Chittaranjan Das

Family members and relatives

Grandfather: Kashiswar Das

Parents: Bhuban Mohan Das (who was brother of Durga Mohan Das and Kali Mohan Das) and Nistarini Debi

Wife: Basanti Debi

Brother: Prafulla Ranjan Das

Son: Chiraranjan Das (1899 - 1928)

Daughter: Aparna Debi (1898 - 1972), Kalyani Debi (1902 - 1983)

Early life

Chittaranjan Das was born in a well-known Baidya-Brahmin Das family of Telirbagh, Bikrampur, Dhaka in Bengal, now part of Munshiganj District of Bangladesh. Bikrampur has a long historical and cultural trail since many centuries. In 12th Century it was the capital of Ballal Sena and Lakshmana Sena, Kings of Sena dynasty and since then considered as an important seat of learning and culture of Eastern India.

He was the son of Bhuban Mohan Das, and nephew of the Brahmo social reformer Durga Mohan Das. Some of his cousins were Atul Prasad Sen, Satya Ranjan Das, Satish Ranjan Das, Sudhi Ranjan Das, Sarala Roy and Lady Abala Bose. His eldest grandson was Siddhartha Shankar Ray and his granddaughter is Justice Manjula Bose.

He is generally referred to by the honorific Desh Bandhu meaning "Friend of the nation". He was closely associated with a number of literary societies and wrote poems, apart from numerous articles and essays. He married Basanti Devi (1880 - 1974) and had three children, Aparna Devi (1898 - 1972), Chiraranjan Das (1899 - 1928) and Kalyani Devi (1902 - 1983). Basanti Devi also plunged into the freedom movement and was the first woman to court arrest with her sister-in-law Urmila Devi in Non Cooperation movement in 1921. Her warmth and affection for everyone was legendary and she held the position of a matriarch in the freedom fighters fraternity. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose used to regard her as 'Ma'.

Career

Educated in England, where he became a barrister, his public career began in 1909 when he successfully defended Aurobindo Ghosh on charges of involvement in the previous year's Alipore bomb case. In his Uttarpara speech, Aurobindo gratefully acknowledged that Chittaranjan Das broke his health to save him.

He was a leading figure in Bengal during the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1919-1922, and initiated the ban on British clothes, setting an example by burning his own European clothes and wearing Khadi clothes. At one time, his clothes were tailored and washed in Paris and he maintained a permanent laundry in Paris to ship his clothes to Calcutta. He sacrificed all this luxury when he became attached to the Freedom Movement.

He brought out a newspaper called Forward and later changed its name to Liberty to fight the British Raj. When the Calcutta Municipal Corporation was formed, he became its first mayor. He was a believer in non-violence and constitutional methods for the realisation of national independence, and advocated Hindu-Muslim unity, cooperation and communal harmony and championed the cause of national education. He resigned his presidency of the Indian National Congress at the Gaya session after losing a motion on "No Council Entry" to Gandhi's faction. He then founded the Swaraj Party, with veteran Motilal Nehru and young Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy, in 1923, to express his uncompromising opinion and position .

His legacy was carried forward by his obedient disciples, and notably by Subhas Chandra Bose.

Chittaranjan Das emerged as a distinguished Bengali poet, when, during the troubled days of National movement, he published the first two volumes of his collection of poems titled "Malancha" and "Mala". In 1913 he published "Sagar Sangeet" (The Songs of the Sea). Sri Aurobindo was in Pondichery and was in dire need of financial support. Chittaranjan offered him one thousand rupees as a token of his support for an English translation of the poem.

Death

In 1925 Chittaranjan's health began to fail due to overwork. Chittaranjan went to Darjeeling to recuperate his health staying at Sir N. N. Sircar's house "Step Aside" in May 1925. Mahatma Gandhi visited him and stayed with him for some days. Gandhiji wrote,

"When I left Darjeeling I left much more that I had ever thought before. There was no end of my affection for Deshbandhu and my warm feeling for such a great soul."

Chittaranjan's health did not recover. On 16 June 1925 he died with a severe fever. A special arrangement was made to bring his cortege by train to Calcutta.

The funeral procession in Calcutta was led by Gandhi, 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 Mussalmans and I should like to tell Englishmen, too, that he bore no ill-will to them.

Thousands and thousands of people accompanied Deshbandhu's funeral cortege to the burning ground at Keoratala Mahasamsan in Calcutta. The mass gathering and the manner in which people paid their last respects to this beloved leader, whom many described as "the uncrowned king of Bengal", evoked a feeling in Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) who penned a couplet that has immortalised the person to whom these words were offered : "Enechhile sathe kore mrityuheen praan/ Marane tahai tumi kore gele daan.." [You had brought with yourself a life-without-an-end/As you depart, you donate the same.."].

Legacy and commemoration

A few years before his death Das gifted his house and the adjoining lands to the nation to be used for the betterment of the lives of women. Today it is a huge hospital called Chittaranjan Seva Sadan and has gone from being a women's hospital to one where all specialties are present. The Chittaranjan Cancer Hospital which was established in these premises in 1950 is now the Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute. The mountain home in Darjeeling ('Step Aside') is now a Mother-and-Child Care Centre run by the Government. A commemorial tower was erected at the Keoratala Mahasamsan (Burning Ghat) where he was cremated and his death anniversary is regularly observed here.

Chittaranjan Park is a locality in Kalkaji, adjoining Greater Kailash II in South Delhi, which houses many Bengalis who fled to India during partition

His name (and his nickname as samiran), is commemorated by the names of the following places and institutions: Chittaranjan Avenue, Chittaranjan College, Chittaranjan High School, Chittaranjan Locomotive Works, Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, Chittaranjan Park, Chittaranjan Station, Deshbandhu College for Girls and the Deshbandhu Mahavidyalaya

To honour the endeavours of Basanti Devi, a girls' college bearing her name Basanti Devi College was established in 1964-65 during her lifetime.