From the biography: Anticolonial anarchist MPT Acharya’s exile in Paris as ‘Mr Bhayankaram’

On October 4, 1909, Acharya made his way to Paris, where many other India House alumni had also congregated since the assassination of Curzon-Wyllie. In Paris, Acharya lodged at 46 rue Blanche with SR Rana, a 39-year-old wealthy pearl merchant and financier of the Indian revolutionaries in Paris, and soon found secretarial work as a “despatch clerk and postboy” with Rana’s pearl company. Alongside Rana and Krishnavarma, the 48-year-old Madame Cama was a central figure among the Indian nationalists in Paris. She had extensive connections with Irish, Egyptian, Polish, and Russian exiled revolutionaries in the French capital, travelled among French socialists Jean Jaurès and Jean Longuet and joined the Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière. Cama also espoused the struggle for Indian independence among international feminists and suffragettes, combining anticolonialism, socialism, and feminism into a unique articulation in Bande Mataram, a new periodical she had founded with Har Dayal in September 1909.

Through her multifarious connections, Acharya and some of the other younger Indians were introduced to these networks, learning about socialism and anarchism for the first time, and the importance of interconnected struggles against oppressive regimes, be they imperialist, capitalist, or Tsarist.

Back in India, on December 21, 1909, Anant Laxman Kanhere assassinated AMT Jackson, the District Magistrate of Nasik, allegedly in revenge for Jackson’s involvement in the arrest and transportation for the life of VD Savarkar’s brother, Ganesh, in June 1909. The DCI was quick to point out the similarities between the assassination of Curzon-Wyllie and that of Jackson and subsequently tried to connect Savarkar to both murders. However, rather than securing a warrant for Savarkar’s arrest for his alleged involvement in these murders, the DCI charged him under the Fugitive Offenders Act for seditious speeches made in 1906, which meant that Savarkar could stand trial in India rather than in Britain.

Alarmed by this, Savarkar fled London for Paris in early January 1910. However, against the advice of other Indian nationalists in Paris, Savarkar returned to London in March 1910. He was immediately arrested upon his arrival at Victoria Station and incarcerated in Brixton Prison, while he awaited extradition for trial in India.

In early January 1910, Acharya was involved in smuggling weapons and seditious literature into India. The plan had been discussed amongst the Indian nationalists in London for a few months. Chanjeri Rao, who had recently arrived in London, joined the nationalists and was soon, according to his own testimony, pressured into assassinating Lord Morley, the Secretary of State for India. Rao refused to do this but was instead prevailed upon to bring a letter to Acharya as well as 25 revolvers “in a box with a false bottom”.

Arriving in Paris on January 4, 1910, Rao stayed at Acharya’s and Amin’s place, who now lived together at 75 Rue du Faubourg du Temple, and in the following days, the three of them looked around for a new apartment where they could learn how to manufacture bombs. Acharya and Amin also introduced Rao to all the prominent Indian nationalists in Paris, and Krishnavarma urged Rao to bring the twenty-five revolvers and some books with him to India. Rao deemed it “a dangerous task” but promised to bring the books and one revolver. Acharya had special access to private rooms at Rana’s house and was responsible for packing up the books and the revolver, a task he had often overseen, Rao later confessed. Rao left Paris with the revolver, cartridges, and some books on January 10. He was immediately arrested upon his arrival in Bombay on January 28, 1910, and provided the British authorities with an extensive account of his activities among the inner circles of the Indian revolutionaries in London and Paris.

While the attempt to smuggle seditious literature and arms into India failed in this case, the episode is evidence of the militancy of the Indian nationalists in Paris and London at the time and, indeed, of Acharya’s central role in these ventures. In the meantime, the British authorities had decided that Savarkar should stand trial in India. On July 1, 1910, he was placed in a cell on the British P & O steamer SS Morea, a commercial vessel destined for India. However, as the Morea docked outside Marseille on July 8, Savarkar escaped through a porthole and swam to French territory. Running from the now-alerted British authorities on the vessel, Savarkar approached a French policeman and claimed asylum in France. Perhaps misunderstanding Savarkar’s appeal, the policeman handed Savarkar back to the British authorities on the Morea.

Departing with Savarkar on board the next day, the vessel landed at Bombay, and Savarkar soon stood trial for sedition. However, the Indian nationalists in Paris claimed that Savarkar’s return to the British was a breach of international legal rights of asylum. The “Savarkar affair”, as it was called at the time, soon became a major international scandal that was eventually brought to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague in late October 1910.

Largely funded by Cama, the Indian nationalists hired Longuet as a legal advisor and garnered support from many corners of the world. Aldred, for instance, set up the Savarkar Release Committee, while British Independent Labour Party leader Keir Hardie brought the case of Savarkar in front of the socialists gathered in Copenhagen for the International Socialist Congress in August 1910. However, the court at The Hague decided in favour of the British Government on February 24, 1911, and thereby upheld the verdict to return Savarkar to the British authorities who sentenced him to double life in prison, a total of 50 years, in the Cellular Jail in the Andaman Islands.

If Savarkar had already assumed the role of rhetorical leader of the Indians in Europe, the trial and sentencing made him a martyr in the struggle for Indian independence. Anticolonial alliances in Paris and Brussels Acharya’s activities among the inner circles of the Paris Indian Society also brought him into contact with some Egyptian nationalists in the French metropolis. To discuss their future cause of common action, Egyptian nationalists planned to hold a conference in Paris in September 1910 and invited several Indian and European supporters. In the days before the conference, Acharya, Chatto, and Aiyar frequently met the Egyptian nationalist leader Muhammad Farid Bey and, reportedly, began to “wear the fez in imitation of the Egyptians”. However, the British authorities prevailed upon the French authorities to prohibit the conference because “it did not desire that Paris should become the centre of an anti-British crusade”.

Instead, the Egyptians decided to move the conference to Brussels, now to be held in the Brasserie Flamande from September 22 to 23, 1910. The night before departing for Brussels, about 150 Egyptians and Indians and 25 Europeans held a soiree at the Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées. Just after midnight, Acharya, Aiyar, and Amin left together with the Egyptian nationalist Mansour Rifat and then departed on the 8.20 train for Brussels the next morning. Drawing in Egyptians from all over Europe, the next two days also saw speeches from prominent European socialists such as Longuet and Hardie, Irish revolutionaries such as Charlotte Despard and Nannie Florence Dryhurst, as well as Cama and Har Dayal, and the event was capped off with singing from Perin Naoroji.

According to intelligence reports, Acharya attended under the name “Mr Bhayankaram”, which, they stated, meant “awe-inspiring”. Acharya later recalled that at the congress, he and Aiyar had been in the company of Asaf Ali, Chatto, and Rifat, as well as Djelal Nuri Bey, a “quiet, fair young man, with small moustache and low feminine voice at the “table” in Hotel de la Esperance, who used play Turkish tunes upon the piano after dinner in the evening, till rather late, and probably Misses Naoroji also sang before him and others present”. After the conference, Acharya went to Rotterdam to learn printing and engraving at the Rotterdamsche Boek- en Kunstdrukkerij, where he oversaw the second printing of Savarkar’s The Indian War of Independence of 1857, this edition being financed by Cama. The DCI reported that “the whole of the negotiations with this firm were conducted by Tirumal Acharya. The copies of Savarkar’s book were sent to the Free Railway Station, Paris, where Acharya took delivery. He wrote from care of SR Rana, 46 rue Blanche, Paris, when sending the money for the bill”. Meanwhile, returning to Paris, a life of wandering was not yet over for Acharya.

Excerpted with permission from Anarchy Or Chaos: MPT Acharya and the Indian Struggle for Freedom, Ole Birk Laursen, Penguin India.