Amarendranath Chatterjee () (1 July 1880 – 4 September 1957) was an Indian independence movement activist. In charge of raising funds for the Jugantar movement, his activities largely covered revolutionary centres in Bihar, Odisha and the United Provinces.
Early life Born 1 July 1879 at Uttarpara, in the Hooghly district, near Kolkata, Amarendra was the son of Upendranath Chatterjee. On completing his primary education at Uttarpara and secondary at Bhagalpur, Amarendra joined the well-respected Duff College (now Scottish Church College) at Kolkata, where his classmates included Upendranath Bandhopadhyay and Hrishikesh Kanjilal, future revolutionary colleagues. After graduation, he and his friends accompanied Surendranath Banerjee in his lecture tours throughout India and, under the latter's influence, opened centres of social service. During the anti-Partition agitations, identifying with the programme of boycotting British goods, Amarendra led the National Volunteer Movement.
First steps Sponsored by Raja Pyarimohan and his son Rajendranath Mukherjee ('Misri Babu'), he established the Uttarpara Shilpa-Samiti, installed carpentry, bought six handlooms and began selling homespun textile. Very soon he looked after the Poragacha unit in Nadia, giving assistance to Jatindra Nath Mukherjee (Bagha Jatin or Jatin Mukherjee). They collaborated in the formation of the Chhatra Bhandar ("Students' Emporium"), which would be transformed later into the Shramajibi Samabaya ("Workers' Cooperative").
While Jatin Mukherjee "worked directly under the orders of Aurobindo Ghose" since 1903,Terrorism in Bengal,[abbrev. Terrorism], by A.K. Samanta (editor), Vol. V, p. 63 Amarendra met Sri Aurobindo in 1907 and received initiation with these words: "Surrender yourself to God and in the name of the Divine Mother get along with the service of India. That is my Diksha to you." He was further told by Sri Aurobindo: "If we want to secure the freedom of the country, we have to sacrifice everything for it, and we should be ready to give up even our life for it. If we want to free the country, we shall have to conquer the fear of death."K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, Sri Aurobindo, a biography and a history, Vol. I, p. 493 Encouraged by Sri Aurobindo to collect funds for the Extremists' movement, he came closer to Jatin Mukherjee. Behind their commercial activities, their centres sheltered freedom fighters from regional units, as well as provided meeting places for Jatin and other Jugantar leaders.
Jugantar Jatin's elderly revolutionary associate Preonath Karar (Sri Yukteswar Giri) of Serampore – friend of Hrishikesh Kanjilal and of the restless Vedic Pandit Mokshada Samadhyayi – had founded an Ashram at Puri in 1900; it had been in connection with Lokamanya Tilak's initiative to turn Benares and other Hindu shrines into seats of Extremist politics. Long before the hatching of the daily Jugantar at Benares, Puri instituted a religious procession in celebration of the advent of a New Era (yuga+antar). Sealy in his Report admits: "It would be extremely rash to argue that the place has not been freely used by the anarchist for sealing the compact of many a vow against the Government or that it has not been a recognised place of refuge for the fugitive from justice or surveillance by the police.""Connections with Bihar and Orissa", in Terrorism, Vol. V, p. 104
A few months before the Surat Congress, Suranath Bhaduri of Benares, on reaching Calcutta after travelling all over Bengal, "formed a central committee at the Sandhya office, with the help of Jatin Banerji (alias Niralamba Swami) and with Kartik Dutta; Mukhada Samadhyayi, Shyamsundar Chakravarti, Arabindo Ghose, Tarakhepa, Annada Charan Kaviraj and others as members(...) Measures are being devised for freeing India and for proclaiming the divine commands which have been received in the matter (...) After this Suranath went to Puri with Preo Nath Karar alias Sri Yukteswar Giri (...) Attempts are being made to get hold of such of the ruling Chiefs as are patrons of the Bharat Dharma Mahamandal. Raja Sasisekhareswar of Tahirpur ... is being fully converted to this creed."Terrorism, Vol. V, pp. 106–107 The Maharaj of Darbhanga was the General President of the Mahamandal; Suranath's father, Somnath Bhaduri, was the Maharaja's Private Secretary; Amarendra Chatterjee's father-in-law, Preonath Banerjee, was the manager of the Darbhanga Raj; the link was further close because one of Preonath Banerjee's nephews, Natbihari Chatterjee (son-in-law of the great Surendranath Banerjee), was munsif at Cuttack; another nephew, Dhiren Mukherjee, taught at the Ravenshaw Collegiate School. Amarendra had free access not only to these patriots but, also, to the headmaster of this school (later principal of the Ravenshaw College), Khirodchandra Ray Chaudhuri, who edited and published the "scurrilous" (to quote Sealy) daily, Star of Utkal.
Khirodchandra's son, Sukumar, practised as a barrister at Cuttack and had married a daughter of Dr Aghore Nath Chatterjee "who was deported by the Nizam of Hyderabad for intriguing against the British Government." The most illustrious of Aghore Nath's children was Virendranath Chattopadhyay ("Chatto", the revolutionary of international reputation); among the others was the patriotic Mrinalini Chatterjee who formed a trio with Kumudini Mitra and Sarojini Ghose (respectively cousin and sister of Sri Aurobindo). The poet Harin and the politician Sarojini Naidu were two other of Aghore Nath's children. Another member of this circle was the pleader Bishwanath Kar of Cuttack who enjoyed a close friendship with eminent national leaders such as Dr Sundari Mohan Das, Surendranath Banerjee and Bipin Chandra Pal.Terrorism, Vol. V, pp11, 115
These leaders had also been mentors for the significant revolutionary Bairagi Tripathi of Patia (district Cuttack) who was personally helped in his education by Madhusudan Das and the Raja of Kanika; on reaching Calcutta, Bairagi had become – in imitation of the Hyde Park spirit in London - "a troublesome agitator and lecturer of the Calcutta open-air platform. His first appearance was at a meeting presided over by Amarendra Chatterjee and after Liaqat Hossain was served with an order under the Calcutta Police Act, Bairagi became very vehement at meetings organised by Liaqat and himself on almost all political questions (...) Bairagi himself was evicted from Bengal and was eventually interned at Cuttack."Terrorism, Vol. V, p. 116
The Ramakrishna Mission had a branch at Puri, known as the Sashi Niketan and, according to the Police reports, this place had always been visited by "suspicious strangers", including Jatin Mukherjee and Amarendra Chatterjee. According to Sealy's Report, in 1910, the latter made a determined effort to establish an Ashram at Puri, in a building near the Jagannath Temple, called Srikshetra Sevashram, ostensibly for philanthropic purposes but, in reality, for the education and training of political missionaries. This institution, too, was under the patronage of the Raja of Tahirpur. In addition to Basanta Kumar Biswas, Amarendra was helped by Sushil and Sushen, brothers of Satish Mukherjee (who had been sentenced in 1908 in connection with the Alipore Bomb Case, and came to be known as Swami Muktananda) : all of them served as links with the Benares unit. During the ratha-yatra festival, Amarendra and his associates wore red crosses and distributed medicines to pilgrims. The Temple Manager wrote to the District Magistrate in 1911 that he had "noticed signs of attempts by Bengali agitators to turn the temple into a centre for the Swadeshi movement and political agitation." This letter rejoiced the divide and rule policy of the English, while Amarendra had to abandon the idea.Terrorism, Vol. V, pp. 104–105
Indo-German conspiracy
Since Sri Aurobindo's retiring to Pondicherry in 1910, Amarendra closely associated with Jatin's followers such as Atulkrishna Ghosh, M.N. Roy and Bipin Behari Ganguli, and served as intermediary between Jatin Mukherjee and Rasbehari Bose, becoming a key-figure in the Indo-German Conspiracy under Jatin during World War I. Two of his faithful lieutenants – Basanta Kumar Biswas and Manmatha Nath Biswas went to North India to assist Rasbehari in an attempt to murder Lord Hardinge; immediately after Basanta's capital punishment in this connection, Amarendra was blacklisted by the Police.
Bholanath Chatterjee and Parikhit Mukherjee had been working with Naren Bhattacharya under Jatin Mukherjee's direct leadership. Since March 1915, they were "sent off to Sambalpur side, to prospect establishing connection along the Bombay line to Nagpur connected up with Nilgiri and Mayurbhanj."Terrorism, Vol. V, p. 75 At Chakradharpur they received hospitality from Ashu Kundu of Kumarkhali (Nadia) and stayed in Manoharpur, hired a house at Kalunga in August, went to Banposh, Bisra, Mohanpur, and Sonua, where they stayed with Girindra Mukherjee who had visited Shyamji Krishna Varma in Europe and Myron Phelps in the US, and had been in correspondence with them. Reminding that one of the addresses to which money from the Far East could reach the revolutionaries was Sonua Stone & Lime Co. with its office at 101/1 Clive Street, Calcutta, Sealy points out how its owner, Sudhangshu Mukherjee – one of the directors of the Shramajibi Samabaya – was "a puppet in Amarendra Chatterji's hands."Terrorism, Vol. V, p. 78
In 1909, Amarendra brought out a Bengali edition of Sri Aurobindo's Karmayogin; the paper collapsed in 1910 after having published a violent letter. He adopted the guise of a monk. Amarendra's next enterprise was the above-mentioned "Labour League" (Shramajibi Samabaya), a flourishing Limited Liability Company, with the real object of defraying the expenses of preaching Nationalism. In 1911, at Puri, he became the leader of a "gang of sannyasis" banded together with the object of disseminating sedition. He was found selling a book entitled The Life of Arabindo Ghose. In "A Note on the Ramakrishna Mission", Charles Tegart recognised that the flood relief in 1913 in the districts of Burdwan, Hooghly, and Midnapore "was eagerly seized upon by the revolutionary parties, both of the Eastern and Western Bengal, who (...) doubtless utilised the opportunity thus afforded to map out their future plan of campaign." Describing Amarendra "to be an exceedingly active and dangerous conspirator at the present time," Tegart proved how the Mission financed him for these relief operations.Terrorism, Vol. IV, p1364
Denham, in 1914, kept under observation for a considerable time Naren Bhattacharya's mess at 133 Lower Circular Road in Calcutta, which was visited by Amarendra and Makhan Sen to see and confer with Jatin Mukherjee.G.C. Denham, " Revolutionary Activities in Benares", in Terrorism, Vol. V, p. 193 In the same Report, dated 22 April 1914, Tegart states that even up to date, the Ramakrishna Mission at Belur and its recognised branches were not entirely free from objectionable features: "For instance, on the seventy-ninth birthday anniversary of Ramakrishna, which was celebrated at Belur on 1 March last, in the presence of a very large gathering, it is reported that Amarendra Nath Chatterjee and Makhanlal Sen, Jatindra Nath Mukherjee and other prominent members of the revolutionary party, were noticed feeding the poor and generally assisting the authorities of the Math in attending to the welfare of their visitors."Terrorism, Vol. IV, p1366