within the range of their Mauser pistols. The opponents crawled forward. Then went off a shower of bullets. In the very situation just described, casualties were bound to be numerous in the opponents’ ranks. But they enjoyed the convenient position to let them go unrecorded at least to the public and to the Court.

In fact, Jatin the strategist has been believed to have deluded his enemies into thinking ‘that his party had no long-range fire-arms, and so drew them well within his firing range. When the soldiers were about to climb the hillock, he riddled them with a volley of bullets. The firing continued from behind the termite-hill, decimating the enemy ranks, till the Police had even to retreat.245 Though laconic, Datta continues: They then fired from both sides. The operation went on with intermittent firings from both the wings. The enemy did not advance. Then Chittapriya stood up. . . . He wanted to take a proper aim. Whether he succeeded or not remained unknown. But a rifle bullet pierced through his jaw and throat. He fell dead.’ Jatin was seriously wounded in the abdomen; on kneeling down, he had taken the young martyr’s head on his lap and continued to shoot with both hands. A bullet came to crush his right elbow and the fingers of the left hand. Jyotish—busy loading the firearms—suddenly realized that the stock of cartridges was almost exhausted. According to Datta, the revolutionaries tried to open the Gladstone bag they had been carrying. But the key was not to be found. Manoranjan tried all means, but the leather proved too strong. Datta lays stress on the fact that the government records made practically no mention of the Gladstone bag; he believes that the omission was

The Thinker in Action

271

intentional, with a view to deceive future historians. Anyway, judging from the nature of Jatin’s wounds, Manoranjan and Niren decided to stop firing. Thus ended an unequal battle of five revolutionaries surrounded by at least eighty armed policemen and officers; the battle lasted for about seventy-five minutes. Jyotish was bleeding profusely, as well as Niren and Manoranjan. The latter laid down his arms, ran to the pond, drenched a tip of his dhoti to sprinkle water on the face of the leader, mortally wounded. Ready to die, Jatin turned towards his associates and murmured: ‘Chitta has left. I will leave soon. You who will remain, inform all our compatriots that we were not bandits. Our death will teach them how to live with dignity!’ We find the thread of the developments in Rutherford’s declaration: ‘Presently I saw one of our opponents come out in my line of right, and he appeared to be scooping water in his hands from the paddy land. I did not fire because he had no fire-arms. . . . Almost immediately after the water-carrier came out, two men came out from behind the bush, facing me unarmed. They called out in a perfect English: ‘Don’t fire, Sir, we surrender!’ Then, according to Kilby, I saw two men outside the bushes quite below the embankment of the tank, who were standing and holding up their hands. Then I jumped up and shouted: ‘Cease fire!’ Then I went forward as fast I could and shouted out to Sergeant Rutherford who was approaching from a different side and was nearer to our opponents than I was: ‘Look out. There are three more!’. . .

Rutherford narrates: I had got up to the two prisoners by that time and I called out to Mr Kilby to send some constables to take charge of them. I asked the two prisoners where the other three were. They said, ‘One is killed and other two wounded’. I asked them where their arms were. They said, ‘We have laid them on one side’. Meantime the constables had come up, and I left the two prisoners [Nirendra Dasgupta and Manoranjan Sengupta] in charge of the constables.

272

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Kilby’s reactions are more humane than those of Rutherford’s: I went forward as fast as I could, and crossed the embankment, and found one man lying dead and two men badly wounded. All men were lying behind that anthill. . . . I don’t remember noticing weapons when I first arrived. . . . Shortly afterwards I saw three big mauser pistols and one small mauser pistol lying on the ground near the dead man and the wounded men. [Exhibits II/a,/b,/c, and Exhibit III]… There was also a great deal of mauser ammunition, which was in clips. I don’t remember if there was an ammunition bag. . . .

The Judgement by the Macpherson Commission does mention ‘a dozen clips containing ten rounds each of Mauser ammunition, and some loose rounds. In all, about 139 unspent rounds including ammunition for Exhibit III. The Judgement continues: Sergeant Rutherford was meantime examining the pistols. He found on taking up Exhibit III which is a 6.35 automatic Mauser pistol that he did not understand the complicated mechanism of the loading. Seeing this, accused Nirendra who had previously mentioned that the pistols were loaded, came from the side of the wounded man Jyotish and said, ‘Give it to me, Sir, I’ll show you’. In spite of the consternation of the Head Constable (Witness 33) who immediately came to the charge, Sergeant Rutherford handed over the weapon and Nirendra unloaded it. . . . Manoranjan handed over a watch, and the purse of the party was found to contain Rs. 11-13-7½.246

Rutherford in his statement admitted that he had never had, in his life, access to automatic pistols and revolvers of such a high technical complexity. Till then, the prisoners had not been bound and their hands and feet were free. In reply to Jatindra’s wish, Manoranjan was allowed to sit down and take Jatindra’s head on his lap, while Nirendra went to nurse Jyotish. The Judgement informs that Manoranjan asked the Head Constable who was holding Jatindra’s hand, what his caste was, and the reply was Sikh. Jatindra thereupon claimed

The Thinker in Action

273

him as a brother and asked him if he would carry him to Balasore. The reply was that as a brother he would certainly do so, even if it were on his head. Kilby stated before the Court that while Rutherford was looking after Jatindra’s elbow, on hearing that Jatindra was thirsty, The first thing I did was to fetch some water in my hat from the jhil (pond) nearby for the wounded, I gave it to them and they drank it. I told some villagers who had arrived to fetch beds for the wounded, but as they showed no signs of complying, I took a party of constables and brought three beds (charpais) from a village a mile distant. We put the corpse and the wounded upon the beds and directed them to be brought to Balasore.

On the way to Balasore, Jatin had indicated to the Head Constable the site of a tree, not far from a pool close to the railway station of Balasore, where he had deposited a packet of important documents which mattered a good deal for him; the man agreed to recover it. On the same evening, the officer went to verify if the documents in question were there and found that the villagers had already discovered there the belongings of the fugitives and, having appropriated their money and clothes, had remitted an envelope to the police Inspector Khusnavis (Witness 35). Kilby was informed by the Superintendent of Police that a bundle had been found at Balasore. ‘He brought a bundle wrapped up in a blanket and a packet of papers . . . the packet of papers was tied up loosely in this plain piece of paper (Exhibit VII). These are the papers (Exhibit VII/a, /b, /c). I initialled them at that time.’ Later, we shall examine the content of the papers.

* Intimated by Kilby, the chief surgeon of Balasore hospital with his staff waited for the arrival of the convoy. In torrential rain, during the journey, Kilby had removed his own coat and covered Jatin; worried about the hero’s state, Kilby wanted to know if he could, personally, do anything for him.

274

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

According to the Judgement, Jatin alleged that he was himself responsible for whatever had happened, and commended Nirendra and Manoranjan with the words, ‘See that no injustice is done to them under the British Raj’. . . . He knew that Chittapriya was dead and must have considered from the nature of his wounds that his own career was closed and probably also that of Jyotish.

At about 11 p.m., a procession of policemen and rubbernecks stopped before the Government Hospital in Balasore. A military convoy came with the three stretchers and took the two prisoners up to the verandah of the hospital. An armed surveillance was placed around the establishment. The old and experienced Surgeon Khan Bahadur Daodar Rahman, attended by his assistant (Surgeon Ganguli), a lady doctor, two pharmacists, four specialized nurses, three chamber-boys and two sweepers waited for the injured fugitives. Jatin was admitted to the Emergency Ward.247 Doctor Rahman started by examining Jatin. He ‘had the thumb and first and second metacarpal bones of his left hand smashed. . . . Shock and haemorrhage caused by a gunshot wound in the intestines from which the bullet (Exhibit VIII) had been extracted. . . . Both bullets were .303 service ammunition.’ (Judgement) Wounded at the bottom of the stomach and near the navel, he was still bleeding; he was vomiting blood: ‘It seemed that the last act had just been played’, writes Dr. Ganguli. The curtain was about to fall. Niren and Manoranjan, after first aid, were driven to jail. Jyotish made a speedy recovery. Under the surveillance of nurses and sentries, he was admitted to a single room. And Jatin was removed to the operation theatre. Magistrate Kilby accompanied him there. Moved by the hero’s suffering, he ordered some lemonade, to soothe the reversed peristalsis that caused the vomiting of blood. But it was in vain. From time to time, every ten to fifteen minutes, Jatin withdrew his consciousness. The Surgeon verified whether he could physically undergo the operation. In his preoperative declaration, Jatin reiterated

The Thinker in Action

275

his wish that no harm would occur to the surviving associates, because they were mere boys, and innocent: ‘I alone am responsible for all that has been done’. With another fit of cough, Jatin vomited blood. ‘Strange!,’ he exclaimed with a smile ‘Still so much blood left? Fortunately every drop of it has been shed in the Mother’s worship. It can never end in a failure.’

* The operation was successful. In the morning of 10 September, accompanied by Denham, Bird, Rutherford, Kilby and the Major Freath, Charles Tegart, came to pay visit to Jatin. In a cheerful voice, Jatin greeted him: ‘Good morning, Mr. Tegart. I am glad we meet again. I am leaving shortly. Look after the boys. See that justice is done to them.’ In reply to Tegart’s question, ‘May I do anything for you, Mr Mukherjee?’ Jatin thanked him with a smile: ‘All is over. Good bye!’ Tegart wanted to be alone with Jatin for a while. Shortly after he left, Jatin’s bandages and stitches were found in shreds. It is surmised that Jatin himself tore them off, keeping in mind his sister Vinodebala Debi’s warning: ‘Take care so that we may never have to hear that the Lion has been snared.’ Others will remember of this mysterious episode, almost fifteen years later when, Tegart clandestinely visited the hospital ward where Benoy Bose, one of the three who raided the Writers’ Building, was lying unconscious, and personally aggravated the wound in such a manner that the chances of Binoy’s survival became remote.248 No one could hold Jatindra Nath Mukherjee anymore. Stone walls could not make a prison for him. He breathed his last. Out of respect for a hero’s passing, all British and Indian officers who were present, jointly paid their homage to this patriot.249 Deshabandhu Chittaranjan Das—famous lawyer and nationalist leader—observed, with his family, a ritual mourning during one month. ‘We have just wasted a shaligram

276

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

shila’.250 In his Introduction to Terrorism in Bengal, vol. III, p. viii, Samanta writes that among the Tegart Papers, preserved in the South Asian Study Centre Archives, Cambridge University, there is a book entitled Revolutionaries in Bengal by Hemanta Kumar Sarkar (intimate friend of Netaji Subhas Bose) published in 1923; on page 56 is recorded a conversation, that took place soon after the Balasore gun-battle in 1915: ‘When the late Mr J.N. Ray, Barrister-at-Law asked Mr Tegart whether Jatin had been living, Mr Tegart replied, ‘Unfortunately he is dead’. Mr Ray remarked, ‘Why unfortunately?’ Mr Tegart is reported to have said, ‘Though I had to do my duties, I have a great admiration for him. He was the only Bengali who died in an open fight from a trench.’ Samanta adds: ‘In the margin there is a check mark, presumably by Tegart himself and such a mark, instead of a note of interrogation, indicates that the story may be true.’ It was widely believed that Tegart had killed Jatindranath Mukherjee. From that time onward Tegart was a target of the revolutionaries: to avenge Jatin’s death, in 1924, Gopinath Saha assassinated an Englishman, mistaking him to be Tegart.251 Informed about Jatin’s untimely death, Rabindranath Tagore said, ‘Such a death is of no mean significance for our country in bondage. But, what about Jatin’s life-long sadhana?’

* Hardinge in his telegram of 15 September 1915 informs Austen Chamberlain (Secretary of State For Indian Affairs): Bengali first killed turns out to be well-known absconding political criminal Jatin Mukherjee, probably most active and dangerous of all Bengal revolutionaries. . . . Evidence shows that this party of five Bengalis was concerned in German Plot for sending arms to India in association with others of their party some of whom have been arrested during past month.252

Chamberlain cabled back, ‘I presume that every precaution

The Thinker in Action

277

has been taken to prevent disclosure through the press’. In another letter to Hardinge, dated 29 October, Chamberlain assured: ‘Thank you for the Papers about the German Arms Plot. I shall have them put away under lock and key in our secret department.’253 No archives in India or in the UK could as yet determine where they are.

* In the court of the Commissioner appointed by the Lieutenant Governor of Bihar and Orissa in Council, under Section 4 of the Act IV of 1915, presided over by judge T.S. Macpherson (ICS), the honourable Nimaicharan Mitra and Dayanidhi Das (Commissioner) opened the trial in October 1915, to judge Nirendra (alias Narendra) Dasgupta, Manoranjan Sengupta and Jyotish Chandra Pal. On 7 October a first series of charges was tried (Sections 221, 222, 223, Code of Criminal Procedure). Then, on 16 October came up other charges under Section 302 read with Sections 34, 114 and 149 of the Indian Penal Code, and under Section 20 of the Arms Act XI of 1871. The Barrister P.C. Manuk and Public Prosecutor T.N. Bose represented the Crown. The patriotic Barrister Nishith Chandra Sen of Calcutta, along with three bold pleaders—Anandacharan Das (Nirendra’s uncle, from Madaripur), Upendranath Ghosh and Rajani Kanta Ganguli (both from Balasore)—defended the three revolutionaries. The verdict of the Commission was pronounced on 16 October 1915. Niren and Manoranjan were accused of having assisted Jatin up to the death and ‘prepared to go any length to safeguard him’; of having deliberately chosen as adults—in spite of ‘the advantage of respectable birth and fair education . . . a path which could only have one ending.’ They were condemned to hang. Having, each, increased their weight for about seven to eight pounds during their captivity, on 22 November, 1915, serenely they mounted the gallows. Following Jatindra’s final wish—to inform the people of Balasore that they were not

278

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

bandits—Nirendra wrote a summary of their mission and action in ‘soul-stirring’ English. It was fervent in its patriotic appeal, ending with Down with the British Raj in India!, and with the heart-felt cry of Bande Mataram. All the British officials present at the ceremony were seen ‘plugging their ears with handkerchiefs’.254 Unable to prove the complicity of Jyotish Chandra Pal, the Counsel for the Crown condemned him to transportation for life. Deported to the Andamans, he suffered a few years of moral and physical torture at the Cellular Jail where he met some of his old colleagues, sentenced in the Alipore Case along with Barin Ghose and others. Upendranath Banerjee in his memoirs of the Andamans speaks of Jyotish. Half insane, Jyotish was brought back to Bengal ‘for a more kindly treatment at the Berhampore jail’. In his moments of lucidity, with smuggled bits of charcoal, he is known to have narrated on the walls of his solitary cell the saga of Jatindranath Mukherjee, a hero that he had known since his childhood in Nadia and had become his household member, as a partner in Jatindra’s enterprise of construction. Jatindra’s children knew him as Chak-kaka (the Uncle-wheel) because Jyotish hailed from a family of potters. Shattered in his physical and mental health, while Jyotish announced to his wife and his little daughter the happy news that he was going to be released, a cabled condolence informed them that he died in the jail on 4 December 1924, ‘after having suffered from a sudden illness’.

* The Judgement of the Macpherson Commission narrates: Finally what are palpably the papers regarding which Manoranjan and Jatindra immediately after their capture exhibited such serious concern, (they) have been recovered. . . . The papers consist of two pencil drafts and the fair copy of extremely inflammatory political article, inciting to action towards the overthrow of British rule in India by taking advantage of the entanglement of Britain in the Great European war, and the fair copy is entitled The Children of

The Thinker in Action

279

the Mother India: The Voice of a Devotee. One of the drafts is found in a notebook in which the writer also corrected English compositions of another person. . . . There can be no question that these inflammatory papers were found at the place which Manoranjan and Jatindra described to the Head Constable as that where the cover was, which was a matter of utmost concern to them.

During the trial of Nirendra, Manoranjan and Jyotish, the lawyer Upendranath Ghosh often heard about ‘those writings of Jatin Mukherjee’ that circulated among the members of the Viceroy’s Council. Mr. Ryland (Inspector General of Police) asked lawyer Ghosh if he had had knowledge of these writings. And, Ryland added: ‘You will see, what a lofty ideology they contain and what a master mind Jatin was!’ And lawyer Ghosh, during an interview with Bhupendra Kumar Datta, remembered another remark of Ryland’s concerning Jatin Mukherjee: ‘Were this man living, he might lead the world.’255 This anticipated Sri Aurobindo’s description of Jatin Mukherjee: ‘A wonderful man. He was a man who would belong to the front rank of humanity anywhere. Such beauty and strength together I haven’t seen, and his stature was like a warrior’s.’256 Elsewhere, Sri Aurobindo acknowledged Jatin Mukherjee to have been his ‘right-hand man’.257 II.3.3. Letters of Jatin Mukherjee

Informed of the police search at Harry & Sons in Calcutta on 7 August 1915, Jatin sent Nalinikanta Kar to Jadu Gopal with a brief but eloquent instruction: ‘No question of capitulating. It is worth dying in a guerrilla warfare, by small groups, while waiting for the national involvement in the uprising.’ Nalini had seized this opportunity to ask Jatin if there was any message for Vinodebala and Indubala. But Jatin had preferred to send them an oral message; hence the two letters that Jatin had gave him in May, seem to be his only written intimation to them during his clandestine life in Balasore. These letters, with about ten others, represent the only writings of Jatin Mukherjee (without speaking of the

280

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

above-mentioned official letters). Copied a thousand times, some passages of these letters circulated in hiding among the ranks of the nationalist militants, to the point of becoming models of the thought and the writing for revolutionaries during several generations. ‘Basically, any revolutionary movement’, confirms Arun Chandra Guha (himself, brought up with this Jugantar spirit and having been one of the leaders of important actions), secret or open, violent or non-violent, is not a normal movement; so its methods and practices pay little consideration to normal social conventions, laws and customs. Unless one has high degree of personal idealism and a strong sense of moral and spiritual values, one engaged in such a political mission is very likely to develop an antisocial attitude even for the purpose of satisfying personal whims and desires. Jatindranath was unique in that respect, being unusually free from such tendencies (…). Endowed with a strong sense of spiritual and moral values, (he) left a distinct mark and impression on the Jugantar party; and that helped the members of the Jugantar to keep the cause of national service above everything, even above the party. It is a legacy which the workers of Jugantar of those days cherished, and still cherish, as their guide and beacon-light in life.258

Writes Bhavabhushan Mitra (Jatin’s childhood friend and revolutionary colleague), We never met, anywhere, such a human personality lively in his freshness. He appeared, at the first sight, a mere family man, a stateappointed officer, happy in his life style, a shade fond of luxury. Connoisseur of expensive costumes with a Western cut, of the finest of Darjeeling teas, of relish dishes and tobacco—everything in him revealed an impeccable taste. He spoke a perfect English, perfect to the point of feeling amused by Anglo-Indian English (at which he mocked in private, in presence of intimate friends). He was unbeatable in comic improvisations and in parodies. It was his passion to help needy persons: he could spend nights at a stretch nursing condemned patients; his cheerfulness itself had something contagious because, in his presence, the most desperate of patients took things to be only a temporary uneasiness. Quite like his mother Sharatshashi Devi, on hearing of a calamity or a distress, he could

The Thinker in Action

281

not overlook it: setting aside all other considerations, he rushed to the rescue. As a leader, he was efficient, precise, fast, therefore indispensable—for example, on the occasions of community pilgrimages in holy places along the Ganges, the festivals of the Kumbha or the Ardhodaya. Thanks to an acute professional conscience, he enjoyed due appreciation of his employers and the respect of his colleagues. During his relief missions, I often had the chance of accompanying him; I remember that epoch when it was hard to find anybody to cremate corpses of tuberculous patients or victims of other similar diseases, or people of the lower castes; all infringement to these social inhibitions was liable to ostracism. Jatin felt a particular pleasure in organising overtly such cremations. Under his influence, we who had no right to wear the sacred thread, did it and practised rituals reserved to the Brahmanas, whereas many others (as himself) who had had it, by their birth, got rid of them. He was irresistible on the football field, even though these matches were for him but pretexts to recruit potential servants of the Motherland. He decided once to stop smoking and taking tea, while in his house, about hundred cups of tea were served to his friends and visitors. Since the initiation he received from Bholanand Giri, he had given up eating meat, which he resumed later, under his Guru’s advice.259

This perspective, lends the letters of Jatin Mukherjee a more subtle reading. In his letter to Vinodebala Devi. Jatin wrote on 18 May 1915: Revered Didi, Accept my innumerable greetings. Now I am in a sure place and my health is excellent. Do not worry about me. I left on a mission; all possibility of our future meetings will depend on it alone. They can be soon enough, or may take a certain time. But I do not see, there, any reason to be desperate or frightened. Do not forget under any circumstance na hi kalyanakrit kaç-cit Durgaatim gacchati.260 Thanks to our Mother’s blessings, I could come out unscathed of all dangers: just as she assisted me in all my activities, she will certainly help me to pass through the present situation. Nothing but her inspiration promoted me to throw myself in this ocean of actions; she herself, will bring me back to the safe shore. Keeping in mind (the qualities of) the mother’s heart that gave you birth,

282

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

keep up courage in your own heart, please look after the jewels261 that you accepted to protect and try your best so that—worthy of our most cherished wish—they can be dedicated to the Mother’s cult. If you, yourself, worry, what else can you expect from Indu262 and of the others? Stop being henceforth anxious. You understand everything. You saw with your own eyes, and you have so often noted how ephemeral everything is in this life. The person who has any chance of sacrificing this ephemeral life in this ephemeral world for the cause of Dharma is, indeed, ever so fortunate; if, moreover, all his well-wishing relatives—especially his own elder sister who is almost a mother for him—could keep it in view with an unshakable concentration, they would easily know how to fathom the rare privilege of their family and, therefore, they would never wish that a person—who has undertaken a mission in the name of his Dharma—returns before the accomplishment of his sadhana. On the contrary, eager to facilitate his duty of attaining this realisation, they stay at home during his absence,with the unique goal of keeping steadfast their hope and their confidence in God, protecting and consoling themselves mutually: it is this category of human beings that is blessed truly, that sucked on earth the milk of a mother worthy of all glory. Everybody can complain and can moan; if you and me, on our turn, stooped to it, why did we choose to be born in the womb of our mother Sharat-Shashi, who is now in the other world? We are not—like the others—children of a chicken-hearted and faithless mother: never forget all that she endured with a smile, throughout her life. Had she been on earth today, she would have undoubtedly congratulated me for the activities I have chosen. Since she is no more, will not the person—to whom my mother confided me, my own sister who means as much as my mother, sharing with me the blessings of the same Guru—want to consider for a while and decide what should now be her duty? On one occasion, in the past, on the face of a serious threat, did you not write to me: ‘The One that loves you more than any of us is, Himself, constantly taking care of you; O God, what good can we do you, by worrying for you?’ Your attitude, in all these years, is supposed to have reached a far superior state. I can decently hope that the strength of your soul is today a good deal more intense. Be kind to quieten your mind and to protect Indu with her children. Do not spare any effort to so that the children are reared like human creatures (worthy of this name). In moments of need, call on one of the Brothers263—considering

The Thinker in Action

283

them to be in no way different from me—and inform of the reason why you called him. They will refuse nothing, coming from you. It is useless to tell you where I am; and to tell others that you have heard from me. If you have a message to convey, trust the messenger who will keep me informed of it. Transmit my regards to the elders of the family and my loving thoughts to those that I must bless. Do not forget that in difficult moments it is wise to remain imperturbable and to count on one’s own reason. Keep your faith firm at the feet of our venerated Gurudeva. Write to him regularly. Your obedient servant, at your feet

* In the enclosed letter—the only surviving letter to his wife— Jatin wrote to Indubala: Indu, you who deserve all good, Accept my loving blessings. What do I have to write to you separately? Read what I have just written to Didi and note what it means. By God’s will, you married me almost fifteen years ago. During this long period, each time that I had the opportunity, I tried to explain you where resides the source of real humanity. In ever so many ways did I prepare you for the situation which prevails around us today, warning you that it would certainly occur one day, even asking you to get ready for it. I hope that all these seeds of my teaching carried the fruits expected out of a field of quality. All that I wish from you is to be the person among so many thousands in whom, above all, blossom simultaneously—strength, patience and a sense of duty. Do not forget to be attentive so that in the future the children can be identified as a (true) man’s offspring. Everybody can be subject to a momentary weakness; in such moments, be of help to Didi and, on your turn, accept her help. Know that Purusha is only complete by taking Prakriti into consideration: whatever be the distance that separates us, may your serenity and your collaboration with the benevolent power of your wishes accompany me forever. Be constant in your prayers to Gurudeva and at the Divine’s feet, for the accomplishment of your husband’s mission, and maintain courage in your heart. Your—

284

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Lest the reader should find Jatin more attached to his sister than to his wife, he has to keep in mind some facts. First of all, having been brought up by a widowed mother and in company of this eldest sister—herself widow but, while having the choice to get remarried, she had preferred to lead a life of selfless ideological happiness—Jatin found in her a realization of most of the virtues that Sharat-Shashi had wished to instill in Vinodebala and Jatin. After their mother’s death, Vinodebala assumed the responsibility of looking after her younger brother, and encouraged him to marry Indubala— who had been selected by Sharat-Shashi. Initiated at the same time as Indubala by Jatin’s spiritual master Bholanand Giri of Hardwar, Vinodebala not only received her brother’s confirmation as a ‘spiritual wayfarer’ but, also as collaborator in his revolutionary efforts: because the Guru had always pushed Jatin to pursue his activist achievement as integral part of his spiritual duty and, having a perfect knowledge of Jatin’s political projects, supported him with full conviction. Whereas Jatin looked for his feminine complement and his inspiration in Indubala, he had revered Vinodebala—in accordance with the social and spiritual tradition—as the Mother symbol both from emotional and esoteric points of view, protecting the couple and their children, understanding and comforting them with her complicity. Very little preoccupied with social convention, Jatin was nevertheless respectful of the internal hierarchical values of his family and each of his letters begins and ends visibly with formulas of conventional courtesy expressing this respect. Indubala recognized the depth of the intuitive tie between Jatin and Vinodebala. For example, before the dawn of the fateful 9 September 1915, she woke up by a sobbing Vinodebala who rose and left the room like a sleepwalker. Having seen her settling on the terrace with her notebook, Indubala understood that her sister-in-law was composing a new poem. And what a poem! When Vinodebala came back to Indubala and told her the dream that she had just had

The Thinker in Action

285

before writing it down in this poem—both of them looked at each other, with eyes full of premonitory tears. Vinodebala in her dream saw a luminous face with a pale green complexion of ‘young shoots of grass’, ‘clothed in yellow’; looking for the other details—the conch, the disk, the club and the lotus in the four hands, the feather of peacock in aigrette—taking him to be an apparition of Krishna, the God, Vinodebala shuddered in emotion: it was Jatin, her own brother Jyoti. Placing on both sides two buckets full of blood, Jatin folded his hands in prayer and told her: ‘Didi, allow me to leave you for this life. I came to see you, all, for the last time.’ Wanting to hold his hand with her stretched arms, she saw him moving away and vanishing in a huge glowing figure of Narayana.264 Wife of Jatin Mukherjee, dignified Indubala, was a marvel for Vinodebala, her sister-in-law. She admired the same flame in her which, like a forest fire, could set ablaze thousands of hearts with the fire of patriotism, teaching them the secret of how to sacrifice everything for the cause. Even when intimated by Tegart, through Barrister J.N. Roy, about the death of Jatin Mukherjee in Balasore, firm in her conviction that—as promised in her husband’s letter—he was going to return after the accomplishment of his mission, Indubala had refused to accept the news as authentic and did not consider herself a widow. At the end of her loyal and patient waiting, when Indubala died in 1937, out of respect for this conviction, the family guardians decided for her cremation funeral rites appropriate for a married woman. Among the other letters of Jatin Mukherjee that we present here, after thirty-two years of sporadic house seaches till 1947—more than once every year—led by the police, in order to destroy all traces of the hero’s writings available in his family, very little could survive, in spite of the efforts of Vinodebala, Indubala and Usharani (Jatin’s daughter-in-law and wife of Tejendra, his eldest son), who preserved them. Some of these rare letters having been apparently misplaced by the organizers of numerous commemorations, at the time

286

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

of India’s Independence, were never restituted to the family archives. I quote here four of them that reflect in a complementary way some facets of Jatin Mukherjee’s spiritual vision. They were written to his sister during the Howrah Case, as under trial prisoner in Alipur Central Jail of Calcutta. I. 4 April 1910 Revered Didi, accept my innumerable greetings. From the letter that brought me your blessings, I am informed of the details. I am happy to know all of you to be in good health. You were worried on hearing about my illness; stop worrying. I am now doing well; the illness having been a shade too serious, I feel weak; by the grace of his holiness the Guru, slowly I am recovering my strength. Whatever may happen, maintain firm your surrender to God and offer me at his feet alone: just as he has protected me since my childhood in the teeth of so many dangers, here too he is my unique support. The more He loves someone, the greater are the ordeals that He presents him with and, thus, making him familiar with various calamities, He makes His presence manifest. Man has no power on what he will decide to perform; we have at most the choice to confide us to Him and to live the results of our past acts; the fruits are solely in His hands. Under all circumstances try especially not to worry about me. Fix your gaze on Him and stay at home, armed with hope. God has more affection for you and therefore, proportionately, your ordeals, too, are greater and harder than mine. Whatever happens, do not forget His compassion. Do not ever, even for an instant, have any doubt in Him. Please show this letter to Indu and to others. Request Mejomama265 to come to see me once again. How do they all go? With my greetings to your foot-of-lotuses, Your obedient servant, Jyoti. II. 23 May 1910 (…) Do not anymore worry for me. I am no longer sick. I am keeping well. Do not worry. What can one get by the concern? God is the Master; we are only his toys. At every moment He keeps on

The Thinker in Action

287

playing his game. When He loves someone dearly, He loves also to liven him up. Instead of lamenting over it, if we keep in memory all His compassion, our devotion can only be more steadfast. Very soon you will discover the depth of His mercy: (you will see) how, step by step, He leads the innocent towards (His) protection. . . . ‘My clothes are all very dirty. Send me presently three dhotis, two or at least one tunic. . . . And the second volume of the Mahabharata. Ask Mejomama to try again for the bail. . . .’ III. 20 August 1910 (...) Take care of yourselves with the children. Do I have to advise you? Do not have any particular worries for me. I am physically well. From time to time I will write to Mejomama who will tell you how I am. I do not yet know when the Case will begin. Whatever may happen, I place my gaze at the feet of the supreme Father who wishes only our good. Whatever be His verdict, I will accept it as His blessings. He never commits anything which is evil for us. Apparently what we take to be evil hides behind it some noble intentions that with our erroneous mind we fail to understand. Fully confiding yourself to Him, concentrating all strength in the soul, wait for the time. Certainly He will lead the innocent out of danger. Convey according to the case my greetings and my blessings to all.... IV. 25 September (1910) (...) In the mean time my gastric troubles had got worse, about which Mejomama must have written you. There is no reason for concern now. By the grace of his holiness, our Guru, I am better. I am under treatment. As far as possible I am given a diet on the whole appropriate. Anyway, do not have any fear. God alone is our refuge and He alone is the master of the good and the evil of His children. This time He granted me an ample chance to become aware of His favour and His affection. It is under such circumstances and in such places that one can measure adequately his grace and his compassion. If God grants me the opportunity, I shall tell everything in details (sitting) at your feet. It is in this manner that God gives him the proof of His love to someone whom He loves.

288

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

II.4. Consequences II.4.1. In the Far East

By the end of August 1915, faithful to his promise, Naren Bhattacharya revisited the Helfferich brothers in Batavia, in company of Phani Chakravarti and Kumud Mukherjee, the lawyer of Bangkok, on returning from his recent expedition in Calcutta. They were far from discouraged by the misadventures of the steamer Maverick—that had effectively taken delivery of weapons and munitions, in the beginning of April, at the island of Soccoro, sent by Von Papen with the schooner Annie Larsen; but having been betrayed by four sailors with the captain of the American ship Naushan, it had to throw its cargo into the sea, when threatened by the approaching English naval police. The Helfferich brothers announced to Naren the imminent arrival of two other ships, Henry S and Djember. They informed him of the visit of Li Chao, a Chinese emissary from the German embassy in Peking, to facilitate the delivery of these weapons and to transport them by land up to Sumatra for India.266 Naren made also acquaintance of Vincent Kraft, emissary of the Berlin Committee. Native of Batavia, this mercenary (Infantry 112, 2nd Company, Corps XIV, Division 29), had been transferred to Lille. At news of the rebellion in Singapore, he had contacted the German military authorities on 12 April 1915 and offered his service to the Indian revolutionaries. Thus, he had just come back to Batavia on 9 August. Knowing perfectly the Dutch Indies coast, opposite the peninsula of Malacca (Penang), ‘where lived more than ten thousand Indian nationals coming from British India and hostile to Great Britain, a good part of which was composed of Indian tradesmen and itinerant smugglers’.267 Kraft claimed to be able to direct the arms delivery on regional Chinese boats upto the eastern coast of India, using Sumatra as a base and stopping over on the Nicobar and Andaman islands. He also held that with the help of the revolutionaries in India, a new uprising could take place on

The Thinker in Action

289

Christmas 1915. Having waited, in vain, up to 28 November, Naren left for Tokyo via Manila.268 Thus, narrowly escaping a series of inauspicious arrests and by the mysterious failure of all the maritime expeditions coming from America, Naren suspected Kraft’s role in this affair. Oliver Goldman, a high official of the Scotland Yard, later confessed to Emil Helfferich, that it was owing to Kraft that the British police remained informed of the Indo-German collaboration.269 On reaching Manila, Naren learnt about the battle of Balasore and Jatin Mukherjee’s self-sacrifice. ‘I was tormented by a psychological conflict between an emotion (loyalty to old comrades) and an intelligent choice of a new ideal’, he writes. ‘I could not forget the injunction of the only man I ever obeyed blindly. Before leaving India for the second time, I personally escorted Jatin Da to the hiding place where he later on fought and died.270 In reply to the thoughtless pledge of a romantic youth—I will not again return without arms— the affection of the older man appealed: Come back soon, with or without arms. The appeal was an order for me. He was our Dada, but the Commander-in-Chief also. Jatin Da’s heroic death had absolved me from the moral obligation to obey his order. Already in the autumn of 1915, while passing through Manila, I had received the shocking news. But then, my reaction was merely emotional: Jatin Da’s death must be avenged. Only a year had passed since then (…). In other words I could turn my back on the old mission without the guilty conscience of betraying a trust, because a new one appealed more strongly not only to my emotion, but also to my intelligence. Otherwise, disappointment and disgust might have persuaded me to end a life of adventures with the end of a mission.271

Having met, in Japan, Rash Behari Bose and Dr. Sun YatSen (who did not lose sight of a new possibility of sending arms to India via Indochina),272 Naren with a French passport embarked on the merchant ship Yucatan, on 18 May 1916, in the company of Bhagwan Singh, for San Francisco. Disappointed by the insincerity of the German officers and

290

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

their Indian interlocutors Naren, taking the name M.N. Roy (a name that will remain immortal in the annals of great revolutionary movements) started intensifying his knowledge of the socialist ideology. His marriage to Evelyn Trent—student of political science at the University of Stanford—brought him closer to Lajpat Rai, who had appointed Evelyn as secretary. Pursued by the American police under British pressure, since the official entry of the USA on the side of the Allies in the World War, Roy fled in June 1917 to Mexico with Evelyn. He thus avoided the massive persecution of Indian patriots who, in collaboration with the German government ‘violated the rules of American neutrality while participating in a conspiracy, financed by the Kaiser and perpetrated with the help of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in order to foment a rebellion in India and to help Germany during the war’.273 In July 1917, Roy arrived in Mexico City, with a letter of introduction to General Alvarado and earned the president’s confidence, while General Venustiano Carranza was busy establishing a popular government. Roy’s editorials in the daily El Pueblo contributed extensively to the socialization of the politicized Mexican liberals. In December 1917, elected secretary of the new Mexican socialist party, Roy became a mediator between the people and the state, transforming this party soon into a Communist Party, the very first to exist outside Russia. When Plutarco Elias Calles, favourable to Roy’s ideas, became Minister of Labour, Roy was invited to share some responsibilities. A certain number of happy initiatives led the Bolshevik leader Michael Borodine to Mexico City at the moment; without financial means, he received help from Roy and Evelyn. Hosting Borodine under their roof, the Roys appreciated the vast culture of their guest and were happy to study dialectical materialism with him. Borodine gave Roy an understanding of ‘the imperative need of a worldwide social revolution and the methods and the tactics and strategy of organising it’.274 Impressed by Roy’s intellectual and human qualities—and especially by his contribution as founder of the first Communist Party abroad—the organizers of the 2nd

The Thinker in Action

291

International in Moscow invited Roy and Evelyn as delegates from Mexico. With Carranza’s consent, provided with diplomatic passports, Roy and Evelyn travelled. They made a stopover in Spain to encourage anarchist groups and Spanish unionists to attend the Congress. Then, in December 1919, they reached Berlin where they spent four months examining closely the problems of the new Social democrat regime, with bonafide interlocutors, mainly the Communists Heinrich Brandler and August Thalheimer. Towards the end of April 1920, welcomed by Borodine in Moscow, the Roys made the acquaintance of Lenin, Zinoviev, and Trotski. Lenin welcomed Roy with a feigned disappointment: ‘I expected to receive an old Sage from the East; you are so young!’ Then, presenting him with a signed copy of his thesis ‘On the National and the Colonial Questions’, Lenin invited Roy to give his critical suggestions. For so doing, Lenin granted him several interviews. Accepting Roy’s work on these questions he got Roy admitted to the national and colonial Commission as an active member.275 As an official Delegate—with a status of an ambassador—in Tashkent, Roy had the task mission of fomenting a revolution in the East (including, of course, India, the Asian part of Russia, the vast extent of Central Asia from Turkey to Afghanistan): a responsibility of which Roy had dreamed and which had driven him to Moscow. With arms, ammunition, and generous funds at his disposal, Roy hoped to establish a bond of confidence with the border tribes and, crossing Afghanistan, to establish contact with revolutionaries in India. Indifference—or even hostility—on behalf of the Afghans with their allegiance to Islam could barely dissimulate their loyalty towards England; this drew Roy’s attention when, aware of the arrest of a few thousands of volunteers, mostly Indian Muslims—the Muhajirins (who went to Turkey to defend the Caliph)—Roy could recover a part of them, with the help of the Red Army and made them come to Bokhara. With their consent, Roy established, in Tashkent, a India House to shelter them and to give them

292

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

political and military training. Meanwhile Gandhi had succeeded in foiling the separatist actions of the British and had achieved an ephemeral unity between Muslim and Hindu incentives, in the name of his own sympathy for the Caliphe: an opportunity which was going to provide Gandhi with a political springboard. We shall examine this evolution farther. For Roy, ready to encourage independent movements of workers and peasants, the experience with the Muhajirins turned out to be the beginning of a new political era. In October 1920, he remote-controlled the creation of the first Communist Party of India and sent his emissaries to Bengal, to keep his former companions abreast of this development. Whereas under British pressure, the Moscow Leadership decided to close Roy’s School in Tashkent to honour a commercial agreement signed with Great Britain, a delegation of Indian patriots—headed by Chatto, Bhupendranath Datta and Khankhoje—went from Berlin and challenged Roy’s rights to lead an Indian revolutionary movement from Moscow (more precisely, from Tashkent) without consulting them. On the other hand, those in India, who had accepted Gandhism as the best of a bad lot, found in Roy’s socialist and Marxist proposals a more rational and modern solution. The Russian edition of his work India in Transition, translated and published in English in 1922, provided to the Indian intelligentsia a new horizon. The same year, Roy started issuing his bulletin, Vanguard. Several visits to Germany, Switzerland and France permitted him to meet European and Asian pioneers of the young generation. In spite of the effort of Chittaranjan Das to have some of Roy’s stands accepted by the Indian Congress, this organization reiterated its constitutional—that is to say Moderate—programme of yesteryears, under a reactionary leadership. Since 1925, Roy used the British Communist Party as his link with the Motherland.276 He was pleased to meet in Paris the young intelligentsia: there was Andre Malraux, Raymond Aron and Georges Friedmann gathered around Roy. They remembered the rare occasion when Roy had evoked the life and the vision

The Thinker in Action

293

of his first thought master, Jatin Mukherjee. In November 1926, having taken part in a programme to transform the Chinese revolution into an agrarian movement, Roy learnt that he was delegated by Moscow for the period of eight months (in 1927), to China.277 He met other delegates of the international labour movement there: Jacques Doriot from France, Earl Browder from the USA and Tom Mann from Great Britain. Under their very eyes, on 12 April 1927, Marshal Tchiang Kai-shek’s men slaughtered Communists in Shanghai, to intimidate the leftist government of Hankow. Under the frown of his erstwhile friend Borodine—appointed principal Adviser concerning the Chinese Communist Party since 1923—Roy turned towards Moscow where, already, the war of post-Lenin succession prevailed between Stalin and Trotski. Whilst Stalin had counted on Roy’s victory as an argument in favour of his own success, leaving China in the midst of Moscow’s ambiguous attitude, Roy headed for Berlin, sensing the unpleasant turns of politics in Moscow. His very existence was threatened by Stalin’s anger.278 Separated from Evelyn in 1926, Roy went back to India at the end of 1930, with a passport issued in the name of Dr. Mahmood. Having opened in Bombay a group of young Royist militants, he contacted Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, and Subhas Bose among others. Impressed by Roy’s plans as an economist, Nehru reconsidered his approach towards Congress politics, but Roy was arrested soon after. On coming out of the prison, in November 1936, he received Nehru’s invitation to attend the Faizpur session of the Congress, as elected member of the All-India Committee and a veteran freedom fighter. Having always considered Gandhi and his disciples as spokesmen of a pro-British bourgeoisie, whose interests depended on those of the British,279 Roy met this great leader of men: in spite of the cordial character of their interview, the gulf that separated them became manifest.280 Eager, nevertheless, to radicalize the Congress, he encouraged Indian Communists to give allegiance to and democratize this popular party. In order to explain himself better in April 1937,

294

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Roy started his weekly, Independent India. Ellen Gottschalk, his confidante and collaborator in Europe, came to join him not only to share with him his political tasks but, also, as a wife. After a tour in south India, Roy and his wife reached Calcutta. Pursuing his tour of Bihar and the Uttar Pradesh, the Roys then settled in Dehra Dun. In spite of the Gandhites’ distrust with regard to Roy as well as the hostility of the Indian Stalinists, 10 per cent of the Congress votes went in his favour, under the label of the League of the Radical Congress, demanding an alternative direction. In the same way, set aside by Gandhi, Subhas Bose constituted from 1938 his separate leftist faction, the Forward Block. Worried by totalitarian expansion in Europe, Roy proposed that the Congress organize some anti-fascist demonstrations. Then, in December 1940, Roy inaugurated the first national meeting of his new Radical Democratic Party. Judging from the standpoints of the world leaders, considering the War as absolute catalyst, Roy evaluated with greater certitude the true incentives of the dramatis personae. He hailed Churchill as progressive revolutionary, he had the regret of classifying Gandhi, Nehru and the Congress among the most reactionary forces!281 Accused of opportunism and mercilessly attacked from all sides, Roy stayed firm in his pro-British position during the War. The rise of fascism, for Roy, meant the irretrievable defeat of all revolutionary aspirations of the world, all hope of India’s independence trampled for ever. The defeat of fascism would automatically entail the definitive denouement of imperialism.282 The only comfort that Roy could find in his country was Sri Aurobindo’s support of the British in the form of a donation to their War Fund. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother of the Pondicherry Ashram affirmed, We feel that this battle is not only engaged in a legitimate defence of the nations threatened by the domination of the world by Germany and the Nazi system of life, but it is a defence of civilization and its highest social, cultural and spiritual values acquired and of the

The Thinker in Action

295

global future of the humanity. For this reason, our support and sympathy will be unshakable whatever may occur; we look forward to the victory of Great Britain and the ensuing result: an era of peace and unity among nations, a better and surer world order.283

For Sri Aurobindo, Winston Churchill personified the action of the divine force. The stereotyped nationalistic opinion—upheld more by the Congress than by the Communist, Forward Block and other leftist militants—was shocked by this pro-British attitude. When Sir Stafford Cripps, British Minister, came to solicit in India support and cooperation from the Indian leaders by considering British victory to be a national objective, Sri Aurobindo made an exception and sent a personal messenger to Gandhi and Nehru in urging them to accept this proposal, and got a letter of support handed over to Cripps on 31 March 1942. But Cripps went away disappointed. The Congress issued, in August 1942, the campaign of ‘English, quit India!’, whilst the Eastern border of India was menaced by a Nippono-Germanic invasion. Financed by the British—at the cost of exposing himself to the nationalists’ attacks—Roy consolidated the Indian Federation of Labour to assure adequate propaganda throughout the country. Persuaded that the independence of India would be inevitable at the end of the War, Roy published a series of articles in Independent India on the economy and the constitution of the future government of free India.284 This was a blueprint for Nehru to create the first government in August 1947. Foreseeing, in 1946, the negotiations with the British leaders on the transfer of power, Roy demanded that it was not to be transferred to any party which claimed to represent the people—but, simply, to the people itself. He published the historic manifesto, the New Humanism, in 1947. Beyond political quarrels, he brought together the seeds of his new philosophy which he had decided to promote on learning the death of Jatin Mukherjee in 1915. Having dissolved his party and severed all political connections, eager to concentrate on some fundamental writings, Roy published, on 27 February

296

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

1949, his vibrant editorial on Jatin Mukherjee paying a tribute to his first mentor. Invited by a number of universities as well as by the international Humanists’ Congress and the Ethical Union, Roy was preparing for a lecture tour in Europe and in the USA. But, victim of an accident in July 1952, Roy died on 25 January 1954 in Dehra Dun, some hours before the Republic Day celebrations.285 II.4.2. In Europe

The formation of the Indian Committee, in September 1914, in Berlin, ‘capital of hostilities to the British aspirations’, according to Madame Cama—under the initiative of Virendranath (Chatto) drew the attention of Indian revolutionaries in Europe and in the USA on this unexpected source of means and protection for their growing struggle. Chatto had finally received from the Kaiser’s government a status for his party: the Socialist government of Free India in Exile. But Chatto and most of his colleagues had the lucidity that this golden collaboration would last as long as Germany would consider their involvement useful for her own politics. Therefore, while accelerating the purchase and the expedition of arms for India by the care of Von Papen, the German Military Attaché in New York, the main objective of the Indian Committee in Berlin was the politicization of Muslims. To this effect, the members of the Indian Committee, most of them Hindu (or even Brahmins like Chatto and Bhatta) borrowing Muslim pseudonyms inevitably to maintain cordial relationship with the Muslim authorities. This attitude dictated Mansur Rahman’s nomination as the President of the Indian Revolutionary Committee, whereas actually Chatto enjoyed the suffrage of the German officials as supreme leader; it is precisely for this reason, once more, that Mansur was elected chief of the delegation of Berlin in Baghdad. But, from 1916, in the name of a greater efficiency, Chatto officially assume the presidency of the Committee and, before shifting its branch to Stockholm, proposed his associate Bhupendranath Datta

The Thinker in Action

297

as president. Owing to the contributions of Barakatullah on the pan-Islamic front—out of respect for the Indian Muslims involved in the Extremist movement—Chatto invited him to Berlin. In the same way, he turned to Taraknath Das (the pioneer who politicized the Indian immigrants in the USA and Canada) and to Herambalal Gupta (who would serve as a link between Berlin and San Francisco). The first task before the members of the Indian Committee—as defined by Von Oppenheim—was to write the greatest number of anti-British tracts for patriots of India, Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan. In addition to five Indian languages, English, French, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Chinese and a few others were also in use for 80 major tracts.286 One of the terms of the Germano-Turkish agreement, signed on 2 August 1914, required explicitly the fomenting of a revolt against the British in India as well as in Egypt and Iran.287 Similarly, through a deputy of the Ottoman Parliament, Enver Pasha had tasked the German ambassador to intervene in North Africa and Afghanistan for the same purpose. Sven Hedin—the Swedish Germanist explorer—added testimony confirming similar wishes from the Emir of Afghanistan. Von Oppenheim announced to Enver Pasha a German expedition for Turkey under the direction of Wilhelm Wassmuss; this delegation was welcomed to Aleppo by three Indian revolutionaries come from the USA: Aessencehe, Pandurang Khankhoje, and Pramatha Datta (alias Dawood Ali). Pramatha had been part of the first revolutionary formation of Bengal; impatient to have a military training, he had left, in 1906, for the USA. On reaching Paris in 1909 thanks to some friends of Madame Cama, he enrolled in the Foreign Legion under contract for five years: having performed his military service in Frenchspeaking Africa and in Saigon, he went back to Paris, returned to the USA, before settling in Constantinople and waiting for the Wassmuss mission.288 Confronted with the hostility of the Iranian authorities—who depended on Russia which itself was hostile to German interests—Enver Pasha asked Berlin

298

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

to send a more official mission. Then, seeing itself surrounded by Anglo-Russian forces, Turkey declared djihad against the Allies. The daily Djehani-Islam (Muslim World)—published in Arabic, Turkish and Urdu (this last edition assured by Abu Said al-Arabi, a native of Gujarat, in India)—issued a fatwa of Sheik-ul-Islam: it was the first duty of a Muslim to fight the Russians, the English, the French and their allies; ‘any Muslim who will not participate in it, will deserve God’s anger and will be punished for his sin’. Analysing the reasons of this holy war, a supplementary article noted the tyranny of the English and, at the end of a long enumeration, exclaimed: ‘In India, the Muslim dies under kicks and blows; India must be freed, and the badmash King George of England must be skinned and his hide used for manufacturing shoes.’289 A second German mission—led by Captain Oskar Von Niedermeyer, first to escort the German ambassador to Tehran, then to remind the Emir of Afghanistan the opportunity of invading India—met Wassmuss and his eighteen companions. Together, they reached Baghdad in January 1915; Wassmuss with his men left, by the end of January, for Iran, their initial destination, whereas in April the Niedermeyer mission divided, in two groups, one for Central Iran, the other for Tehran. In Tehran, the Germans encouraged the action of numerous Indian revolutionaries, scattered in different Iranian cities, against the Russo-British army.290 In Bushire, the three Indians of the Wassmuss mission contacted the camp of Indian soldiers, left them a substantial provision of ‘seditious’ literature, and, in company of the mission, met in Chiraz Sufi Amba Parshad, an Indian leader of mark: they spent there about two months. Amba Parshad and his friends—Lala Lajpat Rai, Rambhuj Dutt, Ajit Singh (with his brothers Kishen, father of the future martyr Bhagat Singh, and Swaran), Lalchand Phalak, Bhai Paramanand, most of them belonging to the Arya Samaj founded by Dayanand, represented, in the Punjab, the Extremist current that the thoughts of Tilak and Sri Aurobindo nourished. The latter’s emissary, Jatin Banerjee

The Thinker in Action

299

(Niralamba Swami), had brought them, in 1906, the leaven of the Bengali resistance. Sought-after by the police with a mandate of deportation, in 1909, Ajit Singh and Amba Parshad had taken asylum in Iran. Leaving Amba Parshad there to pursue his revolutionary activities, Ajit Singh had gone to Paris, in 1911, to work with Madame Cama up to September 1914, before leaving for Rio de Janeiro. Amba Parshad committed suicide on the eve of his execution before a court martial in January 1917. Delegated by Amba Parshad, Agashé returned to India in May 1915; Pramatha Datta chose Ispahan for working in the team of Seiler, the German Consul.291 While Berlin examined closely the demand of Enver Pasha to reinforce the Wassmuss mission with a more official cover, Chatto was informed of the arrival, in Geneva, of Mahendra Pratap—nationalist chief of the Hathras principality—ready to participate in the projects of the Berlin Committee. Chatto went to negotiate with Pratap; his friend Har Dayal (who, till then, refused all responsibility in Berlin), too, followed. In the presence of the Kaiser Pratap expressed his wish to lead a nationalist delegation—as the Kaiser’s emissary—to the Emir of Afghanistan. Preceding the departure of Pratap and Von Hentig on 10 April 1915, a pilot mission composed of Chatto, Har Dayal, Taraknath Das, Rajab Ali, Barakatullah, Biren Dasgupta, L.P. Verma and Tirumal Achari left for Istanbul to receive them. Animated by the enthusiasm that reigned in Constantinople, Har Dayal decided to stay on and undertake a programme of revolutionary propaganda. Welcomed by the Sultan and by his son-in-law Enver Pasha (in-charge of Military Affairs), Mahendra Pratap, with his men, proceeded to Herat via Baghdad and Ispahan. Then, leaving Herat at the same time as the Niedermeyer mission, they arrived in Kabul. They had a series of interviews with Emir Habib-Ullah. Mahendra Pratap established there, on 1 December 1915, the temporary government of Free India and assumed its presidency, conferring to Barakatullah and Obeidullah, respectively, the posts of prime minister and

300

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Secretary of the Interior. They waiting for the Emir’s invasion of India. The latter’s hesitations concealed, unfortunately for the Indo-German project, his secret intention to maintain a friendly relationship with the Viceroy of India. Since the popular agitation of 1905, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958) of Calcutta, spokesman of the nationalist Indian Muslims, had contacted Sri Aurobindo and Jatin Mukherjee through the mediation of Atindranath Basu and Shyamasundar Chakravarti.292 Atmaram, emissary from Batavia visiting Calcutta in March 1915, intimated the representatives of Berlin about Azad’s impatience for the arrival of the weapons.293 Founder editor of the daily Al-Hilal, Azad supported with passion people’s anger against the British government, cherishing his pan-Islamic dream: he shared this objective with Zafar Ali Khan, the Ali brothers (Mohamed and Shaukat) who published in Delhi the Hamdard in Urdu and the Comrade in English, as well as the team of the militant Muslims behind the Zemindar of Lahore. In addition to banning such publications under the new Press law, the government arrested Azad, assigning him to home internment in Ranchi. But no one could put an end to his influence among the Muslim students of India: he had incited them to join Obeidullah to carry through a project of invading India from the north-west.294 Obeidullah organized, in Delhi, in January 1915, a fruitful meeting between Azad and Abdul Ahmad, chief of the Mujahirin community—rebel inhabitants of the frontier—well-known for their hatred of British imperialism.295 The British called them Hindustani fanatics. Volunteers for this movement—inspired by the revolutionary Wahhabi ideology—came from faraway regions of Bengal as Rangpur, Dhaka, Rajshahi, without speaking of Lahore or Calcutta where, sensitive to the aspirations of Azad, the rich Muslim tradesmen financed this movement generously. Obeidullah hailed from a Sikh family in Punjab, but attracted by the principles of Islam, was a convert. For a dozen years, he went and founded in Sindh several schools of Deoband allegiance. This sect, like the Wahhabis, was

The Thinker in Action

301

responsible for Muslim revival in India. He transformed the Deoband College at Saharanpur into a living home for pan-Islamic grievances. In a letter, written ceremoniously on a yellow silk scarf, dated the 8th of the Ramadan (9 July 1916) and addressed to his former colleague, rector Mahmud Hassan, Obeidullah announced the news of the temporary government. He also announced therein that God’s army had just come to exist with its headquarters in Medina—whose first general (Qaid) was going to be Mahmud Hassan (recipient of the letter). The person concerned having left on pilgrimage for Mecca, however, and the letter was intercepted. Hassan and his four associates were arrested in Mecca in December 1916 and handed over to the British authorities.296 But the same invitation reached his old friend Azad on time: unable to get personally involved, he made necessary arrangements to assist the revolutionary steps taken for a result that proved to be concrete. In February 1915, a dozen students from Lahore, in black vests and belonging to an Association with 400 other members, crossed the Afghan border and were received by Naimatullah, the chief of the Muhajirin. He sent four messengers to Kabul to consult Nasrullah Khan, Emir’s brother, asking for his advice. On hearing from the Emir, Nasrullah requested them to remain at calm along with their Indian interlocutors. In due time, he would alert them and provide them the arms indispensable for the Holy War. But the Indian delegation, wanting to reach Kabul, and receiving the authorization to contact Obeidullah, and got appointed by his office. At the end of an uprising, in Shabkadr, twelve dead bodies in black vests were discovered in a field. At the end of April 1916, Dadachanji Kersasp, Basant Singh, and D. Mahmud brought from Berlin a message for Pratap and then the German civil servants withdrew from Kabul. Arrested and judged before a British military court, Kersasp and Basant were executed. Turning towards Russia with the hope of a possible collaboration, Mahendra Pratap was warned time and again of the contrary—till the day when the Bolsheviks were finally able to give him the green

302

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

light and, in March 1918, he had an interview with Trotski; but the new government could not propose any satisfactory solution to the Indian patriots. Disappointed, Pratap returned to Berlin.

* Leaving the Pratap-Hentig mission proceed towards Afghanistan, Taraknath Das and his team crossed into the desert of Sinai. Realizing the rarity of revolutionaries worth this name, Taraknath started questioning the utility of wasting energy on a sterile mission. He informed the Berlin Committee about his doubts. In spite of hostile reactions from them, Taraknath returned to Europe and left Zurich for the USA. The rest of the mission would wait until the failure of the operation of General Von Kressenstein in August 1916. Har Dayal, nostalgic for his editorial activities with Madame Cama in Paris and with the Ghadar in San Francisco, wanted to look after the Urdu edition of the daily Djehan-i-Islam and wanted Abu Said, the editor, to follow his instructions. But he was rejected by the pan-Islamic partisans. Furious after this refusal and his decisive failure to emerge in the role of a nationalist leader, Har Dayal criticized the inefficiency of the Turks in a revolutionary context and, in a more and more vehement way, denounced them as useless on the spiritual and symbolic levels, regretting the expectation of the Indian Muslims from the Turkish Caliph’s side. Before August 1915, he set out for Budapest, leaving his revolutionary colleagues with a bitter aftertaste about his selfish authoritarianism. Parting, officially, from the ‘Berlin Committee of Chatto’ Har Dayal regained Berlin and, in spite of two invitations to settle in Switzerland, learned that the German authorities did not accept his departure. Complaining about the unsanitary conditions of life in Germany, while enjoying, at the Kaiser’s expense, thermal cures for his nervous troubles, in most expensive sea resorts of the country—Har Dayal made a clean breast of his disapproval of Chatto’s projects. Pramatha

The Thinker in Action

303

Datta (Dawood Ali) deplored this state of things in his letter to George Freeman, written in Kerman on 3 August 1915: ‘Har Dayal disappeared mysteriously for reasons that he only knows, leaving me to manage it by my own means. If you chance on writing to him or to Madame Cama, please tell them that I am still in Iran.’ After one of Har Dayal’s visits, afraid of his eccentricity, Umrao Singh wrote to the Secretary of the Berlin Committee that he was not willing to suffer scenes of violence from a man who, on one hand, longed to come to terms with his compatriots and, on the other, was angry with the German authorities for having forced him to treatment for his deranged nerves. ‘The philosophical treatise that he is writing is meant for the Europeans, to prove that he in perfect mental health.’ He constantly despised his compatriots as ‘coloured people’ and their action as ‘oriental nonsense’. Ultimately, Dayal joined Chatto via Vienna in October 1918, one month before the armistice. On Chatto’s recommendation, Germany was going to grant Dayal a pension of 10,000 DM for his War-time services, the magazine India published Dayal’s formal denunciation of German imperialism but also his allegiance to British principles. This was the beginning of a series of publications, including the experiences of Dayal as a war-time prisoner in Germany for forty-four months—oblivious of all his past nationalist engagements. As a ‘coward politician’ Har Dayal was blacklisted by the British for fraudulent initiatives, becoming persona non grata in British territories. Reduced to a forcible stay in Sweden, he shared his life with Agda Erikson, a woman with socialist aspirations who was ignorant of Dayal’s emotional past: before dying, on 4 March 1939, in the USA, Dayal—to the afflicted astonishment of his ‘wife’ Erikson—bequeathed all his belongings (acquired thanks to Erikson) to his widow in India. Too strong a blow for Agda, she died on 11 January 1940.

*

304

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

The defeat of the British in Kutel-Amara, on 25 April 1916, before the Turkish army, the surrender of Captain Townsend with his 13,000 soldiers—mostly Indians—became quite an event for the Indian nationalists active in Turkey. In spite of the personal intervention of Chatto and Bhupendranath Datta, the Turkish authorities did not seem to encourage the training of these soldiers into a revolutionary army. Moreover, the evident discrimination of the Turks in behaving with these soldiers seriously distorted the nature of the mission: whereas the Muslim soldiers enjoyed an appropriate hospitality in equipped barracks, the Hindus were forced to work with roadmenders. It was the moment when the German officers, on their part, declared their unwillingness to invade India. Chatto and his headquarters called the Istanbul mission back to Berlin before the end of 1916.297 Shortly before the War Virendranath Chattopadhyaya sent a letter to Woodrow Wilson, President of the USA, congratulating him for the advent of the League of the Nations: In the name of the oppressed people of India, we thank you for the principles that you have mentioned recently in your speech of 27 September. We hope that these principles are going to act as basis for the future peace in the world and to the protection of penalised nations. We, on behalf of the people of India, ask for an unbiased justice for India, without ulterior motive or prejudice against her on Political or racial incentives. We ask for the same rights enjoyed by all other civilised nations. Under the oppressive system of British reign, the normal development of India has been slowed up for the benefit of British material interests. Great Britain established her Indian Empire by violating promises and solemn agreements, by trampling on the rights of numerous minor nations. We remind that a lasting world peace is impossible as long as India and other weaker nations suffer injustice. We pray, therefore, that India be admitted like a free nation in the proposed ‘League of nations’, without any political or economic subordination to Great Britain and the Indian cause be put forward before the League of the Nations and before the general Congress for Peace which has to find a definitive understanding with regard to this important question of world politics.

The Thinker in Action

305

We appeal to your sense of justice and we hope that you will make sure that the noble principles that you expressed in your speech be applied in the case of India.298

President of the Indian Committee in Berlin, Bhupendranath Datta sent a long letter to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs—mainly to Von Wesendonck—laying emphasis on the temporary character of the cessation of hostilities. Germany would have to help India again to win her freedom. Because a disarmed India could rise against her oppressor. Datta recalled that this kind of help was not rare in history, to judge by the example of England’s help to the Balkans, that of Germany to the Bulgarians. In order to be able to pursue their studies in German universities, or to find other remunerative activities, twenty members of the Berlin Committee mentioned below accepted, by this letter, the offer of an active allowance of 1,000 to 14,400 DM, according to the individual requisite length. They were Rishikesh Latta, Shivdev Singh, Bhupendranath Datta, Laxman Prasad Varma, Amin Chand Chowdhary, Khandoo Bhai Kumarji Nayak, Vishnu Narhar Joshi, Kartaram, N.P. Prabhakar, Biren Dasgupta, Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, Har Dayal, Tirumal Acharya (Champak), Raman Pillai, Kumar M. Pratap, M.N. Kaul, Mansur, Wahid and Hardas. In this same letter, Datta attracted the attention of the German authorities on these Indian revolutionaries who could not yet leave Iran or Afghanistan: Kedarnath, Chait Singh, Basant Singh, P. Khankhoje, Bisan Das, P.N. Datta (alias Dawood Ali), Kersasp (who had been killed by the British police in Afghanistan, in July 1915: a detail that Datta ignored), Barakatullah (‘an aged and exceptional scholar in Arabic and in Persian, ruined in his health, who would deserve a chair of oriental languages in a German university’). Among others were Dhiren Sen and M.N. Roy who were hiding in Mexico, ‘unwanted in India, objects of inquisition in the USA’.

*

306

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

With the failure of the Indo-German alias Zimmermann Plan, Chatto and Datta, had shifted the Berlin Committee to Stockholm. By Summer 1917, they had contacts with Karl Radek, Angelika Balanova, the First General-Secretary of the Communist International, and K.M. Troianovski, representing Moscow at the International Socialists’ Congress. With his colleagues, Datta proposed the dissolution of the Berlin Committee for Indian independence, annexing a balance of activities in Berlin and in Stockholm.299 Chatto dissolved the Berlin Committee, arranging for a secret meeting of Indian revolutionaries in Berlin, in May 1919. He was informed of an Indo-Russian Association come to existence in Moscow and felt that it would be appropriate to delegate there an Indian specialist as its leader. Chatto could not make a formal move, because the Berlin Committee had not yet regularized the situation with the German authorities. Before going to Moscow M.N. Roy had asked his Indian friends in Berlin to accompany him. In November 1920, in search of financial and political support exclusively for the revolutionary nationalist movement in India (encouraged by M.N. Roy and with Borodin’s approval) Chatto went to Moscow with Agnes Smedley. In the meantime, after a Kafkaesque journey Evelyn Trent (Mrs M.N. Roy) – driven away from England to Mexico, from where she could, finally, join her husband in Moscow, via Cuba and Spain – wrote a letter, in Fall 1921, to her brother in the USA. She asked him not to get rid of the house in California where she wished to settle one day with ‘Buddy’ (Roy). In this letter, stating the visit of Roy’s former revolutionary colleagues (mainly Chatto, Datta, Achari and company) to Moscow, Evelyn described, somewhat terrified: Poor Buddy had a terrible Summer with his Indian friends . . . making our life as unpleasant as possible with the hope to discredit him [Roy] and to usurp his place here. They did not have this satisfaction but, during their stay of three months, a period when I myself was absent, they made Moscow resound with their insults and ‘vilification’. They left some weeks after my return and, again

The Thinker in Action

307

we had, finally, a little peace, but even now, we feel scalded and mortified by this experience. I never saw such a viperine company. Some among them want to go to the USA, decided to foment a scandal and, as much as I know, will contact you as well as Mom; in that case, treat them with what they deserve. With them, there was an American, Agnes Smedley, member of the association ‘Friends of the Liberty for India’, whose behaviour was just as friendly.300 This is for the third time that Buddy had faced such a serious situation, menaced to be demolished by jealous and selfish people. The things are temporarily neutral with us, and we are all going to start afresh; it will take us some time and we do not feel cheerful, but we will get the better of it. The worse is that we had invited them for a cooperation in our tasks, counting on their aid. In short, it afforded us some more precious experience on human nature.301

* According to E.S. Montagu, Secretary of State for Indian Affairs, Barakatullah’s visit to Tashkent, in March 1919, with a delegation of Indian revolutionaries, and his incitement to the Muslims against the British reign in India seriously worried authorities in London.302 The Times published, in the same month, information sent from Helsinki that a revolt, remote controlled by the Bolsheviks, was raging in India.303 Nevertheless, no causal relationship could be proved between a plot of this nature and the events that led to the atrocities of Jallianwala Bagh. But it is certain that Barakatullah could hand over to Lenin, in May, a personal letter of Amanullah – Emir of Afghanistan – in favour of fruitful cooperation. This proposal was approved by Lenin, who greeted the heroic attitude of the Afghans, and opened ‘ample possibilities for mutual aid against all attack of bandits ignorant about others’ liberty.’304 Before returning to Kabul, interviewed by the Izvestia, Barkatullah declared, ‘I am not Communist, nor Socialist. My political programme consisted up to now in driving the British out of Asia. I am a confirmed enemy of European capitalism in Asia, as represented by the British to a high degree. By this attitude, I am close to the communists, and from that point of view, yourselves and me, we are natural

308

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

allies.’305 In his letter to Amanullah, dated 27 November 1919, Lenin reiterated his decision to protect Afghanistan with the Red army.306 Promises that did not lead to fruition.

* Agnes Smedley shared her life with Chatto till 1928. It is learnt that under her influence, Chatto did try to usurp the influential position M.N. Roy was enjoying in Moscow. The following year, he, Bhupendra Nath Datta, and Panduranga Khankoje met Lenin, at last; from May to September, he attended the Indian Committee of the 3rd Congress of Communist International in Moscow. In December 1921, he founded in Berlin an Indian News and Information Bureau with his correspondent Rash Behari Bose in Japan. According to Sibnarayan Ray, in spite of a climate of rivalry created between Roy and Chatto by Agnes, ‘Roy would have liked to work with him since he admired the latter’s intelligence and energy. . . . By early 1926 Chatto had got into good terms with Roy.’ At Roy’s instance, Willi Muenzenberg ‘took Chatto under his wing to organize an international conference in Europe to inaugurate the League against Imperialism. Aided by Roy, Chatto joined the German Communist Party (KPD)307 in 1927. In 1927, while working as the head of the Indian Languages Section of the KPD, he accompanied Jawaharlal Nehru to the Brussels Conference of the League against Imperialism; Chatto was its General Secretary. His younger brother Harin went to Berlin that year to meet him and Agnes. On hearing about Nehru’s becoming President of the Indian National Congress, Chatto proposed to split the party for a more revolutionary programme for full independence. Inprecor, the Comintern organ, published 28 articles by Chatto between 1928 and 1932 about an ultra-leftist sectarian turn of the Communist Party of India. Between 1931 and 1933, Chatto went on advocating anti-Hitler activities, Asian emancipation from Western powers, independence of India, Japanese

The Thinker in Action

309

intervention into Chinese revolution; among his group of Korean, Japanese and Chinese friends was Zhou-en Lai, the future prime minister. Agnes saw Chatto for the last time in 1933 and remembered later: He embodied the tragedy of a whole race. Had he been born in England or America, I thought, his ability would have placed him among the great leaders of his age. . . . He was at last growing old, his body thin and frail, his hair rapidly turning white. The desire to return to India obsessed him, but the British would trust him only if he were dust on a funeral pyre.’ (China Correspondent, 1943.)

In January-February 1934, he had a correspondence with Krupskaya (Lenin’s widow) and on 18 March 1934 he gave a talk about his reminiscences of Lenin.308 He wrote to Georgi Dimitrov, Comintern’s Secretary-General, on 9 September 1935: ‘For three years I have been kept away from active work in the Comintern’. In a letter to Muzaffar Ahmad, Clemens Palme Dutt, Rajani’s brother, mentions having seen him for the last time in 1936/7 at the Department of Ethnography of the Academy of Science in Leningrad. According to Dr Lydia Karunovskaya, his colleague and the last woman who shared his life, Chatto was arrested in 1937. And in 1940 she learnt that he was no more (CPI Document, 1960). On 10 July 1938, Nambiar, Chatto’s brother-in-law, wrote to J. Nehru about this arrest and the latter replied on 21 July agreeing to find out about Chatto’s fate.

* Most precious information is found on Chatto in James Campbell Ker’s Political Trouble in India: 1907-1917; but the author’s personal animosity brings out the seamy aspect of a man who was, however, deeply admired by his colleagues (like M.N. Roy, Dr Abinash Chandra Bhattacharya) for his able leadership, sharp intelligence and sincere emotion. An abridged tribute from Jawaharlal Nehru will better define

310

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

and defend the unique personality that was Chatto: A very able and a very delightful person. . . . His humour and light heartedness never left him. . . . A fit of homesickness came to him when he longed to be back. . . . No exile can escape the malady of his tribe, that consumption of the soul, as Mazzini called it. . . . Of the few I met, the only persons who impressed me intellectually were Virendranath Chattopadhyay and M.N. Roy.309

II.4.3. In the USA

Alerted by the fabulous allowance available in Berlin for executing the Zimmerman Plan, two unscrupulous adventurers seized the opportunity to make an outrageous use of it, indifferent to the sacrifice of hundreds of Indian revolutionaries: they were Chandrakanta Chakravarti and Ernest Sekunna. Emboldened by the failure of the arms expeditions and sowing doubt on the efficiency of Heramba Gupta, representative of Berlin in New York, Chakravarti got from the German authorities, in February 1916, an official nomination to replace Gupta, thanks to Sekunna’s friendship with Von Papen. Gupta had left New York on 25 August 1915, on a mission to Japan; it was materially impossible for him to leave Japan before May 1916, he ignored this change disastrous— for his own engagement and, especially his integrity left no doubt about the risks that he had taken in Japan, along with Rash Behari—for the whole nationalist cause. Also whilst Taraknath Das was on a mission abroad. Ram Chandra—Har Dayal’s successor in directing the Ghadar—had succumbed to the treacherous advances of Chakravarti and accepted his proposal for a sum worth one thousand dollars. Initially, this acceptance did not mean absence of patriotic intentions. Since the time when Har Dayal gave a decisive turn to the aspirations of the Indian patriots in the USA, an Indian group, moderate to the point of proving, subsequently, pro-British, had preferred to take care of the social and religious problems of the Indians, declaring hostile to the political efforts of

The Thinker in Action

311

the Ghadar. The leader of this non-conformist faction, Bishen Singh Mattu, a Sikh emigrant had encouraged considerably, since the beginning, Har Dayal’s actions, in collaboration with Professor Suren Bose, an associate of Taraknath. But, incapable of reconciling formal religious pursuits with the revolutionary preparations, approving the reticence of the priest of the Sikh temple in Stockton, he put an end to the political use of the money that the revolutionaries raised under the cover of religious purpose. Reactionary fanatics, the men of Mattu—on the whole very little motivated by patriotic ideology—chose for their target Rabindranath Tagore on his visit to San Francisco, in October 1916. Duly informed, the Ghadar members under the advice of Ram Chandra, kept watch on the poet’s hotel and could stop them from reaching the hotel. In a clash, Mattu lost his turban, the supreme shame for a Sikh. This led Mattu to denounce Ram Chandra’s dangerous activities before the American federal police and to serve as informer: among other charges, Ram Chandra was accused of having bought cyanide of potassium and bactaria of fatal diseases.310 Little interested, on his side, to collaborate under the leadership of the ‘Bengalis’ Ram Chandra, during Gupta’s absence, resumed his propaganda. This drew the attention of the German Consul in San Francisco, resulting in a formal instruction from Chatto and Wesendonck (of Berlin) asking Ram Chandra to concentrate on the agreed lines of action.311 Frau Maria Leonhauser of San Francisco also wrote to Har Dayal (then in Europe) to relieve Ram Chandra from his responsibilities.312 Finally with Ram Chandra in his control, Chakravarti informed Berlin, in September 1916, of his submissive attitude, without hiding that the Ghadar under the dissidents’ influence was gradually crumbling.313 At this stage, except an attempt of uprising among the Indian populations in Cuba and Panama, the activities of the Indian nationalists in the USA were limited. Dhiren Sen and Bhagwan Singh, between May and October 1916, created serious agitations there in view of a revolt. But

312

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

the German authorities seemed indifferent to the project to the point of abandoning it indefinitely. Of his return from Central America, faithful to the vision of Taraknath Das, Bhagwan Singh claimed he was leader of the Ghadar majority, replacing Ram Chandra. The latter, with the support of rich Muslim tradesmen from India, tried to keep Har Dayal busy with his plan of action. This state of confusion made the position of the Indian militants weak. At this juncture, carrying a letter of credence from Calcutta, Sailen Ghose (one of Jatin Mukherjee’s followers) came to San Francisco and contacted M.N. Roy and Chakravarti with precise instructions. Shortly after the active entry of the USA in the World War Ghose ran away to Mexico with the Roys, to come back from there in November and to found, in San Francisco, the special office of the Indian National Party, with Taraknath Das as President, Agnes Smedley-Brundin as Secretary, Bhagwan Singh and himself as active members. Under cover of this party, they formed the American branch of the temporary government of Free India and demanded recognition as such. In the middle of the tension caused by the declaration of W. Wilson that the USA would enter actively the War, whereas Chakravarti and Sekunna (an usurer by profession) sped up the purchases of real estate, including a building on 364 East 120th Street (New York). Security measures were instituted against foreigners of various nationalities who made use of American neutrality to plot against the allies on American soil. ‘At the end of one month, it was Gupta’s turn, on 10 March; then that of Ram Chandra and twelve other associates, on 7 April. According to the British agent W.A. Mundell, whose detectives tracked Ram Chandra, the latter was ‘the leader of the Indian revolutionaries, who had been sending since two months 1,500 Hindu volunteers from the USA to participate in an uprising in India. Among the 105 accused brought together from the four corners of the world until July 1917, were Von Papen (Military Attaché to the German Embassy in Washington), Franz Bopp (German Consul-General in San Francisco), Wilhelm von Brincken (Military Attaché to

The Thinker in Action

313

the German Consulate in San Francisco), Kurt Von Reiswitz (German Consul-General in Chicago), Gustav Jacobsen (real estate agent), Albert Wehde (art dealer), George Paul Boehm, Georg Roedrick (German Consul-General in Honolulu), H.R. Schroeder (his Secretary), Taraknath Das, M.N. Roy, Bhagwan Singh, Har Dayal and many others. Robert Lansing (Home Ministry) in a letter asked the Labour Ministry to stop all naturalization of ‘Hindus’. Hardly incarcerated, Sekunna and Chakravartis promised the Police a clean breast about this plot. Released on bail worth 25,000 dollars each, on 7 March itself, terrified, Chakravarti visited the Office of Naturalisation with the firm intention to become an American citizen. In its files of the Department of Near East Affairs, the Home Ministry preserves a hand-written letter from Chakravarti, dated 19 October 1917, addressed to Mr. Leland Harrison of the Home Ministry, accompanied by a Declaration of sixteen leaflets: ‘If I could be useful to you, please consider me your order bearer, because I always remain at your service, available.’ In spite of a laudatory editorial to congratulate Chakravarti for his service to the USA, American officials were not impressed by a traitor’s flatteries. The Home Ministry protested the decision of the Labour Ministry to expel Chakravarti, recalling ‘his prior services’ to the government, accompanied by a letter from him, dated 12 July 1919 and addressed to Leland Harrison (care of the American Mission to the Congress to negotiate Peace, in Paris), but the Home Ministry warned Harrison that it would be really difficult to reward someone for having rendered this kind of service: ‘I am certain that you will not have enough confidence in our little friend to grant him any responsibility that he is expecting. As you know him, he can lie more quickly than a horse can trot and he can easily crawl across a key-hole.’ In his reply from Paris, on 18 September 1919, the interlocutor thanked the Ministry while underlining that it would be useful to remain in touch with the ‘little guy’, recommending, especially, not to give him anything in writing.314

314

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

The Grand Federal Jury, formed on 7 July 1917, decided to examine the 105 accused in a unique case in San Francisco: ‘USA versus Franz Bopp, German Consul-General in San Francisco versus Ram Chandra, Chief of the Ghadar Party, a Hindu organism having for district-general San Francisco and vowed to the achievement of India’s independence from Great Britain’. According to the San Francisco Chronicle of 22 April 1918 it was one of the longest cases (lasting for five months) and cost about 3 millions dollars.315 The case began on 22 November, 1917. On 4 December, the District Attorney for North California called ten witnesses among the accused, ready to confess: Harcharan Das (member of the Ghadar, delegated by Ram Chandra, to accompany Hari Singh, Mangu Ram, Harnam Chand and Gambhir Singh for the Maverick mission, on 22 April 1915), Dowes Dekker (a double agent who, in spite of an allowance of £500 from the Berlin Committee, had sold the German code to the British authorities in 1915, leading to the arrest of hundreds of revolutionaries acting under the Zimmermann Plan), Ray Howard (lawyer, Los Angeles), Walter S. Hughes (carrier, New York), Ralph Russ (American Captain), M. Martinez (San Diego broker, representing Juan Bernardo Bowen of Topolobampo, Mexico), Leopold Michels (importer, San Francisco), Ernest Sekunna (chemist and usurer, New York), Tehl Singh (member of the Ghadar, San Francisco) and John B. Starr Hunt (supercargo of the Maverick, suspected to be an American agent).316 At the same time Von Brincken (Military Attaché at the German Consulate of San Francisco), interned in Alcatraz prison, declared guilty, representing the wishes of some of his colleagues he claimed: It seems to me that we will be able to serve the German cause better by declaring ourselves guilty, thus avoiding more important disclosures during the case. Every nation in war is implied in conspiracy, and the less one speaks of such cases, the better it is for Germany. But if we do not confess it tomorrow, we shall never do it.

Inflated by congratulations and honours consecutive to his

The Thinker in Action

315

operation against Jatin Mukherjee (Balasore, 9 September 1915), Godfrey Charles Denham, Chief of the Police in British India, rounded up from all over the world all important supects and, especially, any repentant revolutionary eager to stand witness against the accused. This in order not to miss any chance of gaining the upper hand on the disloyal British subjects who dared act against the interests of His Majesty by throwing doubts over the nature of British rule. Most of these witnesses were accomodated at the Whitcomb hotel in San Francisco, under the intensive surveillance of the police. Denham’s presumptuousness went as far as searching the dwellings of Indian nationalists residing in the USA, without official mandate. Having carried out a search at the apartment of Taraknath Das, at 44 Portola Street, San Francisco while the latter was away and having seized his papers and books, Denham exposed himself to severe attacks.317 Particularly, since Taraknath Das had chosen to be naturalized in 1914 and, his rights as an American citizen, had to be protected by the American government against this kind of intrusion. That several American authorities danced to Denham’s piping became obvious since the District Attorney of the Federal Republic demanded from the Commissioner of Immigration in Angel Island, certificates concerning some of the accused like Taraknath Das, M.N. Roy, and Nandekar. This Commissioner had detained them ‘at the a time where Mr. Denham led his investigations thanks to your agreeable assistance, at Angel Island’.318 Denham’s task had been largely facilitated by Captain H. Landau’s monumental spying, particularly, against the Germans and the Indians in the USA.319 In October 1916, Sir Charles Cleveland (Director of the Criminal Police in India), in an interview with Dewitt Mackenzie, confessed: ‘we came to know of most of the conspiracies thanks to our own agents.’320 The expenses borne by the British Government went up to about a million dollars. In San Francisco alone, two hundred British secret agents collaborated to prepare the case against the Indians. The minutes of the declarations ran up to more than 6,000

316

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

leaflets, costing $3.600 per copy.321 The Professor Robert M. Lovett in his autobiography characterized the case as ‘one of the most shameful episodes of our legal history’, underlining constant interference and assistance of the British agents and Denham’s ubiquity behind the American District Attorney who, apparently, presided over the procedure. Lovett wrote, I was, nevertheless, more deeply angry for the treatment that the Indians in the USA suffered from the British Agents, acting through the intermediary of our authorities, than any other proof of foreign interference in our affairs. I mentioned this to all English that I met in this country—to H.G. Wells, to H.L. Brailsford, to the Lord Robert Cecil and to S.K. Ratcliffe. They have all given me the same answer: nothing can be done.322

Before the Court, Theodor Roche, one of the defence lawyers, questioning Otto Orr—agent of William A. Mundell—was indignant: ‘If you want me to prove that Mundell has been hired by the British Government, I am perfectly determined to say that, as far as I know, it is true.’ And he added: ‘Did you not know it, yourself, that at a given period (in 1916) the work you did for Mr. Mundell had been paid by Carnegie Ross, the regional British Consul?’323 McGowan, another defence lawyer, estimated that the case in its totality took effect under the initiative of the British government. ‘The Government of the USA never found anything seditious in the writings of the accused.’324 The case was One of the most picturesque ever produced in an American court. The Hindus in turbans lent an oriental ambience there. Among the publications appeared depositions in six Indian languages, along with coded messages, all this constantly requiring some translations by interpreters and cryptographers. Witness after witness came to relate fantastic stories of adventure. The action jumped quickly between the three focal points, Berlin, the USA and India, with intermediary stages situated in Japan, in China, in Afghanistan and in the Pacific Ocean.325

John W. Preston, a provincial judge promoted to the

The Thinker in Action

317

post of departmental District Attorney of North California, dazzled by this responsibility of such a prestigious case, already imagined himself in the historic annals of the world. Identifying with the racial hatred of the British against their Indian subjects, he only spoke of the defendants as ‘negroes’ to the astonishment of all. Yet the person in charge of the London-Paris National Bank (San Francisco) expressed his indignation against the Press trying to transform revolutionaries into sinister agents: ‘these radicals are as much radical as the President himself’. In a letter of 1 April 1919, the Office of the District Attorney-General referred to Bluma Zalaznek, the judge as ‘Bluma the bitch’.

* We evoked, previously, the prejudices that Taraknath Das faced from the American authorities. ‘The first important political activist’326 to give a convergent orientation to the aspirations of the Indian communities in the north of the American continent, he applied among his manhandled compatriots the lessons of the Bengal extremists, under the searching gaze of Canadian and British spies. Pointing out Taraknath’s school for training adult Indians in Millside, close to New Westminster, characterizing it to be a revolutionary home for seditious ideas, and drawing the attention of the British government to the enormous popularity of Taraknath (who benefitted presumably from ample financial contributions for his activities), the special correspondent of the London Times in Vancouver held Taraknath responsible for indoctrinating the Sikhs. He had already some idea of the experiments that Taraknath was about to initiate, in the company of Adhar Laskar, G.D. Kumar and Professor Suren Bose, in manufacturing explosives for the use of the Indian revolutionaries.327 Fired from his job, during one year Das reposted through his editorials in the Free Hindustan that considering the excellence of the expertise of Indian chemists, he would be pleased if he could send them—in spite of the

318

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

postal surveillance by the government—some formulae useful for the making of explosives in India. Among his editorials of the time was a tone particularly hostile to British justice, bringing home the perils before Indian national life, merciless in criticizing the famines in India, bidding for solutions the lessons of German revolution of 1849 and the Russian methods. His examples of a radical political practice would soon be taken up by other leaders.328 Pursuing in the Far East his audacious mission, on the eve of his tour in Russia, Taraknath learned from the American embassy of Tokyo, that he was awaited in San Francisco for a case. Taraknath was arrested in Honolulu without a warrant and convicted in San Francisco.329 Refuting the accusation against him, Taraknath invited the Prosecutor to prove: (1) that he had recruited some volunteers in the USA; (2) that he gave them military training; (3) that he taught them the use of the explosives; (4) that he provided them with weapons; (5) that he provided them with ammunition and (6) with supplies; (7) with money (out of which a great portion would be of German source); (8) that he provided them with passage tickets on board India-bound ships leaving the USA; (9) that he sent them from the USA to India; (10) that he had tried with other accused persons to leave the USA to go to India; (11) that he had sent seditious literatures to India in order to foment a rebellion there; (12) that he had purchased; (13) and chartered ships in the USA with money from the Imperial German Government; (14) that he had transported; (15) and embarked in the American territory the aforementioned accused for going to India; (16) with money; and (17) with ammunition. When? Where?330 Arguments were taken up before the Great Jury by Defence lawyer McGowan, stressing a lack of proof to pronounce the verdict that Taraknath was not guilty. In the same way, on the insufficiency of facts and proofs, McGowan tried to exonerate Ram Chandra, Godharam, Sundar Singh, Suren Kar, Ladli Verma, Munsi Ram, Jodh Singh, Bishan Singh Hindi,

The Thinker in Action

319

Bhagwan Singh, Santokh Singh, Gopal Singh, Nidhan Singh and Ram Singh. Released on bail while the case continued, with Agnes Smedley, Sailen Ghose and Bhagwan Singh, Taraknath founded, on 21 November 1917, the American branch of the Indian Nationalist Party discussed earlier. In addition to approaching President Wilson personally, requesting him to recognize their organization as a diplomatic legation of the temporary government of Free India, they wrote to the Secretary of State of the USA as well as to the Ambassadors of Spain, Norway, Bolivia, Netherlands, Costa Rica, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Denmark, Paraguay, Panama, Honduras and Japan, asking them to intimate the respective governments to recognize their existence on American soil. They also contacted Leon Trotski (then elected Minister of the Workers’ and the Soldiers’ Party in Russia) with the hope of an active collaboration to blow the British out of India. Some documents lead one to believe that active branches of the same Indian organization existed in China, Japan, and some other countries.331 Here I examine a tragic figure in the case, the patriot Jodh Singh (Mahajan). He had the confidence of Madame Cama’s circle. Jodh Singh was at Rio de Janeiro, in September 1914, where Ajit Singh brought him an urgent message to go to Berlin. At the German Consulate, receiving a ticket for Berlin, he left with Ajit Singh’s passport (issued in the name of Hassan Zada). In Genoa, the German Consul gave him a new passport declaring him as a German citizen hailing from East Africa. In Berlin he met Chatto and Har Dayal. Arriving in New York on 24 April, with letters for Heramba Gupta and Ram Chandra, he met the latter on his way to San Francisco; Ram Chandra presented him to Boehm and explained to him that along with Boehm, Wehde, Mueller, Sterneck, he was to look after a delivery of arms in Bangkok destined for the revolutionaries in India. He left San Francisco with Darisi Chenchiya and Sukumar Chatterjee; via Honolulu and

320

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Manila, on 2 July they reached Amoy (China). Boehm and his associates arrived separately at Manila, in June 1915; they were informed by the Helfferich brothers that it was necessary to transport 5,000 revolvers to Chittagong after leaving 500 in Bangkok. For this purpose, the schooner Henry S was chartered in Wehde’s name. After reaching Bangkok in July, Jodh Singh and his party were arrested in August 1915 and imprisoned in Singapore. Deranged by multiple failures and, especially, by the insincerity of some German agents. Jodh Singh revealed to the British police everything that he knew. With the execution of seven patriots weighing on his conscience, when he was transferred in San Francisco by the British police as witness in a new case, Jodh Singh’s patriotic conscience had had enough of it. He went into progressive dementia, in the solitude of Alameda jail. Taraknath Das, on behalf of the Pacific Hindustan Association, an organization watching over the interests of the Indian nationalists, sent an appeal to President Wilson. Immediately, on analysing the subject, the medical school of the University of Stanford issued a detailed report on Jodh Singh. He described his cell as the cell of a great mystery. Approaching me as near as possible, he whispered that if the truth was disclosed, these men would have turned the globe upside down and this cell would become the centre of India. The psychiatrists’ opinion have a subjective resonance: a distrustful personality (owing to his personal constitution and nationality); servile; a dreamer having lived during a number of years with extremely selfless ideas, intricate paranoiac ideas sometimes going upto near-fanaticism.

Ram Chandra was another tragic figure. Individualist, authoritative, identifying cheerfully with the salvation of the Indian community, or even that of his Motherland, he denounced in the Ghadar, in March 1917, the dissidents Bhagwan Singh, Santokh Singh, and Ram Singh as simple jokers devoted to pleasure. All three had preferred to collaborate with Taraknath Das, having considered him as the seniormost among the leaders and the closest to the Indian revolutionary

The Thinker in Action

321

spirit. Time and again, Taraknath had tried to reconcile the two factions of the Ghadar but Ram Chandra did not want that. After his arrest, managing to be released on bail, he had proved to be penniless. In contrast Chakravarti and Sekunna each produced a sum of 25,000 dollars; on learning this, some Indian Muslim tradesmen of San Francisco rushed to collect the necessary money and brought it to him. Ram Chandra, a worthy representative of the Indians in the USA, sent two letters to President Wilson. In the last one, he proclaimed: India, Ireland, Egypt, Persia, Morocco, Malay—these are states under slavery. They should be represented in the Congress for the Peace, not by the governments that dominate them, but by the representatives that they will elect themselves. Let this War not end, Mr. President, as long as they do not get their independence.

Yet Ram Chandra, in the name of all accused Indian revolutionaries, submitted a petition confessing collective guilt. Addicted to a displaced idealism of surrendering to British justice and to be crowned with the capital punishment and become a martyr, he capitulated before the impressive display of trained witnesses against his co-accused. This in spite of the insufficiency of facts and proofs that lawyer McGowan had just established, thanks to the audacious stand taken by Taraknath Das. Settling unconditionally, before the Great Jury, this fundamental difference between Ram Chandra’s defeatism and the honest incentives of the Indian revolutionaries, on 6 April 1918, Taraknath Das pronounced his disagreement with Ram Chandra’s petition. Taraknath Das underlined that the latter had acted without consulting the others. Far from a gang of desperate nationalists requiring to be handed over at the mercy of the British police, ‘we esteem our (national) independence so that we may work for ourselves and our people’. Why evoke capital punishment’, affirmed Taraknath Das, ‘since according to the American law the maximum punishment could be only two years of imprisonment with a penalty of $10,000! I do not feel guilty, not more than the

322

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

other accused, and I do not want to be hanged in India.’ This same conviction urged George McGowan to affirm in court that the reason which led the accused to have wanted to remedy the state of things was that, ‘We are impatient to demonstrate, that the British Government violated all promises that had been advanced. We want to demonstrate that the USA refused to hand them over, once these people have been tracked in this country, in Canada and elsewhere. Whereas Ireland,’ proclaimed the lawyer, ‘has about a hundred voices in the British Parliament, India, in spite of her 300 millions of inhabitants, does not even have a single vote in this institution.’ Ram Chandra wrote several editorials in the Ghadar; with arguments drawn from declarations by Patrick Henry, George Washington, Lincoln and even President Wilson, regretting his petition. He had even—in a previous incendiary pamphlet—quoted William Jennings Bryan, former candidate to the presidency of the USA—on the British reign in India, after his visit in India: I met rich and poor people in cities and in the countryside, I examined statistics, I read speeches, reports, the petitions and other literatures that we do not come accross in the USA; and the British reign in India is the worse; a lot more oppressive for this people and a lot more unjust than I had supposed. The problem is that England had acquired India for England’s advantages alone; not for India’s; she detains India for the profits of England; not for India’s; and she governs India with a gaze fixed on England’s interests; not on India’s.

It was all too late. On 23 April 1918, a week before the case ended, the accused Ram Singh fired three bullets and put an end to Ram Chandra’s shilly-shallying. He, too, on his turn, was killed on the spot by the security detail. On 30 April 1918, the Federal Judge Van Fleet pronounced his verdict:

The Thinker in Action

I.

323

Confined to the McNeil island prison were: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Franz Bopp: 2 years; penalty $10,000 E.H. Von Schack: similar Capelle: 15 months; penalty $7,500 Joseph L. Bley: 15 months; penalty $5,000 Von Brincken: 2 years Bhagwan Singh: 18 months Taraknath Das: 22 months Santokh Singh: 21 months

II. To the prison of Alameda were: 9. Charles Lattendorff: one year 10. Walter Sanarbach: one year; penalty $2,000 11. Harry J. Hart: 6 months; penalty $5,000 12. J. Clyde Hizar: one year; penalty $5,000 13. Bernard Manning: 9 months; penalty $1,000 14. Edward Deinet: 10 months; penalty $1,500 15. Heinrich Elbo: 6 months; penalty $1,000 16. Moritz Goitzheim von: 6 months; penalty $1,000 17. S.K. Chakravarti: 30 days; penalty $5,000 18. Godha Ram: 11 months 19. Bishan Singh Hindi: 9 months 20. Gopal Singh: 1 year, 1 day 21. Nidhan Singh: 14 months III. To the prison of San Francisco: 22. Henry W. Kaufmann: 6 months or penalty $5,000 23. Munshi Ram: 60 days 24. Imam Din: 4 months 25. Niranjan Das: 6 months 26. Mahadeo A. Nandekar: 3 months 27. G. B. Lal: 10 months 28. Dhiren Sarkar: 4 months 29. Louis Hengstler: penalty $5,000

*

324

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Not to be able to hand over the naturalized Taraknath Das to British justice an exasperated John Preston noted: ‘I am persuaded that he is par excellence the face of infamy and treason during the war. I doubt strongly that during the whole War, at least in this country, one ever saw a greater criminal, a greater enemy—with a more dangerous character—of our peace and our well-being, than this man.’332 But American public opinion, shocked by the British interference in the affairs of the USA, protested more and more openly. Giving it a deliberately different slant, Judge Van Fleet, in his closing speech before the Court, put all the accused on guard against all possible relapsing to their propaganda: The public is no longer ready to tolerate any propaganda against the Allies of the USA. Where the Government fails to take measures to put an end to the propaganda hostile to its allies, the people choose to take the law in its own hands. There are a good many examples of this kind. I will advise each of you to drop your propaganda as soon as you will be released.333

With a view to demonstrate the pernicious effect of this propaganda all over the world, Preston paid an involuntary homage to the success of the Indian revolutionaries in the USA, by admitting that they attracted practically everybody towards the Indian cause ‘the aid of every Hindu and every sympathiser of all the neutral countries of the world’.334 In March 1918, following a letter from Arthur Upham Pope (a longtime professor at the University of California, Berkeley) attesting the moral and intellectual qualities of Taraknath Das, an investigation was opened. Having known Taraknath since 1911, then Har Dayal, Professor Pope exercised a deep influence on the Indian students of this university: ‘No other teacher of the establishment had more cordial exchanges with them’. Among the accused of the San Francisco Trial, about half-a-dozen of students or former students of Pope had been implicated. This raised the question about the quality of the teaching that this professor dispensed. Since Taraknath was a ‘violent type of revolutionary’ since he circulated, in 1914,

The Thinker in Action

325

an extremely virulent manual to manufacture explosives; since, in the same year, he indoctrinated Sikh passengers of the Komagata Maru—held-up by the Canadian authorities— in favour of a revolt against the latter;335 since he provided them with revolvers for this purpose; since during the war, he left for Europe and Middle East where, during eighteen months—as an agent of the Indian Committee in Berlin— he received German money; since from Smyrna he wrote to Professor Pope; since appointed by Zimmermann, Taraknath left, in 1916, for Japan in revolutionary mission, passing by San Francisco;336 since at the end of 1916, M.N. Roy asked Rash Behari Bose to send from Japan the credit (received from the Germans) care of Professor Pope; since in the context of the San Francisco Trial, Pope reassured Taraknath that he had just written to Mexico City asking M [presumably M.N. Roy] for defence expenditure; since he encouraged Taraknath to appeal for mercy; a study of Pope’s file led the District Attorney of the Federal Republic to conclude: ‘I must confess that it will be strongly advised that Professor Pope was no more appointed—or used in any way—for State service.’ While Taraknath Das served his sentence in the loathsome jail of Fort Leavenworth, Preston submitted to the District Attorney-General, an additional file to the San Francisco trial. It examined the case of Sailen Ghose and sought to establish the complicity of Taraknath Das, Pulin Bose, the couple Marion and William Wotherspoon, Bluma Zalaznek and Agnes Smedley in a fraudulent claim that Ghose, Taraknath Das and Pulin Bose were official representatives of a foreign government recognized by the USA. They were also accused of obtaining as so-called representatives, a very important loan and diplomatic immunities. A third head of accusation against them consisted of their intention to infiltrate the military and naval forces of the USA in order to promote the interests of those hostile to the USA, thus bringing about—and trying to cause—disloyalty and a resignation before duty, and to have prevented the recruitment and the mobilization of American citizens by the distributing in the USA a pamphlet titled The

326

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Isolation of Japan in World Politics under the signature of ‘An Asian Statesman’, who was Taraknath Das in person. In a report of 19 leaflets including 68 exhibits on Indian Nationalist Party Case—kept in the National Archives of the USA Record-Group 60, Files 193424—the secret agents of the American judicial police established the history and the functioning of this party; the arrival of Ghose, in January 1917, with letters of credence from the Extremist Party of Calcutta; from Philadelphia, he arrived in San Francisco to live temporarily with Dhan Gopal Mukerji (C/O Mrs Blackman, 861 Ramona Avenue, Palo Alto). After an exchange of telegrams between Ghose and M.N. Roy (2117 Daly Ave., Bronx, New York) whereas the former left to live with Suren Kar (one of the accused of the San Francisco Trial) in the Nalanda Club in Berkeley, arranging with Chakravarti for financing Sailen Ghose’s trip to New York: he arrived there on 24 February, 1917. Accomodated by his old friend M.N. Roy Ghose met Agnes Smedley who was living in 156 Waverly Place, New York. By the end of May, she gave him with a letter of introduction to the socialist Bernard Gallant, to Senor Montes de Oca in Mexico City, whence Ghose (alias Bhupen Mukherjee), in company of the Roys, fled to Mexico. Back in San Francisco, he rented a room at Mrs Peterson (67 Portola Street) on 21 November 1917, the day following the opening of the San Francisco Trial. We note that Taraknath himself lived at No. 44 of the same street and Carleton Washburne lived nearby at No. 47. Like Carleton, his mother Marion and his father-in-law William A. Wotherspoon337—both of them admirers of Taraknath—lived in the nearby 289 Edgewood Avenue, and their intimate friends, Mary and Lemuel Parton, at No. 184 of the same avenue (where—as Taraknath’s neighbours—(they would shelter Ghose in January 1918). Another personality of this band was the young Russian girl of nineteen years, Bluma Zalaznek (alias Krauz), a ‘crazy Bolshevik’ who exercised a strong influence on the Partons. As Secretary of the regional branch of the Council for the Peace of Free Peoples (an organization devoted to Bolshevik ideas and principles),

The Thinker in Action

327

Mary was assisted in her political tasks by her own sister Sarah Bard Field. Bluma worked as a typist for William Short, President of the aforesaid organization and friend of the convicted Bolsheviks. David J. and Herman Smith. Another member of the group was John Noble Washburne, Carleton’s brother and Bluma’s fiancé. In spite of the invitations from Robert Minor, partisan of the Independent Workers of the World, to settle with him in Russia, Bluma valued confidence and love more, and they married during the trial in 1919. A young ‘slender man of twenty-three years, delicate, refined, of great culture, M.Sc. of the University of Calcutta’, Sailen Ghose, elaborated a stylograph that interested William Wotherspoon, who consulted the jurist Baldwin Vale of San Francisco with a view to patent and market it. In at the USA, impressed by another of Ghose’s inventions—an inexpensive electric generator—Marion Wotherspoon showed it to the scientist Alexander Graham Bell, who was a close family friend, in order to facilitate Ghose’s research. Invited by Trotski, when Ghose left San Francisco for New York on 11 March, 1918, on his way to Russia, Marion had given him a personal note for her son John: ‘Here is Ghose, who lives at the Partons’ and whom we all love. He is a friend of Taraknath as well as of Carleton. I hope that, soon, you will accept him among your friends. You can speak with him of ideologies—international, human, religious and scientific—and relish, within your limits, subtleties’. All designate Ghose ‘a zealous Bolshevik’, appeared in the mass of papers seized on him. There was also a coded letter from M.N. Roy (‘working with the Germans’) and another, in ‘an enigmatic language’ from Rash Behari Bose. In addition to his own seditious writings, Ghose carried, in his belongings, a heap of articles by Taraknath Das. Alerted by a correspondence between Ghose (alias Mitra, alias Juan Sanchez) and Agnes Smedley (alias Brundin, alias M.A. Rogers), the American military police learned that through Robert Minor that Ghose was ready to leave for Russia. A search at Agnes’s apartment (38 Union Square,

328

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

New York), at the time of her arrest led to important discoveries, such as: 38 anti-British pamphlets of propaganda; and 32 leaflets of an article by Ghose ‘full of half-truths on India’. Ghose was arrested, New York in mid-March, two days after Agnes. Denham (Director of the British Criminal Intelligence in India), assisted by the American federal police, led a raid in San Francisco, at the residences of Taraknath, Bluma, the Partons and the Wotherspoons—in their absence—to seize other documents also. From the Wotherspoons’, Taraknath dictated on the phone an itemized telegram to President Wilson, presenting himself as the President of the Special Commission of the Indian Nationalist Party and protesting the operation against Ghose. On the following day, Wotherspoon in a very long letter written to President Wilson made full disclosure on the pacifist revolutionary activities of Taraknath Das and Ghose; he annexed a letter of Taraknath and a copy of the incriminated work, on the Isolation of Japan.338

* Denham and other British agents, Preston and his partners, attempted to their maximum to expose all ‘immoral’ aspects of these accused. Ram Chandra received German money, unable to give an adequate justification of its use; Bhagwan Singh, in emotional pain, lived with a courtesan at Panama; Ghose was arrested in the company of Agnes Smedly, learning the news of Taraknath’s arrest, his friend Carleton came to see him with the latter’s wife, and betraying ‘a most disgusting friendship’ between them, she sat down on the armrest of Taraknath’s chair; the Wotherspoons maintained a correspondence with Lenin and Trotski, and surrounded themselves with Bolshevik characters such as the Blumas and the Partons: ‘If a great publicity was given to these facts in this country and in India, it would deal a severe blow on their propaganda.’339 Looking down on William Wotherspoon as ‘a socialist, a relegated lawyer, a swindler’, they described Marion Wotherspoon in terms of ‘feasting, for years, on

The Thinker in Action

329

Hindu thought and on pacifism, to the point of losing her American identity’. The Isolation of Japan by Taraknath Das was classified as treason. This work seems to be a revised version of what Taraknath Das published in Shanghai, in 1917, under the title, Is Japan a Threat for Asia?, prefaced by Hon Tong Shao Yi, former prime minister of the Chinese Republic. Preston ignored that William Wotherspoon, in a second letter sent to President Wilson, reminded him that with his consent their son John had volunteered his service as an army physician during the War; that Gordon Strong of Illinois (a cousin of his wife) had served the country during the Spanish War and that, once again he had offered his service for a patriotic reason; another cousin, Clare Poster, was a member of the government in Washington, DC; that their son-in-law, Herman Stegeman, was the Director of Physical Instruction in the army, in Camp Wadsworth; that his uncle-in-law, the General John W. Noble—whose name was given to their son—was a veteran of the Civil War and Secretary of State of the Home Ministry under President Benjamin Harrison (in the year 1890); and that his own ancestor, John Wotherspoon of New Jersey, had been one of the personalities belonging to the Declaration of the Independence of the USA.340 As for Marion Wotherspoon (born Foster), author of ten works (of which two novels) and many articles on comparative religions and mythologies, is represented in the American Who’s Who. Her father, Dr Foster, had been Professor and President of the Homoeopathic Medical College of Chicago, as well as her first spouse, Dr. George Washburne. The very soul of several cultural associations of Chicago—Women’s Club, Club for the Promotion of Kindergarten system, Club of ‘Aristotelian’ philosophical discussions—editor of several magazines of which the Harper’s Bazaar and the Chicago Evening Post, she encouraged movements for the promotion of instruction and culture. Under President Harrison, she had represented the women of Chicago in a national Committee within the Congress, for the world Fair. This was for her an opportunity

330

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

to make the acquaintance of Swami Vivekananda, a decisive point in her life: thanks to the literature and to the philosophy of India, she knew how to explore symbolism. She belongs to the Christian theosophical movement, which is far from pacifist, because she mobilized, by her own influence, a good number of young people to participate in the War.341 What William Wotherspoon did not mention in his letter to President Wilson, out of modesty, is that after having practised as a lawyer for seven years, he had concentrated more on the development of his social and political thought. His writings on The Farmer and the Royalties in the County of Valley had brought him a nomination at the Congress both on the lists of the Democratic and Independent parties; but he had not accepted it because, in 1887, he left for California with plans to promote industrial cooperation. After having worked in San Francisco and in Oregan, he bought the shares from the Kansas-Sinaloa Company in Mexico. As legal adviser to several American investors in Mexico, he acted as mediator between Walter Q. Gresham (American State Secretary) and the General Porfirio Diaz, President of Mexico.342 It is in Topolobampo (Mexico) that he had known the young Juan Bernardo Bowen—accused in the San Francisco Trial—to have arranged the arms expedition to India by the schooner Annie Larsen; it is interesting to note that W. Wotherspoon maintained friendly relations with M. Berg and other officers of the Standard Oil Company, intimately associated with the Maverick episode.343 The home of the Wotherspoons was always a crossroads of great pioneering cultural and philosophical ideas, without having necessarily a particular leaning for Marxism. W. Wotherspoon did not deny having had correspondence with Lenin and Trotski about his own cooperative experiences such as the project in the County of Montrose (Colorado)—occupying a surface of 30,000 acres of land, belonging to the government and requiring an estimated irrigation channel worth $200,000—that had been achieved and financed by W. Wotherspoon.

The Thinker in Action

331

For his part defending Sailen Ghose and Agnes Smedley, the jurist Gilbert Roe of New York, in his letter of 13 January 1919 wrote to Mr. O’Brion, Attorney-General, about the circumstances of the arrest (‘without warrant, nor the least legal authority, the completely illegal seizure of their papers and their belongings, interning them for several days without benefit of advice and without even any possibility of contacting their friends, having been kept under an excessive bail—Ghose for a sum of $25,000 and Miss Smedley for $10,000’). According to Roe, Smedley—having continued her studies in spite of great pecuniary difficulties, at the Normal School of San Diego, before becoming a member of its teaching Body—possessed the most sought-after diplomas. Arrived in New York in January 1917 as Secretary of the Congress of Forums, she moved to the University of New York where she made acquaintance with some patriotic Indian students like Sailen Ghose: they were more or less of her age, about twentyfive years. As it is customary with the intellectuals at this age, Mr. Ghose, he wrote, was seriously impatient to improve the fate of his compatriots and, therefore, had attracted the disfavour of the British regime. ‘I am absolutely persuaded that neither Miss Smedley nor Mr. Ghose had the least connection with the arms expedition to India nor with other plots that suppose any violation of the laws established in this country.’ M. Roe added that he had just learned that a procedure had been instituted to dismiss the naturalization of Taraknath Das—who was still serving his term at Fort Leavenworth— and that it would be decent to await his release so that he could explain his own case and defend himself as a legitimate citizen of the USA.344 After long deliberations, the General Prosecutor wrote to John Preston (Special Assistant to the General Prosecutor of San Francisco): ‘I came to the conclusion that the indictment will have to be withdrawn against these two defendants (Mr. and Mrs Wotherspoon). You are warned therefore to take adequate measures.’345 Similarly, on 5 April, the General

332

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Prosecutor’s Office ordered Preston to withdraw all accusations against Bluma Zalaznek, daughter-in-law of the Wotherspoons.346 In a communique of the Military intelligence sent to L. Lanier Wislow (Office of the General Prosecutor), dated 25 March 1919, the Captain H.T. Jones detailed the propaganda of the Indian agitators against the detention of political criminals (notably of Agnes Smedley and Sailen Ghose; Smedley herself published, a ‘Call to the Americans’ duly signed by several famous American radicals.347 Echoing the voice of numerous citizens, Percy S. Grant (Church of Ascension in New York) in his letter of 31 May 1919, regretted before the Office of the General Prosecutor, that a procedure against Taraknath Das was launched to cancel his naturalization, whereas the concerned person was serving his term in an American prison for having wished freedom for his race.348 Sailen Ghose, on his turn, in an article published in the Dial, on 23 August 1919, on ‘The Deportation of Hindu politicians’ deplored that Taraknath Das—a naturalized American citizen—about to leave the jail in October 1919, was going to be stripped of his citizen’s rights and, probably, handed over to a government whose theories and the practices he disowned and to which he refused his loyalty.349 The Mexican socialist Party sent, on 11 July, a note to the American Labour Ministry, protesting against such procedures. Similarly, on 15 August 1919, Reedy’s Mirror (St. Louis, Mo.) published an article on ‘To Execute the dirty intention of the British’, followed by an ‘Appeal to President Wilson’ on behalf of the Friends of Independence for India. From 30 August 1919 up to the end of 1920, thus, a flood of bitter criticism arose from: (a) many Deputies (such as J.H. Sinclair on 1 October: ‘all decision leading to a punishment or a death so little deserved will not enhance your glory’; the honourable Michael F. Phelan on 3 September, wanted to know whether such procedures were indeed hatching;

The Thinker in Action

333

the honourable George Huddlestone on 23 September: ‘on what particular outrage and what statutory basis?’; Guy E. Campbell on 12 September: ‘I want to request you that a due and appropriate consideration is granted to the protest’ of the Lower House); (b) many Senators (such as William S. Kenyon on 25 September, on behalf of the Committee on Instruction and Labour: ‘ Along with other Senators, I am deeply interested in the affairs concerning the deportation of the Hindus… I want to attend (the hearings) in company of other Senators’; Robert L. Owen on 24 September: ‘I remind you that India is dominated by a government mechanism that shoved it off from control of the Parliament and submitted it to a Council handled by the Tory elements of the Empire, and I am convinced that these people have been abusively exploited, as much on commercial as financial grounds.’ Senator G.W. Norris wrote: ‘Several people came to see me, interested in this question (of deportation of the Hindus) for philanthropic reasons. . . . The deportation of these people will be cruel and contrary to the very principle of liberty that has always governed this country. The testimonies against these citizens of India have been collected by secret agents of Great Britain and the means adopted were not only unjust but reprehensible.’); (c) religious personalities such as—in addition to Percy Grant, above-mentioned, Reverend M.J. O’Sullivan on 2 November; Pastor J.H. Dooby of the Christi Church, New York on 3 November: ‘I was astonished to learn that your Ministry seemed to be interested more in the deportation and the detention (of these Hindus) than acting according to the honourable American custom and the constitutional practice of protecting these leaders and these promoters of the people’s cause. They are highly educated, some among them possess splendid professional talents, and none of them can be considered undesirable from the point of view of the citizen’s rights’; (d) professors (such as—in addition to the above-mentioned

334

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Arthur Upham Pope—, R.M. Lovett, Samuel Gomper, Allen Smith; (e) political parties and their representatives (John Buckley, Secretary, Friends of Irish Liberty on 30 August 1919; resolution of a public rally organized on 2 September by the American Labour Party in Hartford; the International Alliance of Theater Employees, Pittsburg, Philadelphia; W.W. Brandt, Secretary, Socialist Party of Saint Louis: ‘Since its independence from the British hold in 1776, American principle has been that of granting political asylum. This, violated by the detention of the Hindus striving to win freedom for their native land. We protest!’ L.M. Brushingham, Secretary, Association of the American Government Employees, Newport, and W.S. Barnes, President of the International Association of Chemists, Newport. The Philadelphia Cell for Democracy took this resolution in a public meeting: ‘Whereas the British Government in India, under the clauses of the Rowlatt Bill, suppressed the last vestiges of justice in their way to treat the Hindus, refusing them rights of a trial before a jury.’ These reactions worried President Wilson and the Labour Ministry (entitled to look after Home Affairs as well) by the importance of public disapproval of this inauspicious procedure. It also proved the mettle of the honest and prudent man that was Taraknath. Tireless patriot, he sent from his prison, two articles to Charles Recht. The first titled ‘The Necessity of Military Training in Indian Schools’ paid tribute to the mandate he had received from Jatindra Nath Mukherjee. The other, ‘The American Intervention in Siberia’, dedicated to President Wilson, remarked a constant clear-sightedness at the service of international relationship. Some months earlier, on 9 November, 1917, Taraknath wrote a postface (22 pages) to the thesis of Dhan Gopal Mukerji (that signed A. Crosby) on ‘The Royal Road to an Honourable Peace: Will the USA

The Thinker in Action

335

Find it?’ With a foreword by Professor David Starr Jordan of the University of Stanford.350 Still in jail (Leavenworth, Kansas), on 19 May 1919, Taraknath addressed a signed note of six typed sheets to the honourable Mitchell Palmer, District Attorney-General, retracing his academic career since his arrival in the USA in 1906. He mentioned his departure for Europe, in 1914, as President of the American Committee of International Students’ Congress scheduled for 1915; how this mission gave him a first hand experience of the teaching system in European universities, thanks to a tour through several countries—including Turkey—and thanks to his joining for one semester the courses dispensed at the University of Berlin. Back to the USA, in July 1916, he took a fresh enrolment at the University of California (Berkeley), before pursuing his tour of universities in the Far East. In January 1917, he published in Shanghai his study, Is Japan a Threat for Asia? This work was a part of his major project on ‘The Expansion of Japan and its Significance in World Politics’. After more of one year of persecution, the authorities in San Francisco judged appropriate to withdraw all complaints against Mr. and Mrs Wotherspoon and against Miss Zalaznek (become Mrs Washburn), whereas he remained—with two other compatriots—at the mercy of a justice that required a revision. To ‘militate for the independence of India is a crime in the British empire—where thousands of men are rotting in Indian jails and hundreds have been executed by the champions of British imperialism; but can one accept that professing India’s independence is a crime in the USA, whereas professing Irish, Armenian or Korean independence is not so in this country?’ Recalling the reasons for cancelling his citizenship with a view to deport him, Taraknath wrote: I gave up my British nationality because I believed in government of the people, by the people, and for the people, as exemplified by the spirit of the government in the USA to which I owe my most sincere and complete loyalty. I must, however, recognise humbly,

336

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

as a good American citizen believing in human liberty, that I find it justified when the 315 millions of Indians claim their autonomy. I can hardly conceive that the government of the USA persists to persecute me because I adhere in all honesty—as do so many other American citizens to the reason of autodetermination for the people of India.351

In spite of certificates from different scientific, religious and political personalities in favour of the lofty and honest profile of Taraknath, in spite of arguments of his legal adviser, Gilbert E. Roe of New York, to help the District AttorneyGeneral find out the illogical aspect of accusations against Taraknath, the regional District Attorney, Annette Abbott Adams, was determined to get his naturalization cancelled. In this enterprise, her passion carried her away far from all reason. Having piled up all unfavourable points against Taraknath—God knows that there were quite a few—she referred, also, to the opinion of her predecessor, John Preston to prove how seriously Gilbert Roe was mistaken in his view. ‘I am absolutely of the opinion,’ she added, that ‘these prosecutions are perfectly justified.’ After having called Taraknath ‘aggressive and belligerent’ unable to rise and defend himself against accusations forwarded, ‘selfish of the most extreme type, for whom American citizenship is not worth anything else than a mask for his activities—apparently for the interest of India’s liberation, but—which, I mean to believe it, are notably at the service of the very glorification of Mr Taraknath Das’), Miss Adams tried to amend: We have no desire, on our part, to persecute Mr. Taraknath Das or whosoever else. It is my opinion and it was the opinion of my predecessor, Mr. Preston, that Das is of a dangerous character and we do not feel flattered by him as a fellow citizen. The case of his denaturalisation had started out of good faith and we want that you allow it (the liberty) of following its own course.

On 24 November 1919, the complaints against Agnes Smedley, Sailen Ghose and the others (whose bail was reimbursed after an appeal in Invalidation), were withdrawn. But Fate—personified by Miss Adams continued to harass

The Thinker in Action

337

Taraknath. Approached again by Gilbert Roe, R.P. Stewart (Attache to the District Attorney-General) had already, on 15 September 1919, analysed in his Note intended for the Attorney-General) the weakness and the technical insufficiencies of the accusations in the Case No.245 before the Supreme Court (against Ghose and others). At the time of dictating this Note, the Office of the District Attorney-General had just received a letter from ‘the accused Taraknath Das. . . . He has been found guilty of having plotted with others a military expedition from the USA against England,’ wrote Stewart. His entire letter reveals that we have, here, a man of an exceptional calibre. With such a great certitude he pleads for what he claims to be his right, that his letter strongly impressed me. Apart from this whole letter, the point that struck me is that if he himself and his associates truly represented some Hindus, as they claim to represent, and if these people called themselves Indian Nationalist Party, he could not be charged of committing any crime by the fact of declaring himself as a representative of such a Party, even if they had not been recognised by the Government of Great Britain.

Earlier in this Note, Stewart defined—according to the Section 4 of the Law of 8 June 1917—a foreign government like ‘all government, all faction or all body of insurgents inside a country with which the USA are in peace, which government, (which) faction or (which) body of insurgents would be able to or could not be recognized by the USA like a government’. Declaring unfavourable enough to the situation presented by this Case, Stewart recommended that the Government of the USA confess their error of assessment in order to withdraw all complaints. The Attorney-General, Alex S. King, recognized that the Case of 1 June 1919 instituted against Taraknath, S. Ghose, the Wotherspoons and others had been judged by the Attorney-General’s Office (John Lord O’Brian, attended by Mr. Bettman) to be worth very little and the prosecution undesirable. He advised withdrawal of all complaints now. The honourable M.A. Palmer (Attorney-General) intimated, thereafter, on 26 November 1919, Gilbert Roe that the case against Ghose and the other

338

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

accused had just been withdrawn on 24 November. It did not specify, however, whether American justice was not going to put an end to the attempts of cancelling Taraknath’s naturalisation. Because still—up to April 1927—the File will make a lot of ink flow and the Affairs will jut out at every decisive turn of the accused’s life, in spite of repeated interventions of Senators, professors and several other trustworthy American personalities, persuaded of Taraknath’s merits and integrity, in spite of the reminders from the District Attorney-General that the case had been—more than once withdrawn. On the occasion of the passport renewal of Mrs Mary Keating Das (Taraknath’s wife), living at 2790 Broadway, New York, on 9 June 1927, the concerned authorities, having misplaced the File of the accused posterior to 15 November 1922, woke up to reviewing his activities. The Memorial dated 6 June 1927, recalled that having been judged at the San Francisco Trial (Proceedings, p. 3864, vol. 43) for conspiracy with many Japanese civil servants to promote a revolution in India against the British regime, and having served his term in the prison of Leavenworth, he had been object of a procedure to cancel his naturalization. Added to this Memorial, an FBI File, dated New York, 8 April, 1927, noted the suspension—on the same day—of the procedure ref. Doc. E. 27/133: ‘The USA against Taraknath Jogendranath Das’ started on 26 September 1923, supported by other similar decisions, valued in the past by the American authorities.352 In answer to an investigation led by the Senator David A. Reed, ‘furious with these new retroactive attempts against T. Das’, O.R. Luhring (Attache to the District Attorney-General) recognized the existence of a voluminous File in his Office concerning the accused, recalling notably the decisions of 26 September 1922 and 3 August 1923 to put an end to this procedure sufficiently untenable according to justice. As far as the selfishness of Taraknath, this untiring rebel, the American Archives provide long evidences. For example, when H.M. Rhoads (Inspector of the Immigration Service)

The Thinker in Action

339

rounded up about fifty Indian workers of the Bethlehem Steel Plant (Pa) on 20 July 1920, without warrant and sent them to the British naval authorities to be expelled, Taraknath, accompanied by N.S. Hardiker and Murray S. Bernays (Notary public) paid a visit to them in Ellis Island to draw the Attorney-General’s attention on the illegitimate nature of this undertaking. This was an opportunity to make evident a current discriminatory practice of the Immigration Service which, once more, shocked public opinion. It exemplified, moreover, the bitterness of the British authorities who, having extracted a first payment from the American Immigration Service for the maritime transportation of the Indian emigrants, enrolled them forcibly in the crew ‘to pay for their passage’.353 Taraknath had founded, in 1919, a new association—‘Friends for Freedom of India’—with Professor Robert M. Lovett as president, appointing 27 eminent American citizens as members of its National Council, 14 Indians belonging to the Committee of Indian Consultants, 6 members of the Executive Committee, Gilbert E. Roe and Frank P. Walsh as legal advisers (all the names appearing on the letter-head), with its office at 7E 15th Street (Apt 601) of New York and branches in several American cities. Acting as its Executive Secretary, on 18 January 1921, Taraknath informed, for example, Louis F. Post (Labour Minister in function) the motto of the association: ‘To maintain the right of asylum to the political refugees coming from India. To promote the objective of Indian independence’, complaining that the Immigration Service went, again, to surround the Orientals supposedly undesirable in the USA. Fully conscious about the gratuitous difficulties generated by this kind of action—not to mention the deportations without any resort to legal procedures—among the Indian immigrants, he offered his service to the Immigration authorities, especially as interpreter to his.354 Acting presumably on Taraknath’s request, Samuel M. Gold (Legal Adviser of New York), on 12 May 1926, posed these questions to the Labour Minister:

340

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

(1) Is there any quota for immigration of citizens from British India to the USA? (2) Are the citizens of British India eligible, on the whole, for citizenship? (3) Can a British Indian tradesman remain indefinitely as resident in the USA to practise his profession and rent there an office? 4) Is the Treaty of Trade between Great Britain and the USA (Subdivision 6, Section 3 of the Immigration Bill of 1924) applicable to the citizens of British India? In the periodical reports of the secret agents—as recorded by The Home Ministry, one comes across mentions of ‘the Hindu agitator’ Taraknath’s activities; and his tract, The Anglo-Japanese Alliance and America; and various details of his life. His Association aimed: ‘to subvert British reign in India and to establish there an Indian Federal Republic’; to keep the American public informed about the atrocities perpetrated in India by the civil servants and the British military forces.355 According to reports from the American Secret Police, Chatto and his wife Agnes Smedley (alias Miss Bird) had left Berlin for Moscow in June, had apparently received from some Bolshevik leaders—for a programme of propaganda—the sum of more than $40,000, which they were about to send to the New York office. Chatto intended to seek asylum in the USA.356 In another report, of 1921, the agent speaks of a new Bengali revolutionary, Nani Gopal Basu, ‘arrived lately from India’ with the sensational news that British politics in India was hostile to the expansion of American trade in Asia. Before a public assembly in Boston—composed notably of Irishmen sprinkled with Indians. Taraknath Das Nani Gopal, James M.G. Fay, and three others spoke on Sunday, 17 April. ‘Not a single allusion to this country nor to its institutions. Savage criticism of the English government and its abject procedures to win commercial supremacy’. In a weekly report on ‘The Activities of the Radicals in the Region of New York’, the secret agent alerted the authorities about a

The Thinker in Action

341

telegram signed Taraknath and Sailen Ghose, and addressed to the President De Valera of the Irish Republic, imploring him to stop Irish soldiers from acting against the interest of Indian revolutionaries. Simultaneously Taraknath pursued his academic research and his studies. He submitted a thesis for his doctorate, on ‘International Law and International Relationship’ (University of Georgetown). We have already seen how, shortly before his death, on a visit to India after forty-six years of exile, Taraknath, gave a public speech in Calcutta, to commemorate 9 September 1952 (the 37th anniversary of Jatindra Nath Mukherjee). II.4.4. In India: Gandhi Steps In

After a Police raid on Harry & Sons of Calcutta (the Jugantar bureau of international communication), on 5 August 1915, the revolutionaries tried their best to keep Jatin Mukherjee informed about developments. Naren Ghose-Chaudhuri’s immediate proposal had been to bring together all available arms and ammunition and rush all of them to Balasore, to stand by the side of their Commander-in-Chief. Naren had evoked the vantage site and the natural fortress that the region offered at the Meghasani hills: they could, if they wanted, wage a decisive battle there. But Jadu Gopal in his eagerness to act as Jatin Mukherjee’s successor, riposted that their chief was ‘big enough’ to get himself out of a tight situation.357 Phani Chakravarti, in his declaration before the British Police at the Fort Canning (Singapore, in 1916), confessed that before leaving Balasore for Batavia with Naren Bhattacharya (M.N. Roy), in August 1915, he had noticed Jatin Mukherjee’s enormous popularity among the local folk, owing to his liberal and generous temperament. Gladly they came to consult him and, sometimes, to for financial help. Fearing that it was prejudicial to his security, Jadu Gopal was on the look out for a new shelter in Goa, the Portuguese territory where Jatin Mukherjee could guide the revolutionary preparations of the Marathas and, if need be,

342

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

escape abroad. As it was in Balasore, they had just opened a boutique in Gokarna under the surveillance of a Maratha extremist (brother of the great Savarkar, a medical student at the University of Calcutta).358 This decision betrays a total misunderstanding of Jatin Mukherjee’s intentions: in order to initiate the new guerilla phase of his revolutionary project as a prelude to mass movement, he did not at all think of leaving the country for his personal safety. The paradoxical effect that Jatin Mukherjee’s martyrdom produced was going to steer for deep repercussions. On the one hand, Atulkrishna Ghose, the most efficient of the Jugantar leaders, ‘considered himself to be a vulgar piece of metal, demagnetised’ without his chief and slowly retired from all political activity. In the role of prudent fugitives, Jadu Gopal and his intimate batch preferred to wait, in vain, for better days to come. Bhupendra Kumar Datta described this dismay, in his reminiscences, as very close to what people would feel thirty-two years later, after Gandhiji’s murder. Other revolutionaries, more ardent and more sensitive to the evolving events, improvised resistance in the form of guerrilla warfare before dying out like comets, in homage to the spirit of Balasore, in the village of Telijana (Pabna) in 1917, in Gauhati, on 7 January 1918; two days later, on the Nabagraha hill; in Kaltabazar (Dhaka), in 1918; this went on up to April 1930 in Chittagong; at the central Secretariat of the State in Calcutta in December 1930; in Allahabad, on 21 February 1931; at the arrival of the INA led by Netaji Subhas Bose on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. Everywhere, stage after stage in this armed resistance, people were thrilled to discover the presence and the inspiration of Jatin Mukherjee.359

II Recognized for his struggle in the Transvaal, Gandhi wanted to start a new phase in his pacifist experience, when in November 1913, Gokhale, from his death bed, mandated

The Thinker in Action

343

Rev. C.F. Andrews (1871-1940) and William Pearson (18611923)—two English disciples of Rabindranath Tagore—to go and dissuade Gandhi. Active behind this instruction were obviously the wishes of Viceroy, Hardinge appreciative of Gandhi’s loyalty, but without the control to protect this agitator against the wrath of a powerful establishment. Gandhi cunningly withdrew his mandate for a new offensive, leaving his two hundred thousand compatriots to their miserable fate. The South-African authorities, perplexed but happy, flooded this champion of the disinherited with compliments for his courtesy and his magnanimity. Arriving in London on 6 August 1914 (two days after the declaration of the War), Gandhi appealed to young Indians, during a cocktail reception at the Cecil Hotel and urged them to follow the path of duty, notably by considering the imperial point of view. In a collective petition, he reiterated to the Crown his unconditional loyalty and his devoted services to the imperial cause. A delegation of the Indian Congress paid a visit to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to intimate to His Majesty that they would cooperate and wish a prompt victory for the British. On visit to England after a stay in France, Gokhale asked Gandhi to go back to India and, before getting involved in public life, study the true aspirations of the Indian people. Gokhale felt that owing to his long absence and his peculiar commitments during past twenty years, Gandhi was not abreast of the rapid progress achieved in the sociopolitical life of the country. Since January 1915, Gandhi began to recruit volunteers in India to be sent to the Mesopotamian front. Pleased with this loyalty, Viceroy Hardinge congratulated Gandhi for his ‘useful’ presence on Indian soil. Simultaneously, he was disappointed by Gokhale who did not grant him immediate access to the political arena through the National Congress party. Impatient to act, Gandhi went to Santiniketan to meet Tagore. Busy with his ecological experiments, Tagore offered hospitality to Gandhi (and about twenty members of his Phoenix

344

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

School). Experimenting with a new pedagogy, Tagore was happy to notice how Gandhi’s pupils held a great respect for discipline but which, at times, somewhat hampered his ideology; they had learned to obey, but in a spirit of sacrifice. ‘I cannot stop worrying about their system of training’, admitted Tagore. Calling Tagore Gurudeva Gandhi recognized his grandeur and appreciated the multiple experiments he had been making. It was during this stay that Tagore named Gandhi the Mahatma.360 In Clacutta in 1901, Gandhi had sought in vain to meet Devendranath Tagore. He had also tried to see Swami Vivekananda whose message had inspired Gandhi in his projects of social welfare; but the Swami could not receive him either. Gandhi had had, however, the satisfaction of discussion with Margaret Noble or Sister Nivedita. It is from Santiniketan and with Rabindranath Tagore’s consent that Gandhi made public his first social programme: to abolish among students and teachers all caste discrimination. Champion of tolerance as a principle, Tagore was not personally favourable to any constraint from outside: ‘May Your contempt consume like grass-leaves/he who commits and he who tolerates injustice.’ Gokhale died in February. Pheroze Shah Mehta, another pillar of the Moderates, was to die soon after. In April 1915, Gandhi with his disciples left Tagore for pilgrimage to the Kumbhamela. And conforming to the wishes of Gokhale, he scrutinized the socio-political horizon of India with the gaze of a starving hawk.

III Although motivated by an obsessional disgust against anything that was not closely non-violent, Gandhi discovered the infallible signs of a vast nationalist consciousness, burning to surge in a mass movement. A movement for freedom and, moreover, directed against the British! Gandhi in his inexplicable attraction for this surging tide felt upset by the idea of standing up against the empire! He noticed, on the

The Thinker in Action

345

other hand, his limitations before the enormous popularity of Tilak, the powerful Extremist leader. Gandhi then turned to Sri Aurobindo: this leader of the mass, who had left the political sky at the zenith of his glory, for the sake of concentrating on a spiritual seeking, enjoyed a double halo. That of the hero. And that of the saint. Only a mandate from Aurobindo would endow him with necessary weight against Tilak. But Sri Aurobindo wrote back from Pondicherry that nothing could be gained by preaching unconditional loyalty to the government; Gandhi’s loyalty was not a model for India, which was not South Africa. An abject and servile tone did not have anything to do with diplomacy, and was not good politics; it could neither deceive nor disarm the adversary. This was a question of creating a nation worthy of independence, capable of acquiring and preserving it. Sri Aurobindo asked Gandhi’s son and emissary, what they would do of non-violence if Afghanistan decided to invade India. Attentive to Sri Aurobindo’s warning, Gandhi admited: ‘I recognise that our basis must be spiritual. And I try, within my own limits, to direct all activity from a spiritual viewpoint.’ Gandhi’s particular sympathy for Islam made him discover the vital flaw in Tilak’s armour: in spite of the effort made by the Muslim League, since 1916, in favour of a common programme with the Congress, the Muslims were diffident about Tilak’s policy. But, at the same time, they did not mistrust any less, Gandhi’s loyalty to the Crown. In July 1918, in his speech before the peasants of Gujarat, Gandhi insisted on their duty to obey the British. On 31 December 1919, in his editorial in Young India, Gandhi continued to advise the acceptance of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, reforms that withdrew all measures that the government had promised during the war concerning India’s political independence. At this stage, because of hostility to the Caliphate since November 1914 (when Turkey entered the War), the government reiterated before the Indian Muslims that Great Britain did not try to deprive the Turks either of their capital or of their territories in Asia Minor. The last promise of this

346

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

kind emanated from the Prime Minister Lloyd George, on 5 January 1918. These words assured satisfactory collaboration from the mobilized Muslim soldiers of India. But at the end of the War, when the Turkish territories crumbled under the Greek, Italian, French and British incursions, the disappointment and the anger of the Indian Muslims flared up. In the meantime, from January 1919, the Report of the Rowlatt Commission enforced in India the perpetuation of the war-time emergency measures. This meant that repression would continue and Indians would remain stripped of their most elementary civic rights. This was the first blow to Gandhi. But it was not enough to set him calling for independence; taking advantage of Tilak’s temporary absence, he tested his South African method and attempted a showdown. Under his command, on 6 April 1919, the people of India observed a general strike with such efficiency that Gandhi dreaded to disappoint them. It was followed by a spontaneous consolidation of collective aspirations, encouraging an active unity between the Muslims, the Hindus and the Christians of the country against their common enemy. Alarmed, exasperated, the agents of divide et impera, enacting a small moral lesson, let loose a ferocious genocide: on 13 April in Amritsar, at the small public square of Jallianwala Bagh, a congregation of a few thousand men, women and children were celebrating their New Year’s Day, when Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the Punjab Governor, released a detachment of armed riders on the crowd, having taken care to block all exits. The martial law in Punjab grew unbearable: the most respectable of Indian citizens had to crawl in the streets for their shopping; a Commission of mock investigation shamelessly whitened the Governor’s act. To punish the people for having taken recourse to some acts of isolated violence, Gandhi dismissed immediately the programme of resistance and declared publicly his disappointment about having associated with malefactors and trouble-shooters. It was the first demonstration of a series of such blackmailing which waited India at a stretch for

The Thinker in Action

347

twenty-eight years to come. Only when Gandhi attributed an earthquake to the disapproval of heaven and ordered collective prayers for cleansing the people’s hearts, that Tagore broke his silence to censure this apostle of demagogy.

IV Long years of prison, exile and strenuous activity had exhausted Tilak, who died on 1 August 1920. Sri Aurobindo announced that a great mind, a great will, a great leader of men has just left his field of achievements and labour. For his compatriots, Lokamanya Tilak represented much more. Because he had become the incarnation of the past efforts and the chief of the present struggle for a freer and larger life, his death took everybody aback. The country was going through troubled and stressful hours and this occurred at a critical period, it coincided even with a crucial moment, when the Lord of Destiny was addressing the nation, and on its answer depended the strength and the significance of its future. As in South Africa, Gandhi craved to be the unique shepherd of the millions of sheep in India. Psychologically he feared the return of Sri Aurobindo to the political arena. To sound the intentions of the Prophet of Pondicherry and to win the esteem of thousands of distressed Extremists, Gandhi wanted to have a certitude. Dr B.S. Moonje proposed Sri Aurobindo as the president of the Congress, for its annual session at Nagpur, in December 1920. As on other occasions, Sri Aurobindo declined the offer. He announced his reasons that in the first place, he did not ever sign nor will he sign a personal declaration of faith with the Congress. Then, since his retirement in French India, he developed an attitude and points of view that diverged considerably from those that he had once maintained. . . . I am entirely in sympathy with all that is being done so far as its object is to secure liberty for India.’ Also, the main reason is that ‘I am no longer first and foremost a politician, but have definitely

348

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

commenced another kind of work with a spiritual basis, a work of spiritual, social, cultural and economic reconstruction of an almost revolutionary kind.361

Sri Aurobindo demystified the expectation of some of his old friends and colleagues that he could fill the void created by Tilak’s death. He reminded that Tilak was Tilak and no one, ‘myself least of all’ had the stature to replace him. Having neither Tilak’s ‘suppleness, skill and determination’ to carry out his policy of ‘responsible cooperation’, he also regretted his inability to toe the Gandhian line. After 1920, imposing himself as ‘the only executive authority’ of the Congress, Gandhi launched a new programme affirming that he was capable of bringing independence before the end of that year. In 1920, according to the general amnesty consecutive to the armistice of 1918, the British authorities had just freed the batch of Extremists of the Jugantar current. Delegated by Jatin Mukherjee’s associates, Bhupendra Kumar Datta met Gandhi and asked for an explanation: ‘Do you want to say that you are going to proclaim the Congress as the Parliament of the independent Indian democracy, if the people subscribe to your call?’ Far from being persuaded by Gandhi’s answer, nevertheless, Datta promised him the Extremists’ collaboration for a full year: ‘But, at the end of the year, we intend to resume our own programme that does not exclude violence.’ Gandhi retorted: ‘I would be happy if you accepted non-violence as a principle and not merely politics.’ Sri Aurobindo then advised Datta, ‘Gandhi has come with a great strength. He will be able to lead the struggle far, but I do not think that he can free the country overnight. Do not capitulate. You will have to act again according to your convictions. Do not advance any opposition at present. Collaborate. But I do not want you to make non-violence a fetish.’362

The Thinker in Action

349

V On behalf of most of the Extremists, Gandhi received an unconditional and sincere collaboration because, in their minds, Gandhi’s non-cooperation represented a mere adoption of the blue-print of resistance that Sri Aurobindo had proposed in 1907. But their reactionary faction, the Anushilan of Dhaka, refused all collaboration with the Jugantar militants who followed the policy of Sri Aurobindo and Jatin Mukherjee, as well as all involvement with the popular revolutionary tide that Gandhi was to ride. Concerned by the importance of this mass movement, the British authorities had effectively encouraged the Extremists to cling to their violent methods. The Jugantar militants were quick to discover the state’s efforts to crush Gandhi’s nationalist movement and prevent it from reaching its revolutionary climax, after a quarter of century of preparations, after so many sacrifices. In response, indifferent to a generous offer of comfortable social and financial status on behalf of the British government, Dr Jadu Gopal of the Jugantar obtained from his colleagues a momentary but total cessation of all activity that led to violence. The Anushilan party of Dacca, on the contrary, succumbed to the obsession of a less intelligent practice of violence and by the lucrative proposals of the government to serve it as an instrument against the very interest of the Motherland, through opposition to Gandhi’s action. But their attempts proved in vain, thanks to the fact that, to his astonishment, Gandhi enjoyed the auspicious support and the unto-the-last involvement of a revolutionary Jugantar generation. These activists kept their promise to Gandhi until the latter’s detention and his withdrawal of non-cooperation. Then, step by step, between 1922 and 1930, they revived their own programme, in order not to let the popular enthusiasm sink with Gandhi’s first failure. It meant new preparations for an armed insurrection; such a renewal was observed by the Extremists all over India. From Punjab to Bengal, they

350

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

celebrated, on 9 September 1923, the 8th anniversary of Jatin Mukherjee’s heroic battle. All dailies of national importance—in Calcutta, Benares, Lahore, Amritsar—published, for the first time, narratives of this epic exploit, with Jatin’s photos. Led by Bhupendra Kumar Datta, young Bhagat Singh actively participated in it. All the important cities organized, that day, public rallies in commemoration. New arrests of the Extremists took place. In the meantime, contacted by their revolutionary colleague, M.N. Roy, from Moscow, the leaders of the Jugantar sent him through Subhas Chandra Bose the terms of their new politics. These terms, incorporated by Roy in his thesis and guaranteed by Lenin himself, were presented before the 2nd Congress of the Communist Internationale, in August 1920.363 Appreciating that the Jugantar leaders had brought about—an outrageous antidote of efficient virility, to Gandhi’s non-violent action moderate leaders of the stature of Motilal Nehru provided them with some concrete and decisive support.364 According to a police report,365 the Jugantar retained a majority of seats in different sections of the National Congress. One of the most lightning demonstrations of the Jugantar was, among others, the seizure of Chittagong in April 1930. Finally, in order to make Gandhi and the Congress accept Jugantar principles, in a common agreement the Extremist leaders declared, on 9 September 1938 (to mark the 23rd anniversary of Jatin Mukherjee’s death) the dissolution of the Jugantar in order to be reorganized fully as the Congress. The manifesto of this common programme was: (1) We, as vanguard of the revolutionaries, are going to promote a social transformation that can admit the complete liberation of the people and its most complete auto-development. Having for goal such an end, we now aim at a democratic revolution that will put an end to imperialism (in India) and will make of India a sovereign state. (2) We will direct the revolutionary struggle in such a way that after getting hold of the political power, the social control will belong to the people itself.

The Thinker in Action

351

(3) In the Republican federal democracy based on the panchayat system, all wealth will belong to the society, as an outcome of the subversion of Imperialism. (4) We will have for goal a complete industrialization of India and the abolition of the anachronistic feudal system. (5) Private property, recognized as long as that it will not exploit the work of others, will yield to the nationalization of the industries and to the industrialization of agriculture. Industry as well as agriculture will be organized on the basis of a planned national economy.366 The rest of this history has been recorded in the annals of the Congress under Gandhi. It has now to be re-examined.

VI With reference to the realism required for this purpose we must be ready, to examine Gandhi’s revolutionary vision and method, in so far as they fit in the traditional quest of the typically Indian notion of non-violence: we shall see that he corresponded to the expectations of an all-India leader, capable of dovetailing the aspirations of the Moderates and those of the Extremists, all by dynamising the meekness of the former and curbing the enthusiasm of the latter. On the political field and in a considerable measure, he left a permanent stamp on the movements of decolonization of the Third World. Gandhi’s moral and social commitments found continuity in the movement represented by Vinoba Bhave and, elsewhere in the world, by Martin Luther King, Lanza Vasto del, Nelson Mandela, Daisaku Ikeda, as well as by the pacifists and the environmentalists.

NOTES 1. Paribarik Katha and Durgotsav, by Lalitkumar Chatterjee, Jatin’s uncle and revolutionary colleague, who published also Jatin’s biography, Biplabi Jatindranath in 1947, with a Foreword by Dr. Syamaprasad Mookerji.

352

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

2. Handwritten Notes by Vinodebala Devi, preserved at the Nehru Museum, New Delhi. 3. Oral statement by Sudhir Sarkar. Also cf. First Spark of Revolution, pp. 258-61. 4. Written reminiscences of Bhupendra Banerjee’s son. 5. Durga, with the strength of an elephant. 6. Judgement: Emperor versus Mukunda Lal Das by V. Dawson, Additional District Magistrate, in TIB, vol. IV, pp. 364-71. 7. ‘Biplabi Jatindranath’, in Anandabazar Patrika, special Jatin Mukherjee supplement, Calcutta, 9 September 1947, pp. 7-8. 8. Correspondence and interviews with Bhavabhushan Mitra in Sadhak-biplabi Jatindranath by Prithwindra Mukherjee, West Bengal Book Board, p. 60. 9. Op. cit., pp. 113-14. Also Two Great Indian Revolutionaries, p. 167. 10. Conversations with Jatin’s elder sister Vinodebala Devi (cf. Sadhak-biplabi Jatindranath, p. 26). 11. Distinct from the future martyr Khudiram Bose. 12. TIB, vol. II, p. 393. 13. Prithwindra Mukherjee,‘Swamiji—Nivedita—Jatin Mukherjee’, in Shankariprasad Basu and Sunilbihari Ghose (eds.), Bhagini Nivedita Janma-shatavarshiki Smarak Grantha, vol. II, pp. 5-17; cf. Shankariprasad Basu, Vivekananda O Samakaalin Bharatvarsha, vol. VI, pp. 147-9. 14. Two Great Revolutionaries, p. 165. 15. Amalendu Dasgupta, ‘Madaripur’er Tin Bandhu’, in Anandabazar Patrika, Calcutta, 9 September 1947. 16. GA/FS, p. 88. 17. TIB, vol. V, pp. 14, 23, 61, 65, 69, 102-3. 18. W. Sealy’s foreword to Connections with the Revolutionary Organisations in Bihar and Orissa, Patna, September 1917, in TIB, vol. V, p. 100; cf. Two Great Revolutionaries, p. 166. 19. TIB, vol. V, p. 945. 20. Nixon’s Report, in TIB, vol. II, p. 501; Sealy’s foreword, in op. cit., vol. V, p. 63; Home Polit-Progs A, March 1910, nos. 33-40, quoted by Sumit Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1977, pp. 376, 531-4. 21. West Bengal Archives (Intelligence Branch), no. F.N. 327 of 1909. 22. Arun Chandra Guha, Aurobindo and Jugantar, p. 27.

The Thinker in Action 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32.

33.

34.

35. 36.

37. 38.

353

Sumit Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement, p. 375. Datta knew personally Indubhushan’s family. The daily Anandabazar Patrika, Calcutta, 10 September 1952. ‘L’avènement de Gandhi’, by Prithwindra Mukherjee, in the review Defense Nationale, Paris, February 1984. Two Great Revolutionaries, p. 119. George MacMunn, Turmoil and Tragedy in India, London, 1935, pp. 105-13. Two Great Revolutionaries, p. 168, fn. 10. In his Report, F.C. Daly, DIG Special Branch of Bengal Police mentioned: ‘It is believed that the idea of raising funds by dacoities originated with Babu Avinash Chakrabarti, Munsiff of Eastern Bengal and Assam, since dismissed (…). Was closely connected with Jugantar party, and it was a question whether he should not be placed on his trial along with the Maniktolla conspiracy gang. Doubtless he would have been, along with many others, charged in a supplementary case, had it not been for the daring assassination of the approver (…). This was perhaps the boldest piece of work that the revolutinary party has so far accomplished’, TIB, vol. I, p. 16. Loc. cit. Ishan Chakrabarti’s eldest son Prafulla Chakrabarti was the first martyr blown away by Barin’s experimental bomb. His youngest son Suresh Chandra (alias Moni) stayed with Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry. In his memoirs he mentioned Prafulla Chaki’s visit to Jatin Mukherjee (Smritikatha, Pondicherry, p. 350). W. Sealy in his Report, ‘Connections with Bihar and Orissa’ discovered that among Barin Ghose’s friends at Deoghar were the two brothers, Narendra and Phani Chakravarti, also educated at Deoghar, like Barin (TIB, vol. V, pp. 17-18). ‘Jatin Mukherjee’, by M.N. Roy, in Independent India, 27 February 1949, reproduced in Men I Met (cf. the full text in Annexe). GA/FS, pp. 98-9. Lord Curzon aux Indes: Sélection de Discours, with an Introduction by Sir Thomas Raleigh, Editions Flammarion, Paris, s.d., pp. 1, 8. A.J. O’Donnell, Member of Parliament, quoted by MR/H, vol. II, p. 30. MR/H, vol. II, pp. 9-10.

354 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49.

50. 51.

52. 53. 54.

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Curzon aux Indes, pp. 244-5. Op. cit., p. 251. MRP, vol. I, Morley to Minto, 11 May 1906. Ibid., vol. II, 28 August 1907. Ibid., vol. II, 5 December 1907. MTP, Correspondence, 1910, vol. I (letter dated 26 March 1910). MRP, vol. I, Minto to Morley. Ibid. Germany and the Next War (tr. A. Powles), 7th print, London, 1914, p. 96; also Herbert Rigley Wilson and I.A. Hammerton, The Great War; and Rowlatt, §1070. Written notes by Vinodebala Devi. This episode is taken tacitly from homages printed in the most official way: on the occasion of the issuing of a postal stamp by the Government of India in 1970; on the occasion of the inauguration of the imposing equestrian statue of Jatin next to the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta, nine years later; from the chapters dedicated to him, for instance in the Dictionary of National Biography (ed. S.P. Sen), as well as in the autobiographic writings of eminent citizens of this period. In addition to Vinodebala’s written notes, the present writer—since his childhood—heard from her and from Amulya vivid details of these happenings. Reminiscences of Amulya Chatterjee, Jatin’s cousin, present at the time. In 22 August 1966, Uma Mukherjee, historian, had interviewed Dr Kanak Sarbadhikary, also Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Calcutta, to learn that the family had preserved the skin of the tiger that Jatin had offered to his father (late Dr Suresh Sarbadhikary). At the time of this interview, Dr K.S. informed that, moreover, ten years later, in 1916, ‘the exemplary heroism of Jatin Mukherjee acted as an inspiring force’ behind his father’s organization of the Bengal regiment sent to the Mesopotamian battlefield (Two Great Indian Revolutionaries, p. 168, fn. 10. Biplabi Jatindranath, by Lalitkumar Chattopadhyaya (Chatterjee), p. 26: Lalitkumar was present in the meeting. TIB, vol. IV, p. 537, Ex. 1313/1. Ibid., vol. IV, pp. 547-8, Ex. 1316/1.

The Thinker in Action 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

61. 62. 63.

64. 65. 66.

67. 68. 69. 70. 71.

72. 73.

355

Loc. cit., pp. 553-4, Ex. 1320/1. TIB, vol. VI, p. 28. Ibid., vol. V, p. 15. Ibid., vol. V, p. 26. Ibid., vol. V, pp. 16-17, Ex. 263-4, Ex. LXXXVI, Ex.774, Ex.777 TIB, vol. V, p. 27 (Sealy’s Report); vol. V, p. 945, in the ‘Who’s Who of Politico-Criminals in India, 1914’ (Prefaced by F. Hampe-Vincent) mentions among Jatin Mukherjee’s three addresses: (1) Koya Kumarkhali, Nadia, Bengal; (2) Carstaris Town, Deoghar, Santhal Parganas; (3) 59 Beniatola Street, Calcutta. GA/FS, p. 162. Sri Aurobindo:Tthe Hope of Man, by Keshavmurti, pp. 146-7. The Statesman, 28 January 1910; cf. Jatin’s letter to Henry Wheeler, Financial Secretary to the Government of Bengal, dated 30 March 1911; Vinodebala’s written account corroborates Bhaba Bhushan’s notes. Two Great Revolutionaries, p. 166. GA/FS, pp. 500-1. Since 1904, Sir Daniel and the advocate Jogen Ghosh (founder of the Association for the Advancement of Scientific and Industrial Education of Indians)—in collaboration with the British Indian Navigation Company—’provided several free passages’ for meritorious students going abroad. (Sumit Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1903-1908, pp. 112-13.) MPr/EB, p. 339. MTP, Minto’s Diary, M. 1069; cf. MND, p. 118. MTP, Correspondence, 1908, vol. II, no. 136, from Home Department to Dunlop Smith, 10 November 1908. Nivedita Lokamata, vol. III, pp. 38, 51. Nivedita in her letter dated 1 September 1909 quoted Ashok Nandi and Ullaskar Datta—both detained in the Alipore Bomb Case in cells near by—who heard Charu yelling under torture, and she rightly guessed that the atrocities would not stop there. (cf. Nivedita Lokamata, vol. III, pp. 47-8). Amiya K. Samanta’s Introduction, TIB, vol. IV, pp. xxxiii-xxxiv. Prithwindra Mukherjee’s interview with Satish Sarkar alias Nirvana Swami, in February 1963 (cf. Sadhak-biplabi jatindranath, p. 202); K.R. Srinivas Iyengar, Sri Aurobindo, vol. 2, p. 641.

356

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

74. DM/MM, pp. 121-2. 75. GA/FS, p. 163. 76. Détenu, Amalendu Dasgupta, Sahitya Samsad, 3rd edn., 1964, pp. 61-2. 77. Report by J.C. Nixon, in TIB, vol. VI, pp. 137-9. 78. KJC, p. 320. 79. Nivedita’s letter dated 3 March 1910 (cf. Nivedita Lokamata, vol. III, pp. 48-9. 80. Nixon’s Report in TIB, vol. II, p. 539. 81. At least two from among the dramatis personae, well-known for their integrity, have left enough written material from memory describing their life as under-trial prisoners: (a) Bhupendra Kumar Datt, Biplab’er padachinha, p. 2; and (b) Arun Chandra Guha, First Spark of Revolution: ‘In Detention and Prison’ (pp. 480-90). Many of these prisoners, till the end of their lives, suffered from recurrent spells of such aberration. 82. Benga’s Confessions in Daly’s Report, TIB, vol. I, pp. 41-2, 103-4, 112-13, 116-17, 151. Sudhir Sarkar, recruited by Sisir Ghose (of Sagardanri) and accused in the Alipore case, remembered very precisely Lalit Kumar’s Krishnanagar house where often he went with messages from Sri Aurobindo and, in return, received money and clothes for Sri Aurobindo’s use. 83. GA/FS, p. 111. In his Who’s Who of Political Criminals in India, 1914, F. Hampe-Vincent mentions Avinash as a contributor to the Bande Mataram and the Jugantar (cf. TIB, vol. V, p. 855). 84. Rowlatt, §45, §69. 85. Hardinge Papers, Book 117, no. 5: Letter to Earl Crewe (HM’s Secretary of State for Indian Affairs), dated 15 December 1910. 86. Rowlatt, §173. 87. TIB, vol. I, pp. 40-1 passim. 88. Knighted by the British Crown, Acharya P.C. Ray as an eminent chemist commanded admiration all over the world: the French scientist Marcellin Berthelot was his esteemed friend. By inventing a nationalised pharmaceutical industry, he was highly respected by M.K. Gandhi. He encouraged several of his brilliant students and some members of his family to follow Jatin Mukherjee (cf. Proceedings of the Howrah Case 1910-1911, Exhibit no. 69, p. 215, NAI). 89. Hardinge Papers, Book 81, vol. II, no. 231.

The Thinker in Action

357

90. ‘Time and Relevance of Jatin Mukherjee’, by Bhupendra Kumar Datta (unpublished manuscript, §6). 91. MR/H, vol. II, 1975, pp. 281-2. 92. Deutsches Auswartiges Amt/ Weltkrieg , 1914-18, Microfilm no. 397, NAI. 93. GA/FS, p. 174. 94. Sealy’s Report in TIB, vol. V, p. 64. 95. Daly’s Report in TIB, vol. I, p. 43. 96. Sealy, loc. cit. 97. Nixon’s Report in TIB, vol. II, p. 591 passim. 98. Memorial from Jyotindra Nath Mukherjee, Home Polit. (NAI), September 1911, sent by Henry Wheeler to Home Affairs (13 September 1911). Exhibit no. 34: Revolutionary Manifesto found at Jatin’s house; no. 112: Letter from (Sir) Prafulla Chandra Ray, Scientist, eager to distribute the Jugantar, uses Jatin as reference. 99. KJC, pp. 9-10. 100. MTP, no. 1, Letter dated 2 June 1910. 101. Sealy, loc. cit. 102. Tegart’s Report on the Ramakrishna Mission, in TIB, vol. IV, p. 1366. 103. Two Greats Revolutionaries, pp. 107-8. 104. Ibid., p. 119. 105. MJ/B, pp. 412, 645-8, 660. 106. Sources: Indulal Yajnik, Shyamji Krishna Varma, Bombay, 1950; Avinash Chandra Bhattacharya, Europé bharatiya biplaber sadhana, Calcutta, 1978 (2nd edn.). 107. Home (Polit.) Proceedings, Circular 7 of 15 July 1909. 108. P. & S. Proceedings (India Corresp.), no. 2611, vol. 233 of 1906, India Office Library, London. 109. Ibid., no. 666, vol. 186, note from Curzon-Wyllie, 24 December 1905. 110. Yagnik, op. cit., p.142. 111. Indian Sociologist, February 1906. 112. MD/MM, pp. 15-16, 73. 113. KJC, pp. 263-4. 114. J. & P. Proceedings, no. 320 of 1911, with no. 3823, vol. 1032 of 1910: Letter from the British Minister of Foreign Affairs to India Office, London, 30 September 1910, mentioning the pressure made by the French Government.

358

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

115. J.&P., no. 3175, vol. 1023 of 1910, quoting Sozial Demokraten, 1 September 1910. 116. J.&P., no. 25 of 1913, with no. 4742, vol. 1202 of 1912. 117. KJC, pp. 143-5, 397. 118. Rowlatt, §9. 119. Europé bharatiya…, by Bhattacharya, pp. 47-8. 120. Madam Cama, by Panchanan Saha, 1975, p. 41. 121. Ibid., p. 43. 122. DIC to Home Ministry (London), 10 November 1914; H.P., December 1914, no. 1969-70A. 123. KJC, p. 202. 124. Emily Brown, Har Dayal: Hindu Revolutionary and Rationalist, The University of Arizona Press, 1975, p. xi. 125. There is very little information available about the exact date and the circumstances of his death. 126. Who’s Who of Politico-Criminals in India, 1914, by F. HampeVincent, in TIB, vol.V, p. 862. 127. Masters and Students in Political Agitation, by F. Brewster, 1913, Paragraphs 587 of 1911, in TIB, vol. IV, pp. 914-15. 128. KJC, pp. 197-200 passim. 129. KJC (pp. 207-8) accuses Govind of having lost a lot of money gambling at Trouville, stolen pearls and precious stones valued approximately at 229,500 francs, pawned jewels in Paris (23,000 francs), Enghien (32,500 francs) and London (£1,200). 130. Ibid., p. 118. 131. Ibid., p. 187. 132. Ibid., p. 198. 133. Italics by P. Mukherjee. 134. Bhattacharya, Europé…, pp. 109-10. 135. GA/FS, p. 434. 136. AAWK, Microfilm, Reel no. 397. 137. Prithwindra Mukherjee, ‘Jatin Mukherjee (1897-1915) and Indo-German Conspiracy (1914-1918)’, in Indian Historical Records Commission: Proceedings of the Forty-fifth Session, vol. XLV, 1977, pp. 248-56. 138. Source: KJC, p. 265; Indian Revolutionaries Abroad, by A.C. Bose, pp. 82-98; Europé bharatiya biplaber sadhana by Avinash Chandra Bhattacharya, pp. 99-125. 139. MB/MNI, p. 167. 140. TIB, vol. III, p. 505.

The Thinker in Action

359

141. Franz von papen, Memoirs, pp. 36-7. 142. Rowlatt, Ch. VII; cf. KJC, Ch. X. 143. George Lenczowski, Middle East in World Affairs since 1918, p. 39. 144. Prithwindra Mukherjee, ‘Jatin Mukherjee (1879-1915) and Indo-German Conspiracy (1914-1918)’, in Indian Historical Records Commission: Proceedings of the Forty-Fifth Session, vol. XLV, 1977, pp. 248-56. 145. MRP, vol. I, 26 December 1906. 146. MTP, Correspondence, 1907, vol. I, no. 237, Kitchener to Minto, 12 May 1907 147. Ibid., Minute by His Excellency, 5 June 1907 . 148. MND, pp. 107-8. 149. Bonifacio Fernandez, East Indian Contribution to Agricultural Development in Central California, University of California, Berkeley. 150. Harold S. Jacoby, Why so Few East Indians?, University of Stockton. 151. Archives of the Immigration Department, no. 808.722(1) of 25 November 1911: G.D. Kumar to D.M. Fortier; Petition from 130 Indians from Vancouver and Victoria, dated 9 July 1910. 152. Gary R. Hess, ‘The Forgotten Asian Americans: The East Indian Community in the US’ in Pacific Historical Review, vol. XLIII, 4 November 1974, p. 585. 153. Valentine Chirol, Indian Unrest, pp. 146-7; Morley’s letter to Minto, 26 February 1909, J&P, no. 320 of 1909, with vol. 1129 of 1912. 154. Colin Campbell, Notes, H.P., 1908, NAI. 155. Frank Oliver (Canadian Minister for Home Affairs), The East Indians in British Columbia, Microfilm no. 1. 156. Hopkinson’s Report dated 5 April 1909 to the Canadian Ministry of Home Affairs, J.&P., no. 1882; ref. no. 1309, vol. 925 of 1909. 157. KJC, p. 218. 158. Loc. cit. 159. Wotherspoon’s letter dated 29 January 1909: Corresp. War College Division, Record Group No. 165 (US Archives). 160. (a) Ronald Spector, ‘The Vermont Education of Taraknath Das: An Episode in British-American-Indian Relations’ in Vermont History, vol. 48, no. 2, 1980, pp. 89-95; (b) William

360

161. 162. 163. 164. 165.

166. 167. 168.

169. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176. 177. 178. 179.

180.

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle A. Ellis, ‘Taraknath Das’ in Norwich University 1819-1911, Montpellier (U.S.), 1911, vol. III, pp. 490-1. KJC, pp. 222-4. H.P. of 1911, June, 103 B: Hopkinson’s letter dated 10 March 1911 to the Canadian Ministry for Home Affairs (NAI). Report of the DIC (Government of India), dated 14 November, 1911, H.P. 1912, April, 82 B (NAI). Report of the DIC (Government of India), dated 24 February 1917, H.P. 1917, February, 552-5 B (NAI). (a) Hopkinson’s Report to Cony, dated 29 April, 1913: H.P. 1913, June, 103 B; (b) J.W. Rondell’s letter to Malcolm Reid, Vancouver, 24 February, 1913: H.P. 1913, June, 5-17 B; (c) Malcolm Reid to Cony (Ottawa), dated 17 March 1913 H.P. 1913, August, 37-9 B. G.B. Lal, ‘Dr Taraknath Das in Free India’, Modern Review, Calcutta, July 1952. Gurdev Singh Deol, The Role of the Ghadar Party in the National Movement, pp. 54-5. Gurdev Singh Deol, The Role of the Gadhar Party, interview with D. Chenchia, present during Har Dayal’s conversation with Lahiri. H.E. Pandey’s statement to Haidar Ali, 27 January 1913; H.P. 1913, June, 5-17B, India Office Library. Kumar’s letter to Taraknath Das, from Manilla (cf. KJC, p. 237. DIC of 8 June 1915; H.P. 1915, June, 549-552B. KJC, p. 125. KJC, pp. 127-8. Hopkinson’s Report to Cony, 20 January 1913: H.P. 1913, November, 62-6B. KJC, p. 124. MR/H, II, pp. 396-7. KJC, p. 368. Voska & Irwin, Spy and Counter-spy, pp. 98, 108, 120, 122-3, 126-7. Pravda orodu Kinských Zpátky nahlavni stránku [Srpen 2006] http://mailgate.supereva.com/bit/bit.listserv.slovak-l/ msg55026.html Tomáš Masaryk (1850-1937), the first President of the Czech Republic, founded in 1918.

The Thinker in Action

361

181.
r
Spy and Counter-spy, E.V. Voska and W. Irwin, pp. 98, 108, 120, 122-3, 126-7.

r
The Making of a State by T.G. Masaryk, pp. 50, 221, 242. r
Indian Revolutionaries Abroad by A.C. Bose, pp. 232-3.

r
Z letopisu tĜetího odboje [Extract from the Records of the Third Resistance] by Zora DvoĜáková, Nakladatelství Hribal, Prague. 182. TIB, vol. III, p. 505. 183. Rowlatt, §65. 184. Ibid, §138. 185. India as I Knew It, pp. 196-200. 186. KJC, pp. 288-9. 187. (General) George MacMunn, Turmoil and Tragedy in India, 1935, p. 105 passim. 188. Two Great Revolutionaries, p. 182. 189. Naren Bhattacharya (alias M.N. Roy), Memoirs, p. 3. 190. A.C. Bose, Indian Revolutionaries Abroad, p. 163. 191. Rowlatt, §68. 192. Ibid, §69. 193. Austen Chamberlain Papers, no. 262 of 1915/44/4/12.2.15. 194. Ibid., no. 307 of 1915/48/8. 195. GA/FS, pp. 374-5. 196. The person seems to have been a pawnbroker. 197. The third month on Bengali calendar, between mid-June and mid-July. 198. Rowlatt, §77. Whereas Rowlatt considers Atul Ghosh to be the author of this letter, the latter informed me that it was actually penned by Jatin Mukherjee, the real Balamanta (‘Strongman’) . P.M. 199. Chamberlain Papers, no. 317 of 1915/49/9. 200. Letter dated 24 May 1915, India Office Library, London, no. 4607/1915, L./P. & J./6, vol. 1349; also J.&P./2404/15, and 1272/15, no. 813, 817, 1649 (confid.), 3583 etc. 201. ‘Dada: Jatindranath Mukherjee’ in Sainik, Calcutta, 15 August, 1948, p. 13. 202. Nixon’s Report in Terrorism in Bengal, vol. II, p. 625. 203. Information verified and cinfirmed by Umaprasad, son of Sir Ashutosh. 204. Biplaber padachinha, p. 74.

362

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

205. Letter quoted by Basudha Chakravarti, Jyotindranath, the Humanist Revolutionary, p. 51. 206. Author’s interview with Atul Krishna Ghosh in October 1963. 207. ‘Connections with Bihar and Orissa’, in Terrorism in Bengal, vol. V, p. 104. 208. Op. cit, p. 109. 209. Ibid., pp. 106-7. 210. Ibid., pp. 11, 115. 211. Ibid., p. 116 . 212. Ibid., pp. 51-9. 213. Suresh Chandra Chakravarti, Smritikatha, p. 59. 214. Sealy, ‘Connection with Bihar and Orissa’, in Terrorism in Bengal, vol. V, pp. 65-6. Later, Sealy identified Satish Sarkar to have called himself Hem Ray, Gyanendra Ghosh of Dhaka as Purna Ray and Makhan (brother of Harikumar Chakravarti) as Bankim (op. cit., p. 68). 215. Terrorism in Bengal, vol. V, p. 67. 216. Mother-in-law of Prafulla Kumar Sarkar, who founded with Paran the Anandabazar Patrika group of papers and was prosecuted several times for his fiery editorials on Jatin Mukherjee. Sarala Bala was a great admirer of Jatin Mukherjee, and knew Sister Nivedita very well. 217. Saralabala Sarkar, Rachanasamgraha, vol. I, p. 73 218. Ibid., pp. 116-17. 219. ‘Harano Atit’ in Sarala Bala Sarkar, Rachana Samgraha, vol. I, pp. 818-19. Sarala Bala mentions here that finding Narendra too sentimental, she had complained to his Jatin Dada, ‘Will your iron-man Naren turn into a butter-man?’ In reply, Jatin Mukherjee assured her: ‘Impossible; the iron will rather become steel.’ 220. Terrorism in Bengal, vol. V, p. 75. 221. Ibid., p. 78. 222. Ibid., p. 63. 223. K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, Sri Aurobindo: A Biography and a History, vol. I, p. 493. 224. Ker, pp. 373-5. 225. Terrorism, vol. IV, p. 1364. 226. G.C. Denham, ‘Revolutionary Activities in Benares’, in Terrorism, vol. V, p. 193. 227. Terrorism, vol. IV, p. 1366.

The Thinker in Action 228. 229. 230. 231. 232. 233. 234. 235. 236. 237.

238. 239. 240. 241. 242. 243. 244. 245. 246.

247. 248. 249. 250. 251. 252. 253.

363

Jadu Gopal, p. 363. Ibid., p. 334. Sealy, op. cit., p. 119. Op. cit., vol. V, pp. 59-60. Op. cit., vol. II, pp. 620-1. We are thankful to Manindra Chakravarti’s notebooks with such abundant and precise details. W. Sealy in Terrorism in Bengal, vol. V, p. 52. Nolini Kanta Kar, Shraddhanjali, p. 3. Manindra Chakravarti’s notebooks. Nixon in Terrorism in Bengal, vol. II, pp. 612-21 (several letters); Rowlatt §111; Report from the British Consul (Batavia) to Secretary Foreign Office/Polit. of India, dated 30 July 1915: F.P. 1917, June, 1-46; D.I.C. dated 21 September 1915; F.P. 1917, June, 1-46. Denham’s Note on Further Enquiry, cf. Two Great, p. 191. Jadu Gopal, Biplabi jibaner smriti, p. 351; Nalini Kar’ notebooks. M.N. Roy, Memoirs, pp. 35-6. Vinodebala Devi’s written notes. Manindra Chakravarti’s written statement; GA/FS, p. 392; Jadu Gopal, p. 344. Judgement pronounced by MacPherson, President of the Bench of Commissioners, 16 October 1915. The terrible weapon of Bhima in the Mahabharata. Amritabazar Patrika, Puja Annual, 1963, p. 71. 11 Rupees, 13 annas, 7½ paisas, according to the former system: the rupee was subdivided into 16 annas, and the anna was composed of 4 paisas. Reminiscences by Dr Ganguli, weekly Desh, Calcutta, issues dated 9 and 20 September, 20 December 1958. Terrorism in Bengal, ed. Amiya K. Samanta, Government of West Bengal, 1995, vol. III, p. xv. Surgeon Ganguli, op. cit. A household stone icon, representing Vishnu. Amales Tripathi, Swadhinata Samgrame Bharater Jatiya Congress (1885-1947), 1991, pp. 78, 127, 130, 142. Austen Chamberlain Papers, F.O. 370, File 281, 2495.1915/ 133092. Hardinge Papers, no. 77, vol. V.

364

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

254. Pleader Upendranath Ghose’s reminiscences in Sunday Hindustan Standard, Calcutta, 7 September 1947, and written statement to Prithwindra Mukherjee. 255. ‘Jatindranath  Mukherjee’ by Bhupendra Kumar Datta, in Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Dr S.P. Sen, Institute of Historical Studies, Calcutta, 1974, vol. III, p. 164. 256. K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, Sri Aurobindo: A Biography and A History, 1972, vol. I, p. 496; also Nirodbaran, Talks with Sri Aurobindo, 1966, 1971, p. 46. 257. Sisirkumar Mitra in his Resurgent India, 1963, p. 367, quotes a paraphrase, ‘He was one of my most trusted lieutenants’, which is an echo of Sri Aurobindo’s originally written reply to Surendramohan Ghosh, M.P. 258. GA/FS, p. 394. 259. Written statement, letters and interviews. 260. Krishna’s counsel to Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita, VI.40: ‘Never does anyone who practises good, O beloved, come to woe.’ 261. Jatin’s three children: Ashalata (age: eight years); Tejendra (six years); Virendra (two years). 262. Jatin’s wife, Indubala Devi. 263. Political associates and disciples. 264. Vishnu, the Protector aspect of God in the Hindu trinity. 265. His maternal uncle, Dr Hemantakumar Chatterjee. 266. AAWK, Microfilm, no. 398, message from Von Papen, 31 May 1915. 267. Ibid, letter from Vincent Kraft, 12 April 1915. 268. Report of the British Vice-Consul in Manila, 17 May 1917, J.&P. 109, with no. 5784, vol. 1542, 1918. 269. Indian Revolutionaries Abroad, by A.C. Bose, p. 230 (letter from E. Helfferich, 20 August 1956). 270. The suffix Da (an abbreviation of Dada, an elder brother) expresses the love and esteem the revolutionaries had for Jatin Mukherjee. 271. M.N. Roy’s Memoirs, pp. 35-6. 272. Ibid., p. 5. 273. Communism and Nationalism in India, by John Patric Haithcox, p. 8. 274. M.N. Roy, by V.B. Karnik, p. 33. 275. Ibid., p. 40.

The Thinker in Action 276. 277. 278. 279. 280. 281. 282. 283. 284. 285. 286. 287. 288. 289. 290. 291. 292. 293. 294. 295. 296. 297. 298. 299. 300.

301.

302. 303.

365

Ibid., pp. 52-3. Eudin and North, 1963. Haithcox, op. cit., pp. 86-7. Manabendranath, by Swadeshranjan Das, p. 220. Karnik, op. cit., p. 85. Ibid., p. 95. M.N. Roy, India and War, p. 134. Keshavmurti, Sri Aurobindo, the Hope of Man, p. 310. M.N. Roy, Constitution of India: A Draft. G.D. Parikh, ‘M.N. Roy’, in DNB, vol. III, pp. 546-9. KJC, p. 270. Ulrich Gehrke, Persien in der Deutschen Orientpolitik, vol. I, p. 22. Bhupendranath Datta, Dvitiya Swadhinata Samgram, p. 109. KJC, pp. 297-8. Wipert von Bluecher: Zeitenwende in Iran, pp. 27-51. Percy Sykes (Sir), History of Persia, vol. II, p. 444. A.C. Bose gives ample information on this subject. Bhupendranath Datta, Dvitiya, p. 209. AAWK, Microfilm, no. 398, cipher message, 6 September 1915. KJC, p. 314. Bose, p. 110. KJC, pp. 310-13. AAWK, Microfilm, no. 398, letter from Von Wessendonck, 8 July 1916. Ibid., no. 400. Ibid., Microfilm, no. 401, cf. annexed An Appeal of India for Liberty, Copenhagen, 1919. Agnes Smedley Brundin, a friend of Sailen Ghose: a Marxist revolutionary, she helped Indian militants in the USA; arrested and released, she was a member of the above association founded by Taraknath Das in New York. In Berlin, she married Chatto and turned him into Roy’s rival for a while. Federal Archives (Washington), Record Group 49, file no. 845-21, 29 October 1921, Indo-German Case. Retranslated from French. Montagu’s letter to Chelmsford, September 1920 in Montagu Papers, India Office Library, London. Eudin and North, Soviet Russia and the East, p. 23.

366

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

304. Louis Fischer, The Soviet in the World Affairs, vol. I, pp. 285-6. 305. Bose, op. cit., p. 197, quoting the Izvestia, 6 June 1919 306. Fischer, op. cit., p. 286. 307. Source: Militant Nationalism in India, by Bimanbihari Majumdar, 1966, p. 167. 308. Documents of the History of Communist Party of India, vol. 1. 309. An Autobiography, Jawaharlal Nehru, Bombay, 1962. 310. Record Group 49: Reported by agent Don S. Rathbun, 2 September and 11 October 1916. 311. Bose, op. cit., p. 177. 312. G.T. Brown, The Hindu Conspiracy and the Neutrality of the United Staes, 1914-1917, pp. 28-9. 313. E.E. Sperry, German Plots and Intrigues in the USA, p. 52. 314. Record Group 49, No. 845.1 315. Hanna Regev, Special List of Record Group 118, 1974, p. 4. 316. San Francisco Chronicle, 5 December 1917, p. 11. 317. Record Group 31, Series 31, Bob 59, Case no. 6133: T. Das appealing before the Tribunal, on 23 March 1918. 318. R.G. 118, Box 1, Letter dated 28 November 1917. 319. The Enemy Within, (Captain) Henry Landau, New York, 1917. 320. India through the Eyes of an American Journalist, Dewitt Mackenzie, p. 121. 321. Indian Freedom Movement Revolutionaries in America, Kalyan Kumar Banerjee, p. 79. 322. All Our Years, R.M. Lovett, pp. 157-160. 323. Case Proceedings, pp. 1725-7 (also cf. Banerjee, op. cit., p. 81). 324. New York Times, 1 March 1918. 325. Landau, op. cit., pp. 28-33. 326. East Indians in British Columbia 1904-14, Brij Lal, p. 58. 327. W.L. Mackenzie King (Former Prime Minister of Canada): Confi-dential Report, Ottawa, 15 July 1908. 328. Brij Lal, loc. cit. 329. RG 49, nos. 845-78, 6 June 1927. 330. RG 21, loc. cit. 331. RG 49, nos. 193424-47, February 1919 (Department of Justice).

The Thinker in Action 332. 333. 334. 335.

336.

337.

338. 339. 340. 341. 342.

343. 344. 345.

367

Proceedings, p. 6908. San Francisc Chronicle, 1 May 1918, p. 5. J.W. Spellman: ‘The International Expansion’, p. 44. Following a tragic journey across the oceans, this steamer moored at the port of Budge-Budge near Calcutta, encircled by British Police, summoned to transfer the passengers to Punjab (whereas they had been recruited for jobs in Canada and the latter expelled them). Carrying letters of introduction and addresses supplied by Taraknath Das, their leader—Baba Gurdit Singh—contacted in Calcutta two associates of Jatin Mukherjee, viz., Satish Chakravarti and Atul Krishna Ghose, who sheltered a large number of these patriots, helping them to defend themselves legally. A violent clash ensued: hardly forty of these passengers had enough time to open fire in legitimate defence when the Police charged them point blank with .303 rifles (cf First Spark of Revolution, by A.C. Guha, pp. 340-8; ‘The Komagata Maru’, in British History Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 297-9, Ottawa, 1942). Malcolm Reid of the Canadian Immigration Service established a direct link between this event and the Indo-German Plot against the Allies. RG 49, nos. 193424-27, 3 September 1918, quoting two letters from Zimmermann sanctioning to Taraknath Das an amount of DM 30,000. We have not been able to determine whether he was a relative of the General W.W. Wotherspoon of the Norwich Military University who had managed to rusticate Taraknath Das from this university for his anti-British attitude. RG 60, nos. 193424-47, February 1919. Ibid., Conclusion. RG 60, nos. 193424-9, William Wotherspoon’s letter to President Wilson, 12 June 1918. Cf. note no. 133. It is quite logical to suppose that it was William Wotherspoon who, in 1917, issued letters of introduction for Sailen Ghose, Evelyn and M.N. Roy to meet this dignitary in Mexico. There is an ample scope for future historians to explore these connections. San Francisco Chronicle, 1 May 1918, p. 5. Ibid. 60, nos. 193424-48.

368 346. 347. 348. 349. 350.

351. 352. 353. 354. 355. 356. 357. 358. 359. 360.

361. 362. 363. 364.

365. 366.

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle Ibid. 60, nos. 193424-49. Ibid. 49, 9771-B-45/M.I.4B-23, nos. 845-12. Ibid. 60, nos. 143927-6½. Ibid. 85, nos. 53854-133-B. R.G. 118, box no. 12, file no. 11. The style of the thesis indicates that it may have been written by M.N. Roy. This confusion showed once more that the Police was not so very convinced about Mukerji’s innocent disengagement from any revolutionary activity since his stay in the USA. R.G. 60, no. 143927-6¼. Ibid. 60, 2030009-10-3, nos. 38-927-48. Ibid. 85, nos. 54410-644A. Ibid., no. 53854-133B. Ibid. 49, no. 845-14. R.G. 60, B.S. 9-10-3, no. 202600-1355, etc. Notebooks submitted by Nalinikanta Kar; the author’s interviews with several militants of the time. R.G. 118, box 10, file no. V; cf. Bose, op. cit., p. 171, quoting DIC 11 April 1916, H.P. April 1916, nos. 475-478B. The Ghadar, San Francisco, 13 December 1916; cf. B. RakshitRay, Bharater Sashatra Biplab, p. 236, MJ/B, p. 410. The Poet certainly remembered that his own father, Devendranath Tagore, had reserved this epithet for Rajnarain Basu. Sri Aurobindo: A Biography and a History, by K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, vol. 2, p. 950. Quotations from Jadugopal and Bhupendra Kumar Datta in Prithwindra Mukherjee, Sri Aurobindo, p. 127. See Annexe. For further details, consult Prithwindra Mukherjee, ‘L’avènement de Gandhi: quelques confrontations doctrinales’ in Revue de la Défense nationale, Paris, February 1984, pp. 61-77. No. 4/21—Pol., 1932. Arun Chandra Guha, Aurobindo and Jugantar, pp. 42-71.

CHAPTER III

Conclusion

This patriotism that animated the independence movement of India was the first objective of these militants. It gave them the reputation of being Extremists. One must look for the roots of this historic notion. These men resembled very little the Moderates: ‘In the name of India, the Moderates loved Europe’, said Amales Tripathi, who himself had much sympathy for the Extremists as they were ‘even less loved by the Imperialists who called them terrorists and seditious anarchists.’1 The Extremists believed that British rule was unreal and transient. As inspired by the profession of faith that Vivekananda proclaimed, worship of India’s soil was the only living divinity (whose ‘very dust is more sacred than Paradise’); as raised by the patriotic songs of Tagore. To act for the fall of the British colony in India constituted in their eyes a holy duty. Mukti was for most of them, identical with moksha. They read in the promise of the Gita, an absolute guarantee concerning their engagement: ‘Dead, you will go to Heaven; or winner, you will enjoy the earth.’ It is worth noting that in the nationalist manifestos of late nineteeth century the leaders issued calls obviously for discontent, distress, and revolt, in a generalized way. These were echoed by: the peasantry and workers. This spirit of revolt was based on an ignited awareness of the colonial over-exploitation which had for its concrete results, increasingly galloping famines. Against a rate of 400,000 deceased people during the two famines between 1825-50, and 5 million of victims during the six famines

370

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

between 1850-75, there were 26 million that died of the eighteen famines occurring between 1875-1900. The armed peasantry in Bengal (against the indigo planters in 185962), Delhi, and Patna rose against the feudal oppression and become instrument of the foreign oppressors (the Wahhabis, 1860-4). Antifeudal and anticolonial struggle occurred in the Punjab (by the Namdharis 1860-80). The farmers’ army constituted in Maharashtra (by Kengliya, 1873-5); the spontaneous peasants’ uprising in the Andhra (Rampa, 1879); the insurrection of the militant association of hereditary farmers in Pabna and in Bogra in 1872-3 and in 1880, indomitable before the colonial repression—showed the same popular demands. Avinash Chakravarti (1873-1938), son of a judge of Pabna and, himself a lawyer at the court of Calcutta, proposed that Jatindra Nath Mukherjee, in the beginning of the revolutionary preparations, could count on 50,000 peasants to start an immediate uprising.2 The labour organizations of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta, since 1877, chalked out a ‘prefiguration of the unions’.3 As historian and social observer, Bankimchandra Chatterjee patiently revived the past glory of his people, and revealed first of all the prophetic vision of the Divine Mother, or of the universe, personified as India, the Mother, unifying her children. Wishing to give them, at the same time, a model of the ideal man, he erected before his compatriots the figure of Krishna, the historic personality, in his series of essays, Krishna-charitra, published in 1886. He detected in Krishna two main missions: (a) to affirm the dharma; (b) to found a kingdom working on dharma-rajya. For Bankimchandra, no spiritual life was possible without an ideal. It was not possible, either to lead a spiritual life without society; a society is indispensable for all human life. Without society, there is no progress in the field of knowledge; without the progress in the field of knowledge, no one can discern the right Law from the unjust (dharma/adharma). Without an adequate knowledge of the Law (dharma), no devotion to the Divine can flourish

Conclusion

371

and, without contact between men, there can be no love for one’s neighbour.

* Recognizzing in Bankim the visionary of the new India— this India for which worked the Extremists—and admitting Jatin Mukherjee as the representative and the symbol of the extremist quest—even a rapid examination of Bankim’s scheme of education is sufficient to establish an amazingly intimate causal link between the two. This pedagogy had marked strongly the generation of young parents such as Jatin’s mother, Sharat-Shashi, for instance. This pedagogy will become Jatin’s guiding light; he remained grateful to Bankim even when he made acquaintance of other contemporary leaders such as Yogendra Vidyabhushan, Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo among others.

III.1. Facing the Extremist Perspective III.1.1. Tagore and Gandhi

Concerned about the absence of an equivalent term for nation in Bengali, Rabindranath Tagore liked to quote Ernest Renan who seemed to have claimed that nation meant nothing in ancient times either as a conception, or as a reality. ‘Nation’ came to exist only when a batch of men, strongly concentrated in their mind and exulted in their heart, consciously highlighted some characterstics as common to all of them. Though appreciated for his lucidity and his habit of expressing his unbiased critiques freely on the turn of events in the life of a newborn nation, sometimes Tagore may resemble prophets of the Greek tragedy, known for their clairvoyance and deprived of the least power to control the cycle of becoming. In addition to bowing down before Gurudeva in manifest loyalty, distressed at times, at times exasperated in front of

372

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

this usually infallible observing eye, Gandhi—with or without malice—declared Tagore as the ‘Great Sentinel’. In 1894, Tagore believed that no state could protect one’s honour; one had to defend his own honour.4 It is interesting to note, at this juncture, the evolution of Tagore’s keen sympathy for the nationalist cause and his role as a critic of his times. On 15 June 1897, Tilak pleaded in the Kesari for ‘political murder on special ethical grounds’.5 A week later, Damodar and Balkrishna—the Chapekar brothers—murdered Rand, the over zealous Plague Commissioner, along with Lt. Ayerst, a military officer. The Chapekars were hanged, Tilak convicted for preaching violence. The Natu brothers were detained for having financially helped the Chapekars. Appreciative of the example of the Natu brothers, Tagore wrote in 1898, ‘On noticing a supplementary preparation to suppress us, shoving aside all debates on right and wrong, on justice and injustice, spontaneously we start believing that within us there is a potential force of which, out of sheer callousness, we are not always aware.’6 He continued: ‘On the eve of the revolt of the Sepoys, the breads that passed from hand to hand contained not a single letter: is not such a mute unlettered gazette truly terrific?’7 Tagore warned that no government could succeed in protecting too meek a nation from constant blows and insults: ‘Our own manliness alone can save us from such petty troubles.’8 In October 1902, protesting against the lamentable speech of Lord Curzon in which, overtly, the Viceroy qualified people of the East as fond of exaggerations, Tagore had evoked— in his essay entitled ‘Exaggeration’—the British practice of inventing sham budgets, to provide sham answers during parliamentary proceedings, to call even the most sacrosanct adversaries names such as swindlers and liars. According to Tagore, if all these accusations were false, it would be damaging; but, if they were not, it would indeed worry everybody. These slanders could be taxed either as a pronounced taste for exaggeration, or as a recognition that English politics is corrupted by falsehood (...). It is far more dangerous to prune

Conclusion

373

an exaggeration with a ruse in order to convince that they shot up from the real. In 1905 Tagore went farther in his denunciation of imperialism. ‘Just as Russia gets down on all fours to mistake the entities of Finland and Poland as its own, Lord Curzon teaches us to forget our national language for the benefit of the Empire’s interests.’ 9 In his reflections on ‘native’ society, in September 1904, Tagore had recommended organizing itinerant fairs in the rural areas, with demonstrations of physical education, of prestigitation, of magic lantern shows, staging popular operettas (yatra), recitals of mythological narration by traditional storytellers, with praises of the God of Love sung and danced (kirtana) since the time of Shri Chaitanya. To those who were overlooked and had never received a word of sympathy, ‘come to bring them knowledge, joy, hope, be at their service, let them know the qualities they have as human beings, that they do not indefinitely deserve all the contempt of the world. Protect them from injustice, from famine, from blind superstitions’. As a close friend of Jatin’s family,10 Tagore does not seem to have ignored the aspiration and deeds of this young thinker. As a student at Calcutta, we have already seen, Jatin attended courses in shorthand and typewriting at the school of Allan John Atkinson (1853-1931) at Bentinck Street. In front of this school, in the vicinity of Fort William, one day in 1898, Jatin could not help teaching a lesson for the offence caused by an English military officer: keeping in mind one of the juvenile speeches of Tagore against the racial discrimination practised by the ruling class, Jatin obtained from his aggressor a promise not to distribute gratuitous lessons of civility to the natives. This was not an isolated case. Down the years Jatin was to be famous for his open challenges to the blows and kicks received by the innocent Indian passers-by from the English military officers. Congratulated by certain veteran patriots and very much to the liking of the younger folk, Jatin was thus busy improving tactics, when (12 March 1903) Bipin Chandra Pal published

374

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

in his paper, Young India, an article on ‘European Criminals in India’, in which he analysed the reasons that stopped imperial justice from punishing Europeans caught red-handed misbehaving with an Indian. His conclusion was that this was quite a natural consequence of possession of power. Nobody would turn away from easy privilege; even people of Asia, once lifted to that position, would no doubt excel in adding to this barbarity a refinement unknown to Europeans. In reply to a series of articles by Bipin Chandra Pal,11 Rabindranath Tagore had been thinking aloud in his editorials in the Bangadarshan. In ‘rajkutumba’ (‘The King’s Cousins’, April 1903) and ‘ghushaghushi’ (‘Exchange of Blows’, 18 August 1903), he praised Pal’s initiative with precaution and half-uttered words. On examining minutely Pal’s suggestion of a pressing need to deal a blow against a blow received in the streets, as a means to dissuade the Englishmen in their crimes, Tagore commended the pertinence of a tit for tat under the given degraded conditions of the native citizens, living at the mercy of the English. He admitted that there was no better remedy than that from a clenched fist.12 Beginning with the natural principle that the stronger people would like to protect their own folk by unjust means, Tagore held that, in spite of their force, Europeans were as weak as were Indians in their weakness: constantly scared of a disloyal competition on the part of the Indians on the scale of competence, the Englishmen censured them in the domain of higher studies giving access to careers of engineers, doctors and scientists. The liberty that English society granted to its own youth was unconceivable for India; taking for example the case of a respectable institution like the Presidency College of Calcutta, Tagore mentioned the gravity of disciplinary action taken against its native students for next to nothing: such sanctions could not help build their personality. If English judgement could legally punish European ill-behaviour towards Indians, it would thus recognize the existence of equality between the two communities, to the disadvantage of the ruling class.

Conclusion

375

But Tagore was lucid enough to underline two points. First of all, the way the English administration reckoned every blow received by an English individual as a blow to the prestige of the ruling class. Whereas an Indian, as an individual, risked double punishment (personal and political), the Englishman, representing the ruling class, would at the most receive a mild symbolic warning. Tagore cited the example of an entire village exposed to a reprisal in response to a blow aimed at an Englishman. Tagore reminded that the educational climate of the Indian family fostered harmonious co-existence, with wise counsel and injunctions. Such a family surrounding did not tolerate the exchange of blows, or harsh words, or seizure of others’ rights, nor any tussle in self-assertion. The life of the joint family was a workshop for honest living and mutual help. Therefore, even by learning boxing, no Indian will acquire such a degree of savage dexterity capable of smashing the nose-tip or blinding the eyes of the opponent. The social climate of India was not adequate for the blossoming of warlike behaviour. If one chose not to be the loser, people would have to organize, inside and outside every home, sessions of combat everywhere in India. The second detail which Tagore examined was even more sensible: it was not enough to recognize the utility of the blow; one had to learn how to deliver it. He admitted that it would prove his profound ignorance about Nature’s course, had he denied that—even knowing fully well how dangerous it was to beat an Englishman for protecting one’s rights, in self-defence, or for the sake of one’s honour—when Indians would learn to return a blow for a blow it would help rectify the Englishman’s cowardliness.13 Probably Tagore had in mind Sri Aurobindo’s secret society taking shape in various districts, that very year (1903), under the leadership of Jatin Mukherjee. In 1907, Tagore asked: Who in this country is the greatest and the foremost Extremist? . . . The intense pain—caused by the Partition—that Bengal has

376

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

experienced and the terrible suffering through which she has expressed it, had been unseen before in India. But the Rulers have remained not only indifferent to that genuine suffering, they have been furious, ready to strike. . . . Deliberately deaf to let that suffering of Bengal’s psyche reach its apex, is not that an extremist way of governing? Can that continue without any repercussion? And, could that repercussion be solely listless?

Further in that speech, Tagore observed: ‘The frontier called Extremism that has been drawn in our midst . . . is but a black ink blot drawn by the English. Therefore it is difficult to determine how long and how far the demarcation of this survey will extend.’14 He sought justification why Morley considered the partition of Bengal a settled fact after having excluded altogether all Bengalis from the negotiations. Tagore reached the climax of his support to the ‘extremist’ revolutionary patriotism when, in August 1907, he celebrated Sri Aurobindo’s release from the first Bande Mataram trial and greeted him with a long poem singling him out as ‘the terrible Messenger carrying God’s own lamp, Incarnation of the Soul of India’. Probably the clash between the Moderates and the Extremists at the Congress session four months later was the event which was to turn Tagore in favour of the Moderates. Let us keep in mind that in 1905, during a procession to celebrate the visit of the Prince of Wales at Calcutta, Jatin decided to draw the attention of the future Emperor on the behaviour of HM’s English officers. Not far from the royal coach, he singled out a cabriolet on a side-lane, with a group of English military men sitting on its roof, their booted legs dangling against the windows, seriously disturbing the view of a few native ladies. Stopping beside the cab, Jatin asked the fellows to leave the ladies alone. In response to their cheeky provocation, Jatin rushed up to the roof and felled them with slaps till they dropped off on the ground.15 The show was not innocent. Jatin was well aware that John Morley, the Secretary of State, received regular complaints about the English attitudes to Indian citizens, ‘The use of rough language and pretty free use of whips and sticks, and brutalities

Conclusion

377

of that sort. . . .’ He was to be further intimated that the Prince of Wales, ‘on his return from the Indian tour had a long conversation with Morley [10 May 1906] (...). He spoke of the ungracious bearing of Europeans to Indians.’16 In April 1908, the affray Jatin had with a batch led by Captain Murphy and Lieutenant Somerville shook the country, with legal proceedings drawn up against him. The popular glee on learning how a patriotic Bengali tried and succeeded in measuring his strength with four military officers (badly beaten) would prompt the authorities to persuade the complainants to withdraw the case. A few days later, on 1 May 1908, the police discovered the bomb factory at Maniktola and arrested Barin Ghose with a large number of suspects. At this juncture, Tagore’s esteemed friend Ramendra Sundar Trivedi, in an article published in the Prabasi of October 1907, echoed the despair of the people at the unexpected conversion of the Poet: After an effervescence of almost two years, partly owing to a nervous fatigue and partly intimated by the frowning of the English, we started keeping quiet. Rabibabu17 too, judging the moment to be adequate, has started informing us that effervescence will not bear much fruit; we must set to work. I can recognize at the beginning of this new chapter in the history of Bengal the paternity of someone who is advising us today to give up bragging. Excessively loud and excessively vehement, his voice—since sometime before the Partition of Bengal—had been drilling our ears with lessons such as: there is no durable profit in presenting petitions to obtain their favour; or—the only durable profit comes only from what we can obtain with our own force and our own initiative, without counting on the English people. . . . Once the flames of Swadeshi were set ablaze, the writings of Rabindranath spared no pains to ventilate them (…). Week after week, the appearing of a new song or poem shook our nerves and made them dance. . . . Behind all the excitement and intoxication of that period Rabindranath’s credit was not that insignificant. Driven by excitement, we kept on bouncing during two years with we shall accept no gratification from the English. . . .We shall paralyse the machinery of the English Government; and as soon as the English rulers, unnerved by our bouncing, caught us

378

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

by the throat and raised their batons, at that sight, pained by the futility of our abnormal bragging, Rabindranath has started counselling: ‘that is not the path to take. . . . Effervescence and bouncing will not do. . . . Set to work quietly, silently. . . .’18

Several observers of this phase of history could wonder about this change in Tagore’s attitude.19 Had he been, up to this extent, informed simultaneously about Jatin Mukherjee’s patriotic actions, his educational role and his unconditional devotion to the people’s cause (as much in the spirit of a nationalist rebirth that he embodied and his innate temperament)? Having discovered behind him the unto-thelast extremist vision of Vivekananda, Nivedita, Tilak and Sri Aurobindo, not disdaining violent ripostes (if need be), Tagore anticipated with regret the impact of the Extremists’ ‘counter repressive’ measures as a response to Imperialists’ barbaric repression. Other witnesses of the epoch had also the impression of witnessing the penning of a manifesto while waiting—as did Saint John the Baptist—for the rise of a charismatic leader (Gandhi was as yet unknown to the common man); commandments were ready for the new project which would take fifteen more years to be conceived and executed. A cue to this turn of Tagore’s attitude lay in his warning his compatriots that they had nothing to gain by raising their hands to strike the Englishmen with a view to protect their properties or their honour, or even in self-defence. If at all fully aware of the consequences, Indians learned to deal a tit for tat, that would serve as an antidote to the Englishmen’s cowardice of having established a government on the policy of two weights and two measures. Eloquent in his expression, Tagore advocated that if for the simple reason of our social context we failed to behave like brutes and urged all to care for virtues like sacrifice, self-control, benevolence, if therefore the Englishmen thought themselves to be more resourceful than us, in no way did it permit Indians to look down upon their compatriots according to the English standards of

Conclusion

379

judgement. We have less shame in recognizing that in order to be humane, we have less recourse to our teeth and claws. As a herald of the essential message of Gandhi, Tagore announced: If we really learn to tolerate, if we do not—wrongly—think ourselves to be abject in our tolerant behaviour, then Dharma will find our discernment acceptable. . . . Let us never admit that in their place we would behave likewise, if not in a worse manner. No, we could never behave in the same way. That is our consolation. The ideal that our society, our Dharma, upholds the injunctions that we receive from our scriptures, the very bent of our nature would have goaded us on to greet those who are incapable as our near kin. We have never despised beggars, weak ones and aged persons.20

* A parenthesis is needed at this juncture, to examine the sense in which the West deserved to be qualified as ‘cynical’ by Tagore and to determine the importance of India’s spiritual lessons as received in Europe and in USA. Anquetil-Duperron who, at the age of twenty-three, in 1754, travelled all over India in search of the Veda. In 1762, he returned to France and deposited at the Royal Library 180 manuscripts. In 1771, he translated and annotated the Zend-Avesta. Between 1801 and 1804, he published his translation of four Upanishads (Oupnekhat) and he noted: ‘Everybody affirms the existence of the Supreme Being, explains the creation by an initial emanatism, leaves the predominance in the omnipresent spiritual world, invokes the influence of the stars on the terrestrial bodies.’ He accompanied these comments with personal remarks on Maya, on Divinity situated above the being and nonentity, on the duties inherent to castes, on ‘the sublimity of the state of pure contemplation, without action’. Biès finds this observation remarkably new and precise for that epoch. An epoch looking forward to surpass itself. Anquetil-Duperron went so far as to attempt a rapprochement between the Upanishadic thought and Kantian idealism. Considering himself an heir of Montaigne’s ideas, he claimed

380

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

also to be a follower of the ‘sages of Asia’. He believed in a universal revelation. He wished that everybody studied the Indian masters just as the Greek and the Latin were studied, and with the same respect. In 1813, Schopenhauer discovered the Oupnekhat and proclaimed: ‘Indian wisdom will transform our knowledge and our thought thoroughly.’ It started influencing considerably several Western thinkers. According to Biès: ‘Soon, the indomania wins over the USA: Emerson refers to the Upanishads and the Gita, writes a poem on Brahma. Thoreau meditates on the same texts . . . , elaborates a theory of nonviolence.’ Whitman and Edgar Poe, among others, succumbed to the same impetus. In Germany, Schlegel, the neophyte Catholic, will publish in 1808 an enthusiastic work on the language and the wisdom of the Indians; he looked for, with Herder, a universal tradition. Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, Schiller, Novalis see in India the cradle of the Indo-European races. The reading of Shakuntala intoxicated Goethe and he expressed himself in a prologue to Faust (1819) and two works: God and the Bayadère and The Outcast. Max Müller placed India above all countries for her wealth, beauty, literature, thought. Nietzsche will choose the samsara, defending life as illusion. Tolstoy will open up to the same influences, will reconcile the gospel and the Upanishad, will fascinate Gandhi as well as Ruskin, Carlyle, Pincut, Edwin Arnold, Blavatsky21—with the stamp of non-violence. According to Biès, again, on the side of the French philosophers, open to all novelties, there was an opening to the Indomania, assisted by Tavernier, Bernier, the Jesuites, the scholarly ‘memoirs’ of learning, the first-hand travelogues. In the Real History of Montesquieu, a barber narrates his successive rebirths; in The Spirit of the Laws: ‘The people of India are soft, mild, compassionate’). Diderot had written several fundamental articles in the Encyclopedia with understanding and a certain sympathy for the religions and the customs of India. Voltaire, on reading the Ezour-vedam (Yajurveda), said it was ‘the most precious manuscript that

Conclusion

381

ever existed in the East in Fragments on India it will appear to him quite acceptable that the Ganga was considered ‘sacred’: ‘her waters purify the body and the soul; that baptism is worth anything we know’; about the inhabitants of the Gangarides, he noticed: ‘the only region on earth where men follow justice’; in The Princess of Babylon, he described India as: a land that produced everything pleasant to men’s desires. He compared Aurangzeb to Cromwell for hypocrisy and cruelty. Acquainted with the contemporary history of India, he followed in the Fragments on Some Revolutions in India, in 1775, the exploits of La Bourdonnais, of Dupleix and Lally-Tollendal in south India. In his Essay on the Customs, he preferred Indian sciences to those of Egypt. Admirer of the Brahmanas, he singled them out as ‘the first legislators of the world, the first philosophers, the first theologians’, ‘the Greek and the Chinese people owe them a good deal’; ‘the Indian scriptures are nearly five thousand years old’ and ‘they are worth the attention of the wise people’; ‘the doctrine of metapsychosis is neither absurd, nor useless’. We have mentioned Devendranath Tagore’s admiration for The True, the Beautiful and the Good. Inspired by the writings of Colebrooke and Schlegel, its author, Victor Cousin (1792-1867), historian of philosophy, had taught at the College de France in 1829, discussing Hindu doctrines. He gave vent to his enthusiasm before the deep truths of India. He said elsewhere, ‘We are forced to kneel down before Eastern philosophy and to see in this cradle of humanity the birthplace of the highest philosophy.’ Borrowing from Leibnitz his favourite maxim that ‘the systems are true according to what they affirm, false according to what they deny’, he prepares curiously the way to a certain understanding of the darshana, so disconcerting for Cartesian logic.22 On 25 May 1831, in the presence of Rammohun, the members of the British and foreign Unitarian Association celebrated in London their sixth anniversary with delegates from Transylvania, France, USA. Mainly Dr Kirkland, President of the University of Harvard, noted, ‘The Rajah is the object of

382

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

a keen interest in America, and he was awaited there with the greatest impatience.’ Two famous students of this university, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, will inspire the Transcendentalists to be permeated with the teaching of Rammohun. In 1832 Rammohun stayed a while in Paris. According to Biès, this was not only an occasion of increasing knowledge, it was the chance for modes of thinking to change: Ampere, Fauriel, Leroux, Barchou de Perchoën and Dusieux knew it and admitted it by writing. India and European romanticism emerged at the same hour. Replying to praises pronounced at various receptions in England and in France, Rammohun concluded: ‘There is a battle going on between Reason and the Scriptures, between common sense and wealth, between power and prejudices (. . .) I remain persuaded that sooner or later, you are sure to win.’ Raymond Schwab summarized this ‘Oriental Renaissance’ (quoting Edgar Quinet): ‘It was lucky for India in Europe, of having come there coinciding with the birth of romanticisms, she who looks like a romantic half of human spirit.’23 Taking into consideration all these bits of information on the role played by Indian thought in the becoming of humanity during the twentieth century, taking into consideration the spiritual range of her inspiration, it is equally normal to suppose how lucky Europe was to have been present in India while a world-wide rebirth was taking place, beyond the preoccupations—cynical (?)—of a mechanical industrial metamorphosis!

* In perfect harmony with the popular enthusiasm that surged the agitations against the balkanization in Bengal, as we saw in the chapter on Tagore, from October 1905, for the first time, the incandescent poet—usually wonted to his solitary meditations—descended in the streets and, in a spontaneity without calculation, led the patriotic movement. As soon as

Conclusion

383

the repressive law was promulgated by a colonial civil servant named Mr Carlyle, forbidding students to join processions and emit the Bande Mataram slogan, Tagore judged the moment appropriate to open national universities, ridding public instruction of slavery: between June and September 1906, he published four essays dedicated on educational problems and their reform. In July 1906, when Sri Aurobindo assumed the post of the founder principal of the National College, he counted on Tagore among the eminent professors. While from the platform of the National Congress held in Benares, in December 1905, its President Gokhale hailed the visit of the Prince of Wales (future George V), Tagore attacked the mercantile, expansionist and oppressive rule that prevailed in India. Before the creation of the Muslim League in 1906 with the funds of the colonial State and the Aga Khan as kingpin, determined to weaken the rise of nationalism by dint of communal pogroms, Tagore published another series of essays (such as ‘The Malady and its Remedy’, July 1907) and in a spirit of self-criticism regretted the contempt of the Muslim brothers for the Hindu majority: ‘a religion that teaches hate can only attract eternal humiliation from the others’. The conflict was imminent between the Moderate leaders (honourable and aged citizens, at the right wing of the Congress) and the young Extremists throbbing with Sri Aurobindo’s revolutionary ideas. Paying homage to Surendranath Banerji—spokesman of the first—in May 1906, Tagore recommended to them to forget partisan disputes in the interest of the Motherland. Grieved by the systematic setting of fire to imported goods in the name of boycott, the aesthete in Tagore refused to participate in the incendiary excitation and decided to return to his solitude. He extolled a constructive policy—associating Extremism with a selfdamaging form of overlooking traditional values of pluralist India—such as work for rural development, improving the economic and cultural situation, to give back to these mis-

384

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

erable countrymen, abandoned by all, a confidence in themselves, welcoming their involvement in the service to the Motherland. Tagore was disappointed to note that during the annual Congress session held in Calcutta in December 1906, its president, the Moderate Naoroji, unable to resist the Extremist pressure, ended up by adopting the projects of self-government (swaraj), giving priority to the indigenous products (swadeshi), boycott (of all imported goods and ideas) and national instruction. The year after, news of the fiasco provoked by animated altercations during the session in Surat between the Moderates and the Extremists (who wanted to seize the leadership of the Congress and convert it into their organ of propaganda) pushed Tagore to a bitter rejoicing: ‘We need nobody, neither Morley, nor Kitchener, to destroy us; we are quite capable of doing it ourselves.’ At the time of his latest involvement in the political meetings, held in Pabna, in February 1908, Tagore realized that his moderating words in the midst of an imminent tornado of violent trial of strength pleased neither the right, nor the left. On the contrary, he sensed that, beyond the verbal exchanges, a section of the desperate youth was determined to meet death very soon to civil servants of the oppressive government, just as well vowed to court death in the name of the Motherland. The Extremist mishap of 30 April 1908, in Muzaffarpur, led the country to a state of shock: in reply to the massive arrests, of trials, of sentences, of exile, the Extremists who were not yet arrested, stood up under the lightning leadership of Jatin Mukherjee—to issue ever more audacious ripostes, qualified as terrorists by the Imperialists. In a letter dated 6 May 1908, Tagore recognized that the Bengali youth of that epoch—condemned as cowards and somewhat submissive—could not help rejoicing after this heroic step. Whereas Tilak on his side holding colonial politics to be responsible for this direction chosen by patriotism, went to prison for a term of six years, in a less radical way, Tagore recommended valiantly in his essay ‘Samasya’ (‘The Problem’)—published

Conclusion

385

in July 1908—that while accepting externally this English government, it was preferable not to count on it too passively and to reunify the divided India with an attitude of love for and service to the people: this is what Gandhi will recommend, precisely, in the name of non-violence. In the same essay, Tagore appeared to be upset by the absence of a spiritual unity behind these Extremists grown fond of violence, although visiting India in 1908, as a delegate of the British Parliament, Henry Nevinson testified, after meeting Sri Aurobindo inside the Alipore prison: There is a religious tone, a spiritual elevation in such words very characteristic of Arabindo Ghose (. . .). At the end of that road he saw a vision more inspiring and spiritual than did any fanatic who rushed to death with Paradise in sight (. . .). Grave with intensity, careless of fate or opinion, and one of the most silent of men I have known, he was of the stuff that dreamers are made of, but dreamers who act their dreams, indifferent to the means.24

In an unexpected manner, Tagore’s anger against the Extremists stopped him from seeing in them anything other than brigands, marauders infesting the four corners of the country; in contrast, he did not forget to affirm that the true spiritual seekers were heroes, hermits, ascetics. Less acrid and more lucid than Tagore, Sri Aurobindo— keeping in mind the Christ’s saying, ‘Whoever does not welcome God’s Kingdom like a small child will not enter there,’25 and the prophecy of Shri Ramakrishna, ‘Such a flow of spirituality is descending on this country that even children will reach realisation after three days of sadhana.’26 He discovered in the behaviour of his young co-accused prisoners the promise of an emerging spiritual rebirth. He admitted that since some years one felt in India a new nation that was about to be born, once liberated from the stifling inertia.27 A new ‘spit fire’ periodical—the Sandhya (‘Twilight’)— edited by Brahmabandhav Upadhyaya (1861-1908), excited Tagore’s anger more than ever: how could a man of his stature be depraved to the point of siding with those violence

386

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

mongers? Upadhyaya had been, with Tagore, the co-founder of the Santiniketan school. After having been converted to Catholic faith, he was to impress deeply on the seeking missionaries with liberal ideas—such as Father Monchanin,28 Henri Le Saux29—all of them, committed to seize the point of convergence between Indian spirituality and Christian mystery. Monchanin will write about Upadhyaya: ‘Also I have for him a filial feeling as if by far he had been somewhat my guru(...). He created (or wanted to create) an order of mendicants, of Christian sanyaasis who have given up everything, preaching on the roads. This isolated figure was a pioneer.’ Tagore had never forgiven this former collaborator’s extremist choice: ‘(...) The heady wine that he started pouring with a vehement language, set out flowing in the blood of the whole country an incandescence. It is this paper that disclosed for the first time in Bengal the beginning of a nightmarish politics. I could never imagine such a terrifying metamorphosis of a Vedantist monk!’ In a series of novels—Gora (1910), The Home and the World (1916), The Four Paths (1934)— Tagore will settle his obsessional and inexplicable clash with Extremism, wherein the characters, apparently inspired by Nivedita or Upadhyaya, do not have much to do with the prototypes as known in history: skirt chasers, conmen who cultivate the commerce of charm, who crave for personal power under the mantle of patriotic deeds, busy robbing, burglarising, sponsoring murders without scruple. Once Gandhi launched his programme, Tagore did not hesitate to emit a cynical tone in order to make a distinction between the politics of the Moderates and that of the Extremists: Both the movements are of a same nature; the only difference lies in the fact that the central vitality of the present movement is generated by Gandhi’s strength of character, whereas the central vitality of the [Extremist] movement of Bengal welled from its policy of boycott. . . . Thanks to this strength Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement is far superior to that [which prevailed] in Bengal.30

*

Conclusion

387

Unfortunately—and quickly enough—disappointed by the nature and the ways of Gandhi, Tagore expressed judiciously, his disagreement with all demagogic seduction. Tagore was fundamentally opposed to Gandhi’s nationalism (considered to be an indispensable phase leading to internationalism, just as ‘war is indispensable for appreciating peace’) and his contempt for the West (encouraging the bonfire of imported clothes, for example). He especially mistrusted Gandhi’s indulgence concerning popular idolatry (which assimilated Gandhi with Krishna): defending idols spontaneously, in presence of C.F. Andrews, Gandhi ‘believes that the mass cannot rise immediately to abstract ideas. Tagore does not approve of treating people eternally as children’.31 Tagore could not admit that someone should claim to be the only one mandated authority to look after the good of a ‘cause as important as that of India’. ‘It had the smell of tyranny’.32 Devote all energy to spin threads as the only solution ‘to save millions of Indians from starving’ appeared to Tagore to be an exercise stripped of common sense; he will ask: ‘spin and weave, is this the strident call of the New Age, and that of an immense factory?’ Planning to visit Santiniketan since 1921, to fulfil thus one of his life’s dreams, Romain Rolland dropped it quickly; according to an observer: ‘What keeps back Rolland from this trip presently, is his desire not to interfere in the conflict that, latent or visible, opposes the parties of Tagore and Gandhi.’33

* On 25 June 1926, Romain Rolland describes not without astonishment a total absence of the legendary restraint that characterized the Poet: Tagore sees a universal symbol in the tragedy of Hamlet. It is the drama of a great idealist who wanted to achieve his duty by the criminal action, and having hardly committed the crime, he is ruined; along with his integrity, he lost his force and his reasons to live. According to Tagore (or rather in his eyes) it is the drama of

388

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Gandhi. Since his base action, during the war between the nations, that urged him to recruit soldiers for England, it was a moral collapse (thought Tagore).34

With an air of amusement before a child, Rolland seems to discover some fissures appearing like a prelude to certain deep hollow in the marble-like personality of Tagore. He notes on 27 June 1926, a confession made by Tagore which invalidates the historic attestation that he had formerly issued in Gandhi’s favour, while condemning the efforts of the Extremists: And Tagore comes back again and again (without wanting it) to his grievance against Gandhi and the gandhites (. . .). It is nonetheless clear that the oppressive fanaticism of the Non-cooperation workers [gandhites] was not less sweltering for the free thinkers of India, as for those of Europe, that nationalism blinds. . . .35

In the same diary, the following day, Rolland does not fail to underline a naive aspect of the Poet: F., a visitor came only for half an hour. ‘He tells Tagore that he is a lot more closer to him than to Gandhi (which is, he suspects, the best way to flatter the Poet).’36 On receiving Romain Rolland’s telegram, Georges Duhamel comes from Paris and Emil Roniger from Rheinfelden, to meet Tagore in Geneva, on 29 June 1926. Rolland proposes to reserve the next issue of Eurasische Berichte to Tagore’s thought face to face to Gandhi’s. Tagore makes a movement of withdrawal. Again, his spite against Gandhi takes no time to break through (…). He comes back to a number of grievances that he had already expressed before me against Gandhi (...). We have the impression (and Duhamel, more crudely than us) that in the opposition between Tagore and Gandhi, there are a good deal of mingled feelings (…) Tagore, Gandhi: two races of men, two classes.37

In the above diary, the notes dated 30 June 1926, pin-point an infantile fragility of the poet. After reading of the article that Tagore had just written ‘in answer’ to the questions put

Conclusion

389

by Duhamel concerning his stay in Italy, Rolland comments He makes it obvious, but with discretion, that he was, in Italy, guest of the fascist government and that he could only see with their eyes (...). Finally, he cuts it suddenly short, with a very brief account of his double interview with Mussolini, drawing a flattering portrait of the latter: the great energy of the upper face, the humane sweetness of the lower; he compares him to Alexander and to Napoleon (...). Later, Duhamel told us that (…) he felt like weeping. It is a collapse (...). I am nonetheless disappointed and saddened by it. And, in spite of all our due considerations for the notable old man, who is a heart patient, it is our duty not to hide from him that we do not share his views.38

A significant event occurred shortly after. It is up to history to determine its causal reason. In spite of his past reticence, on 25 October 1926, the eve of his departure for Hungary, exhausted, Tagore invited Sigmund Freud to take tea at the Imperial Hotel of Vienna. Having had many common friends—among them, Romain Rolland and Charles Baudouin—the two men were not unknown to each other. Prashantakumar Mahalanobis—who accompanied Tagore and knew and admired Freud’s works—was certainly more stimulated by this meeting. He will quote Freud’s words about the Poet: ‘Even sick and tired, he is marvellous to contemplate, actually looking like what we imagined God our Lord to be.’39 Since his meeting Freud, Tagore seemed preoccupied by three pursuits through his writings: rhythm (tala), song (gana) and impetus (gati). For a longtime he had been attentive to the dilettante analysis and exploration of the ‘world of the immersed consciousness’ (magna-chaitanya-loka); but this return from Europe was crowned with a deliberate involvement of the Poet to exchanges of ideas pertaining to this domain, although he seemed to regret the abstraction of these sources of trouble and to blame the persons concerned to have dragged him towards psychoanalysis: ‘I understand strictly nothing of it. Apart from that, the question remains: why can you not utilise your own perspicacity to note these

390

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

cases? Why do you have to accept everything that Freud says? It cannot be denied that we have lost our thinking faculty in an utter independence.’40

* Even though the forefathers of Tagore were all Brahmanas, they had been relegated as Pirali after having undergone a serious stigma in contact with their employer, a Muslim governor of Jessore. Adept of the quest of divine Love, if Debendranath Tagore loved the Persian language and enjoyed reading Hafiz and Rumi, was it out of a subliminal guilt conscience? His son Rabindranath will share with Gandhi, nevertheless, a foremost and deep admiration: that for the Muslims. A second obsessional point that was common between Tagore and Gandhi was a pathological horror of blood and, therefore, of all forms of violence: both of them were opposed to the cult of Kali, the terrifying goddess. At the age of twenty, in London, advised by some English friends—members of the Theosophical movement Gandhi had discovered Sir Edwin Arnold’s poem, Song Celestial (inspired by the Bhagavad Gita, which he had never read before in Sanskrit or Gujarati). Then at the club of the Vegetarians, he discovered the New Testament and, in particular, the lesson of offering the left cheek to someone who has just slapped you on the right, of making a gift of your coat to someone who has just stripped you of your overcoat. Then came the turn of Tolstoy (The Kingdom of God is in You) and Ruskin (Unto the Last). His contact with Hinduism had been vague. Later he read Thoreau (Walden or Life in the Forest), directly inspired by the Vedantic thought. Coming across Sri Aurobindo’s Essays on the Gita in Gujarati translation, he then drew conclusions out of it to write his own interpretation on this text. Belonging to a devout Vaishnava family given to bhakti (quest of the divine love), it will be for Gandhi more of a cerebral notion, as C.F. Andrews will observe: ‘a saint of action, rather than of contemplation’, characteristics

Conclusion

391

that will be interpreted by Romain Rolland as ‘a supreme passion for others’. Rolland wrote: Whatever the nationalist party (. . .), all of them included representatives of the major religious groups. All believed that their first cult went to the Motherland, symbol of the Supreme Mother of the universe. (. . .) Nothing is more striking than to see, in India, the great flame of a collective religious hallucination, that took possession of these three hundred millions of men.

For Rolland, when Bankim Chandra, the Rouget de Lisle of Bengal sang of Mother India, in his Marseillaise of Bengal, it was addressed to Mother Kali, reincarnate in the body of the Nation, in a ‘sanctified violence’. At the end of his biography of Vivekananda, Romain Rolland will note that it was Vivekananda the patriot who had influenced Gandhi the most. Nevertheless, Gandhi with his conviction, proclaimed in his autobiography how much shocked he had been at the sight of sacrifice of animals and by the ‘rivulets of blood’ in the temple of Kali in Calcutta.

* Four years after the episode with Mussolini, in his diary of August 1930, Romain Rolland announced that Rabindranath Tagore was to be in Geneva and spent about fifteen days with him. He then records a completely unexpected psychodrama concerning the poet. On laying stress on the fact that in certain essential cases, truth has to be intolerant, that it is not permitted to tolerate certain degrading errors and mad behaviours: (…) From there, he hurls an in depth attack on Hindu polytheism, and especially on the cult of Kaali. He speaks of it with an accent of passionate hate (which I had never yet known). In the case of this man of an excessive sentimental impulsiveness, such childhood impressions were enough to determine his thought throughout his life. As if one could feel the quivering of the child that he had been,

392

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

while he recalls that day when, passing before the great temple of Kaali in Calcutta, he found a stream of blood that flowed below the doorstep, and the lower class woman, passing by, bent to dip the finger and mark with it her child’s forehead.’

Rolland felt lost by this chasm of darkness inside a consciousness reputed for its luminosity: He speaks, with the same tremor of indignation and disgust, of a miserable priest who held at his arm’s length a little goat and shook it, before slaughtering it. He looms up again, saying that it is out of such blood-thirsty social dregs that a murderous ferocity keeps on gushing in humanity, the love for war and for the countries that kill, the taste of blood.

Clinging to this nightmare, Tagore seems absorbed by a reality that inhabits his fantasy alone, while Rolland notes: He does not admit a transaction, even on the metaphysical or symbolic level. (And it is manifest that at the moment, he has for target—Vivekananda.) He goes as far as saying that nobody can have a healthy, right and honest soul, by worshipping Kaali. He would like to destroy this abominable goddess—(let us read again the admirable words Vivekananda uttered to Nivedita, about the Terrifying Mother!).

Flabbergasted by this childhood traumatism of the poet, Rolland attempts to pacify his distinguished guest: . . . I am just happy to inform him briefly the reactions of a Christian child of the West (myself) with regard to the Bible and my hostile feelings for having (. . .) exposed Jehovah’s preference for Abel’s bloody sacrifices. . . . Thanks to this example I want to remind Tagore that the highest monotheistic religions have in common the same gory sources as what he experienced in India, in the name of Kaali (. . .).41

* Behind Tagore’s personal traumatism lingered an incontestable socio-historical reality. Considered by the Catholic

Conclusion

393

missionaries (ignorant of the Brahmanic doctrinal background and armed with the single conviction of belonging to a superior culture), the complex religious practices of the natives summed up in a phrase: nightmarish absurdity. Out of all this ‘polytheistic’ pantheon the face that appeared to them as the most hideous was that of Kaali. Black woman with four arms, completely naked, decorated with a garland of freshly severed and as yet bleeding human skulls, the blood-stained tongue hanging in the middle of ferocious fangs, holding a sabre, standing in a posture of dance on the chest of a supine ascetic: iconography very rich in esoteric symbols known down the ages by secret initiatic paths (tantra). In the cosmogonic conception, that which ends up by swallowing (kalana) everything and is called Kaala (Time) or Mahaakaala (Time, the Great); and She who swallows Kaala is Kaali. Divinity adored by the heroic souls, she fulfils rapidly the desires of the pure ones. The praises in Kaali inherited from the great poet Ramaprasad (1718-75)—among ever so many others— will awake in Shri Ramakrishna (1836-86) an ecstatic cult; burning with the desire of seeing her appear as the living and the loving Mother, this saint’s yearning was accomplished: carried off by an upward tide of light, after a momentary loss of conscience, he came back, amazed, to find the statue of the goddess animate, resplendent, smiling, bestowing on him counsel and censure. Totapuri, the ascetic of the monist path who lived with Ramakrishna for some time, mocked at him as he was lost in his beatific dance and singing the Mother’s praises, beating his hands: ‘You over there, stop kneading pancakes with your hands!’ Contaminated nevertheless by this living faith, Totapuri recognized: ‘As long as all goes well, I meditate on the Absolute; as soon as I suffer from stomachache, I start asking for the Mother.’

* The first generation of Young Bengalis to receive English education under Derozio (1809-31) cultivated quickly a contempt

394

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

for the Hindu tradition as conspicuous in their appreciation of grilled beef steaks and glasses of imported claret. A product of this same school of free thinkers, Vivekananda will take a long time to recognize Shri Ramakrishna as his guru and, in Kali, the divine Mother, ‘the personification of infinite Love and Beauty’ who appeared through this Godintoxicated madman. In order to dissipate once for all the ambient Kali-phobia and to restore the Goddess with her full significance, in 1899, Vivekananda encouraged Nivedita—his Irish disciple—to deliver two lectures on Kali: raising the objection put forward by the Europeans that the dangerous appearance of the goddess shocked their aesthetic sensitivity, she enhanced—according to established European norms in the domain of artistic appreciation—the irresistible dramatic appeal of the Kali image. Turning then to the hate propagated by the missionaries, Nivedita recalled: ‘If someone, without any initiation to Christian devotion, stood before the Byzantine icons, they would appear to him as ludicrous and banal as the Kali image seen by its Europeanised detractors.’42 It is precisely with this objective that Nivedita will publish her famous work, Kaali the Mother.

* Poet Tagore, familiar since his childhood with the Vedantic teachings as recorded in the Upanishads, had necessarily known that according to this path of spiritual practice, it is positively impossible for an impotent, coward or apprehensive being to achieve the Self; in the same way, it is neither conceivable to reach it by a lack of conviction about the exact and just way to progress, nor in the absence of an authoritative guidance: ‘He who is without strength cannot reach this Self, neither (He who is) on a wrong path, nor (he who pursues) an asceticism without the real caution: but as soon as a man of knowledge endeavors on these paths, his self reaches the Brahman,43 (that constitutes) his home’.44 The vast Tagorean literature avoids carefully all allusion

Conclusion

395

to the theory of the compatible just action with this advice of the Vedanta as developed in the Bhagavad Gita through Krishna’s dialogue with Arjuna. Except an early critical essay on Bankimchandra’s historic study on the person of Krishna, Tagore maintained a prudent silence on this fundamental text where—accustomed to walk with confidence through the vicissitudes and the difficulties of life—Arjuna discovers suddenly that he possesses none of the required principles and is deprived of the very foundation of his confidence in himself and in life. This throws him in a violent crisis of the soul and the body, producing disgust for all action and for his material motivations, and for life itself. Clinging to a pacifist logic (somewhat quietist), Arjuna pursues: ‘Alas! A great sin have we set ourselves to committing, we who are endeavouring to kill our own people from greed of the pleasures of kingship.’45 Behind the veil of an ethical illusion (that Krishna was going to rend), Arjuna measures how helpless he is, whereas he apprehends a reality of spiritual order where slaughter and massacre occupy merely the outside aspect of becoming, and the vision of the Lord of the phenomena—such as Time—emerges to devour and to destroy creatures of his own creation; he learns that Life is only a battle and a field for extermination.46 God is at a time the Destroyer and the Friend of these beings: Kali—the gruesome and terrible dancer—is equally the affectionate and benevolent Mother. Krishna persists in his advice not to yield to cowardice, which is not worthy of a warrior: ‘Shake off this paltry faintheartedness and arise, o Scourge of the foes!’47 One discovers that Arjuna’s pity for the others is a form of self pity as well. Sri Aurobindo, in his commentary, recognizes that it is a nervous repulsion before the act of killing, an emotional and selfish receding of the heart before the act of destruction. This pity is born of a weakness of the mind and the senses, a weakness capable, however, of some good to a lesser degree of human development who, had they not been weak, would have been hard and cruel. But this way is not made for the

396

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

evolved Aryan,48 who has to grow not by weakness, but by a continuous ascension from force to force.49 It is neither up to Arjuna to decide, according to his emotions and his passions, what he will or will not do, nor to shun a necessary destruction by invoking his selfish heart or reason, nor to refuse a task because it will cause suffering and solitude to his life, or because its terrestrial result is, in the absence of the thousands of men that must perish, quite valueless in his eyes. Out of weakness, all this is degrading, from one’s highest nature.50

While recognizing compassion, sweetness, mastery of passions and desire to injure life as essential qualities in the man’s divine nature, the Teacher does not at all underestimate the absence of fear, a lofty mind and energy. Arjuna’s spirit is overwhelmed by an impotent self pity, shunning a mental suffering that he fears to be resulting out of his own acts. It is a physical retractation of nerves. Whereas coarseness, uncouthness, ferocity, pleasure in decimating the foes, accumulating wealth and indulgence in unjust enjoyments are considered to be negative qualities, they emerge from the violent and titanic nature that repudiates all divine presence in the world and in the man, they adore Desire as their only godhead. Persecuted by his mood, Arjuna moans: ‘Better to live even on alms in this world than to slay these high-souled Gurus. Even by slaying these Gurus, I would be tasting only blood-stained enjoyment of wealth and desire in this world.’51 Krishna persuades him: Thou grievest for those who should not be grieved for and yet speakest wise-seeming words, but the enlightened man does not mourn either for the living or for the dead (. . .). As the embodied soul passes through childhood, youth and old age in the body, so too is its change over to another body. The calm and wise man is not deluded by this.

And Krishna recalls: ‘Know That to be imperishable by whom all this is pervaded. No one can bring about the

Conclusion

397

destruction of this imperishable One.’52 A distinction is made here between the Absolute (‘That’) and the manifested universe (‘this’). Krishna pushes his analysis farther: Looking at thine own Dharma, thou shouldst not tremble; for there is no greater good for the Warrior than righteous battle (. . .). But if thou dost not fight this battle for the right, then hast thou abandoned thy Svadharma and thy glory, and sin shall be thy portion (. . .). Many unseemly words will be spoken by thy enemies, slandering thy strength; what is worse grief than that?

Finally, refuting Arjuna’s misgiving, Krishna announces as a counterpoint: ‘Slain thou shalt attain heaven, victorious thou shalt enjoy the earth; therefore, arise, (…) resolved upon battle. Make grief and happiness, loss and gain, victory and defeat equal to thy soul and then turn to battle; so thou shalt not incur sin.’53 Here, Krishna lays stress on svadharma (the personal law of motivation) and on the battle for the right (which is in harmony with cosmic Order). Krishna then concludes with the key sentence that gives access to the psychology of the just action: ‘Thou hast a right to action, but only to action, never to its fruits; let not the fruits of thy works be thy motive, neither let there be in thee any attachment to inactivity.’54

* The quest of the Truth (satyam), the Good (shivam) and the Beautiful (sundaram) of the Vedantic doctrine served like a fortress which Tagore had raised in order to forget his obsession similar to the phantasm of Pascal, the French thinker. By dint of juggling with Rhythm, Song and Movement, while touching up the scored out lines and words in his manuscripts, Tagore saw emerging—first timidly, then in such a torrential way, like an eruption of lava—pictures of a world that till then he had ignored: pell-mell, they called in question, especially, all speculation about the conventionally Beautiful. The painter came to relieve the poet of his existential disarray,

398

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

till the Second World War broke, till his uttering the very last profession of faith that the spectre of a new barbarism is abroad in Europe, with menacing claws, in an orgy of terror (...). The spirit of violence, probably fallen asleep in Western psychology, is awake and ready to desecrate Man’s mind. And Tagore proclaims: ‘Even then, I shall refrain from making the serious sin of losing faith in mankind(...).’55

III.2. The Last of the Prophets Singling out in Sri Aurobindo ‘the noblest representative [of the] great neo-Vedantic spirit’—Romain Rolland listened to his voice, re-emerging out of Vivekananda’s pyre. It is the same conception of a national ideal for India, identical to his spiritual mission. It is the same universal aspiration (…). The former political leader of revolted Bengal, who became the greatest thinker of today’s India, accomplishes the most complete synthesis that has yet been attained between the genius of the West and the genius of the East (…). An Aurobindo Ghose blazing with a peerless faith in the unlimited powers of the soul and in human progress (…) thus becomes perfect the fusion of the most complete knowledge with the most intense action (...) and the last of her [India’s] great Rishis holds in his hands the bow of the creative Impetus, ready to shoot in the air. It is an uninterrupted stream that flows from the farthest Yesterdays towards the farthest Tomorrows. The whole spiritual life of history is but one: the One who advances. . . .56

Rabindranath Tagore was to write on Sri Aurobindo, after their last meeting, in Pondicherry, on 29 May 1928: At the very first sight I could realise that he had been seeking for the soul and had gained it, and through this long process of realisation had accumulated within him a silent power of inspiration. His face was radiant with an inner light. . . . I felt that the utterance of the ancient Hindu Rishi spoke from him of that equanimity which gives the human soul its freedom of entrance into the All. I said to him: ‘You have the Word and we are waiting to receive it from you. India will speak through your voice, Hearken unto me’.57

Conclusion

399

A century before Sri Aurobindo, Rammohun Roy had founded a Unitarian Society composed of eminent Indian and European members, whose activities were followed with interest by Jeremy Bentham in England and abbot Henri Gregoire in France. From his Persian treatise on the monists’ quest, Rammohun had visualized, in 1828, the BrahmaSabha, to welcome people eager to meet in an ‘orderly, sober, religious and devout manner’ and in ‘the contemplation of the Author and Preserver of the Universe’: its object was ‘the promotion of charity, morality, piety, benevolence, virtue and the strengthening of the bonds of union between men of all religious pursuations and creeds.’58 In short, a forum of the cosmic Religion, promoter of a spiritual fraternity of mankind. By his own profession of faith—in the name of human unity—accomplished thanks to man’s union with the Divine, Sri Aurobindo gave back to Rammohun’s initial vision its title of glory and, while acting like a springboard, he invited men to attempt the somersault towards their supramental future. It is probably as an apotheosis of this vision that will appear in the dream of Auroville: its identity has to be first located in human psyche, before it can find a material existence. A place which no nation could claim as its own. A place where the needs of the mind and the aspirations of progress would excel beyond all personal passions and desires.

NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

TA/Ex, p. 25. Bhupendranath Datta, Dvitiya Svadhinata Samgram, p. 131. Antonova, op. cit., p. 409. ‘apamaner pratikar’ (‘Remedy for an insult’), Tagore, op. cit., p. 645. First Spark, p. 272. ‘kantharodh’ (‘Throttled’), Tagore, ibid., p. 652. Tagore, op. cit., p. 653. ‘prasanga-katha’ (‘By the way’), op. cit., p. 734. ‘Imperialism’, in Rabindra-rachanavali (‘Collected Works of Tagore), Visvabharati Edition, vol. V, p. 656.

400 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Durgotsav and Paribarik Katha, by Lalit Kumar Chatterjee. New India, ‘European Criminal in India’, 12 May 1903. RNT, vol. V, pp. 700-1. Tagore, op. cit., p. 770. Tagore’s Presidential speech at the Pabna Conference, op. cit., pp. 700-1. Vinodebala’s note-books. MRP, vol. 1, 11 May 1906. Mister Rabi[ndranath]. Tagore, op. cit., p. 819. In Autumn 1963, the present author had several discussions in New Delhi, on this subject, with Bhupendra Kumar Datta, Arun Chandra Guha, Surendramohan Ghose (all the three had been Jatin Mukherjee’s associates and became well-known followers of Gandhi) and Anil Kumar Chanda (very close disciple of Tagore). Also he had correspondence and conversations with Bhavabhushan Mitra (Jatin Mukherjee’s friend and revolutionary collaborator: they visited Suren Tagore quite often). RNT (Complete Works), Visvabharati, vol. V, rpt. 1995, p. 767. Romain Rolland enumerates them as Western roots of Gandhi’s education, in addition to C.F. Andrews, William Pearson and Miraben (Madeleine Slade), with a comment: ‘They belong to the heroic avant-garde of this Eurasia of the Spirit that we have decided to establish.’ (Cahiers, no. 19, pp. 380-3. We could as well include Sister Nivedita (Margaret Noble) with her vision of new system of education and social service, which she had learnt from Vivekananda. Jean Biès, Littérature française et pe, sée hindoue, Klincksieck, 1974, p. 99. Ibid., p. 68. Henry W. Nevinson, The New Spirit in India, Metropolitan edn., Delhi, 1975 (from London edn., 1909), pp. 220-6. Saint-Luc, 18-17. Earnest practice of spiritual disciplines and exercises. Prithwindra Mukherjee, Les écrits Bengalis de Sri Aurobindo, pp. 170-1. Jules Monchanin, Mystère Chrétien et mystique indienne, Fayard, 1974, p. 154. Henri Le Saux (Svami Abhishiktananda), La montée au fond du cœur, ed. OEIL

Conclusion 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56.

401

Shrimanta Kumar Jana, p. 192. Romain Rolland, Inde, p. 35. ‘Satyer ahvana’, Vers l’homme universel (cf. Jean Bies, p. 381). Bies, p. 379. Inde, p. 99. Ibid., p. 108. Ibid., p. 111. Ibid., pp. 112-13. Ibid., p. 115. S. Goldman, ‘Sigmund Freud: Briefen an zeine Patientin Anna V. Vest’, in Jahrbuch der Psychoanalysis, 17/1985, pp. 293-4, letter dated 14 November 1926. Cf. Santanu Biswas, ‘Rabindranath and Freudian Thought’, in IJPA. A.K. Basu, ‘Rabindranath o manovishleshan’, in Prabasi, JuneJuly 1928, pp. 340-3; cf. Santanu Biswas, in IJPE. Inde, p. 233. Shankariprasad Basu, Nivedita Lokamata, vol. I/1, 4th edn., 1991, p. 342. The Absolute, the Supreme. Mundaka Upanishad, 3.II.4. Bhagavad Gita, I.45. Ibid., XI.31, 36. Ibid., II.3. By this term, Sri Aurobindo means no ethnical distinction: it is for him a temperament representing a stage of man’s evolution towards his fulfilment. ‘I do not pray for protecting me in ordeals/but for not scaring ordeals’ (Rabindranath Tagore). Le Yoga de la Bhagavad Gita, with Sri Aurobindo’s comments, P.-B. Saint-Hilaire, p. 107. Bhagavad Gita, II.5. Ibid., II.11-17. Ibid., II.31-8. Ibid., II.47. Sabhyatar Samkat (‘Crisis in Civilisation’), 14 April 1941. L’Évangile universel, by Romain Rolland, Stock, 1930, pp. 18994. Rolland completes the significance of this statement by quoting Sri Aurobindo’s translation of the Vedic description of Usha, the Dawn eternal from Kutsa Angirasa in his Life Divine,

402

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

published in the first issue of the French edition of the Arya, 15 August 1914. 57 Prabasi, Calcutta, July 1928; cf. Sri Aurobindo: Biography, by P. Mukherjee, p. 134; Resurgent India, by Sisirkumar Mitra, p. 389. 58 Raja Rammohun Roy, by Saumyendranath Tagore, pp. 44-5.

CHAPTER IV

Annexe

IV.1. Introduction In my Conclusion evoking the stands of Tagore and Gandhi facing the Extremist challenge, I examined the plausible reasons of Jatin Mukherjee’s amazing absence in the vast bulk of works published by Rabindranath Tagore, whose literary output can be considered as the mirror of his time. Two exceptions occur in this absence. The first is a poem by Tagore, mentioned by historian Ramesh Chandra Majumdar in his monumental history, Independence Movement of India. As for the second exception, we learn that in May 1922, Tagore invited a group of Jatin Mukherjee’s former associates to Santiniketan. Among them were Surendramohan Ghose, Arun Chandra Guha (two future Members of the Indian Parliament), Manoranjan Gupta, Ashutosh Das and Jadu Gopal Mukherjee.

IV.2. ‘The Pioneers’ by Rabindranath Tagore Tagore had deplored that ‘Bengal had given everything to her sons except the glorious legacy of martyrdom. The enthusiasts of the Jugantar party had no hesitation (…) to contribute to the glorious legacy of martyrdom in an open fight.’1 Informed about Jatin’s untimely death, Rabindranath Tagore withdrew himself into an austere and stunned reflection, before uttering: ‘Such a death is of no mean significance for our country in bondage. But, what about Jatin’s life-long sadhana?’ While receiving a group of Jatin’s former followers after a signifi-

404

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

cant silence, Tagore read out to them this allegorical poem, ‘Agrani’ (‘The Pioneers’), that he had composed in 1915, shortly after the heroic battle in Balasore. This text constitutes the second exception: Could you not wait a little more? Winter is not yet over. Hiding very close to the trail Who makes you sing in chorus? O distraught Champakas, o Bakul in ecstasy, Whom do you rush to greet, all enamoured of your play? You are foremost, O trackers of death, You did not choose the right Moment, Your murmurs echo from branch to branch Livening and perfuming the undergrowths Jostling and laughing quite loud before the others, You blossomed but to fall in a heap. Spring that was expected to come in March, Would surmount the tide of the zephyr, You did not wait for it, much before term You set to play your flute. How can one reach the goal before the night is over? You have squandered all your gifts in your laughters and songs. O my prodigies, o my rebel reasons, Maddened by the rumour of His steps, Eager to rejoice at the coming of this Guest, You strewed His path with your death. Your stems released you, even before you saw or heard Him, You could no more wait for the moment of His coming. [‘A Flight of Swans’, 1916. Unpublished translation by Prithwindra Mukherjee]

IV.3. Tagore on Jatin Mukherjee In the midst of the chaos created by Subhas Chandra Bose’s resignation—desired by Gandhiji—from the Presidentship of the National Congress, in 1939 Rabindranath Tagore, in a message, stood by Bose, reminding that having contemplated the face of Bengal’s will power against the Partition in 1905,

Annexe

405

he had seen how this will power had resisted the attempt to mutilate Bengal’s limbs.2 Tagore was the last to forget that the Bengalis could stand united against a considerably aggressive power, instead of having recourse to sophisticated debates on their limited capacity in attempting to foil the imperial wish. They had just simply willed. This will succeeded in withstanding the unsheathed sword ready. The Bengalis had then stood up, shoulder to shoulder. Having observed for over a score of years an enigmatic silence about the heroic self-sacrifice of Jatindra Mukherjee, Tagore found that the moment had come to give vent to a secret tribute he had long wanted to pay. In addition to his returning the honours received from the Crown, though Tagore had been black-listed by the colonial Police for having sympathy for or sheltered suspects who had been directly in touch with Jatindra, Tagore wrote, referring directly to Jatindra Mukherjee’s contribution: In the subsequent generation, I could admire the fire-wombed will in the mind of young Bengalis. They were born with the light to kindle lamps all over the country, but inadvertently they set fire everywhere that even devoured them, turning the path into a blind alley. In the failure welling from this error, however, the magnanimity of the heroic hearts that shone forth, I have never seen anything like it elsewhere in India. Sacrifice upon sacrifice on their part, suffering upon suffering, this frenzy to immolate one’s life turned into ashes very soon, but they have, all the same, courageously expressed the indomitable will force of Bengal. Whatever be the judicious blames that seek to blacken the soul-rending mistake of the impatient youth, as recorded in this chapter of history, is it really possible to tarnish their innate nuclear irradiation?3

The Anushilan (centred in Dhaka) was paid to shun Gandhiji’s non-cooperation movement as reactionary, whereas thanks to the revolutionary vision of Jatindra Mukherjee’s followers belonging to the Jugantar found therein the perspective ready to accomplish their objective: the Mass movement. As the mouthpiece of the Jugantar—leaderless and disoriented since Jatindra Mukherjee’s death—Bhupendrakumar Datta, one of Jatindra’s closest followers went to Pondicherry and consulted Sri Aurobindo about their option in the light of

406

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Gandhiji’s promise in 1920. Not at all persuaded that India could attain swaraj within a year, the Master recognized the force that the new leader represented and advised collaborating with him without, however, making a fetish of non-violence. Accordingly, in 1923, the Jugantar chose to act of its own: on 9 September it celebrated from Calcutta to Lahore the 8th anniversary of the Battle at Balasore, by issuing articles and books on Bagha Jatin’s martyrdom. Young Bhagat Singh participated in it. The Government noted with interest this first disobedience to Gandhiji’s policy.4 Thus Tagore saw that these fire-brands proved that the path did not become a blind alley, nor did the frenzy to immolate one’s life turn into ashes: therefore, recognizing how the Phoenix of the Time Spirit soared high, Tagore rectified his statement, while he chose to single out Subhas Chandra Bose as the Deshanayaka—‘Leader of the People’— and consecrated him as Jatindra Nath Mukherjee’s legitimate successor: Witness that we have been of the multiple weakness of our motherland, wherever we have discovered, all the same, proof of her strength, all our hope—hidden, underground—eagerly looks for the future. You will have, henceforth, the responsibility of making this expectation vigorous and pregnant; your duty will be to usher on the activist path the finest elements of the Bengali nature, all its faculties: its witty spirit, its imaginativeness, its clear sight to discern the new, its skill in creating forms, its spontaneous receptivity to the gifts of unknown cultures. Scrubbing all that is obsolete and worn out in this country, ridding its new energy of sheaths of inertia, come to assume the authority to help them blossom in a new springtide.5

IV.4 Jatin Mukherjee (1879-1915) by M.N. Roy Though the article of M.N. Roy on Jatin Mukherjee does not require any commentary—except some small notes—we would like to attract, however, the readers’ attention to the fact that Roy has left

Annexe

407

in his Memoirs some complementary information on his thoughtmaster. Sibnarayan Ray writes about Roy: From his early life his sharp intellect was matched by a strong will and extraordinary self-confidence. It would seem that in his long political career there were only two persons and a half who, in his estimate, qualified to be his mentors. The first was Jatin Mukherji from his revolutionary national period; the second was Lenin with whom he might engage in debate but with whom his relation was that of a ‘disciple seeking light from the Master’. The half was Josef Stalin whom he greatly admired, but also severely criticized. We called him simply ‘Dada’;6 because, in the land and age of ‘Dadas’, he was peerless, not another like him. Nor was he the ‘Baradada’;7 he was the ‘Dada’. As in modern art, so in our infantile politics, ‘Dadaism’ was an irrational cult. There was affection adulterated with adulation, jealousy sugar-coated with saintliness, and loyalty buttressed upon the indiscriminate adoration of the heroworshipper. But Jatinda was not a prophet of the cult of Dadaism. We lived in the atmosphere of a vague sort of idealism. Few of us had any idea of what is called a way of life, and much less of any particular school of philosophy. Only a desire was uppermost in the consciousness of us all: to go down in history as heroes—to leave footprints on the sands of time. Southey’s poems were included in the college text-books. Barin Ghose’s cynicism cruelly punctured our rain-bow balloons. But as passionate believers, we had the fortitude to keep on worshipping even after the clay-feet of our god had been exposed by one of the high-priests. Barin used to say that the worst of cowards could walk up to the gallows if he knew that the whole country was applauding. That remark made a deep impression on me; perhaps it was a pointer to the way of life I chose eventually. Was our idealism—the fervent desire to lay down our lives for the cause—then only an expression of selfishness, the wish to be remembered and honoured by posterity? This question haunted me. However, youthful enthusiasm is not so easily dampened; nor did Barin mean to do that, I suppose. Most probably, he wanted us to be better men than greater heroes. In any case, we patched up our balloon, and walked the earth with our heads in the clouds. All the Dadas practised magnetism; only Jatin Mukherji possessed it. Therefore he was a puzzle and a despair for his rivals engaged in the game of ‘Cheladhara.’8 He never cast out his nets; yet he was loved by all, even the followers of other Dadas.

408

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

Once I overheard a few sentences of a conversation. I still belonged to the entourage of another Dada, and heard him rebuking a Chela, presumably of wavering loyalty. The latter had been visiting some other Dada. Ultimately, in exasperation, the suspected apostate rejoined mildly: ‘Dada why do you want me not to see him, when he does not want me to go away from you? He has never asked me to join his party; he has no party.’ I was curious to know who was that strange sort of a Dada, and buttonholed the rebuked Gurubhai9 after he was dismissed by the extremely annoyed Dada. The next day I was taken to the unusual Dada who did not play the game of ‘Cheladhara,’ and was caught for good. At that time I did not know what was the attraction. A rather ordinary sort of man, physically. His frame did not speak for his legendary physical strength, though he had been a trained wrestler. Nor did he put on an air of condescending superiority. In what he said, there was no hint (a usual trick of the trade of Dadaism) of an extensively ramified secret organisation accumulating vast quantities of arms and money for the Day of Liberation. Later on, I realised what attracted me: it was his personality. Since then, I have had the privilege of meeting many outstanding personalities of our time. These are great men; Jatinda was a good man, and I have still to find a better. When I met him, to come under the spell of his personality, we were still far off from the days of mass parties and mass mesmerism; the Dadas counted their followers in tens, seldom in hundreds. To storm Fort William with an army of the Ananda Math,10 equipped with lathis,11 was a long-term programme. Even the war cry of ‘Hara, Hara, Mahadev’12 could not be raised by a dozen impatient patriots without risking arrest under Section 124-A I.P.C. An ‘action’ (conspiratorial term for political dacoity) presented the occasion for practising warlikeness; and even then, prematurely raised, the war cry woke up the neighbourhood, and the planned action’ had to be abandoned, unless indiscriminate shooting was allowed. Dada was dead against the practice and under his advice (he never issued orders), I often had to do the disgraceful duty of abandoning ‘actions’ to prevent patriots playing the role of firing squads much too prematurely. The time has changed; the man who earned fame as a great conspirator against the Imperialist State and an extraordinarily bold terrorist, is now to be memorialised as a great man in the history of modern India. His birthday is celebrated, and biographies written. But since his time, the political stage of India has been crowded with people claiming niches in history, if not places of honour in the

Annexe

409

pantheon of the great. Judged by his actual feats, minus the legends woven around them, Jatinda’s name may be crowded out of the list of national heroes. That would not be a tragedy, nor falsification of history as it is written until now. Jatinda himself would not be disappointed, I dare say. He must be appreciated as the archetypal man the like of whom, though not many, live and die apparently without leaving any foot-prints on the sands of time. But in reality, they embody rays of hope, breaking through the darkness of the mass of mediocrity, aggravated from time to time by the blinding flashes of the greatness of built-up personalities. A biography chronicling the events of his life, embellished by legends of heroic deeds, would be a false homage to the memory of Jatinda. He would be the first to admit that compared with the Resistance movement in European countries occupied by the Axis Powers, the tragic story of the last days of his life pales into insignificance. There is no doubt that the story of the Balasore Jungle can be dramatised; and done by a master artist, it may attain the grandeur of an epic poem. But such a drama must be built up around the man, his character, his personality not his marksmanship, his ability to escape almost successfully, and holding out for hours against a numerically superior enemy, when he had only a few cartridges left. By way of expressing admiration and respect, the imperialist policeman who led the party to surround Jatinda’s hiding place, said: ‘He was the first Indian to die fighting, arm in hand.’ I presume by Indian he meant terrorist; otherwise, the compliment to Jatinda would be an affront to Indian manhood. In any case, should Jatinda’s life be dramatised, let not the curtain fall on a policeman writing the most ill-appropriate epitaph on the hero’s tombstone. Good men are seldom given a place in the galaxy of the great. It will continue to be so until goodness is recognised as the measure of genuine greatness. Jatinda was not the embodiment of the mediaeval values of warlikeness and heroism. He did not belong to any age; his values were human and as such transcended space and time, He was kind and truthful as well as bold and uncompromising. His boldness stopped short of cruelty, and his uncompromisingness did not preclude toleration. Like all modern educated young men of his time, he tended to accept the reformed religion preached by Swami Vivekananda—a God who would stand the test of reason, and a religion which served progressive social and human purpose. He believed himself to be a Karmayogi, trying

410

The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle

to be at any rate, and recommended the ideal to all of us. Detached from the unnecessary mystic preoccupation, Karmayogi means a humanist. He who believes that self-realisation can be attained through human action, must logically also believe in man’s creativeness—that man is the maker of his destiny. That is also the essence of Humanism. Jatinda was a Humanist—perhaps the first in modern India. To recognise him as such will be the most befitting homage to his memory. Independent India, 27 February 1949 Reprinted in Men I Met

NOTES 1. First Spark of Revolution, by Arun Chandra Guha, p. 402. 2. Preface in Bagha Jatin, by Prithwindra Mukherjee, National Book Trust, New Delhi, 1st rev. edn., 2013, pp. ix-xi. While launching this book, H.E. Pranab Mukherjee qualified it to be a short history of India’s armed struggle for freedom. 3. Prabhatkumar Mukhopadhyaya, Rabindra-jibani, Visvabharati, Calcutta, 1956, 3rd edn. 1994, pp. 196-8. 4. Terrorism in India 1917-36, by H.W. Hell, Government of India, p. 16, rpt. 1974, quoted by Amales Tripathi, Swadhinata Samgrame Bharater Jatiya Congress (1885-1947), p. 130. 5. Mukhopadhyaya, loc. cit. 6. An elder brother; the term is also applied to someone senior. 7. The eldest (big) brother. 8. Hunting down disciples (chela). 9. Member of the same religious fraternity. 10. The famous novel by Bankimchandra Chatterjee, containing the patriotic hymn Bande Mataram. 11. Seasoned bamboo sticks utilised as mortal weapons in rural India. 12. Names of Shiva, the Lord of Destruction.

Glossary

anushilan: project of national regeneration chalked out by Bankimchandra and partly adopted by the nationalist association of the same name, founded in Calcutta in 1902 and become, on one hand, the Jugantar Party (decentralized and progressive) and, on the other, the Anushilan Party of Dhaka (highly centralized and reactionary). arya (‘noble’): represents a transitional stage of civilization connected with Brahmanic blossoming in India. Atharva Veda: the last and the most recent compilation of the Vedas containing about 760 hymns in 6,000 verses, dedicated to medicine, magic, etc. ayurveda (‘Science of life’): traditional medicine of India that takes into consideration as much the psychic as the physical being. Bande Mataram (‘Mother, I bow to You’): song composed by Bankimchandra and published in his novel Ananda-math (‘Monastery of Joy’, 1882), compared by Romain Rolland to ‘La Marseillaise’: the British authorities considered it to be responsible for the emergence of militant nationalism in India. Blacklisted as a revolutionary and forbidden slogan by the Indian police under the British empire, this battle cry evoked India, the Motherland, as the incarnation of the Shakti. An extremist journal of the same name founded by Sri Aurobindo. bhakti: one of the three main paths (the two other being that of knowledge or jnana and that of action or karma); it is based on an attitude of love and devotion of the creature for the Creator of the universe in view to obtain Delivery (moksha) by His grace. brahmacharya: ritual asceticism based on continence auspicious for the study and the practice of the Vedas, under the guidance of a master (guru).

412

Glossary

Brahma(n): The Absolute, the Supreme, the cosmic Soul, origin of the Trinity composed of Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Protector) and Shiva (the Destroyer of the Past). Brahmana: the superior caste (varna) made of priests and clerks of orthodox lineage. brahmanism : initial belief founded on the cult of the Brahman and dedicated to the studies and the practices of the Vedas. brahmo: reformed religion of which Rammohun Roy was the initiator. dharma: duty and order leading to the Knowledge of the Supreme as cosmic Creator and to social laws useful to spiritual quest during a life-time. Durga: Wife of Shiva, the Mother protecting the universe (cf. Shakti) Gita (or Shrimad-Bhagvad-Gita): originally, extracted from the Mahabharata epic (VI.23-40), this book summarizes in 18 chapters and 700 verses the whole traditional secret of the just action in a spirit of surrender to the Supreme for Deliverance (moksha) in this life. guna: the three threads, components or ‘atomic’ qualities of which the miscellanies in various proportions determine the three temperaments of being—good, passionate or gloomy—on the decreasing qualitative scale. Hinduism: religion of India crystallized from the former teaching of the Vedas. A path distinct from Buddhism, Islam or other religions practised in India. jiva : The creature, the individual living being considered to be a spark of the cosmic soul. Kali: the dark Goddess in her dangerous aspect before the Evil forces (cf. Shakti). karma(n): Act or action, with a ritual sense, carrier of proportional retributions to the merits (and the inverse) that condition the state and the quality of the ulterior moments of a life and a reincarnation. Krishna: The most popular of the ten incarnations (avatar) of Vishnu; Master of the religion of love and just action of the Gita. Kshatriya: second caste (varna) of the Brahmanic society composed of warriors. Mahabharata: The most important of the two epics of India (the other being the Ramayana), source of all moral and spiritual education of the Indian people.

Glossary

413

moksha: One of the four objectives of human life (the three others being enjoyment or kama; means and significance or artha; the right law or dharma), summed up as spiritual Deliverance allowing the individual soul (jiva) to acquire the initial divine fullness, without having to be born again in this world. Purana: traditional texts of a later period (in relation to the Vedas) describing through a cosmic and mythological vision the essential brahmanic doctrine. rajas: the middle term of the three components (guna) of the nature (the two other being sattva and tamas), it represents the dynamism, the action, the effort, the enthusiasm as driving forces in life. Rik (or Rg): The First and the oldest of the four Compilations of the Vedas containing 1,028 hymns distributed in 10 Cycles (mandala). rishi (or rsi): Seers or Prophets who received or ‘saw’ the divine revelation of the Vedas and transmitted it by way of oral initiation, from masters to disciples. sattva: The first term of the components (guna), that represents serenity, light and purity favourable to Knowledge. Shakti: Cosmic divine Energy, the creative Force of the Supreme, the Divine Mother under her various aspects: Durga, Kali, Bhavani. Shiva: The 3rd aspect (‘Destroyer of the Creation’) of the Trinity, described in the Vedas as Rudra. As spouse of Shakti. His worshippers are known as the Shaiva. Shudra: The fourth caste (varna) of the old brahmanic society composed of workers and servants. svadeshi (swadeshi): nationalist programme vowed to promote indigenous products, while boycotting especially the imported products of British manufacture, imposed arbitrarily on Indians to damage local traditional handicraft. svadharma: the right law assigned to every individual or every collectivity, that the Gita aims at instituting in the name of human dignity and spiritual duty. Svaraj (swaraj): Self-government, objective of the political liberation. tamas: ‘Darkness’, the last term of the three gunas, representing ignorance and inertia. Tantra: A group of esoteric texts inspired by the cult of Shiva (in union with Shakti) and Vishnu, doctrine professing the superiority of the divine Energy.

414

Glossary

Upanishad (‘That which brings man close to the Divine’): About 200 esoteric texts, of which ten major, consisting of speculation on metaphysical values of the Vedas, providing the essential philosophical doctrine of the Vedanta school (‘End’ or ‘Quintessence’ of the Vedas); its Aphorisms have been collected by Badarayana. Vaishya: The third caste (varna) composed of traders, agriculturists and craftsmen. varna: The four ‘classes’ or castes of the old brahmanic society, founded on a distribution of social functions, status and specific relations with practising the Vedas Vedas: ‘The oldest identifiable monument of Indian civilization’— recognized by Jean Filliozat—‘that she [India] did not agree to write before a considerably later period. Product of a long lost past, poetic art, speculation and ritual technique.’ Divine knowledge revealed in 4 Great compilations. Vedanta: cf. Upanishad. Vishnu: The second Aspect (Protector out of Love) of the Trinity. His worshippers (bhakta) are called Vishnuites or Vaishnava. yoga: Doctrine based on the quest of spiritual Delivery (moksha) in this very life, practised with the help of physical and mental disciplines leading to a prolonged and exclusive stability— at will—of the psyche (samadhi). Orthodox philosophical school having for complement and doctrinal background the samkhya (which greatly inspired the Buddhist method and the Gita). Applied doctrine on an activist plane (karma-yoga), this teaching directs the spiritual seeker towards a dedicated engagement to a conscious work, done as an instrument and a servant of the divine Will. Yugantar (or Jugantar, transcription in conformity with the Bengali pronunciation): ‘End of a Cycle composed of 4 Ages’; Revolution; Bengali organ of the Extremist Party of the same name, founded on Sri Aurobindo’s politico-mystical doctrine, working for the independence of India in a perspective of the spiritual regeneration of humanity. The Zimmermann Plan: Agreement settled, during the First World War, between the emissaries of the Indian Extremist Party and the Government of Kaiser Wilhelm II to assist the effort of Indian revolutionaries to organize a uprising.

Bibliography

I. Unpublished Sources 1. Mukherjee, Jatindranath: Various writings r
-FUUFST
UP
IJT
TJTUFS
7JOPEFCBMB
%FWJ
BOE
UP
IJT
XJGF
Indubala. r
-FUUFS
UP
)FOSZ
8IFFMFS
4FDSFUBSZ
UP
.JOJTUSZ
PG
'JOBODF
PG
UIF
(PWFSONFOU
PG
*OEJB
EBUFE

.BSDI

/BUJPOBM
"SDIJWFT
PG
*OEJB
/FX
%FMIJ  r
-FUUFS
BOE
'JMF
SFGFSSFE
UP
7JDFSPZ
)BSEJOHF

4FQUFNCFS

/BUJPOBM
"SDIJWFT
)PNF

1PMJUJDBM
#

r
#FOHBMJ
QPFN
DPNQPTFE
CZ
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
PO

%FDFNCFS

PO
UIF
PDDBTJPO
PG
,VNBSOBUI
#BHDIJT
NBSSJBHF 

7JOPEFCBMB
%FWJ
7BSJPVT
XSJUJOHT r
-JGFTLFUDI
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
JO
#FOHBMJ
OPUFCPPLT  r
1PFNT
BOE
OPUFT 

$IBUUFSKFF
-BMJU
,VNBS
7BSJPVT
XSJUJOHT r
Paribarik Katha
IJTUPSZ
PG
UIF
GBNJMZ
JO
TVQQPSU
PG
B
GBN JMZ
USFF
PG

HFOFSBUJPOT
BOE
TPDJPMPHJDBM
EFUBJMT
PG
GJSTU
JNQPSUBODF
JOTFSUJOH
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
JO
UIF
EPNFTUJD
BOE
TPDJBM
TFUUJOH  r
Durgotsav
BVUPCJPHSBQIJD
UFYU
PO
UIF
GPVSEBZ
GFTUJWBM
PG
%VSHB
PSHBOJTFE
CZ
UIF
NBUFSOBM
VODMFT‡UIF
$IBUUFSKFFT
PG
,PZB‡UIBU
BUUSBDUFE
BCPVU
 
HVFTUT
FWFSZ
EBZ  

%BUUB
#IVQFOESB
,VNBS
"SDIJWFT
4JODF
UIF
*OEFQFOEFODF
PG
*OEJB
JO

UIF
WFUFSBOT
PG
UIF
&YUSFNJTU
1BSUZ
IBE
DPOGJEFE
UP
%BUUB‡POF
PG
UIF
NPTU
EBO HFSPVT
QSPUBHPOJTUT
PG
UIF
NPWFNFOU
BT
XFMM
BT
JUT
MJUFSBSZ
BOE
QIJMPTPQIJDBM
DPOTDJFODF‡UIF
UBTL
PG
XSJUJOH
B
DPNQSFIFOTJWF
CJPHSBQIZ
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
"GUFS
BCPVU
UFO
ZFBST
PG
FGGPSUT
IF
QSFGFSSFE
UP
USBOTNJU
UIJT
BSEVPVT
UBTL
UP
UIF
QSFTFOU
XSJUFS
















Bibliography

HVJEJOH
IJN
BDUJWFMZ
EFDJQIFSJOH
EPDVNFOUT
QSFTFSWFE
BU
UIF
BSDIJWFT
8FTU
#FOHBM
0SJTTB
BOE
/FX
%FMIJ
JO
UIF
MJHIU
PG
IJT
QFSTPOBM
LOPXMFEHF
PG
UIF
FWFOUT
,BS
/BMJOJ
,BOUB
"SDIJWFT
BOE
BVUPCJPHSBQIJD
FTTBZT $IBLSBWBSUJ
.BOJOESB
3FNJOJTDFODFT
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFFT
TUBZ
JO
,BQUJQPEB
$IBLSBWBSUJ
1BODIBOBO
"SDIJWFT .JUSB
#IBWBCIVTIBO
-FUUFST
BOE
SFNJOJTDFODFT 7BSJPVT
BSDIJWFT
1SFTFSWFE
CZ
UIF
GBNJMZ
BOE
UIF
DIJMESFO
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
FTQFDJBMMZ
6TIBSBOJ
.VLIFSKFF
IJT
EBVHIUFSJOMBX  NB
4JODF

UIBOLT
UP
UIF
PGGJDJBM
BOE
QFSTPOBM
BSDIJWFT
PG
1SJUIXJOESB
.VLIFSKFF
B
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
$PMMFDUJPO
FYJTUT
BU
UIF
+BXBIBSMBM
/FISV
.FNPSJBM
.VTFVN

-JCSBSZ
PG
/FX
%FMIJ
*U
IBT
BMTP
QSFTFSWFE
TFWFSBM
IPVST
PG
SFDPSEFE
JOUFS WJFXT
PG
+BUJOESBOBUIT
BTTPDJBUFT
MJLF
"SVO
$IBOESB
(VIB
BOE
#IVQFOESB
,VNBS
%BUUB
BOE
IJT
CJPHSBQIFS
1SJUIXJOESB
Mukherjee.

**
$PSSFTQPOEFODFT
$
BOE
*OUFSWJFXT
*

#BHDIJ
,BMJQBEB
'PSNFS
NFNCFS
PG
UIF
&YUSFNJTU
VOJU
PG
/PSUI
#FOHBM
$

#BHDIJ
,VNBSOBUI
%S 
.FNCFS
PG
B
GBNJMZ
DMPTF
UP
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFFT
PG
UIF
TBNF
BHF
BT
UIF
MBUUFST
DPVTJOT
BCPVU
B
EP[FO
ZFBS
ZPVOHFS 
TJODF
IJT
DIJMEIPPE
IF
IBE
SFDFJWFE
UIF
)FSPT
MPWJOH
BUUFOUJPO
"O
VOJRVFMZ
HJGUFE
DIJME
,VNBS
XBT
BEWJTFE
CZ
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
OPU
UP
HFU
JOWPMWFE
JO
QPMJUJDT
BOE
UP
QVSTVF
IJT
BDBEFNJD
TUVEJFT
)F
SFNFNCFST
PG
B
HJGU
GSPN
UIF
-FBEFS
QMFBTFE
UP
IFBS
BCPVU
,VNBST
CSJMMJBOU
SFTVMUT
JO
IJT
TUVEJFT
+BUJO
PGGFSFE
IJN
B
MBOHVBHF
NBOVBM
UP
MFBSO
'SFODI
#FDBNF
%FBO
PG
UIF
'BDVMUZ
PG
.FEJDJOF
BUUBDIFE
UP
UIF
VOJ WFSTJUZ
PG
$BMDVUUB
IF
SFWFBMFE
UP
NF‡GPS
UIF
àSTU
UJNF‡IJT
WBTU
LOPXMFEHF
BOE
UIF
QSFDJTF
NFNPSJFT
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFFT
JOUJNBUF
MJGF
,VNBS
IBE
DBSFGVMMZ
QSFTFSWFE
UIF
TIFFU
PG
EFDP SBUFE
BOE
QSJOUFE
TJML
QBQFS
BT
JU
XBT
DVTUPNBSZ
BOE
PGGFSFE
UP
FWFSZ
HVFTU
PO
UIF
EBZ
PG
IJT
NBSSJBHF
JO

UIJT
EPDVNFOU
DPOUBJOT
UIF
POMZ
TBNQMF
PG
QPFNT
XSJUUFO
CZ
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
$*

Bibliography




#IBUUBDIBSZB
"CJOBTI
&MEFTU
DPVTJO
PG
./
3PZ
/BSFOESBOBUI
#IBUUBDIBSZB
BOE
POF
PG
UIF
GPVOEJOH
NFNCFST
PG
UIF
&YUSFNJTU
1BSUZ
IF
XBT
QBSU
PG
4SJ
"VSPCJOEPT
QFSTPOBM
IFBE RVBSUFST
BOE
MJLF
4VEIJS
4BSLBS
TFSWFE
IJN
BT
FNJTTBSZ
$*

$IBLSBWBSUJ
"MPL
$PVTJO
PG
UIF
QSFDFEFOU
EJTDJQMF
PG
#IBWB CIVTIBO
.JUSB
IF
SFQSFTFOUFE
CFGPSF
UIF
ZPVOH
HFOFSBUJPOT
UIF
XJMM
BOE
UIF
FUIJDT
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
$

$IBLSBWBSUJ
)BSJLVNBS
 
.FNCFS
PG
UIF
DFOUSBM
$PNNJUUFF
PG
UIF
&YUSFNJTUT
DIJMEIPPE
GSJFOE
BOE
DPMMFBHVF
PG
./
3PZ
IF
EJSFDUFE
UIF
àSN
)BSSZ

4POT
JO
$BMDVUUB
0GàDF
PG
$PNNVOJDBUJPOT
XJUI
BCSPBE 
$

$IBLSBWBSUJ
.BOJOESB
*O

GSPN
"QSJM
UP
4FQUFNCFS
JO
B
QSPQFSUZ
BEKBDFOU
UP
IJT
BU
,BQUJQPEB
JO
0SJTTB


GVMMZ
BXBSF
PG
UIF
SJTLT
IF
PGGFSFE
B
TVSF
TIFMUFS
UP
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
BOE
IJT
BTTPDJBUFT
BMM
PG
UIFN
XBOUFE
CZ
UIF
1PMJDF
"GUFS
UIF
#BUUMF
PG
#BMBTPSF
IF
VOEFSXFOU
UIF
CJUUFS
DPOTFRVFODFT
PG
IJT
BDUT
XJUI
HSFBU
DPVSBHF
$

$IBLSBWBSUJ
1BODIBOBO
:PVOH
IJHI
TDIPPM
TUVEFOU
JO
MPWF
XJUI
UIF
&YUSFNJTU
TUSVHHMF
BGUFS
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFFT
EFBUI
IF
CFDBNF
POF
PG
UIF
JNQPSUBOU
MFBEFST
PG
UIF
+VHBOUBS
)F
XBT
GSPN
UIF
TBNF
EBOHFSPVT
OVSTFSZ
PG
.BEBSJQVS
UIBU
IBE
USBJOFE
UIF
-FBEFST
UISFF
DPNSBEFTJOBSN
$IJUUBQSJZB
3BZ$IBVEIVSJ
.BOPSBOKBO
4FOHVQUB
BOE
/JSFO
%BTHVQUB
$*

$IBUUFSKFF
+JCBOMBM
 
#SPVHIU
VQ
JO
%IBLB
IF
DBNF
UP
$BMDVUUB
JO

UP
XPSL
VOEFS
UIF
EJSFDUJPO
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
4JODF
JO
DPMMBCPSBUJPO
XJUI
#IVQFOESB
,VNBS
%BUUB
4VCIBT
$IBOESB
#PTF
%FTIBCBOEIV
43
%BT
BOE
./
3PZ
IF
BMXBZT
SFQSFTFOUFE
UIF
MFGUJTU
SFWPMVUJPOBSZ
BYJT
$*

$IBUUFSKFF
,FEBSOBUI
4PO
PG
UIF
GBNPVT
QBUSJPUJD
KPVSOBM JTU
3BNBOBOEB
$IBUUFSKFF
IF
IBE
GPS
GSJFOET
UXP
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFFT
DPVTJOT
BOE
IF
LOFX
IPX
IJT
GBUIFS
MPWFE
BOE
FTUFFNFE
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
PO
NZ
SFRVFTU
IF
QVCMJTIFE
JO
UIF
Prabasi
$BMDVUUB

IJT
SFNJOJTDFODFT
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
$*

%BT
%S
5BSBLOBUI
 
.FNCFS
PG
UIF
&YUSFNJTU
1BSUZ
TJODF
JUT
JODFQUJPO
POF
PG
UIF
GPVOEFST
PG
UIF
"OVTIJMBO
QBSUZ
PG
%IBLB
BOE
JOTQJSFS
PG
UIF
&YUSFNJTU
NPWFNFOU
JO
TPVUI
*OEJB
IF
XFOU
UP
UIF
64"
BT
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFFT
FNJTTBSZ
JO

"MPOH
XJUI
B
CSJMMJBOU
BDBEFNJD
DBSFFS
IF
GVMàMMFE
+BUJOT
NBOEBUF
CZ
FOUFSJOH
JO
POF
PG
UIF
NPTU
QSFTUJHJPVT
"NFSJDBO




Bibliography

NJMJUBSZ
BDBEFNJFT
UP
BDRVJSF
UIF
NPEFSO
UFDIOJRVFT
PG
XBSGBSF
BOE
UP
MFBSO
NBOVGBDUVSF
PG
FYQMPTJWFT
)F
XBT
UIF
QJPOFFSJOH
MFBEFS
UP
QPMJUJDJ[F
TZTUFNBUJDBMMZ
*OEJBO
FNJHSBOUT
JO
$BOBEB
BOE
JO
UIF
64"
UJMM
UIF
(IBEBS
1BSUZ
DBNF
UP
FYJTUFODF
"T
BO
JOEJTQFOTBCMF
CSBJO
GPS
UIF
EFWFMPQNFOU
BOE
UIF
FYFDVUJPO
PG
UIF
;JNNFSNBOO
1MBO
EVSJOH
UIF
'JSTU
8PSME
8BS
BOE
UIBOLT
UP
B
OFUXPSL
PG
WFSZ
WBMJE
TZNQBUIJ[FST
XIJDI
JODMVEFE
-FP
5PMTUPZ
(FPSHF
'SFFNBO
)FOSZ
NBZFSE
)ZOENBO
IF
NBO BHFE
UP
JOáVFODF
JOUFSOBUJPOBM
PQJOJPO
JO
GBWPVS
PG
*OEJBT
QPMJUJDBM
JOEFQFOEFODF
"QQPJOUFE
QSPGFTTPS
JO
UIF
6OJWFSTJUZ
PG
/FX
:PSL
BVUIPS
PG
OVNFSPVT
GVOEBNFOUBM
XPSLT
PO
JOUFSOBUJPOBM
SFMBUJPOT
BU
UIF
UJNF
PG
IJT
VOJRVF
QBTTBHF
JO
*OEJB‡JO
4FQUFNCFS
‡IF
EFMJWFSFE
CFGPSF
UIF
*OEJBO
QVCMJD
JO
B
SBMMZ
JO
$BMDVUUB
B
IPNBHF
UP
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
SFWFBMJOH
UIF
1SPKFDU
BOE
UIF
SFWPMVUJPOBSZ
NFUIPET
PG
IJT
àSTU
UIPVHIU
NBTUFS
$*

%BTHVQUB
#JSFOESBOBUI
 
$PVTJO
PG
4BUZFO
4FO
BOE
DPMMFBHVF
PG
5BSBLOBUI
%BT
BU
UIF
/BUJPOBM
$PMMFHF
PG
$BMDVUUB
IF
XBT
QSFTFOUFE
UP
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
CZ
#IVQFOESBOBUI
%BUUB
CSPUIFS
PG
4XBNJ
7JWFLBOBOEB
BOE
CZ
IJT
PXO
VODMF
UIF
BZVSWFEJD
QIZTJDJBO
#JKPZ
3BZ
PG
+FTTPSF
$*

%BUUB
#IVQFOESB
,VNBS
 
-FBEFS
PG
UIF
OBUJPOBMJTU
TUVEFOUT
NPWFNFOU
BU
UIF
$PMMFHF
PG
%BVMBUQVS
IF
XBT
JOUSP duced to Jatin Mukherjee by the educationist Shashibhushan 3BZ$IBVEIVSJ
BOE
SFDFJWFE
QSFDJTF
JOTUSVDUJPOT‡JO
GPSN
PG
BEWJDF
TJODF
+BUJO
OFWFS
HBWF
PSEFST‡DPODFSOJOH
UIF
EVUZ
PG
UIF
*OEJBO
ZPVUI
"
DMBTTNBUF
PG
4VCIBT
$IBOESB
#PTF
BU
UIF
VOJWFSTJUZ
PG
$BMDVUUB
IF
ESBHHFE
BO
JOUFMMFDUVBM
FMJUF
UPXBSET
UIF
&YUSFNJTU
QSPHSBNNF
BOE
HVJEFE
TFWFSBM
HFO FSBUJPOT
PG
SFWPMVUJPOBSJFT
TVDI
BT
UIF
GBNPVT
4VSZB
4FO
PG
$IJUUBHPOH
#IBHBU
4JOHI
PG
1VOKBC
BOE
4IFJLI
.VKJC
GPVOEFS
PG
#BOHMBEFTI 
"T
NFNCFS
PG
UIF
1BLJTUBOJ
1BSMJBNFOU
TJODF

BOE
VQ
UP
UIF
QSPDMBNBUJPO
PG
NBSUJBM
MBX
JO
1BLJTUBO
IJT
TUBOET
DPOTUBOUMZ
NBJOUBJOFE
B
QSPHSFTTJWF
QPMJDZ
PG
UIF
TVCDPOUJOFOU
4JODF

IF
DPODFOUSBUFE
PO
XSJUJOH
BOE
PO
GPSNJOH
ZPVOH
IJTUPSJBOT
JOUFSFTUFE
JO
UIF
GSFFEPN
NPWFNFOU
$*

%FW
#JNBMBDIBSBO
'SJFOE
PG
*OESBOBUI
/BOEJ
GPVOEFS
PG
UIF
"UNPOOBUJ
VOJU


BQQFBSFE
PO
UIF
MJTU
PG
BDDVTFE
JO
UIF
Howrah Case
 
IF
XPSLFE
OPUBCMZ
VOEFS
/BOJ
(PQBM


Bibliography




4FOHVQUB
CFGPSF
KPJOJOH
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFFT
DJSDMF
PG
JOUJNBUF
BTTPDJBUFT
*

(IPTF
"UVMLSJTIOB
 
.PTU
TJHOJàDBOU
BTTPDJBUF
BOE
TVDDFTTPS
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
IF
SFQSFTFOUFE
B
WFSZ
HSFBU
VOEFSTUBOEJOH
BOE
TZNQBUIZ
GPS
UIF
JOEJWJEVBM
BOE
DPMMFDUJWF
BTQJSBUJPOT
PG
UIF
SFWPMVUJPOBSJFT
$*

(IPTF
)FNFOESB
1SBTBE
 
/BUJPOBMJTU
KPVSOBMJTU
CFMPOHJOH
UP
UIF
GBNJMZ
PG
3BKOBSBJO
#BTV
BOE
JOTQJSFE
CZ
IJN
IF
XBT
B
DPVTJO
PG
4SJ
"VSPCJOEP
BOE
IJT
DPMMBCPSBUPS
JO
FEJU ing the Bande Mataram
$POTJEFSFE
UP
CF
B
MJWJOH
FODZDMPQFEJB
IJT
SFNJOJTDFODFT
MFBWF
VTFGVM
JOGPSNBUJPO
PO
UIF
QFSJPE
PG
PVS
TUVEZ
$*

(IPTF
,BMJDIBSBO
:PVOH
WPMVOUFFS
CFMPOHJOH
UP
UIF
VOJU
PG
UIF
1BSHBOBT
IJT
SFTFBSDI
PO
UIF
SFWPMVUJPOBSJFT
NBLF
JODPO UFTUBCMF
BVUIPSJUZ
$*

(IPTF
4VSFOESBNPIBO
BMJBT
.BEIVEB
 
%JTDJQMF
PG
)FNFOESB
,JTIPSF
"DIBSZB$IBVEIVSJ
.ZNFOTJOHI


IF
XPSLFE
VOEFS
UIF
MFBEFSTIJQ
PG
OVNFSPVT
EFQVUJFT
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
#FDPNF
1SFTJEFOU
PG
UIF
#FOHBM
1SPWJODJBM
$POHSFTT
BOE
.FNCFS
PG
UIF
1BSMJBNFOU
/FX
%FMIJ


IF
QMBZFE
B
TJOHV MBS
SPMF
BT
POF
PG
UIF
WFUFSBOT
PG
UIF
+VHBOUBS
$*

(IPTF
6QFOESBOBUI
/BUJPOBMJTU
MBXZFS
XIP‡JO
TQJUF
PG
UIF
SJTLT
BOE
UIF
SFQSJTBMT‡BDDFQUFE
UP
EFGFOE
UIF
UISFF
TVSWJWPST
PG
UIF
#BUUMF
PG
#BMBTPSF
/JSFO
+ZPUJTI
BOE
.BOPSBOKBO
*

(MBTFOBQQ
)FMNVUI
WPO
.FNCFS
PG
UIF
$PNNJUUFF
PG
*OEJBO
&YUSFNJTUT
JO
#FSMJO
EVSJOH
UIF
'JSTU
8PSME
8BS
IF
DMPTFMZ
LOFX
NPTU
PG
UIF
SFWPMVUJPOBSJFT
NFOUJPOFE
JO
UIJT
UIFTJT
$

(VIB
"SVO
$IBOESB
 
#SPVHIU
VQ
VOEFS
UIF
EJSFDU
JOTQJSBUJPO
PG
.BIBUNB
"TXJOJLVNBS
%BUUB
#BSJTBM


IF
XBT
POF
PG
UIF
EBSJOH
+VHBOUBS
MFBEFST
TJODF

#FDBNF
.JOJTUFS
PG
UIF
*OEJBO
6OJPO
BOE
.FNCFS
PG
UIF
1BSMJBNFOU
IF
JT
BVUIPS
PG
OVNFSPVT
IJTUPSJD
XPSLT
PG
WFSZ
HSFBU
WBMVF
$*

(VQUB
/BMJOJ
,BOUB
 
#SPVHIU
VQ
CZ
*TIBO
$IBLSBWBSUJ
MFBEFS
PG
UIF
3BOHQVS
VOJU
IF
XBT
B
CSJMMJBOU
TDJFODF
TUVEFOU
BU
UIF
VOJWFSTJUZ
PG
$BMDVUUB
VOEFS
+BHBEJTI
$IBOESB
#PTF
BOE
1SBGVMMB
$IBOESB
3BZ
KPJOFE
#BSJO
(IPTFT
FYQMPTJWFT
GBD UPSZ
"SSFTUFE
BMPOH
TJEF
4SJ
"VSPCJOEP
BDRVJUUFE
BU
UIF
TBNF
UJNF
/BMJOJ
GPMMPXFE
IJN
VQ
UP
1POEJDIFSSZ
JO

-BUFS
IF
CFDBNF
4FDSFUBSZ
PG
UIF
JOUFSOBUJPOBM
$PNNVOJUZ
DSZTUBMMJ[FE




Bibliography

BSPVOE
UIF
.BTUFS
$POTJEFSFE
UP
CF
AUIF
XSJUFS
GPS
XSJUFST
IJT
WBTU
XPSL
DPOUBJOT
JNQPSUBOU
SFNJOJTDFODFT
PG
IJT
SFWPMVUJPO BSZ
ZFBST
$*

,BS
/BMJOJ
,BOUB
c 
5FFOBHFS
JO
DPNQBOZ
PG
IJT
DPVTJO
"UVM
,SJTIOB
(IPTF
IF
NBEF
UIF
BDRVBJOUBODF
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
JO
UIF
OFJHICPVSJOH
WJMMBHF
TIPSUMZ
BGUFS
+BUJOT
LJMM JOH
PG
UIF
3PZBM
#FOHBM
UJHFS
JO

"MSFBEZ
NFNCFST
PG
UIF
&YUSFNJTU
1BSUZ
UIF
UXP
DPVTJOT
EJTDPWFSFE
UIFJS
)FSPT
SPMF
JO
UIF
OBUJPOBMJTU
PSHBOJTBUJPO
"T
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFFT
QBSUOFS
JO
UIF
FOUFSQSJTF
PG
DPOTUSVDUJPOT



IF
XBT
QBSU
PG
UIF
IPVTFIPME
DPOTJEFSFE
CZ
+BUJOT
DIJMESFO
BT
BO
VODMF
)F
BMTP
NBEF
MPOH
TUBZT
BU
,BQUJQPEB
0SJTTB
EVSJOH
UIF
MBTU
TJY
NPOUIT
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFFT
DMBOEFTUJOF
MJGF
$*

.BKVNEBS
#IVQBUJ
 
)F
IBE
CFFO
SBJTFE
JO
UIF
DVMU
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
GPS
SFBTPOT
PG
GBNJMZ
QSPYJNJUZ
"OYJPVT
to understand this personality better, since his adolescence he IBE
TUBSUFE
GSFRVFOUJOH
UIF
&YUSFNJTUT
BOE‡DPOUSBSZ
UP
UIF
)FSPT
XJTI‡IF
IBE
UBLFO
UP
FORVJSJOH
BCPVU
EFDJTJPOT
UBLFO
UP
UIF
QPJOU
PG
CFJOH
DFOTPSFE
EJTDSFFUMZ 
#FDBNF
MFBEFS
PG
UIF
+VHBOUBS
BOE
BGUFS
*OEFQFOEFODF
B
NJOJTUFS
PG
UIF
8FTU
#FOHBM
DBCJOFU
$*

.JUSB
#IBWBCIVTIBO
 
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFFT
CPZIPPE
GSJFOE
BOE
QPMJUJDBM
DPMMFBHVF‡BT
XBT
,VOKBMBM
4BIB‡IF
UPPL
DBSF
PG
UIF
TQPSUJOH
DMVCT
GPVOEFE
CZ
+BUJO
JO
UIF
EJTUSJDU
PG
/BEJB
5IFO
BDDVTFE
XJUI
4BIB
JO
UIF Alipur Case

BOE
NPSF
EJSFDUMZ
JO
UIF
Howrah Case 


IF
CFDBNF
B
XBOEFS JOH
NPOL
UP
BWPJE
UIF
1PMJDF
5IF
JNQPSUBODF
PG
IJT
BDUJWJUJFT
OPUBCMZ
JO
%FPHIBS‡BT
B
MJOL
CFUXFFO
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
BOE
#BSJO
(IPTF‡BSF
SFWFBMFE
CZ
EPDVNFOUT
PG
BSDIJWFT
DG
Terrorism Bengal
WPM
7 
4JODF
UIF
#BUUMF
PG
#BMBTPSF
IF
UPPL
DBSF
PG
+BUJOT
GBNJMZ
)JT
JOUFHSJUZ
DIBSJUZ
BOE
DPVSBHF
NBEF
PG
IJN
B
GBNJMJBS
àHVSF
UP
OVNFSPVT
IPNFT
PG
#FOHBM
XIFSF
IF
IBE
JOOVNFSBCMF
BDUJWF
BENJSFST
GSPN
NJOJTUFST
EPXO
UP
UIF
TJNQMF
QFPQMF
$*
.VLIFSKFF
%S
+BEV
(PQBM
 
0OF
PG
UIF
NPTU
GBNPVT
TVDDFTTPST
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
IF
QFSTPOJàFE
TPNF
PG
UIF
JOUFM MFDUVBM
BOE
FNPUJPOBM
RVBMJUJFT
PG
UIF
MFBEFS
)JT
PXO
CSPUIFS
%IBO
(PQBM‡FTUBCMJTIFE
JO
UIF
64"
BT
B
QPQVMBS
BVUIPS‡
TFSWFE
BT
B
DVMUVSBM
BNCBTTBEPS
PG
*OEJB
JO
UIF
8FTU
$*

1SBUBQ
3BKB
.BIFOESB
 
&NJTTBSZ
PG
,BJTFS
8JMIFMN


Bibliography




**
BOE
UIF
#FSMJO
$PNNJUUFF
PG
*OEJBO
FYUSFNJTUT
IF
GPSNFE
JO
"GHIBOJTUBO
EVSJOH
UIF
'JSTU
8PSME
8BS
B
UFNQPSBSZ
(PWFSONFOU
PG
GSFF
*OEJB
$

3BZ
%FWJQSBTBE
,IVSP 
0SJHJOBMMZ
GSPN
/BEJB
IF
XBT
POF
PG
UIF
FNJTTBSJFT
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
UP
JNQPSUBOU
OBUJPOBMJTU
MFBE FST
TVDI
BT
"NCJLB
6LJM
4BSBEBDIBSBO
.JUSB
4VSFOESBOBUI
5BHPSF
#SBKFOESB
,JTIPSF
3BZ$IBVEIVSJ 
$*

3PZ
&MMFO
8JEPX
BOE
DPMMBCPSBUPS
PG
./
3PZ
$

4BOZBM
,TIJUJTI
3FDSVJUFE
CZ
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
IF
XBT
POF
PG
UIF
DIJFG
MFBEFST
PG
/PSUI
#FOHBM
CZ
UIF
TJEF
PG
(PQFO
3BZ
BOE
"TIVUPTI
-BIJSJ
$*

4BSLBS
4BUJTI
/JSWBOB
4XBNJ 
)BJMJOH
GSPN
/BUPSF
IF
QMBZFE
BO
JNQPSUBOU
SPMF
BT
B
SFHJPOBM
MFBEFS
1SPNPUFE
NFTTFOHFS
between Jatin Mukherjee and leaders like Sri Aurobindo, %FWBWSBUB
#BTV
#SBINBCBOEIBWB
6QBEIZBZB
"DDPNQBOZJOH
#JSFO
%BUUB(VQUB
JO
UIF
NJTTJPO
UP
NVSEFS
4BNTVM"MBN
JO

IF
FTDBQFE
JOGPSNFE
+BUJO
BOE
"VSPCJOEP
UIBU
UIF
operation was a success, and absconded till the Independence PG
*OEJB
JO

0VU
PG
B
DFSUBJO
NFHBMPNBOJB
UPXBSET
UIF
FOE
PG
IJT
MJGF
IF
EFWFMPQFE
B
UFOEFODZ
UP
QSPKFDU
IJNTFMG
BT
UIF
BEWJTFS
PG
JNQPSUBOU
MFBEFST
MJLF
4SJ
"VSPCJOEP
BOE
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
*

4BSLBS
#BHDIJ


4VEIJS
3FDSVJUFE
CZ
4JTJS
(IPTF
PG
+FTTPSF
4SJ
"VSPCJOEPT
DPVTJO
BOE
DMPTF
GSJFOE
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF 
#FDBVTF
PG
IJT
ZPVOH
BHF
4VEIJS
XBT
QBSU
PG
4SJ
"VSPCJOEPT
QFS TPOBM
TFSWJDF
BOE
BT
TVDI
WJTJUFE
PGUFO
-BMJU
,VNBS
$IBUUFSKFF
JO
,SJTIOBHBS
BOE
NFU
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
&ZFXJUOFTTT
PG
UIF
IJTUPSJD
SJPU
PG
+BNBMQVS
&BTU
#FOHBM


IF
XBT
EFQPSUFE
UP
UIF
"OEBNBOT
BOE
SFMFBTFE
JO

*

4FO
#JSFO
0OF
PG
UIF
UISFF
&YUSFNJTU
CSPUIFST
PG
4ZMIFU
UIF
ZPVOH FTU
4VTIJM
JT
GBNPVT
GPS
UIF
BMUFSDBUJPO
CFGPSF
UIF
.BHJTUSBUF
,JOHTGPSE
JO



#JSFO
XBT
DPOEFNOFE
BOE
EFQPSUFE
BMTP
UP
UIF
"OEBNBOT
JO
QFSQFUVJUZ
CVU
HJWFO
BNOFTUZ
BU
UIF
FOE
PG
'JSTU
8PSME
8BS
*

***
8PSLT
BOE
4UVEJFT
PO
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF Anandabazar Patrika
4FWFSBM
OVNCFST
TJODF
JUT
DSFBUJPO
JO

BOE
UIF
TVQQMFNFOU
EFEJDBUFE
UP
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF

4FQUFNCFS

DPOUBJOJOH
BSUJDMFT
CZ
4VSFTI
.BKVNEBS
1BSBO


1SBGVMMB




Bibliography

4BSLBS
"NBMFOEV
%BTHVQUB
DPVTJO
PG
UIF
NBSUZS
/JSFO
%BTHVQUB


)FNBOUB
5BSBGEBS
,BMJDIBSBO
(IPTF
.PUJMBM
3BZ
et al. Biplaber Bali
"OPOZNPVT
$IBOEFSOBHPS

4FQUFNCFS

1SFTVNFE
BVUIPST
6QFO
#BOFSKFF
"NBSFOESB
$IBUUFSKFF
+BEV
(PQBM
.VLIFSKFF
BOE
1SBGVMMB
4BSLBS
QSPTDSJCFE
CZ
UIF
(PWFSONFOU
PG
UIF
UJNF Bagchi, Moni: Bagha Jatin
$BMDVUUB
 #IPXNJDL
1SPGFTTPS
+$
A+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
UIF
1BUIàOEFS
JO
the Story of Indian Revolution
DPNQJM
"SVO
$IBOESB
(VIB


$BMDVUUB

QQ
 Biswas, Bishwa: Bir Biplabi Bagha Jatin
$BMDVUUB

$IBLSBWBSUZ
7BTVEIB
Jyotindranath, the Humanist Revolutionary, $BMDVUUB

#BTFE
PO
PVS
EPDVNFOUBUJPO
BOE
QVCMJDBUJPOT $IBUUFSKFF
"NBSFOESB
A+BUJOESBOBUI
JO
Atmashakti, editorial, OP
A
$BMDVUUB

4FQUFNCFS
 $IBUUFSKFF
-BMJU
,VNBS
Biplabi Jatindranath
$BMDVUUB

CBTFE
CJPHSBQIZ
PO
UIF
BVUIPST
QFSTPOBM
LOPXMFEHF
BOE
PO
UIF
XSJUUFO
/PUFT
BOE
EJDUBUJPOT
CZ
7JOPEFCBMB
%FWJ 
1SFGBDF
CZ
4ZBNBQSBTBE
.PPLFSKFF $IBUUFSKFF
/SJQFOESBLSJTIOB
Bagha Jatin
$BMDVUUB
 $IBUUFSKFF
4BDIJOBOEBO
Bagha Jatin
$BMDVUUB

OE
FEO  %BUUB
#IVQFOESB
,VNBS
A5JNF

3FMFWBODF
PG
+BUJO
.VLIFSKFF
in Diamond Jubilee of Balasore Battle Day
DPNQJM
CZ
#IVQFOESB
,VNBS
%BUUB  (BOHPQBEIZBZ
4BUZFOESB
4VSHFPO 
A#BHIB
+BUJOFS
4IFTI
,BZFL
(IBOUB
+PIOTUPO
)VHI
The Journey of Komagata Maru
0YGPSE
6OJWFSTJUZ
1SFTT
-POEPO

+POFT
+1
The German Spy in America
-POEPO
 +POFT
+1
BOE
1.
)PMMFTUFS
The German Secret Service in America
5PSPOUP
 +PTIJ
7JKBZ
$IBOESB
Lala Lajpat Rai
%FMIJ
 ,BOH
:PVOHIJMM
East Goes West: The Making of An Oriental Yankee
/FX
:PSL
 ,BOHMF
31
USBOTMBUPS 
Kautilya’s Arthasgastra

WPMT


#PNCBZ
 ,BOVOHP
)FNDIBOESB
Bangalay biplab prachesta
$BMDVUUB




Bibliography

,BSOJL
7
#
M.N. Roy
/FX
%FMIJ
 ,BSVOBLBSBO
,PUUB
1 Religion and Politics: Awakening in India, .FFSVU
 ,BVUJMZB
L’Arthasastra, traité politique de l’Inde ancienne, trans MBUFE
CZ
.BSJOFUUF
%BNCVZBOU
.BSDFM
3JWJÍSF
1BSJT
 ,FFS
%IBOBOKBZ
Veer Savarkar
#PNCBZ
 ,FOOFEZ
1SJOHMF
History of the Moghuls
$BMDVUUB
 ,FS
+BNFT
$BNQCFMM
Political Trouble in India
%FMIJ

SQU  ,FTIBWNVSUJ
Sri Aurobindo: The Hope of Man
1POEJDIFSSZ
 ,IBO
"CEVM
(IBGGBS
My Life and Struggle
%FMIJ
 ,MJOH
#MBJS
#
The Blue Mutiny
0YGPSE
6OJWFSTJUZ
1SFTT
-POEPO
 ,PIO
)BOT
History of Nationalism in the East
-POEPO
 ,PMF
"TISV
Rajnarain Basu:Jjivan o Sahitya
$BMDVUUB
 ,POEBQJ
4
Indians Overseas
/FX
%FMIJ
 &MTU
,PFOSBBE
‘Pourquoi j’ai tué Gandhi’
-FT
#FMMFT
-FUUSFT

,PQG
%BWJE
Orientalism & Genesis of Bengal Renaissance, $IJDBHP
 ‡‡‡
DPNQJM 
Bengal Regional Identity
.JDIJHBO
 ,SFTTFOTUFJO
(FO
,SFTT
WPO
Getc. Turken den zum Suez Kanal, #FSMJO

,SJFHFM
"OOJF
Les grands process dans les systemes communistes, *EFFT(BMMJNBSE
 ,SJQBMBOJ
,SJTIOB
3
Modern India: Rammohun Roy to Rabindranath Tagore
4BWJUSJCBJ
1IVMF
6OJWFSTJUZ
PG
1VOF
 -BIJSZ
"TIVUPTI
Gandhi in Indian Politics
$BMDVUUB
 -BOEBV
)FOSZ
The Enemy Within: The Inside Story of German Sabotage in America
/FX
:PSL
 -BX
//
Inter-State Relations in Ancient India
$BMDVUUB
 ‡‡‡
Aspects of Ancient Indian Polity
0YGPSE
 -FOD[PXTLJ
(FPSHF
Russia and the West in Iran
/FX
:PSL
 ‡‡‡
Middle East in World Affairs Since 1918
/FX
:PSL

-FPOBSE
,BSFO
*TBLTFO
Making Ethnic Choices: California’s Punjabi Mexican Americans
5FNQMF
6OJWFSTJUZ
1SFTT
1IJMBEFMQIJB
 ‡‡‡
The South Asian Americans
5FNQMF
6OJWFSTJUZ
1SFTT
1IJMBEFMQIJB
 -BEVSJF
&NNBOVFM
-F
3PZ
Le territoire de l’historien
1BSJT


Bibliography




-JOHBU
3PCFSU
Les sources du droit dans le systeme traditionnel de l’Inde
5IF
)BHVF
 -PJTFMFVS%FTMPOHDIBQT
"
USBOTM 
Manava-dharma-shastra, Laws of Manu
1BSJT
 -PWFUU
3PCFSU
.PSTT
All Our Years
/FX
:PSL
 -PWFUU
4JS
7FSOFZ
History of Indian Nationalist Movement, -POEPO

SE
FEO  -VYFNCVSH
3PTB
Leninism or Marxism
(MBTHPX
 .BDEPOBME
+BNFT
3BNTBZ
The Awakening of India
-POEPO
 .BDLFO[JF
%FXJUU
Awakening of India
-POEPO

.BDLFO[JF
+3
Hindu Ethics
0YGPSE
 .BD-BOF
+PIO
3
The Development of Nationalist Ideas and Tactics and the Policies of the Government of India, 18971905
-POEPO
 ‡‡‡
DPNQJM 
The Political Awakening in India
1SFOUJDF
)BMM
/+
 MacMunn, George: Turmoil & Tragedy in India, 1919 and After, -POEPO
 .BIBKBO
7JEZB
%IBS
The Nationalist Government in India and Its Leaders
%FMIJ
 .BKVNEBS
#JNBOCJIBSJ
Militant Nationalism in India
$BMDVUUB
 ‡‡‡
History of Indian Social and Political Ideas
$BMDVUUB
 .BKVNEBS
34
Glimpses of Bengal in the Nineteenth Century, $BMDVUUB
 ‡‡‡
History of the Freedom Movement in India
$BMDVUUB
 

WPMT
OFX
FEJUJPO  .BSY
,BSM
Oeuvres
1MFJBEF
$PMMFDUFE
XPSLT

WPMT


1BSJT

‡‡‡
Articles on India
#PNCBZ
 .BSY
,BSM
BOE
'SFEFSJDL
&OHFMT
The First Indian War of Independence, 1857-59
.PTDPX
 ‡‡‡
Selected Correspondence, Moscow, sd. .BTBSZL
5(
Making of a State
-POEPO
 .BUIVS
-1
Indian Revolutionary Movement in the USA of America
/FX
%FMIJ
 .BZP
,BUIFSJOF
Mother India
/FX
:PSL
 .B[VNEBS
7
Imperial Policy in India, 1905-10
0YGPSE




Bibliography

.JOUP
-BEZ
.BSZ
India, Minto and Morley 1905-10
-POEPO

.JTSB
##
5IF
Indian Middle Class
0YGPSE
6OJWFSTJUZ
1SFTT
-POEPO
 .JTSB
3BN
4IBOLBS
The Integral Advaitism of Sri Aurobindo, #FOBSFT
 .JUSB
,SJTIOB
,VNBS
Atmacharita
$BMDVUUB
 .JUSB
4JTJSLVNBS
Sri Aurobindo & Indian Freedom, Madras, 
‡‡‡
Resurgent India
/FX
%FMIJ
 .PPLFSKJ
3BEIB
,VNVE
Fundamental Unity of India
#PNCBZ

SE
FEO  .PUXBOJ
,FXBM
Sri Aurobindo, Social Science & Humanity, #PNCBZ
 .VLFSKJ
%IBO
(PQBM
My Brother’s Face
/FX
:PSL

UI
SQU

‡‡‡
A Son of Mother India Answers
/FX
:PSL
 ‡‡‡
Caste and Outcast
FEJUFE

QSFTFOUFE
CZ
(PSEPO
)
$IBOH
1VSOJNB
.BOLFLBS
BOE
"LIJM
(VQUB
4UBOGPSE
6OJWFSTJUZ
1SFTT
1BMP
"MUP
 .VLFSKJ
%IVSKBUJ
1SBTBE
Indian History: Study in Method, #PNCBZ
 .VLIFSKFF
"NJUBCIB
Reform & Regeneratlon in Bengal (17741823),
$BMDVUUB
 .VLIFSKFF
)BSJEBT
BOE
6NB
.VLIFSKFF
The Growth of Nationalism in India
$BMDVUUB
 ‡‡‡
India’s Fight for Freedom
$BMDVUUB
 ‡‡‡
Sri Aurobindo and the New Thought in Indian Politics, $BMDVUUB
 .VLIFSKFF
1SJUIXJOESB
Samasamayik’er chokhe Sri Aurobindo, $BMDVUUB

OE
FEO
 ‡‡‡
Sri Aurobindo
A#JPHSBQIJFT
%%#
1BSJT
 ‡‡‡
Poemes du Bangla Desh
10'

1SFGBDF
CZ
(BCSJFM
(FSNBOJO  ‡‡‡
Undying Courage: The Story of Bagha Jatin
"DBEFNJD
1VCMJTIFST
$BMDVUUB
 ‡‡‡
Dhan Gopal Mukerji
8FTU
#FOHBM
#BOHBMB
"DBEFNZ
$BMDVUUB
 .VLIFSKFF
4IBOUJ
-
The Philosophy of Man-Making: A Study

Bibliography




in Social and Political Ideas of Swami Vivekananda
$BMDVUUB
 .VLIFSKFF
4/
DPNQ  The Movement for National Freedom in India
-POEPO
 .VLIFSKFF
5BQBO
,
Taraknath Das: Life & Letters of a Revolutionary in Exile
$BMDVUUB
 .VLIFSKFF
6NB
Two Great Indian Revolutionaries: Rash Behari Bose and Jyotindranath Mukherjee
$BMDVUUB
 .VLIPQBEIZBZB
%S
+BEV
(PQBM
Biplabi jiban’er smriti
$BMDVUUB
 .VLIPQBEIZBZB
1SBCIBULVNBS
Rabindra-jibani

WPMT


$BMDVUUB

‡‡‡
Rammohun o Tatkaalin Samajao Sahitya
$BMDVUUB
 .VLIPQBEIZBZB
)BSJEBT
BOE
6NB
.VLIPQBEIZBZB
Bharat’er svadhinata andolane Yugantar patrika’r dana
$BMDVUUB
 /BOEB
#3
FE 
Mahatma Gandhi
/FX
%FMIJ
 /BSBJO
*RCBM
The Army in British India,
-VDLOPX
 /FISV
+BXBIBSMBM
An Autobiography
-POEPO
 /FUUMF
+1
Rosa Luxemburg

WPMT


-POEPO


/FWJOTPO
)FOSZ
8
The New Spirit in India
-POEPO
 /JFEFSNFZFS
0TLBS
WPO
Unter des Glutsonne Irans
%BDIBV
 /JFNFJKFS
"4
The Khilafat Movement in India (1919-24),
5IF
)BHVF
 /JLFUBO
#JQMBCJ
Mrityuhina
$BMDVUUB
 0GGJDF
PG
UIF
*OUFSOBUJPOBM
4PDJBMJTU
7th International Socialist Congress held in Stuttgart in August 1907
#SVTTFMT
 0ITBXB
+(
Two Great Indians in Japan
$BMDVUUB
 0.BMMFZ
-FXJT
4ZEOFZ
4
DPNQ 
Modern India and the West, 0YGPSE
0YGPSE
6OJWFSTJUZ
1SFTT
-POEPO
 0WFSTUSFFU
(%
BOE
8JOENJMMFS 
Communism in India, Berkeley,  1BLSBTIJ
4BUJTI
Agnidin’er katha
$BMDVUUB
 1BM
#JQJODIBOESB
Memories of My Life and Times
$BMDVUUB

OFX
FEO



WPMT
‡‡‡
Swadeshi Swaraj
$BMDVUUB
 ‡‡‡
Character Sketches
$BMDVUUB
 ‡‡‡
Soul of India
$BMDVUUB

UI
FEO  ‡‡‡
Navayug’er Bangala
$BMDVUUB
 1VOEJU
.1
Sri Aurobindo on the Tantra
1POEJDIFSSZ

OE
FEO 



Bibliography

1BOJLLBS
,.
Imperialism in Practice and Theory
.BESBT
 1BQFO
'SBO[
WPO
Memoirs
-POEPO
 1BSL
3JDIBSE
-BNCFSU
The Rise of Militant Nationalism in Bengal, )BSWBSE
 1BSNBOBOE
#IBJ
The Story of my Life
-BIPSF
 1BSTPOT
5BMDPUU
The Structures of Social Action
/FX
:PSL
 1BVTUJBO
$PSOFMJB
.VO[
The Development of Nationalism in India, 1885-1920
.JTTPVSJF
 1FOIPFO
#BSDIPO
EF
Histoire de la conquete des Indes par les Anglais
1BSJT
 1SBTBE
#FOJ
Theory of Govemment in Ancient India, Allahabad,  ‡‡‡
The State in Ancient India
"MMBIBCBE
 1SBTBE
%VSHB
An English Transfer of the Satyartha-Prakash (Samajaby),
-BIPSF
 1SBUBQ
3BKB
.BIFOESB
My Life Story
%FMIJ
 1VSBOJ
"#
The Life of Sri Aurobindo: A Sourcebook
1POEJDIFSSZ

SE
FEO  3BEIBLSJTIOBO
4
BOE
$"
.PPSF
A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy
1SJODFUPO

OFX
FEO  3BHIVWBNTIJ
71
Indian Nationalist Movement and Thought, "HSB

OE
FEO  3BJ
-BKQBU
The Arya Samaj
-POEPO
 ‡‡‡
Autobiographical Writings
FE
74
+PTIJ


%FMIJ
 3BLTIJU3BZ
#IVQFOESBLJTIPSF
Bharate sashatra biplab
$BMDVUUB

SQU  3BNB
,SJTIOB
-BKXBOUJ
Les Sikh
1BSJT

3BN
$IBOESB
India against Britain
4BO
'SBODJTDP
 3BZ
"OJMCBSBO
Shrimadbhagavadgita
$BMDVUUB