Manabendra Nath Roy (born Narendra Nath Bhattacharya, better known as M. N. Roy; 21 March 1887 – 25 January 1954) was a 20th-century Indian revolutionary, philosopher, radical activist and political theorist. Roy was the founder of the Mexican Communist Party and the Communist Party of India (Tashkent group).
He was also a delegate to the Communist International congresses and Russia's aide to China. In the aftermath of World War II Roy moved away from orthodox Marxism to espouse the philosophy of radical humanism, attempting to chart a third course between liberalism and communism.
Early life (1887–1910s)
Early years
Narendra Nath "Naren" Bhattacharya was born on 21 March 1887 in Arbelia, North 24 Parganas, West Bengal, near Calcutta (Kolkata).This date found in the Dictionary of National Biography and accepted by Sibnarayan Ray, In Freedom's Quest: Life of M.N. Roy (Vol. 1: 1887–1922). Calcutta: Minerva Associates, 1998; p. 14. This is based on the diary of Dinabandhu. Samaren Roy in The Restless Brahmin claims that Bhattacharya was born on 22 February 1887 in Arbelia.
The Bhattacharyas were Sakta Brahmins – a family of hereditary priests.Ray, In Freedom's Quest, vol. 1, p. 14. Roy's paternal grandfather was the head priest of the goddess Kheputeswari in the village of Kheput, Midnapore district. His father Dinabandhu Bhattacharya also served as a priest before moving to the village of Arbelia with his 12 children.
Following the death of his first wife, Roy's father married Basantakumari Devi, the niece of Dwarkanath Vidyabhushan. He then taught Sanskrit at a nearby school."Manabendra Nath Roy," Banglapedia The couple had a total of eight children, including the fourth-born Naren.
Roy's early schooling took place at Arbelia. In 1898, the family moved to Kodalia and he continued his studies at the Harinavi Anglo-Sanskrit School, where his father taught, until 1905. He was considered tall, strong and athletic for his age.
He later enrolled at the National College under the tutelage of Sri Aurobindo, before studying at Bengal Technical Institute (now Jadavpur University) where he studied engineering and chemistry. However, much of Roy's knowledge was gained through self-study.
Indian independence movement Towards the end of the 19th century, revolutionary nationalism began to spread among the educated middle classes of Bengal, inspired by the writings of Bankim and Vivekananda.Ray, In Freedom's Quest, vol. 1, p. 15.
According to one biographer, Roy agreed with Bankim that true religion was not being cloistered from the world, but working actively for the public good. Vivekananda reinforced this and advanced the idea that Hinduism and Indian culture were superior to anything the Western world could offer.Ray, In Freedom's Quest, vol. 1, pp. 15–16.
He formed a rationalist group with his cousin Hari Kumar Chakravarti (1882–1963).Sealy's Report in Terrorism in Bengal, Vol. V, p. 17. Members included Satkori Banerjee (Bandhopadhyay), brothers Saileshvar and Shyamsundar Bose, Roy's cousins Phani and Narendra Chakravarti, and Mokshadacharan Samadhyayi, an organiser of the Anushilan Samiti in Chinsura.
In July 1905, the partition of Bengal was announced, scheduled to take effect in October. A mass movement aimed at annulling the partition emerged, giving radical nationalists like Roy an opportunity to build broader support.Ray, In Freedom's Quest, vol. 1, p. 16. Following his high school expulsion for organising a meeting and a march against the partition, Roy and Chakravarti moved to Kolkata and joined the Anushilans.
Under Mokshada's leadership, on 6 December 1907 Roy committed political theft to raise money for the Anushilans. When arrested, he was carrying two seditious books by Barin Ghosh. Defended by J. N. Roy (close friend of Bagha Jatin) and Promothonath Mukherjee, he was released on bail, thanks to his reputation as a student and social worker.V. B. Karnik, M. N. Roy: Political Biography. Bombay: Nav Jagriti Samaj, 1978; pp. 11–12.
Barin sent Prafulla Chaki with Charuchandra Datta to see Bagha Jatin at Darjeeling who was posted there on official duty, and do away with the Lt. Governor. On explaining to Prafulla that it was not the right time, Jatin promised to contact him later. Though Prafulla was impressed by him, Barin cynically commented that it would be too much effort for a government officer to serve a patriotic cause. Phani returned from Darjeeling and, fascinated by Jatin's charisma, he informed his friends about him. On hearing Barin censuring Phani for disloyalty, Roy decided to meet Dada but was caught by Barin.M. N. Roy, Jatindranath Mukherjee in Men I Met, reprinted from Independent India, 27 February 1949. Sibnarayan in vol. I, p. 19 quotes Bhattacharya farther: "all the Dadas practised magnetism: only Jatin Mukherjee possessed it."
The Howrah-Shibpur Trial (1910–11) brought Bhattacharya closer to Jatindra Mukherjee.
He also worked closely with Hemchandra Kanungo for a during his time in the Anushilan Samiti at Calcutta, he was inspired by Kanungo's travels in Europe, and he was also impressed by the advanced bomb manufacturing technologies that Hem had brought from Russia.
Hindu–German Conspiracy
Many Indian nationalists, including Roy, became convinced that only through a revolution would they be able to achieve India's independence from the British Empire. So revolutionary nationalists looked to a rival imperial power, that of Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany, as a potential source for funds and weapons.
In August 1914, World War I began, affecting both the UK and Germany. Expatriate Indian nationalists organised as the Indian Revolutionary Committee in Berlin made an informal appeal to the German government to support a revolution in India.M. N. Roy, M. N. Roy's Memoirs. Delhi: Ajanta Publications, 1984; p. 3. Towards the end of the year, the Germans had agreed to provide funding and material to start an uprising against British rule. Revolution seemed near.
The task of attaining said funding and material was entrusted to Roy. He was sent to Java, then controlled by the Netherlands as part of the Dutch East Indies, where over the next two months Roy was only able to obtain little funding and no armaments.
In early 1915, Roy set out again, leaving India to search for the German armaments which were believed to be en route somewhere in the Pacific.Roy, M. N. Roy's Memoirs, p. 4. Roy would not see his homeland again for 16 years.
The plan seemed fantastic, as Roy later recounted in his posthumously published memoirs:
Last minute however, the money failed to materialise and the German Consul General had seemingly vanished the day when he was to issue orders for the plan, Roy recalls.Roy, M. N. Roy's Memoirs, p. 5.
Disgusted but still holding out hope, Roy left Indonesia for Japan, hoping to win Japanese support for their cause, despite Japan's nominal alliance with Great Britain. There he met with Chinese nationalist leader Sun Yat-sen, who had escaped to Japan following the failure of the July 1913 uprising in Nanking.
Sun Yat-sen refused to assist Roy in his task of organising an anti-British revolution in India, instead informing Roy that Japanese support would prove sufficient. His inability to assist was due to Hong Kong's status as a British colony, Sun's own base of operations.Roy, M. N. Roy's Memoirs, p. 6. Efforts to raise money from the German Ambassador to China were likewise unsuccessful.Roy, M. N. Roy's Memoirs, p. 7.
Roy's activities soon drew the attention of the Japanese secret police. When he learned he was going to be served formal notice to leave Japan, not wishing to be deported to Shanghai, Roy immediately left the country and arrived in Korea.Roy, M. N. Roy's Memoirs, p. 8.
He tried to make his way to Peking (Beijing), but he was identified by the British authorities, who detained him.Roy, M. N. Roy's Memoirs, p. 9. However, he was able to escape jail time due to the British Consul General's ill ease with holding a British subject indefinitely without formal charges.Roy, M.N. Roy's Memoirs, p. 10.
Efforts to raise funds from the German consulate at Hankow resulted in a tentative agreement.Roy, M.N. Roy's Memoirs, pp. 12–13. However, this plan also failed due to the scale of the commitment, which had to be approved in Berlin according to Admiral Paul von Hintze.Roy, M.N. Roy's Memoirs, p. 14. Roy decided to search for German funding from the German Ambassador in the United States, before heading to Germany. Employees of the German embassy were able to assist Roy in stowing away aboard a German-crewed American ship bound for San Francisco.
Although they knew he was on the ship, British colonial authorities stopping the vessel in international waters were unable to locate Roy hidden in a secret compartment.Roy, M. N. Roy's Memoirs, p. 16. In an effort to throw the British off his trail, and in an effort to obtain more suitable accommodations for the long trans-Pacific voyage, Roy disembarked from Kobe, Japan.Roy, M. N. Roy's Memoirs, p. 18.
In Kobe, he used a fake French-Indian passport previously obtained for him by the Germans in China. Posing as a seminary student bound for Paris, Roy obtained an American visa, bought a ticket, and sailed for San Francisco.
Communist movement (1910s–1929)
During his stay in Palo Alto, a period of about two months, Roy met his future wife, Evelyn Leonora Trent (alias Shanthi Devi). The pair fell in love and journeyed together across the country to New York City.Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri, Leftism in India, 1917–1941. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007; p. 46.
It was in the New York City public library that Roy began to develop his interest in Marxism.Diary of Lala Lajpat Rai, 1914–1917, National Archives, New Delhi His socialist transition owed much to Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's essays on communism and Vivekananda's message of serving the proletariat. Due to the presence of British spies, Roy fled to Mexico in July 1917 with Evelyn. German military authorities, on the spot, gave him large amounts of money.
Mexican president Venustiano Carranza and other liberal thinkers appreciated Roy's contributions to the El Pueblo newspaper. The Socialist Party he founded in December 1917 later became the Communist Party of Mexico in 1919, the first Communist Party outside Russia. The Roys lodged a penniless Mikhail Borodin under special circumstances. Due to Borodin's grateful reports, Moscow planned to invite Roy to the 2nd World Congress of the Communist International, held in Moscow during the summer of 1920.Goebel, "Geopolitics," pp. 488–490.
A few weeks before the Congress, Vladimir Lenin warmly received Roy. At Lenin's behest, Roy formulated his own ideas supplemented from Lenin's Preliminary Draft Theses on the National and the Colonial Questions.Sibnarayan, vol. 1, pp. 93–94 Roy's writings on the colonial question were then discussed in the 2nd World Congress of the Communist International.
Roy's writings were published by the International Press Correspondence (Inprecor), the weekly bulletin of the Communist International. Roy served as a member of the Comintern's Presidium for eight years"M.N. Roy Dead," The Hindu, 29 January 1954. and at one stage was the Political Secretariat, the executive committee, and the World Congress.
Commissioned by Lenin to prepare the East—especially India—for revolution, Roy founded military and political schools in Tashkent. In October 1920, as he formed the Communist Party of India, he contacted his revolutionary colleagues who, at this time, were determining allegiances between Radicalism (Jugantar) and Mohandas K. Gandhi's novel programme.