Virendranath Chattopadhyaya
Virendranath Chattopadhyay | |
---|---|
Indo-German Conspiracy, Anti-imperialism | |
Spouse | Liz Reynolds |
Partner | Agnes Smedley |
Relatives | Sarojini Naidu (sister) |
Virendranath Chattopadhyaya (Bengali: বীরেন্দ্রনাথ চট্টোপাধ্যায়; 31 October 1880 – 2 September 1937), also known by his pseudonym Chatto, was a prominent Indian revolutionary who worked to overthrow the British Raj in India using armed force. He created alliances with the Germans during World War I, was part of the Berlin Committee organising Indian students in Europe against the British, and explored actions by the Japanese at the time.
He went to Moscow in 1920 to develop support by the Communists for the Indian movement, including among Asians in Moscow who were working on revolutionary movements. He joined the German Communist Party (KPD). He lived in Moscow for several years in the 1930s. Arrested in July 1937 in the Great Purge, Chatto was executed on 2 September 1937. He was the brother of prominent political activist and poet Sarojini Naidu.
Early life
His childhood nickname was Binnie or Biren. Virendranath was the eldest son (the second of eight children) of Dr. Aghorenath Chattopadhyaya (Chatterjee), a scientist-philosopher and educationist who was an ex-principal and professor of science at the Nizam College, and his wife Barada Sundari Devi, a poet and singer in a Bengali Brahmin family settled in Hyderabad. Their children Sarojini Naidu and Harindranath Chattopadhyay became well-known poets and parliamentarians. Their daughter Mrinalini (Gannu) became a Nationalist activist and introduced Virendranath to many of her circle in Kolkata (Calcutta).[1] A younger son Marin became involved with Virendranath in political activism.
Chattopadhyaya received a secular and liberal education. He was a
In England
In 1902, Chattopadhyaya joined the
In 1908, at "India House" he came in contact with a number of important "agitators" from India:
In May 1910, seizing the opportunity of tension between the United Kingdom and Japan over the Korean peninsula, Chattopadhyaya discussed the possibility of Japanese help to Indian revolutionary efforts. On 9 June 1910, along with D. S. Madhavrao, he followed V. V. S. Aiyar to Paris, to avoid a warrant issued for his arrest. Upon reaching France, he joined the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO).
In Paris
Aiyar returned to India and settled in
In connection with the Tirunelveli Conspiracy Case in February 1912, Madame Bhikaiji Cama published an article showing that these political assassinations were in accord with the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.
Marriage and family
In 1912 Chattopadhyaya married Miss Reynolds, an Irish Catholic girl. Because he was pagan who rejected all effort to convert him, she brought a special dispensation from the pope to marry him. After the ceremony she informed him that a condition of the marriage was that any issue (child) was to be brought up Catholic. They quarreled and parted, she becoming a nun in some hidden English convent and he trying for years to have the marriage annulled.[4] Chattopadhyaya went to Berlin in April 1914 to further revolutionary activities. There he entered a union with Agnes Smedley. Although it was not a legal marriage, she bore his name and was known as his wife. The relationship lasted eight years. Agnes wrote her famous novel Daughter of Earth in 1928, the year they got separated.[4] That he loved her is no doubt. Neither she nor others understood why, for he had little interest in women. She shifted to China and had a relationship with the Soviet spy master Richard Sorge. He also sent fellow revolutionary Herambalal Gupta to Japan via the USA.[citation needed]
In Germany
In Germany to avoid suspicion, he enrolled in a university as a student. As a student in
Among its first members were Chattopadhyaya, Bhatta, Dr. Moreshwar Govindrao Prabhakar (Cologne), Dr Abdul Hafiz (Leipzig), C. Padmanabhan Pillai (Zürich), Dr.
On 22 September 1914, Sarkar and Marathé left for Washington, D.C., with a message for the German ambassador, Von Bernstorf. He ordered
Revolutionary vagabond
With the failure of the Indo-German
He went to Moscow with
According to Sibnarayan Ray, Roy and Chattopadhyaya were rivals for 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."[10]
At Roy's instance, Willi Münzenberg "took Chatto under his wings" in organising an international conference in Europe to inaugurate the League against Imperialism. On the eve of Roy's mission to China, in January 1927, Chatto wrote to Roy asking "if there is anything further you wish me to do..." On 26 August 1927, he wrote to Roy, after the latter's return to Moscow from China, asking to help him "directly" to gain admission to the Communist parties of India and Germany. After being advised by Roy, Chatto joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).[11]
In 1927, while working as the head of the Indian Languages Section of the
From 1930 to 1932, Chattopadhyaya published 28 articles in
Agnes saw him 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."[12]
Last years
In January–February 1934, Chatto exchanged letters with
Chattopadhyaya was arrested on 15 July 1937 during the
On 10 July 1938, A. C. N. Nambiar, Chattopadhyaya's brother-in-law,[citation needed] wrote to Nehru about the arrest. He replied on 21 July, agreeing to try to find out about Chattopadhyaya's fate.
Evaluation
He was deeply admired by colleagues such as
In his autobiography decades later, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote of Chatto:
An entirely different type of person was Virendranath Chattopadhyay, member of a famous family in India. Popularly known as Chatto he was a very able and a very delightful person. He was always hard up, his clothes were very much the worse for wear and often he found it difficult to raise the wherewithal for a meal. But his humour and light heartedness never left him. He had been some years senior to me during my educational days in England. He was at Oxford when I was at Harrow. Since those days he had not returned to India and sometimes a fit of homesickness came to him when he longed to be back. All his home-ties had long been severed and it is quite certain that if he came to India he would feel unhappy and out of joint. But in spite of the passage of time the home pull remains. 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. Chatto was not, I believe, a regular communist, but he was communistically inclined.[16]
Chattopadhyaya's family line survives today in Kolkata.[citation needed]
Representation in other media
Chatto was well known in Great Britain and India as a revolutionary. He is believed to have inspired
See also
References
- ^ Ker, James Campbell (1960). Political Trouble in India 1907-1917. Calcutta: S.Ghatack from Indian Editions. pp. 181–2. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
- James Campbell Ker, 1917, repr. 1973, pp. 198–199
- ^ a b Ker, pp. 201–202
- ^ a b Agnes Smedley: Battle Hymn of China, p. 12
- ^ a b Liebau, Heike (2019). ""Unternehmungen und Aufwiegelungen": Das Berliner Indische Unabhängigkeitskomitee in den Akten des Politischen Archivs des Auswärtigen Amts (1914–1920)". MIDA Archival Reflexicon: 4–5.
- ^ Ker, p. 265;
- ^ Indian Revolutionaries Abroad, by A. C. Bose, pp. 82–98
- Abhinash Bhattacharya, pp. 99–125
- ^ Bimanbihari Majumdar, Militant Nationalism in India, 1966, p. 167
- ^ Sibnarayan Ray, In Freedom's Quest: Life of M. N. Roy, Vol. II, p. 235; Vol. III (Part 1), p. 17
- ^ Sibnarayan Ray, In Freedom's Quest: Life of M. N. Roy, Vol. II, p. 235; Vol. III (Part 1), p 17
- ^ China Correspondent, 1943
- ^ Documents of the History of Communist Party of India, Vol.1
- Muzaffar Ahmed, 1937
- ^ "Stalin's shooting lists" Archived 13 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine, Stalin Documents-Russia website
- ^ An Autobiography, by Jawaharlal Nehru, Bombay, 1962
- Political Trouble in India: 1907–1917, A Confidential Report, by James Campbell Ker, 1917, repr. 1973
- Europé bharatiya biplaber sadhana, by Dr Abinash Chandra Bhattacharya, 2nd ed., 1978
- Bahirbharaté bharater muktiprayas, by Dr Abinash Chandra Bhattacharya, 1962
- Dictionary of National Biography, ed. S.P. Sen, Vol. I, "Chatterjee Birendra Nath", 272–4
- Chatto: the Life and Times of an Indian Anti-Imperialist in Europe, by Nirode K. Barooah, Oxford University Press, 2004
- Aditya Sinha, "Review of Niroda K. Baroosh's Chatto", Hindustan Times, New Delhi, 14 August 2004
- Les origines intellectuelles du movement d'indépendance de l'Inde (1893–1918), by Prithwindra Mukherjee (PhD thesis, Paris Sorbonne University), 1986
- In Freedom's Quest: Life of M.N. Roy, Vol. II, III (Part 1), by Sibnarayan Ray
- Indian Revolutionaries Abroad, by A.C. Bose, Patna, 1971
- Agnes Smedley: The Life and Times of an American Radical, by Janice R. MacKinnon and Stephen R. MacKinnon, University of California Press, 1988