CHITTA RANJAN
Sukumar Ranjan Das
_Price--12 annas._
Printed by the METCALFE PRESS 72, Boloram Ds St., Calcutta.
* * * * *
Dedication
To The Sacred Memory of
Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak,
The Prophet of Nationalism
in India,
This Life of a Noble son of
Mother India
is
humbly dedicated
CALCUTTA, }
_December, 1921_. } SUKUMAR RANJAN DAS.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
Page
CHAPTER I.
Family connections and early life, 1
CHAPTER II.
Choice of profession and career as a lawyer, 9
CHAPTER III.
Chitta Ranjan's contributions to Bengali Literature, 16
CHAPTER IV.
Chitta Ranjan in his private life, 19
CHAPTER V.
Chitta Ranjan as a symbol of Neo-Hinduism, 26
CHAPTER VI.
Chitta Ranjan's patriotism, 30
CHAPTER VII.
Chitta Ranjan as a politician, 46
CHAPTER VIII.
Chitta Ranjan's part in the Non-co-operation, 55
* * * * *
CHITTA RANJAN
CHAPTER I.
Family Connections and Early Life.
Encircled by the rivers Padma and Meghna lies the famous land of
Bikrampur, once the pride of Eastern Bengal and the cynasure of the
whole of Hindusthan. In its days of prosperity it not only supplied
many fashionable articles of fine taste to the people of the East but
also attracted scholars from all parts of India as it was then one of
the greatest centres of culture of the Hindus. Round the land of
Bikrampur sailed down the river Padma many a vessel loaded with
merchandise when in its palmy days it carried on trade with Ceylon,
Sumatra and Arabia.
* * * * *
In this land of learning and culture was born the great Brahmin prince
Silavadra who was the teacher of the Chinese traveller Hiant-Chuang.
It is this Bikrampur which can claim to be the birth-place of Dipankar
Srignan, the great teacher of atheism. Here was also born Biravadra,
the highest prelate of the famous Buddhist Temple at Nalanda. Lastly
towards the beginning and end of the nineteenth century many a noble
son of Bikrampur played a great part in the religious reform of the
Brahmo Samaj and in the national awakening of the Swadeshi days.
In this land of Bikrampur there is a small village called Telirbag
which is the ancestral home of Srijut Chitta Ranjan Das. He comes of
a respectable Vaidya-family of Eastern Bengal. His great-grand-father
Babu Ratan Krishna Das was highly respected for his charity and
benevolence. Chitta Ranjan's grand-father, Babu Jagadbandhu Das was
the eldest son of Ratan Krishna. Jagadbandhu was the senior Government
pleader of Rajshahi and had an extensive practice. He earned a good
deal but spent even the last farthing in allaying the distress of his
poor relations and neighbours. His charity was proverbial in
Bikrampur. He maintained a guest-house in his village and was very
keen about its proper management. There runs a very interesting story
of his unique zeal about this guest-house. One day it occurred to him
that he should see if his servants of the guest-house performed their
duties regularly. He at once set out in a boat and reached his native
village just at midnight. He then sent a man to the manager of the
guest-house to enquire if there would be board and lodging for a
fatigued stranger. The servants in charge of the house were much
annoyed as they were just then going to sleep after their usual hard
work and did not care to entertain a guest at such a late hour. At
this Jagadbandhu's anger knew no bounds, he came there immediately and
severely scolded his servants warning them for the future. Jagadbandhu
was also very kind-hearted. There are many instances of his goodness
of which we shall here relate only one. In his old age one day
Jagadbandhu was going to a distant village in a palanquin; on the way
he noticed an old worn-out Brahmin trudging along the road barefooted.
Jagadbandhu was much moved, he got down and asked the Brahmin to take
his seat in the palanquin. Thereupon he himself walked the whole
distance covering over three miles. Besides, Jagadbandhu was a poet
and a patron of learning. His verses on some of the sacramental rites
are still read with admiration in every Hindu house of Eastern
Bengal; their pathos and sentiment are no less admired by all lovers
of poetry. These noble qualities of the grand-father--his hospitality,
benevolence and poetic endowment came down to Chitta Ranjan as a
natural heritage.
[Illustration]
Chitta Ranjan's father Babu Bhuban Mohan Das, was a well-known
Attorney of the Calcutta High Court. For a great part of his life he
was connected with Bengali journalism. As editor, first, of the Brahmo
Public Opinion and subsequently of the Bengal Public opinion, he made
a very high position for himself among Bengalee journalists. His style
was simple and lucid, and his manner of exposition was so forcible
that it was rare even in more successful periodicals of those days.
His courage and truthfulness were exemplary. Once in his capacity as
editor of the Bengal Public Opinion he severely criticised in his
paper a judgment delivered by one of the Judges of the Calcutta High
Court. As luck would have it, shortly after this, Bhuban Mohan had to
file an appeal before the same Judge on behalf of an accused on whom
the sentence of death was passed by the Sessions Court. The Honourable
Judge showed signs of indifference for the appeal. Bhuban Mohan with
his high sense of duty had the courage to remind the Judge that even
if His Lordship had any personal feeling against him, he still hoped
to get adequate justice for a poor accused whose life was trembling in
the balance. These spirited words had the desired effect. The Judge
was highly pleased and acquitted the accused after an impartial review
of the case.
Bhuban Mohan was a sincere patriot and had always the welfare of his
country at heart. Like many English-educated Bengalees of his
generation, he threw himself heart and soul into the Brahmo Samaj
movement.
Bhuban Mohan's Brahmo faith was but the development of the
monotheistic element in Hinduism. His Brahmoism was but a spiritual
form of the religion taught by the Hindu Sastras. He did not believe
in Idolatry it is true, but he was no less a Hindu than the followers
of the Sastras. He showed in word and act, that his Theism was not an
exotic, planted and watered by the licentiousness of European
influences, but a plant of native growth rescued out by the men of his
school from the thorns and thistles of popular Hinduism that choked
it.
His personal life and more particularly in his dealings with his Hindu
relatives, he belonged to the old Hindu type. His sincerity,
generosity and modesty were things very rare in this selfish world. As
an attorney he earned a good deal, but spent whatever he earned for
the support of his poorer relatives. Indeed he spent upon them more
than his finance allowed and consequently got involved in heavy
liabilities. He was not a slave to fashion nor did he spend his
earnings recklessly. Yet he was forced, during the closing years of
his professional life, to take refuge in the Insolvency Court. This
was mostly due to the treacherous way of the world. There are some
people amongst us who find delight in deceiving others in any way
possible. Bhuban Mohan was not in want of such lip-deep friends who
were good enough to relieve him of much of his earnings as a return
for the many benefits they derived from Bhuban Mohan. His elder
brother Babu Durga Mohan Das who was one of the leading Vakils of the
Calcutta High Court, spent his all to free him from heavy debts. But
as fate would have it, he had to get himself declared as an Insolvent.
This turn of fortune weighed heavily on Bhuban Mohan's mind and caused
the break down of his health.
Bhuban Mohan's eldest brother, Babu Kali Mohan Das, was noted for his
courage and uprightness. In his most brilliant career at the Bar which
was unfortunately cut short by death, we get an unique account of his
spirited championship for truth and justice. We shall here give only
one instance from among many. Once in a civil suit before Justice
Louis Jackson who was known to be a man of an irritable temper Kali
Mohan was arguing some law-points which the learned Judge failed to be
convinced of. Kali Mohan was annoyed and remarked that he was
surprised to see that His Lordship could not understand in two hours
what any of his first year law-students would in half an hour. His
Lordship was highly offended and said in a fury that he would refer
Kali Mohan's conduct to the Chief Justice and if his argument was
considered to be wrong, his Lordship would disbar Kali Mohan. His many
friends at the bar advised him to make an apology but Kali Mohan was
firm and if it was his fate to be disbarred he would rather earn his
livelihood by serving as a school-master than submit to the ignominy
of an apology. Sir Charles Barnes Peacock, the then Chief Justice of
the Calcutta High Court, gave his verdict in favour of Kali Mohan when
the case was referred to him and Kali Mohan came out honourably
acquitted. The noble example of Bhuban Mohan's liberality, Durga
Mohan's self-less philanthropy and Kali Mohan's uprightness went a
great way towards shaping the future character of Chitta Ranjan.
Chitta Ranjan was born at Calcutta on the 5th of November 1870.
Shortly afterwards Bhuban Mohan came to stay at Bhowanipur and Chitta
Ranjan was admitted into the London Missionary Society School whence
he passed the Entrance Examination in 1886. He was subsequently
educated in the Presidency College and took his degree in 1890. He was
much disappointed with the result as he narrowly missed Honours in the
B. A. Examination. However he sailed for England to qualify himself
for the Indian Civil Service. From his boyhood he was rather
deficient in Mathematics and therefore with all his proficiency in
literature he could not secure high position in the University
examinations. But Chitta Ranjan gave considerable promise of
exceptional literary and oratorical gifts even when he was a student
in the Presidency College. The habit of making speeches grew upon him
even in his boyhood when he would gather his friends and playmates in
his house and begin to deliver a speech imitating the voice and
posture of an orator to the great amusement of his people. Professors
and fellow-students at college all hoped that he would one day turn
out as one of the most powerful speakers of India. This hope has amply
been justified.
Chitta Ranjan went to England and began to prepare for the Indian
Civil Service. At that time the late Dr. Dadabhai Naoroji was trying
to get himself elected a member of Parliament from Finsbury so that he
might personally state Indian grievances before the British
Parliament. Chitta Ranjan had then just appeared in the Civil Service
Examination, but the result was not yet out. He came to Dadabhai's
assistance and made some political speeches in connection with the
Electioneering Campaign. Some of the speeches were very favourably
noticed by the English and the Indian press.
While in England, deeply versed in the literature of western
countries, Chitta Ranjan grew a thorough-bred Englishman in dress and
manners. But not-with-standing all this he was a true Indian at heart.
A single instance from Chitta Ranjan's life in England would justify
this remark. In 1892 when Chitta Ranjan was still in England one Mr.
James Maclean, a member of Parliament, while delivering a lecture,
passingly remarked that Indian Mahammadans were slaves and the Hindus
were indentured slaves. This offensive remark wounded the feelings of
young Chitta Ranjan. He at once set about in convening a meeting of
all the Indians in England. The Indians assembled in Exeter Hall where
Chitta Ranjan made a powerful speech protesting against the conduct of
Mr. Maclean. The city of London was in a state of excitement over this
matter and the leading journals of London in commenting on the speech
of Chitta Ranjan gave a prominent place to the subject of the meeting.
The Liberals in London convened a huge meeting at Oldham under the
Presidentship of Gladstone where Chitta Ranjan was invited to make a
speech on Indian affairs. In a speech on "Indian Agitation" he gave a
powerful display of his oratorical gifts and love of mother-land. In
that huge assembly he stood erect and boldly said:--
"Gentlemen, I was sorry to find it given expression to in
Parliamentary speeches on more than one occasion that England
conquered India by the sword and by the sword must she keep it!
(shame) England, Gentlemen! did no such thing, it was not her swords
and bayonet that won for her this vast and glorious empire; it was not
her military valour that achieved this triumph; it was in the main a
moral victory or a moral triumph. (cheers) England might well be proud
of it. But to attribute all this to the sword and then to argue that
the policy of sword is the only policy that ought to be pursued in
India is to my mind absolutely base and quite unworthy of an
Englishman." (Hear, hear)
In the same speech he also remarked:--
"We now find the base Anglo-Indian policy of tyranny; the policy of
irritation and more irritation, of repression and more repression; the
policy which has been beautifully described by one of its advocates as
the policy of pure and unmitigated force."
The result of this agitation was that Mr. James Maclean had to submit
an apology and was forced to resign his seat in Parliament.
But all this opened the eyes of the Bureaucratic Government by whom
Chitta Ranjan was not considered fit for the Civil Service and though
he came out successful in the open competitive examination, his name
was chucked off from the list of probationers. Even now in many a
table talk he speaks of this event and says with a smile--"I came out
first in the unsuccessful list." Chitta Ranjan's near relations were
mortified at his failure, for at that time his father was involved in
heavy liabilities and was passing his days in mental agony. During
Chitta Ranjan's stay in England the whole family were put in such
pecuniary embarrassments that for want of proper allowance from home
he had to live upon hot water and a piece of bread for a couple of
days together. For this reason his well-wishers thought that it would
have been a great help to his family if he could secure a lucrative
post under Government, on the other hand it required patient waiting
even for a brilliant scholar to make a name at the bar. However Chitta
Ranjan joined the Inner Temple and was called to the Bar in the early
nineties.
It was no doubt a great gain for the country that Chitta Ranjan could
not get into the "Heaven-Born service". For once a Civilian, he would
have exerted all his powers to reach the highest rung of the ladder
and could have found no opportunity of ever mixing with his countrymen
and of working for their welfare. Happily, Providence wished it, and
mother India was not deprived of the services of a patriotic son who
would in future lay his all at her feet.