Once a Rebel, Always a Rebel

“Tyranny under any guise could never be justified” and that “resistance to despotism is [the] first of all human duties” -Young India's Reply to Count Tolstoy

A complicated citizen. Image source: lib.washington.edu

It takes guts to follow your heart and not let others' opinions deter you from more important things in your life. When the freedom struggle had intensified in India and people were no longer willing to stay still and be silent, many revolutionaries found themselves prone to scrutiny.

The 1900s were full of movements and signified tumultuous times. It was the era when many people began migrating to different countries.

Indian Revolutionary Taraknath Das moved to the United States in 1906. Unlike most immigrants who migrated to the west in search of better opportunities, Das came to America because he was a rebel being chased by the British police.

However, this was also a troubling time for migrants in the west. Xenophobia was rampant, and many organisations existed in the US and Canada to curtail the flow of immigrants to their country.

It wasn't because the Americans and Canadians feared that Asians would take their jobs, but the two felt that the Asian mannerisms were strange and unsettling.

Das was one of the fortunate few who managed to secure a decent source of livelihood in a foreign land. While working as an interpreter, he witnessed the indignities inflicted upon immigrants. He later made it his mission to teach them the English language.

Das made no secret of his disdain towards the British, and in 1907, he founded the free Hindustan journal. He advocated for putting an end to the British rule in India and criticised them harshly. He wrote that the British government benefited because they were able to oppress the Indians, and the British raj only aimed towards laundering Hindustan. Taraknath Das was aware of the limitations in life that arise with a lack of education, and he was an ardent advocate of schooling.

His journal caught the attention of many Anglo-Indians, and he soon found himself under scrutiny.

An interesting incident in Taraknath's life was when he disagreed with Tolstoy. Leo Tolstoy, the notable Russian author, wrote in one of his essays that peaceful methods must be adopted if India wished to achieve independence. Das replied to the essay expressing his disagreement.

He graduated with a bachelor's and master's degree in political science and was one of the first Indians to have been granted citizenship by one of the courts in Seattle. The grounds for his citizenship were that he was a high caste Aryan Hindu. Therefore, he was a caucasian under the US Naturalization Act.

Even though he became a research fellow, Das remained an activist all his life and laid great stress on education. In his heart, the love for his country was fresh as ever, and despite being thousands of miles away from home, he wanted his motherland to be free.

In the Ghadar party, he planned to reach out to his "white allies", and the members of the Ghadar Party were quick to label him a coward and traitor. His revolutionary activities drew a lot of attention. Many newspapers mocked him. Das was described as a dangerous character and even a ladies man because he involved foreign women in his cause.

Nevertheless, he was sentenced to prison for 22 months. After being released, he married Mary Keatinge Morse, who was 13 years older than him. Das talked fondly of fascism in his early days. However, as Hitler rose to power, his view of fascism changed drastically.

Taraknath Das was a complicated person and changed a lot in his life. However, some things remained constant, such as providing education to all, freedom for India, and disdain for British rule.