Berlin Committee and Indian Revolutionaries

The Berlin Committee for Indian Independence, later known as the Indian Independence Committee, was a revolutionary organization established in Germany during World War I. Formed in 1914, it aimed to mobilize overseas Indian revolutionaries, secure German financial and military support, and trigger an armed rebellion in British India. The collaboration between Indian revolutionaries and the German Foreign Office became known as the Hindu-German Conspiracy.

Historical Context and Formation

The outbreak of World War I in August 1914 created a geopolitical opportunity for Indian revolutionaries abroad. Imperial Germany, engaged in war against Great Britain, sought to destabilize British colonies from within.

The Berlin Indian Committee (1914)

Virendranath Chattopadhyaya (brother of Sarojini Naidu), Abhinash Bhattacharya, and Champakaraman Pillai established contact with the German Foreign Office in Berlin.

• Institutional Setup: In September 1914, they formally organized the Berlin Committee under the diplomatic patronage of German foreign official Baron Oppenheim.
• Key Members: Prominent revolutionaries joined the committee, including Bhupendranath Dutta (brother of Swami Vivekananda), Lala Hardayal, Barkatullah, Raja Mahendra Pratap, Dr. C. K. Chakravarty, and M. P. T. Acharya.
• Core Objective: The committee aimed to procure arms, ammunition, and funds from Germany to supply underground revolutionary groups in India, while inciting mutinies among Indian soldiers serving in the British Indian Army.

The Zimmermann Plan and Revolutionary Operations

The strategic framework adopted by the Berlin Committee and the German Foreign Office was named after German Under-Secretary of State Arthur Zimmermann.

Mechanics of the Zimmermann Plan

• Arms Supply to Bengal and Punjab: The committee arranged to transport German weapons via neutral shipping routes across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Shipments were directed to Bengali revolutionaries led by Rash Behari Bose and Bagha Jatin (Jatindranath Mukherjee).
• The SS Maverick and Henry S. Expedition: The German vessel SS Maverick was chartered to carry arms, ammunition, and revolutionary operatives from San Francisco to Rai Mangal in the Sundarbans. The shipment failed to reach its destination due to British naval intelligence intercepts.
• Burma-Siam Scheme: Revolutionaries planned to invade Burma from Thailand (Siam) using returned Ghadarites, trained by German military officers, to capture British garrisons in East India.

The Battle of Balasore (1915)

Relying on expected German arms delivered by the ship SS Maverick, Bagha Jatin and his comrades established an operational hideout in Balasore, Odisha. British police raided the location on September 9, 1915. A firefight took place along the Burhibalang River. Bagha Jatin sustained fatal wounds and died on September 10, 1915, ending the eastern wing of the armed plot.

Diplomatic Missions and Foreign Outposts

The Berlin Committee extended its diplomatic reach across Asia and the Middle East to build an international anti-British alliance.

Kabul Mission and Provisional Government (1915)

In 1915, a joint Indo-German-Turkish diplomatic mission traveled to Kabul to persuade Emir Habibullah Khan of Afghanistan to declare war on British India.

• Provisional Government of India: On December 1, 1915, the mission established the Provisional Government of Free India in Kabul.
• Leadership Roles: Raja Mahendra Pratap served as President, Maulana Barkatullah as Prime Minister, and Ubaidullah Sindhi as Minister for Home Affairs.
• Silk Letters Movement (Reshmi Rumal Tehrik): Ubaidullah Sindhi and Mahmud Hasan Deobandi sent secret messages written on silk cloth to coordinate an uprising with support from Ottoman Turkey and Imperial Germany. British intelligence intercepted these letters in 1916.

The Istanbul and Suez Canal Fronts

Committee members worked alongside Ottoman forces in Constantinople (Istanbul) to publish pan-Islamic and nationalist literature aimed at Indian Muslim soldiers deployed in the Middle Eastern theater of World War I.

Key Personalities and Operational Roles

Dissolution and Post-War Transitions

The Allied victory in World War I and the defeat of Imperial Germany in 1918 dismantled the operational base of the Berlin Committee.

• Formal Dissolution (1919): The Berlin Committee officially dissolved in November 1918 following the end of World War I.
• The Hindu-German Conspiracy Trial (1917–1918): United States federal authorities prosecuted Ghadar leaders and German diplomats in San Francisco for violating US neutrality laws, exposing the global scale of the committee’s financial and military operations.
• Shift to Communist International: Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, surviving members, including Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, M. N. Roy, and Bhupendranath Dutta, shifted their focus to Moscow, connecting with the Communist International (Comintern) to continue their anti-colonial activities.

Essential Facts

Virendranath Chattopadhyaya was popularly known in European revolutionary circles as “Chatto.” Champakaraman Pillai coined the revolutionary slogan “Jai Hind” in 1907 while operating his anti-colonial student group in Switzerland, a phrase later adopted by Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army. The German Foreign Office allocated millions of gold marks to fund the Berlin Committee’s international publications, travel, weapons procurement, and diplomatic missions between 1914 and 1918. Bhupendranath Dutta, brother of Swami Vivekananda, served as the chief editor of the committee’s publications in Berlin and wrote extensive treatises on Indian social history. Raja Mahendra Pratap traveled through Europe and Asia on a special red passport issued directly by the German Kaiser Wilhelm II to secure meetings with foreign heads of state.