International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

Manabendra Nath Roy was an Indian revolutionary nationalist, communist, and radical humanist, born Narendranath Bhattacharyya, on March 21, 1887. Influenced by the Anti-Bengal Partition Movement, he joined the struggle for national liberation, entering the militant wing, and attempting to organize an armed uprising against British rule in India. He became a follower of the legendary Jatindranath Mukherjee or Bagha Jatin (“tiger” Jatin). The duo were arrested and kept imprisoned for a year during the Howrah-Sibpur Conspiracy Case in 1910–11. They planned for an all-India uprising and contacts abroad. During World War I Bagha Jatin and other revolutionaries, taking advantage of the small number of European soldiers posted in India, planned to organize an armed uprising. Bhattacharyya, using the pseudonym of Charles A. Martin, left India, first for Batavia, and then Shanghai, seeking German help for procuring arms. Though the effort failed, he traveled to the Philippines, the US, and Mexico, hoping to procure arms for Indian revolutionaries. In Manila he learned of the death of his leader Bagha Jatin in an armed encounter in 1915, in a botched delivery of arms. Naren Bhattacharyya arrived in the US amid newspaper articles declaring him a dangerous Hindu revolutionary. He sought help from Professor Dhanagopal Mukherjee of Stanford University, brother of a fellow revolutionary. The latter ... log in or subscribe to read full text