DR.CHEMPAKARAMAN PILLAI, THE UNSUNG FREEDOM FIGHTER- CAPT AJIT VADAKAYIL

DR.CHEMPAKARAMAN PILLAI,  GERMAN NAVAL  SHIP SS EMDEN  RAID OF MADRAS ,  UNSUNG FREEDOM FIGHTER WHO COINED THE CRY "JAIHIND" -  CAPT AJIT VADAKAYIL

Dr.Chempakaraman Pillai, ( September 15, 1891 – May 26, 1934) was an great Indian freedom fighter who organized the revolutionary struggle against British rule, from Germany before the First World war.

He liased with Rash Behari Bose and Nairsan who were stationed at Japan and Bagha Jatin who took care of the Indian sector operations.

Chempakaraman Pillai was born in Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum). He used to read the Kesari publications of the great patriot  Lokmanya Bal Gangadhara Tilak, and got the fire within him.

As a school boy he happened to meet Sir Walter Strickland, a British biologist, who visited Thiruvananthapuram in search of botanical specimens. Chempakaraman, then just fifteen years old, went abroad with Strickland and landed in Europe.  Strickland got him admitted to a school in Austria from where he completed his high school education.

Pillai studied to be an Engineer. 

On the outbreak of the First World War, Pillai formed the International Pro-India Committee with Zurich as its headquarters in early 1914 and himself as its President. 

Feeling that the first WW would erupt , he took advantage of the situation and moved to Berlin in mid 1914 . 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. 

Soon the Committee's branches sprang up in Amsterdam, Stockholm, Washington, and in many other parts of Europe and America.

He was the first to raise "Jai Hind" slogan, adopted by INA chief Subash Chandra Bose. 

Pillai was the forerunner of Rash Behari Bose and Subhas Chandra Bose in organizing an Indian Army abroad to strike against the enemies at home.

The other members of his group were Chatto, Prabhakar and Hafiz, later joined by Har Dayal & Thara Chandar Das. All these people reached Berlin either through USA or Switzerland, two neutral states.

 The Indian Independence Committee ultimately became got in touch with the the Ghadar Party in the United States of America.  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.

He set up an army camp at Mesopotamia from where he established secret contacts with Indian nationalist leaders.

After the end of World war and Germany's defeat, Chempakaraman stayed back in Germany. When Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose visited Vienna in 1919, Chempakaraman met him and had intimate blue print dicussions on how to co-ordinate with Japan and USA  and explained his plan of action to him.

Pillai was the Foreign Minister of the Provisional Government of India set up in Afghanistan in December 1915, with Raja Mahendra Pratap of Kabul as President and Maulana Barkatulla as Prime Minister.

During the First World War, he is printed and dropped pamphlets from airplanes among the Indian soldiers in France, exhorting them to turn against the English.

Chempakaraman came up with an Eight Point proposal for Indian independence. His proposal demanded that the French and the Portuguese should also to leave the country.

However, the defeat of the Germans in the war shattered the hopes of the revolutionaries.. 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.

He would meet many famous people, including Gandhiji, Nehru, ACN Nambiar, Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, MN Roy, , Kaiser, Hindenberg, Hitler and party.  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.”  Pillai worked under the assumed German East African name Abdullah Bin Manzur.

In the Pan German Nationalist party, he was the only black man  He had close working relationships with Kaiser Wilhelm , General Hindenberg and General Ludendorf.  

Pillai was then active in the German Fatherland Party.  In later years in Berlin, where he died, he remained one of the handful Indians in Germany.

Chempakaraman Pillai liased with another Malayali Aiyappan-Pillai Madhavan Nair (1905–1990), also known as Nair-san,with a Japanese wife , who was involved in the formation of INA with Rash Behari Bose.

Nairsan was sent to Japan by his elder brother to escape capture and imprisonment by the British.  He studied engineering in Japan at Kyoto University Japan.  

During the Second World War, Nair San joined the Indian Independence league in Japan under Rash Behari Bose.  Fluent in Japanese with a Jap wife, he was the personal Japanese translator for Netaji Subhash Chandra  Bose.

Pillai was the forerunner of Rash Behari Bose and Subhas Chandra Bose in organizing an Indian Army abroad to strike against the enemies at home.

Pillai was on the bridge of the German warship SS Emden when it arrived at Madras at 9.20pm on 22 September 1914, after dark.  --Probably Pillai embarkded at Quingdao , along with 3 Chinese laundrymen.

Under cover of the dark she got close into shore, and opened fire on her target, the oil storage tanks of the Burmah Oil Company. Five tanks were hit and burnt until all 425,000 gallons of oil had burnt away.  Pillai directed the Captain where to shoot as he knew Madras city layout-- after the blackout.  

Saala angrez ka ghar mein ghuske maara!

Some shells fell in the town of Madras. Alerted by the gunfire, the coastal defence batteries of Madras then opened fire on the Emden.  The raid on Madras had a massive impact on the morale and trade of British Raj. Madras city was virtually deserted as all ran away like rats , from gunfire range. 

The shipping lanes in the Bay of Bengal,  had to be closed , as SS Emden was a very successful raider, with a competent Captain Helmut Von Mueller. 72 British and Allied ships were after SS Emden.  

Lankan, Tamilian and Malayali mothers frightened their children to sleep, with the Emden bogeyman—like Gabbar Singh of Sholay-- soojaa beta nahin to Gabbar aa jayega!.

On the way out the ship stopped off Cochin and Pillai with a few German Officers went ashore to get some vital medical replenishments ( malaria ). 

They rowed ashore in a boat.  They had dinner in a Jew’s house and all ate food on banana leaves with their fingers on 24rd Sept 1914,  after which the ship went to Minicoy channel , to wait in ambush--where Emden would sink 6 British ships in 3 days..

The SS Emden log books do NOT indicate such a tryst at Cochin.  Probably Pillai got off Emden in one of the empty colliers , or with Allied prisoners. 

But the as a Captain for 3 decades, I can tell you that “French leave” is never entered in ship's log books . This happens as per the Captains discretion, and it is always against the written rules.

When I had Koyibu Minicoy crew, I have ALWAYS stopped my ship for 4 hours off Minicoy for my crew’s family and friends to board the ship. 

Koyibu crew are the bravest and most loyal lascar sailors at sea.  They come in 4 or 5 huge boats, around a hundred , including women and children, outside port limits and territorial waters . I make sure Biriyani is made for all and Kishore Kumar and Rafi songs are blasted on the main deck loudspeakers.  

This stoppage which is “off hire” and can cost thousands of US Dollars if entered in the charterers voyage abstract and log books.  

No, this is NOT my own idea, this was a unwritten traditions to fire up the crew morale—started by the British 2 centuries ago.   The ship is given lot of presents like fresh shrimps, crab, tuna, coconuts etc.

Hot tempered Pillai raised his voice against some content derogatory to Indians in the book Mein Kamph written by Adolf Hitler that Indians were still incapable of ruling themselves. 

He demanded a written apology from Hitler, with a deadline of 10th Dec 1931. The deadline got the Germans pissed off.  They pasted him, confiscated his property , and that was the cause of his premature death on 26th May 1934, as per his Manipuri wife..

Hitler had asked  Subhash Chandra Bose—what type of cowardly Indians are you that millions of you cant throw out a few thousand British. 

Yes, Hilter was right. 

We Indians , barring a few , did not have the fu#ckin' ba##s, or have any character.  

We allowed invaders to sh#t on our faces.  We have adopted the religions and culture of the invaders gleefully. 

Today these people cheer for Britain and Pakistan in a cricket match. They yearn to go to Saudi Arabia and Italy.

Pillai  knew he would die and his last wish was that his ashes be carried to his homeland, and his wife fulfilled this thirty-three years after his death. 

Nehru and Gandhiji, did NOT allow his ashes to be brought back.  

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.  The ashes were scattered as per his wish in Kerala river Karamana .. 

 In 1972 before Pillai’s wife Lakshmibai's death, the Bombay Police visited her flat and took away 17 boxes containing her husband's papers…

I will write a separate post on one of the most honorable Captains at sea—the Captain of SS Emden.. 

Mean while I would like you to punch into Google search  THE NOBLE AND HONOURABLE CAPTAIN OF GRAF SPEE- VADAKAYIL. 

Find out the meaning of human spirit.  It is NOT dead yet , even in India.

This is the stuff legends are made of.

Grace and peace!

CAPT AJIT VADAKAYIL

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