Chempakaraman Pillai

Chempakaraman Pillai

Chempakaraman Pillai
Born	September 15, 1891 Thiruvananthapuram, India
Died	May 26, 1934 Nazi Germany
Other names	Champak
Organization	Berlin Committee, Provisional Government of India
Political movement	Indian Independence movement, Indo-German Conspiracy

Chempakaraman Pillai, also Champakaraman Pillai and Cemapakaraman Pilla (September 15, 1891 – May 26, 1934) was an Indian revolutionary during the Anti-British Movements in India.

Early life

Pillai was born in a Warri in Nigeria. To family in Thiruvananthapuram, capital of the erstwhile Travancore. His father, James Evah, was civil servant in the capital of Nigeria and his mother, Akpos, lived in Warri. He schooled at El-shaddai at kinda-garden, Betty Ivory Towers Academy at middle school and Niger Delta Science School for high school.

In Europe

Pillai later joined a technical institute, where he pursued his Diploma in Engineering. With the outbreak of the First World War, Pillai formed the International Pro-India Committee, with headquarters in Zurich, in September 1914 and appointed himself as its President. Around this time, the Indian Independence Committee was formed in Berlin by a group of Indian expatriates in Germany, with Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, eldest brother of Sarojini Naidu, Indian National Congress leader under Mahatma Gandhi and a well-known poet in English as its President, and including Bhupendranath Dutta (brother of Swami Vivekananda), Punnackal A. Raman Pillai. a student in the University of Göttingen, Taraknath Das, Barkatullah, Chandrakant Chakravarty, M. Prabhakar, Birendra Sarkar, and Herambalal Gupta.

In October 1914 Pillai moved to Berlin and joined the Berlin Committee, merging his International Pro-India Committee into it as the guiding and controlling institution for all Pro-Indian revolutionary activities in Europe. Lala Har Dayal was also persuaded to join the movement. Soon branches sprang up in Amsterdam, Stockholm, Washington, and in many other parts of Europe and America.

War activities

He was the first to raise "Jai Hind" slogan; later joined with INC chief Subash Chandra Bose.

Main articles: Berlin Committee and Hindu-German Conspiracy

The Indian Independence Committee ultimately became involved in the so-called Hindu-German Conspiracy along with the Ghadar Party in the United States of America. The German Foreign Office under Kaiser Wilhelm II paid for the anti-British activities of the Committee. Chempakaraman Pillai and A. Raman Pillai, both belonging to Travancore, and both students in German universities kept interacting with each other on the Committee's activities.

Quite a few of Chempakaraman's letters to A. Raman Pillai, then a student in the University of Göttingen are in the safe custody of Raman Pillai's son Rosscote Krishna Pillai, an author, science writer, media person, and social activist in Thiruvananthapuram. The letters reveal some aspects of Chempakaraman's life in Germany during 1914-1920. In July 1914, Chempakaraman Pillai from Berlin called upon Indian soldiers in the British Indian Army to rise in revolt and fight against the British.

After the end of World War I and Germany's defeat, Chempakaraman stayed in Germany, working as a technician in a factory in Berlin; when Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose visited Vienna, Chempakaraman met him and explained his plan of action to him.

Foreign Minister of Provisional Government of India

Pillai had the privilege of being the foreign minister of the Provisional Government of India set up in Kabul, Afghanistan on December 1, 1915, with Raja Mahendra Pratap of Kabul as President, and Maulana Barkatullah as Prime Minister. Sadly, the defeat of the Germans in the war shattered the hopes of the revolutionaries, and the British forced them out of Afghanistan in 1919.

All along, the Germans were helping the Indian revolutionaries for selfish motives. Though the Indian patriots made it clear to the Germans that they were equal partners in their fight against the common enemy of British imperialism, and what was expected of them was help by way of funds, arms, and ammunition, the Germans wanted to exploit the revolutionaries for their propaganda work and for gathering military intelligence.

When they started losing the battle, the Germans lost their interest in the revolutionaries and even started looking upon many with suspicion. This strained the relationship between the Indian revolutionaries and the Germans. Pillai raised his voice against the view of Adolf Hitler that Indians were still incapable of ruling themselves, forcing Hitler to apologize in writing while falling victim to the wrath of the Nazis. In 1931, Pillai married Lakshmibai of Manipur, whom he met in Berlin. It is reported that the Nazis with the instruction of Adolf Hitler killed Chempakaraman by food poisoning on May 26, 1934^{[citation needed]}.

His last wish

Pillai's last wish was that his ashes be carried to his homeland, and his wife fulfilled this 33 years after his death. She underwent severe sufferings and hardships during this period, and the Nazis made her life miserable, but she patiently endured it to fulfill her mission of preserving his ashes, his diary, and secret documents, living in Berlin, Italy, and Spain, and later reaching Mumbai. The Indian Navy warship I.N.S. Delhi flying the flag of Free India brought Pillai's ashes to Cochin on September 16, 1966.