Chempakaraman Pillai

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Chempakaraman Pillai

September 15, 1891

Born

Thiruvananthapuram, India.
May 26, 1934

Died

Nazi Germany

Other names
Organization

Champak
Berlin Committee, Provisional
Government of India

Political

Indian Independence movement, Indo-

movement

German Conspiracy

Chempakaraman Pillai (Tamil: ; born September 15, 1891

May 26, 1934), was an Indian revolutionary during the Indian Independence Movement,
who went abroad to organise an army to declare war against the British for India's
freedom.

Contents
[hide]

1 Early life
2 In Europe
3 War activities
4 Foreign Minister of Provisional Government of India

5 His last wish

6 External links

[edit] Early life

Chempakaraman Pillai was born of Tamil descent in Thiruvananthapuram(Trivandrum),
capital of the erstwhile "native" State of Travancore in southernmost India. His father,
Chinnaswami Pillai, who was a police head constable in Travancore State Government
Service, and mother, Nagammal,lived in Thiruvananthapuram. Chempakaraman had his
primary and high school education in the Model School, Thycaud, Thiruvananthapuram
city. As a school boy he happened to meet Sir Walter Strickland, a British biologist, who
visited Thiruvananthapuram in search of botanical specimens; Chempakaraman and
another boy, a cousin of Chempakaraman by the name of Padmanabha Pillai, became
close friends of Strickland, who on his return voyage, took the two boys with him. But
Padmanabha Pillai ran away at Colombo and came back to Thiruvananthapuram.
Chempakaraman, then fifteen years old, continued the journey with Strickland and landed
in Europe. Strickland got him admitted to a school in Austria from where he completed
his high school education.

[edit] In Europe
Pillai later joined a Technical Institute and took a Diploma in Engineering. On the
outbreak of the First World War, Pillai formed the International Pro-India Committee
with Zurich as its headquarters in September 1914 and 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 Gttingen,
Taraknath Das, Barkatullah, Chandrakant Chakravarty, M. Prabhakar, Birendra Sarkar,
and Herambalal Gupta. Chempakaraman Pillai moved to Berlin in October 1914 and
joined the Committee. The International Pro-India Committee formed by
Chempakaraman Pillai in Zurich was merged in the Berlin Committee, which continued
as the guiding and controlling institution for all the Pro-Indian revolutionary activities in
Europe.Lala Har Dayal was also persuaded to join the movement. Soon the Committee's
branches sprang up in Amsterdam, Stockholm, Washington, and in many other parts of
Europe and America.

[edit] War activities

Main articles: Berlin Committee and Hindu-German Conspiracy
The Indian Independence Committee ultimately became involved in the so called HinduGerman Conspiracy along with the Ghadar Party in the United States of America. The

German Foreign Office under Kaiser 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 used to carry on correspondence 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 Goettingen, 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 and Germany's defeat, Chempakaraman stayed back
in Germany; he was 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.

[edit] Foreign Minister of Provisional Government of

India
Main article: Provisional Government of India
See also: Niedermayer-Hentig Mission
Pillai had the privilege of being the Foreign Minister of the Provisional Government of
India set up in Afghanistan in December 1915, with Raja Mahendra Pratap of Kabul as
President. Maulana Barkatulla as Prime Minister. However, the defeat of the Germans in
the war shattered the hopes of the revolutionaries.
The Germans were all along helping the Indian revolutionaries with a selfish motive.
Though the Indian patriots made it clear to the Germans that they were equal partners in
their fight against the common enemy British imperialism and what was expected of
them was help by way of funds, arms, and ammunition, to the revolutionaries who were
abroad and at home fighting the British, the Germans wanted to exploit the
revolutionaries for their propaganda work and 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, and he even forced Hitler to
apologise in writing. But he fell a victim to the wrath of the Nazis. In 1931 Pillai had
married Lakshmibai of Manipur, whom he had met in Berlin. It is reported that the Nazis
under orders from Hitler killed Chempakaraman by food poisoning on May 26,
1934[citation needed].

[edit] His last wish

Pillai's last wish was that his ashes be carried to his homeland, and his wife fulfilled this
thirty-three years after his death. She underwent indescribable sufferings and hardships
during this period, and the Nazis made her life miserable. However, to fulfill her mission

of preserving his ashes, his diary, and secret documents, she faced all hardships and lived
in Berlin, Italy, and Spain and later reached Mumbai. The Indian Navy's warship, I.N.S.
Delhi, flying the flag of Free India, brought Pillai's ashes to Cochin on September 16,
1966.
Pillai , Chempakaraman (Dr.)

Dr. Chempakaraman Pillai was born on 15

the terms must be the withdrawal of the English
September 1891, in a well-to-do Tamil Hindu from India.
Vellala family settled in Trivandrum. His father
was Chinna Swami Pillai, a Police Officer
On the cessation of the war he worked for the
under the Travancore Government, and mother improvement of trade between India and
Nagammal. When about seventeen years old he Germany. As part of this programme he
had to leave India, and in Berlin, in 1933, he organised, in 1924, an exhibition of Indian
married Laxmi Bai, who was a native of
Swadeshi goods in the International Leipzig
Manipur. They had met in Nerlin about two
Fair.
years earlier.
In course of his activities the British rule in
While in the Maharajas High School,
India, he met some of the Indian national
Trivandrum, he was caught in the ferment of leaders, like Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru
the Bengal Partition Movement in 1905, and and Vallabhbhai Patel. In 1933, he met Subhas
left school. Starting in an active anti-British
Chandra Bose in Vienna. He requested Bose to
propaganda, he clashed with the Police, and
organise revolutionary groups in Asia to fight
about 1908 had to leave India. He reached Italy European domination, and then to join him in
and was able to study in the Berlin School of Germany to fight for an independent India.
Languages there, and also enrolled for
engineering studies. He continued education in Hitler then emerged in Germany. He was
Switzerland and finished it in Germany,
sarcastic about the ability of the Asian peoples
securing doctorates in Engineering and
to govern themselves. Dr. Pillai protested nonEconomics.
grata with Hitler and the Nazis. Dr. Pillai soon
fell ill and left for Italy to regain his health.
He learned about twelve languages. Tilak and While there, he heard that all his possessions in
Gandhiji impressed him strongly. He took up Germany had been seized and sold away by the
Tilaks cry, Swaraj is my birthright and I will Nazis for a nominal price. In despair he
have it. Foreign influence also was strong on returned to Germany and complained to the
him. It was an English noble, Earl Strickland, authorities about the injustice done to him.
Naturally, one day he was beaten up by the
spying for Germany, who helped him out of
Nazis. He was physically injured and mentally
India and to get education and contracts in
shocked that he should be so treated in his
Europe. These contracts, mainly with the
revolutionaries in many, European countries, adopted country. He had to go into a nursing
home where he breathed his last on 26 May
moulded his ideas.
1934.
His career of a political revolutionary began
In political matters he was a revolutionary, in
even in his school days. He led the boys,
social matters a reformer and he did not care for
shouting anti-British slogans, and on no-tax
campaigns, feeling the injustice of the Bengal some of the age-old conventions. This is proved
partition. The Police were on his trail and so he by his marriage to a Manipuri girl. He believed
got out of Tranvanore, and reaching Europe, in self-determination and self-government for

all peoples and naturally wanted India to be

finished his education there. In the meantime he free of British rule. He loved Travancore, but
being against regionalism and in favour of
was also imbibing revolutionary ideas and
wished more and more to set the British World comprehensive nationalism, his ideal was India
War he was in Berlin, reorganising opposition as a single unit. For him industrial and
educational advance in India was a necessary,
to Britain, along with the other Indian
but a minor matter. He was all out to win
revolutionaries there.
freedom for India. Once free, he believed that
In 1914 they formed an Indian Independence every need in India would be fulfilled.
Committee. An Indian Volunteer Corps was
In his activities he displayed unusual dynamism
also formed by him, with the help of the
German Government, to fight against Britain. and courage, as shown by his wide propaganda
About this time he started a paper also, named tours, his organisation of anti-British groups,
the Pro-India, to conduct propaganda against and his voyage on the Emden. He, it appears, is
the father of the slogan Jai Hind . he had the
imperialism and colonialism.
courage, or, shall we say, foolhardiness, to
stand up even against Hitler. To Jawaharlal, Dr.
It seems that he joined the crew of the wellPillai appeared to be somewhat pompous. There
known cruiser Emden and helped its
manoeuvres to undermine Britains prestige in is no doubt that he was an extremely active
type, with strong extremist views. His lifes
India and in the Indian Ocean. In 1915 the
chief work was the propaganda he conducted in
Indian revolutionaries in Germany formed a
Europe, specially in Germany, against
Provisional Government of Free India
imperialism anywhere. In his revolutionary
functioning from Derlin. Dr. Pillai was its
Minister for Foreign Affairs. He is said to have opposition to imperialism, his main target was
dropped pamphlets from aeroplanes among the British imperialism in India and the sole wish
of his life was to see India free of its foreign
Indian soldiers in France, exhorting them to
yoke.
turn against the English. On account of such
activities the British Government put a price on
his head. He could not be caught. When the
Treaty of Versailles was signed, Dr. Pillai
wanted that one of
. 1891 1934 .
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1908 22
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"There were two other outstanding personalities who belonged to no group. They were Dr.Tarakanath Das and Dr.Chenbagaraman
Pillai. The ashes of this renowned South Indian leader, Pillai, were very recently carried to their last resting place by the Indian
Cruiser INS Delhi. This was indeed in fulfilment of a revolutionaries vow. As Free Press Journal of Bombay (Sep.12, 1966) put it, " In
early 1930's Dr.Pillai incurred the wrath of Hitler whose ominous rumblings were just beginning to be heard. In May 1934, Pillai died
of suspected slow poisoning. His body was cremated in Berlin."
. :"It was some years after the war (I World War of 1914-18) that he made a vow that he would one day return to the land of his birth in
a powerful battleship flying the flag of the Indian Republic."
1947
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With Best Compliments
From
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293, 295, Main Street,
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Phone: 2457
With Best Complikments

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K. Ramkanath
Commercial Artist
60. Dam Street,
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