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‘Enough of the Great Napoleons!’ Raja Mahendra Pratap's Pan-Asian projects (1929–1939)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2012

CAROLIEN STOLTE
CAROLIEN STOLTE*
Affiliation:
Institute for History, Leiden University, PO Box 9500, 2300 RA Leiden Email: c.m.stolte@hum.leidenuniv.nl
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Abstract

This paper traces a set of interlinked Asianist networks through the activities of Mahendra Pratap, an Indian revolutionary exile who spent the majority of his life at various key anti-imperialist sites in Asia. Pratap envisioned a unified Asia free from colonial powers, but should be regarded as an anti-imperialist first and a nationalist second—he was convinced that India's independence would materialize naturally as a by-product of a federated Asia. Through forging strategic alliances in places as diverse as Moscow, Kabul, and Tokyo, he sought to achieve his goal of a united ‘Pan-Asia’. In his view, Pan-Asia would be the first step towards a world federation, in which all the continents would become provinces in a new world order. His thought was an intricate patchwork of internationalist ideas circulating in the opening decades of the twentieth century, and his travels and political activities are viewed in this context. Pratap's exploration of the relationship between the local, the regional, and the global, from an Asian perspective, was one of many ways in which Asian elites and non-elites challenged the legitimacy of the political order in the interwar years.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 2: Sites of Asian Interaction , March 2012 , pp. 403 - 423
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

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6 National Archives of India (NAI), Private Papers Collection (PPC) Mahendra Pratap, Correspondence file 32. Gandhi's secretary to Pratap, 11 September 1936.

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9 Singh, My Life Story, p. 9.

10 M. A. Ansari was a medical doctor, educationist, and politician and became president of the Indian National Congress in 1927. The medical mission consisted of five doctors and a support staff of 19. See Wasti, S. T., ‘The 1912–13 Balkan War and the Siege of Edirne’, Middle Eastern Studies, 40 (4), 2004, pp. 59–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Ansari was also from the Aligarh Muslim College, though he was not acquainted with Pratap at the time.

11 Singh, My Life Story, p. 35.

12 Among other things, Shyamaji Krishnavarma (1857–1930) founded the India Home Rule Society, the India House, and the Indian Sociologist in London. See Yajnik, I., Syamaji Krishnavarma: Life and Times of an Indian Revolutionary (Bombay: Lakshmi Publications, 1950)Google Scholar; H. Fischer-Tiné, Sanskrit, Sociology and Anti-Imperial Struggle: The Life of Shyamji Krishnavarma (1857–1930) (Routledge: forthcoming).

13 Virendranath Chattopadhyay (1880–1937) was later also secretary to the League Against Imperialism. See Barooah, N. K., Chatto: The Life and Times of an Indian Anti-Imperialist in Europe (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004)Google Scholar.

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15 Obeidullah Sindhi (1872–1944) was a Pan-Islamist and political activist. Wasti, S. T., ‘The Political Aspirations of Indian Muslims and the Ottoman Nexus’, Middle Eastern Studies, 42 (5), 2005, pp. 709–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Singh, My Life Story, p. 51. There is no evidence of the treaty having actually been concluded.

17 Sareen, T. R., Indian Revolutionary Movement Abroad, 1905–1921 (New Delhi: Sterling, 1979), p. 180Google Scholar.

18 See, for instance, West Bengal State Archives (WBSA), Police Files, 130/1923, file no. 264/23: ‘The Connection of Revolutionists in Bengal with Bolsheviks’. In 1926, the Japanese barred Pratap from landing in Japan for the same reason. Pratap's last known profession of communist sympathies can be found in the 1958 pamphlet ‘A Warning’, ZMO Berlin, Horst Krüger Nachlass, Box 34, file 256–1.

19 As later reported to the Indian Press: see Vartman newspaper, 32 February 1924. The British saw this claim to Trotsky's support and Soviet designs in the East corroborated by Trotsky's speech to the Eastern Department of the Academy two months after the appearance of this article. See NAI, Home Political, File 220 (1924): ‘Russian Designs in the East’, 29 May 1924.

20 The meeting with Lenin took place on 7 May 1919. Pratap's vision of uniting the Asian religions (see below) did not sit well with Lenin, who accused him of ‘Tolstoyism’. Adhikari, G., Documents of the History of the Communist Party of India (New Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1971), Vol. I, pp. 112–20Google Scholar.

21 This pamphlet travelled far and wide: it was written in Persian and translated into various Central Asian languages, and was circulated underground from Soviet Asia to Indonesia. See Adhikari, Documents, Vol. 1, p. 121; Muraviec, L., The Mind of Jihad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 219CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 As a result of his Afghan citizenship, he was no longer a British subject and could therefore not be arrested outside British soil, which greatly reduced the possibility of this happening.

23 On the ‘India House’ in Tashkent, see Overstreet, G. D. and Windmiller, M., Communism in India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), p. 36Google Scholar; Bose, Indian Revolutionaries Abroad, p. 204. On M. N. Roy, see Chowdhuri, S. R., Leftism in India 1917–1947 (Basingstoke: Palgrave 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Roy, S., M. N. Roy: A Political Biography (New Delhi: Orient Longman 1997)Google Scholar; Manjapra, K., M. N. Roy: Marxism and Colonial Cosmopolitanism (New Delhi: Routledge, 2010)Google Scholar.

24 Rashbehari Bose (1886–1945), revolutionary-in-exile and Indian National Army leader. See Mukherjee, U., Two Great Indian Revolutionaries: Rash Behari Bose and Jyotindra Nath Mukherjee (Calcutta: Deys Publishing, 1966)Google Scholar; Ramu, P. S., Rashbehari Bose: A Revolutionary Unwept, Unhonoured and Unsung (New Delhi: Freedom Movement Memorial Committee, 1998)Google Scholar.

25 Singh, My Life Story, p. 78.

26 At least according to Pratap's own report of the meeting. See Singh, My Life Story, p. 90.

27 He actually raised $12,000, but distributed $1,000 to a penniless Barakatullah; $500 to Rashbehari Bose, and $500 to three others. NAI, Home Political 831/II (1926), memorandum, 15 December 1926.

28 NAI, PPC, correspondence file 2: ‘Dalai Lama to Mahendra Pratap’, 1926.

29 Bose, Indian Revolutionaries, p. 411.

30 NAI, Home Political 28/I (1928), London to Shimla, 13 September 1927.

31 In order not to offend Great Britain, the conference was moved from Tokyo to the smaller city of Nagasaki. Aydin, The Politics of Anti-Westernism, p. 156.

32 Singh, My Life Story, p. 139. See also NAI, Home Political file 13 (1927), Colonel Holland to Director of Intelligence Bureau (hereafter DIB), 29 December 1927.

33 NAI, Home Political 235/II (1926) on the Sikh conspiracy.

34 India Office Records, P&J/12/16 on Mahendra Pratap.

35 NAI, Home Political 831/II (1926) on the activities of Mahendra Pratap.

36 India Office Records, L/P&S/10/899 on Mahendra Pratap, 1926–1932, Shanghai intelligence.

37 NAI, Home Political 831/II (1926) Hodge for DIB, 21 November 1925.

38 Singh, My Life Story, p. 143.

39 WBSA, Police Files, 126/1929 n. 234/29 Confidential: Pan-Asiatic League.

40 All quotations from World Federation are taken from the NAI (New Delhi), Mahendra Pratap Private Papers, which holds microfilms (therefore no slide numbers are available) of most of the World Federation issues.

41 NAI, PPC, letter no. 15. Jawaharlal Nehru to Mahendra Pratap, 30/6/1928.

42 It was also often used, together with Pan-Asianism. Given Western fears of Pan-Asianism, its explicit relation to world cooperation, rather than Asian–Western competition, was arguably considered to make Pan-Asianist ideas somewhat more agreeable. Nehru, too, held similar views. Nehru, J., Toward Freedom: the Autobiography of Jawaharlal Nehru (New York: the John Day Company, 1941), pp. 371–84Google Scholar.

43 He considered ‘renunciation and service’ to be Buddhist values, but also ‘the watch word of all ancient cultures of the East’. World Federation, January 1931.

44 Here, too, Mahendra Pratap was not alone. Gandhi would later say that, ‘India was Buddhist in reality. I would say the same thing to China and Japan. But for Asia to be not for Asia but the whole world it has to reclaim the message of Buddha and to deliver it to the world.’ Harijan, 24 December 1938.

45 World Federation, from Peking, August 1931.

46 World Federation, from Tokyo, November 1930.

47 Singh, My Life Story, p. 184.

48 Hawaii had once provided Pratap with a merciful break on a long journey over the Pacific in 1922: ‘It appeared to us as an oasis in a great desert. Then, heaven on earth revealed to us!’. Singh, My Life Story, p. 77.

49 ‘Indian Puppet Continues Search for Supporters of Fantastic Golden Corps of Pan-Asianism’, China Press, 18 March 1934.

50 ‘Indian Puppet Continues Search’.

51 India Office Records, Political and Secret Files L/P&S/103 on Mahendra Pratap. Dairen to Peking, 17 February 1934.

52 Volunteer Call, reproduced in the Japan Advertiser, 21 October 1933.

53 Volunteer Call.

54 ‘Indian Puppet Continues Search’.

55 Singh, My Life Story, p. 250.

56 Singh, My Life Story, p. 265.

57 ‘Recruiting centres’ should not be interpreted as offices with personnel; the addresses are, without exception, the home addresses of Japanese volunteers.

58 Singh, My Life Story, p. 268.

59 ‘Peoples of Asia Agree with Axis – Will Struggle for New Order’, Peking Chronicle, 31 December 1941.

60 World Federation, January–February 1936.

61 World Federation, February 1933.

62 World Federation, August 1937.

63 Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Manuscript Department, Oral Transcripts: A. M. Sahay, ‘Indian Revolutionaries in Japan’, recorded 9 December 1981.

64 NAI, Home Political 29/IV (1931), Issue of Notification under the Sea Customs Act.

65 NAI, Home Political 59/38 (1938), 15 December 1938. The British ambassador in Tokyo received assurances which led him to conclude that, ‘Mahendra Pratap is more of a nuisance than a political embarrassment.’

66 Sareen, T. R., Indian Revolutionaries, Japan and British Imperialism (New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 1993), p. 44Google Scholar. Pratap's close relationship with Chinese revolutionaries and Indians in China were a cause for concern as well.

67 Japan Advertiser, 21 October 1933, and 18 April 1934; The Fukiu Times, 5 March 1934.

68 World Federation, press release of 12 December 1941.

69 Petitions to allow Pratap to return to India had been made as early as 1938 by his supporters, notably members of the All-India Jat Mahasabha. NAI, Home Political 59/38 (1938), Representations for the Grant of Permission to Mahendra Pratap to Return to India.

70 Editorial, Sunday Statesman, 14 December 1958, p. 3.

71 ZMO, Horst Krüger Nachlass, Box 34 file 256-1. Booklet, All-India Old Revolutionaries Conference Address, by Dr Bhupendranath Dutta (1958).

72 The Sunday Standard, 14 December 1958, p. 1.

73 ZMO, Horst Krüger Nachlass, Box 34 file 256-1. Booklet, Challenge by Raja Mahendra Pratap M.P. Aryan Peshwa (1958). See also points 14–16 of the pamphlet Federal Party of the same year. In their 28 June 1958 issue the vernacular Hindi Hindustan was the only newspaper to still respond somewhat positively to Pratap's federationalist programme.

74 Pratap was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by N. A. Nilsson, Swedish member of the Permanent Commission of the International Peace Bureau in 1932. The nomination mentions his mission to the Dalai Lama and his exposure of British brutalities.