Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das’s 150th birth anniversary went without much notice. It is not the case only with him but also of many distinguished men and women who took significant role in India’s anti-colonial struggle and whose thoughts and public service shaped independent India. But his name cannot be called totally lost in public. Chittaranjan bears the name of multiple government hospitals and the prefix ‘Deshbandhu’ denotes of a man who had been a friend of the masses. But there is much more behind this name.
Chittaranjan Das was a stalwart by all means. A mass leader with enormous mass appeal, a pragmatic and a tactful politician, a legendary legal practitioner, a constitutionalist, a poet, an editor and an ambassador for Hindu-Muslim unity.
Family and Childhood
Chittaranjan Das was born in Kolkata on November 5, 1870 in a distinguished family. The Das family originally hailing from Telirbagh district of Eastern Bengal (now in Bangladesh) belonged to the Brahmo samaj, the non-idolatry reformed sect of Hinduism, a new religion founded by Raja Rammohan Roy. Nineteenth century witnessed Bengal Renaissance and social, cultural, intellectual, political movements took place in which Das family took active role especially in the field of social reform and women’s education. Father Bhuban Mohan Das, was a solicitor of the high court in Kolkata and mother Nistarini was a pious lady and possessed an exceptional caring quality for others. Chittaranjan later said that he was deeply influenced by his mother who was always ready to attend the needy and take best care of them. Bhuban Mohan’s elder brother Durga Mohan Das was one of the most active radical Brahmo social reformers of Bengal who strongly advocated women’s education and widow remarriage. He was ostracized for arranging remarriage of his own widowed young step mother. Durgamohan Das was also one of the founders of the famous Brahmo Girls schools, a well-known institution. Among his children Sarala Roy, Lady Abala Bose and Satish Ranjan Das, were illustrious institution builders who founded and established Gokhale Memorial Girls school, Nari Shikha Samiti and Doon school. Bhuban Mohan and Nistarini’s younger son P R Das was one of the foremost legal experts and jurists of the country and daughter Amala Das, a gifted singer, was one of the first women to record songs in Gramophone Company.
Chittaranjan’s childhood was spent in a joint family with parents, uncles, aunts, siblings, cousins and other members who were taken care of by his family. He showed deep interest in literature. Bhuban Mohan Das also wrote Brahmo hyms which were sung in Brahmo samaj festivals. He matriculated from the London Missionary school and took admission in the prestigious Presidency college in Kolkata. After completing his graduation he sailed for England to study law in 1890. He was called to the bar from Middle Temple, London. He also appeared for the coveted Indian Civil service (ICS) examination but could not qualify.
During his stay in England he was active in political discussions and gave political speeches especially in favour of Dadabhai Naoroji’s candidature in the British parliament. Dadabhai Naoroji eventually was the first Indian elected to the House of Commons.
The poet and the editor
Chittaranjan Das showed keen interest in literature since his boyhood days. The statesman and the politician had a poet in him. But very little is known about it. He never considered poetry as his calling but he was quite passionate about his poetic pursuits. He chiefly wrote lyrical poems. His poems lacked distinct originality and neither had he created any poetic form but his poems were full of creative thoughts and emotions but his language was competent.
There is an interesting aspect in his poetic venture. His earlier poems raise questions on God, on the meaning of life, love and death, but the form was never abstract. Rather his poems incline towards spirituality. But in later years, as he moved towards Vaishnavism, he tried to move from the sectarian outlook of Brahmoism, the creed to which he was born, and the atheism and hedonism of his refined western education, to discover tranquility and happiness in Vaishnava ideal. His earlier poem Malancha was a kind of revolt questioning the existence of God but later poems ‘Kishore Kishori’ and ‘Antaryami’ are in search of the immortal and the infinite.
Chittaranjan’s spiritual quest found a profound expression in his poems. Vaishnavism brought a flowering and an aesthetic essence in the Hindu spirit in Bengal. It could be well said that the more he tried to go out of the imposed colonial confines of western ideals, he found deep root in his native land from Vaishnavism.
Chittaranjan’s poetic excellence reached its height in his collection of poems ‘Sagar Sangeet’. The poems were later translated by Sri Aurobindo.
After literature, Chittaranjan took special interest in journalism. He was one of the founding members of ‘Bande Mataram’, one of the foremost nationalist magazines. Aurobindo Ghosh was the editor. In 1914, he started editing a Bangla magazine named ‘Narayan’. The magazine was a strong proponent of the Bangla language of the old style and represented the conservative group. ‘Narayan’ and ‘Sabuj Patra’, a contemporary literary magazine of note edited by a leading intellectual writer Pramatha Chaudhuri with Rabindranath Tagore as the chief contributor were considered rivals.
Chittaranjan’s English journalism saw two leading magazines ‘Forward’ and ‘Calcutta Municipal gazette’.
The lawyer & the defender
On his return he joined the Calcutta High court as a practicing barrister. Apart from the initial struggle to establish himself as a lawyer, on personal grounds it was also a very tough period for him and his family. His solicitor father who was then in poor health owed a huge debt and the worst part was that he stood as a security for a friend for a very large amount of money. Obviously being unable to pay back the debt amount, he had to seek insolvency from the court. Chittaranjan who was establishing his career felt a moral obligation to pay back the amount. This incident of honesty and large-heartedness was also rare.
He eventually rose to be a brilliant lawyer of the criminal court. His practice was perhaps the largest and most lucrative ever enjoyed by any lawyer in the country and his income reached a record. He was famous for handling both civil and criminal law.
In 1897, he married Basanti Devi and the couple had two daughters Aparna, Kalyani and a son Chiraranjan. Basanti Devi supported her husband’s cause for nationalist movement all her life and was one of the first women to court arrest during the non-cooperation movement. But she never gave any prominent leadership. She eventually became a revered lady and a mother figure among the freedom fighters of Bengal.
Before beginning his full-fledged political career, he played a significant role in providing legal assistance to those who were charged with sedition by the ruling British government. The three notable cases that he fought were – the sedition charge case on ‘Bande Mataram’, a foremost nationalist newspaper of which he was one of the founders, the famous 1909 Maniktala Bomb case which shook the nation and the Dhaka conspiracy case. He successfully won all three of them.
The Manicktala Bomb case brought him to limelight. The partition of Bengal in 1905 by Viceroy Curzon saw a tremendous wave of nationalist agitation throughout Bengal. A group of young men took to armed political movement. Under the leadership of Aurobindo Ghosh and his brother Barin Ghosh, two young men Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki went to Muzzafarpur in Bihar to assassinate the Magistrate but mistakenly threw a bomb at a horse carriage killing Mrs. Kennedy and her child daughter. Police raided a house in Manicktola, discovered a bomb factory and arrested thirty-six young men for conspiring against the King of England. Aurobindo Ghosh who was then a prominent political leader was arrested and put on trial. The case with more than two hundred witnesses and over four thousand documents were brilliantly defended by Chittaranjan Das who was the defense council of the accused. Aurobindo Ghose was acquitted from all charges.
Das was the defence counsel in the Dacca Conspiracy Case in 1910 – 11.
Chittaranjan Das’s role as a defense council lawyer gained momentous reputation and made him a legend.
The nationalist politician
Chittaranjan Das had been associated with the nationalist movement that started with the partition of Bengal and primarily with its two organs, the two journals ‘New India’ and ‘Bande Mataram’. He joined the Indian National Congress as a delegate in 1906. But he began taking direct involvement from 1917 onwards when he was invited to preside over the Bengal Provincial conference of the Congress session in Kolkata.
His speech at the Bengal provincial conference in 1917 was emotional. He tried to boast of Bengal’s glorious past and stressed on the present suffering of the common people under colonial rule. He suggested village reconstruction, return to the soil and renouncing industrialization.
It was also the time when Montagu-Chelmsford reform commission was touring India with the aim of implementing self-government. Chittaranjan demanded control of public finance as well as the services.
Indian National Congress was established in 1885. The party formed by W. C. Bonerjee and Octavio Hume for over three decades was a political gathering of the Oxbridge educated Indians. Every year the party held annual sessions in various cities across the country which received wide coverage in the national press but its effect was limited within a section of the high profile English educated elites. Mohandas Gandhi was the first to attract mass attention after his return to India from South Africa in 1916. A year later when Das engaged himself actively in politics, he realized this gap. It concerned him deeply. He strongly felt that the nationalist movement would not make a proper sense if the larger masses remain detached from it. The schism between the Moderates and the Extremists were a pressing problem within the party from the Surat Congress session in 1907. Chittaranjan who never supported or justified violence understood the viewpoint of the extremists and felt that unless both groups would be able to meet on a common platform to address their issues, the movement would ultimately get divided benefiting the British government.
He was disappointed to know that the foremost leaders of the Congress were reluctant about it. In several Congress sessions he was vocal about his disagreements with the party on several issues.
In 1917 a controversy arose over the election of Annie Besant as the Congress president, finally resulting to the formation of a new party called the Moderates. He also extensively toured Eastern Bengal (now Bangladesh) and got a large and enthusiastic audience in every place he visited. In his speeches he stressed on India’s right to develop her political constitution. He eventually became a household name.
In 1918 Congress session in Delhi, he was successful in conveying the demand for complete and immediate provincial autonomy. The demand was opposed by Mrs. Besant and her group of moderates. The same year he strongly opposed the Defense of India act popularly known as Rowlatt Act. He held demonstrations and stirred up huge public opinion against the act and condemned it publicly at a big gathering in Town Hall, Kolkata.
1919 was the black year of modern Indian history. Martial law was already imposed all over Punjab and on April 13, when a peaceful and unarmed crowd gathered in a public park named Jalianwala bagh and a meeting and demonstration was going on against the Rowlatt act, a troop ordered by General Reginald Dyer fired mercilessly killing and injuring several thousand people. The incident was a turning point in the history of the anti-colonial struggle. Rabindranath Tagore immediately renounced his knighthood and asked Chittaranjan Das to organize protest meetings. He did not immediately respond to Tagore’s call which led to a decline in their relationship, but he was a part of the unofficial committee set up by the Congress to investigate the Punjab violence. He met Mohandas Gandhi and supported him in a Satyagraha against the Rowlatt act.
Non- Cooperation movement
Mohandas Gandhi launched the non- cooperation movement in September 1920. The primary aim was swaraj (self-governance) and complete independence. It was a non-violent movement boycotting government educational institutions, courts, government service, foreign goods, and elections, renouncing British titles and eventually refusing to pay taxes. Chittaranjan Das played an exemplary role in this movement. He initially opposed Gandhi’s five-fold programme of non- cooperation with the government. He was a constitutionalist who believed in the policy of obstruction within the legislatures. The 1920 Congress session in Kolkata was a crucial political event in Indian history. The Congress party accepted Gandhi’s resolution of non-cooperation. Three months later in another Congress session held at Nagpur, he agreed to accept it after entering into a pact with Gandhi, both reserving their freedom in future course of action. Chittaranjan Das’s acceptance of non-cooperation became a matter of personal triumph for Mohandas Gandhi for strengthening the movement. Das by then was one of the most important Congress politicians in the eastern part of the subcontinent, with a nationwide mass appeal. Congress proclaimed several measures like members of provincial council and central assembly should withdraw from these houses, all government officials should give up their positions and lawyers should suspend their legal practice in the British courts etc. Chittaranjan almost immediately gave up his ardent lucrative practice and dedicatedly plunged himself into politics. He also supported the Khilafat movement though he was not directly involved with it.
Non-cooperation movement witnessed a great nationalist fervor among the Bengali masses under the leadership of Chittaranjan Das. The picketing of the government offices, schools, colleges, law courts and shops selling British products, and sale of Khadi clothes were carried out with great enthusiasm. His wife Basanti Devi and sister Urmila Devi were the first two Indian women to court arrest in the history of nationalist movement. Non-cooperation movement gained momentum in Bengal. It was during this time that he gave away all his personal wealth and property to the nation and came to be regarded as ‘Deshbandhu’ (friend of the nation).
Congress President and the Swaraj Party
In 1921, the Congress session was held in Ahmedabad. Chittaranjan Das was elected the president of the Indian National Congress. But he was then under six months imprisonment and could not attend the session and hold the office. Hakim Afzal Khan became the acting president. Next year after his release, he took over the office in the 1922 Congress session in Gaya. This session was also significant in many aspects.
There were news of Congress workers resorting to violence and Gandhi called off the non-cooperation movement. Gandhi was arrested and Chittaranjan Das was released from prison. Civil disobedience and non-cooperation already disappointed him and he adopted a new policy. He proclaimed that Congress should contest elections to the provincial and central legislatures and enter with the aim of obstructing from within. But in 1922 Congress session in Gaya he was unable to gain support from the old guards of Congress. But he gathered around him a sufficient number of followers, including Motilal Nehru, to form a new party within it, the Swarajya party.
On the last day of the Congress session, a vote was held on the council entry proposal. Gandhians won by a majority of the votes. After the results were out Chittaranjan Das resigned as the president and Motilal Nehru as the general secretary, though they retained their party membership.
Swarajya party came into being the next day, on the first date of the new year of 1923 and received overwhelming response especially from the young people.
In a shorter period, Swarajya party became the single largest party in Bengal and gained wide notice. In the next couple of years those who joined Chittaranjan Das to work for non-cooperation from within the legislative council were called ‘Pro-changers’. Congress meetings from then onwards became a battle ground for relentless arguments.
The Municipal election and becoming the first mayor
In 1924 Kolkata corporation held its first ever municipal election. Swarajya party won the corporation elections. Chittaranjan was elected the first mayor of Kolkata Corporation and was again reelected in 1925. Sarat Chandra Bose became the alderman and Subhas Chandra Bose its chief executive. In Kolkata corporation the Swarajyists got the opportunity to work in a practical way and implement their slogan of self-government. He was now the indisputable leader of Bengal. He was the leader of the Swarajyists in Bengal Legislative council, president of the Bengal provincial congress committee, leader of the all India Swarajya party and mayor of Kolkata.
He since long had realized that Muslim support was crucial in nationalist discourse. He was well aware that there was a lack of involvement of the Muslims in politics and the fact was largely ignored. Muslims were also falling behind in government employment. He promised a greater share of employment to them in the corporation.
Two influential English journals ‘Calcutta Municipal Gazette’ and ‘Forward’ were established by him.
Chittranjan Das was Subhas Chandra Bose’s mentor. Other prominent leaders for whom also Das was the mentor were Birendranath Shasmal, Jatindra Mohan Sengupta and Sarat Chandra Bose.
The Bengal Pact 1923
1917- 23 saw widespread communal violence in Bengal. It deeply disturbed him. He deeply felt that without a strong Hindu Muslim harmony, the nationalist movement would never be strengthened. During his trips in Eastern Bengal, he realised this intensely. Being a visionary who sincerely believed in the principle of sharing political power with the majority Muslim community of the province, he took up the task of strengthening relations between Hindus and Muslims. He noticed that the political movement was largely dominated by the Hindus and Muslim participation was significantly less. He extensively toured Eastern Bengal and lectured on Hindu Muslim joint partnership. And finally towards the end of 1923, Chittaranjan Das drafted the historic ‘Bengal pact’. He sought active cooperation of the Muslim members of the Bengal Legislative Council to make a successful political programme. Discussions were held with prominent Muslim leaders of Bengal and early in December 1923 came to an agreement with them. The terms of the Pact, known as the Bengal Pact, were passed in a meeting of Swarajya Party Councillors held on 16 December 1923.
Two important clauses of the pact were:
a) Representation in the local bodies would be on the proportion of 60 per cent to the majority community and 40 percent to the minority community.
b) Fifty five percent of the Government appointments should go to the Muslims. Till the above percentage was attained, 80 per cent of posts would go to the Muslims and 20 percent to the Hindus.
The pact met with opposition from the Hindu middle class and from leaders like Surendranath Banerjee and Bipin Chandra Pal. But he got strong support from his followers like Birendranath Shasmal, J M Sengupta, Subhas Chandra Bose, Pratap Chandra Guha, Kiran Shankar Roy etc. He tried his best to get the terms of the Pact approved by the Bengal Provincial Congress Conference held at Sirajganj in June 1924.
Bengal Pact unfortunately was never implemented. None of the successors of Chittaranjan Das had the courage to implement it in their political action. The history of the subcontinent, that got partitioned in 1947, would probably have would have been different had the Bengal pact been implemented.
But the pact left a legacy and continues to have a strong relevance in today’s political conditions when division and discrimination are largely based on communal lines.
Chittaranjan Das died on June 16, 1925, in Darjeeling. He was six months short of fifty five. His health started failing since his imprisonment. His last journey witnessed an enormous crowd on the streets of Kolkata who walked all the way from Sealdah station till Keoratola crematorium. Mohandas Gandhi was also present. India lost one of her foremost nationalist leaders, a constitutionalist who contributed in shaping modern India.
