• Capt. Praveen Davar

Chittaranjan Das, whose 97th death anniversary fell on June 16, 2022, had many things in common with Pt. Motilal Nehru. They were both eminent lawyers; both gave up not only their lucrative professions in the wake of noncooperation movement but also their palatial houses, both were founder members of the Swaraj Party. Though younger to Motilal Nehru by nine years, Chittarajan Das, affectionately called ‘Deshbandu’ (friend of the nation), was the closest comrade of the elder Nehru in the independence movement.

Born on 1870 in Kolkata (then Calcutta), C.R. Das belonged to an upper middle class family hailing from Dacca district. After his graduation from Presidency College, he went to England to study law at the Inner Temple and was called to bar in 1894. As a leading lawyer, he appeared as a counsel to defend Aurobindo Ghose in the Alipur bomb case (1908). It was, however, not before 1917 that Chittaranjan Das came to the forefront of nationalist politics.

In 1918, both at the Congress special session in Bombay and at the Annual Session in Delhi, Das opposed the scheme of Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms as wholly inadequate and disappointing. The demand for Provincial Autonomy was successfully propounded in the teeth of vehement opposition from Mrs. Annie Besant and others. In 1919, C.R. Das went to Punjab as a member of the non-official Jallianwala Bagh Enquiry Committee. At the Amritsar Congress (1919 presided over by Motilal Nehru), he made the first advocacy of obstruction while opposing the idea of cooperation with the Government in the implementation of the 1919 Reforms.

In 1920 at a special session of the Congress held at Calcutta under the presidency of Lala Lajpat Rai, Gandhiji announced his path breaking programme of Noncooperation. Das sought some changes in it but his proposals were not accepted. He, however, had the support of Bipin Chandra Pal, Madan Mohan Malviya, M.A. Jinnah and Annie Besant. Three months later the Congress met at Nagpur where, persuaded by Motilal Nehru he, however, accepted Gandhiji’s programme and came back to Calcutta to renounce his large practice of the Bar. The whole nation was deeply impressed to see this supreme act of self-sacrifice. Besides the Noncooperation Movement, the large-scale exodus of the coolies from the Assam tea gardens and the strike of the Assam-Bengal railway employees also engaged his attention in 1921.

He initiated a ban on British clothes in Bengal during the Noncooperation Movement of 1920 to 1922. Das was arrested in the year 1921 with his wife and son, and was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. He was elected as the President of the Ahmedabad Congress in the same year. But he could not preside at the Ahmedabad session as he was arrested before the session. In his place, Hakim Ajmal Khan took over but C.R. Das was elected President for the next session at Gaya. Das also brought out a newspaper called ‘Forward’ and later changed its name to Liberty to fight the British Raj. He made Subhas Chandra Bose as the editor of this newspaper. Bose considered Das as his mentor and drew inspiration from him till the latter’s death in 1925 and even beyond.

With the suspension of the Noncooperation Movement, Deshbandhu endeavoured to give a new orientation to Indian politics through his Council-Entry programme, i.e. ‘Non-cooperation from within the Councils’. He, however, met with vehement opposition from the Mahatma and the “No-changers”. At the Gaya Congress, C. Rajagopalachari led the Council-Entry opposition. His motion being lost, Deshbandhu resigned from the Presidentship of INC. Thereafter, he organized the Swaraj Party within the Congress in collaboration with Motilal Nehru, the Ali brothers, Ajmal Khan, V.J. Patel, Lala Lajpat Rai and others. It was initially known as the Congress-Swaraj-Khilafat Party. In spite of the bitter criticism launched by the “No-changers” like Shyam Sundar Chakraborty and J.L. Banerjee, a Conference was organized by the Swarajists at Jalpaiguri in 1923, through the efforts of Maulana Azad President of the Congress Special session at Delhi the same year. The programme of Council-Entry was approved. The programme was later confirmed at the Cocanada session.

In 1925, Chittaranjan’s health began to fail due to overwork. Chittaranjan went to Darjeeling to recuperate his health but he could not recover and passed away on June 16, 1925. His funeral procession in Calcutta was led by Gandhi Ji, who said:

Deshbandhu was one of the greatest of men... He dreamed... and talked of freedom of India and of nothing else... His heart knew no difference between Hindus and Muslims and I should like to tell Englishmen, too, that he bore no ill-will to them.

In his Autobiography Indian Struggle (1920-42), Subhas Chandra Bose, missing his mentor, lamented:

It is not easy to learn or to remember the lessons of past history and the latest developments in India go to show that we have not yet assimilated the lessons of 1921 and 1922. And, unfortunately for us with the death of Deshabandhu C.R. Das and Pandit Motilal Nehru of hallowed memory in 1925 and 1931 respectively – there disappeared from the Indian scene two political giants who might have saved India from the political mess in which she now finds herself.

Netaji was right. Perhaps, had both Motilal Nehru and DeshbandhuChittaranjan Das lived longer, the political mess which ultimately led to Partition of India may have been avoided. But one cannot be too sure.

(The writer is former Secretary AICC)