The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Karunanidhi unveils freedom fighter Chempakaraman’s statue

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Karunanidhi unveils freedom fighter Chempakaraman’s statue

T. Ramakrishnan

The patriot plunged into the independence struggle while in high school

He urged Netaji to organise a revolutionary group in Asia to fight European domination
He wanted Hitler to apologise for his adverse remarks on Indians in an interview

— Photo: DIPR

The statue of Chempakaraman, which was unveiled on the Gandhi Mandapam campus on Thursday.

CHENNAI: Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on Thursday unveiled the statue of Chempakaraman (1891-1934), freedom fighter and revolutionary patriot, on the campus of Gandhi Mandapam.

He recalled the greatness of the patriot and said that Chempakaraman had established contacts with Russian and German leaders.

Born on September 15, 1891 at Puthansanthai in Thiruvananthapuram, Chempakaraman belonged to a middle class family. His father Chinnaswamy Pillai was a police official in the government of the erstwhile Princely State of Travancore. When Chempakaraman was a student of Maharaja’s High School at Thiruvananthapuram, he was inspired by the leadership of Lokamanya Tilak and plunged himself in the freedom struggle.

Around 1906, he organised a revolt in his school against the British in the wake of the Bengal partition.

A year later, Chempakaraman coined the slogan, “Jai Hind” and in 1933, when he met Subhash Chandra Bose at Vienna, he wanted Bose to organise a revolutionary group in Asia to fight European domination and join him in Germany to fight for an independent India.

Thanks to the help of Englishman Walter William Strickland, who moved into Thiruvananthapuram under the guise of a biologist, Chempakaraman left for Italy. Eventually, Chempakaraman pursued his studies in Germany and obtained a double doctorate in Economics and Engineering. Germany became his base until his death in 1934.

As a student in Berlin, he formed the Aid India International Committee that campaigned for India’s liberation. When World War I (1914-1918) broke out, he established the Indian Independence Committee and the Indian Voluntary Corps, which included revolutionaries Lala Hardayal, Barkatulla and Herambalal Gupta. He also set up an army camp at Mesopotamia from where he established secret contacts with Indian nationalist leaders.

Chempakaraman launched Pro-India, a monthly published in German and English from Zurich, Switzerland, through which he highlighted the glorious past of India.

Another institution founded by him at Berlin was the “Orient Club.”

The defining moment in his life was when he came in the cruiser ‘Emden’ in August 1914.

The cruiser, which sunk dozens of ships of the Allies in the Indian waters, shelled Chennai (then called Madras) on September 22 that year.

Fort St. George and the harbour, the symbols of the British power, were targeted. The bombardment left three dead and 13 injured. As a result, there was exodus of people from the city.

Responding to “Fourteen Points” of the then President of the United States Woodrow Wilson, Chempakaraman came up with an Eight Point proposal for Indian independence. His proposal demanded the French and the Portuguese also to leave the country.

In 1919, he and American author Edwin Emerson established the League of the Oppressed People to fight for the right of every person to shape his own domestic institutions and determine their relations with others.

Reacting angrily to Hitler’s adverse remarks on Indians in an interview to the American and British press in December 1931, Chempakaraman demanded an apology within eight days.

A written apology came from Hitler a day after the deadline set by the Indian leader.

In 1933, he married Laxmi Bai, a native of Manipur, at Berlin and immediately before his death, he asked his wife to sprinkle his ashes in “Nanjilnadu” (now called Kanyakumari district) and the Karamana River in Thiruvananthapuram. His wish was fulfilled in September 1966.

In response to the appeal of Congress leader Kumari Ananthan, the State government in September 1991 announced that a statue and a memorial would be erected in the city. However, it became a reality only now.

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