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ABSTRACT
In late 1922, the Indian revolutionary M. P. T. Acharya returned to Berlin from Moscow and joined the international anarchist movement. Straddling anti-colonial, anarchist, and pacifist circles in the interwar years, Acharya stands out as a distinctive figure within global revolutionary networks and broadens our conception of the global reach of the international anarchist movement. Staking out a different path towards freedom than most of his contemporaries, an analysis of Acharya’s activities within the international anarchist movement enables a more nuanced understanding of anti-colonial struggles against the totalised oppression of the state and redirects our attention towards anarchist conceptions of non-statist national liberation movements within anti-colonial frameworks. In doing so, the article extends recent scholarship on anarchism in the colonial and postcolonial world but also acknowledges anarchism’s limitations. However, exploring Acharya’s life and thought is part of a greater ambition to consider post-independent Indian politics through anarchism – a rejection of the nation-state as a necessity for nation liberation – as well as to allow for anti-authoritarian voices within India’s freedom struggle to be heard alongside a polyphony of independence narratives.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Lina Bernstein, Stephen Legg and Alex Tickell for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributor
Ole Birk Laursen is a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden University, the Netherlands. His research focuses on South Asian history and literature, anticolonialism, and anarchism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, focusing on political networks, representations of exile, and pacifism/terrorism. He is editor of Lay Down Your Arms (2019), M.P.T. Acharya, We Are Anarchists (2019), Networking the Globe (2017), and Reworking Postcolonialism (2016), and he has published on the transnational intersections between anticolonialism, socialism, and anarchism.
Notes
1 ‘Bericht des Sekretariats der IAA über 1923–1924’, IWMA Archives, International Institute of Social History (IISH), Amsterdam; British Library, India Office Records (IOR) L/PJ/12/174, file 7997/23 ‘Mandayam P Tirumal Acharya, anarchist; activities and passport application’.
2 IOR/L/PJ/12/174, file 7997/23.
3 Albert Meltzer, I Couldn’t Paint Golden Angels: Sixty Years of Commonplace Life and Anarchist Agitation, Edinburgh: AK Press, 1996, p 127.
4 M Acharya, ‘Mother India’, The Road to Freedom 4(9), April 1928, p 7; for more on Gandhi, anarchism and non-violence, see Geoffrey Ostergaard and Melville Currell, The Gentle Anarchists: A Study of the Leaders of the Sarvodaya Movement for Non-Violent Revolution in India, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.
5 Kris Manjapra, Age of Entanglement: German and Indian Intellectuals Across Empire, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014, p 13; Fredrik Petersson, Willi Münzenberg, the League Against Imperialism, and the Comintern, 1925–1933, Lewiston: Queenston Press, 2013; Kris Manjapra, M. N. Roy: Marxism and Colonial Cosmopolitanism, Delhi: Routledge, 2010. Remarkably, Manjapra neglects Acharya’s role in the formation of the CPI.
6 See for instance Maia Ramnath, Haj to Utopia: How the Ghadar Movement Charted Global Radicalism and Attempted to Overthrow the British Empire, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011; C S Subramanyam, M. P. T. Acharya: His Life and Times: Revolutionary Trends in the Early Anti-Imperialist Movements in South India and Abroad, Madras: Institute of South Indian Studies, 1995; Lina Bernstein, ‘Indian Nationalists’ Cooperation with Soviet Russia in Central Asia: The Case of M.P.T. Acharya’, in Anthony Barker, et al. (eds), Personal Narratives, Peripheral Theatres: Essays on the Great War (1914–1918), Springer International Publishing, 2018, pp 201–214; Nick Heath, ‘Acharya, M.P.T. (1887–1954)’. Available at: https://libcom.org/history/acharya-mpt-1887-1951.
7 Vadim Damier, ‘Kropotkin’s Ideas and the International Anarchist Movement in the 1920s and 1930s’ (n.d.); Vadim Damier, ‘Мандьяма Пративади Бхаянкара Тирумала Ачарья: от большевизма к анархизму’, НЕПРИКОСНОВЕННЫЙ ЗАПАС, 115:5 (2017). Available at: http://www.nlobooks.ru/node/9143; Maia Ramnath, Decolonizing Anarchism: An Antiauthoritarian History of India’s Liberation Struggle, Edinburgh: AK Press, 2011, p 125.
8 Victor Garcia, ‘El anarquismo en la India’, Tierra y Libertad, November 1959–February 1960; Victor Garcia, ‘Mandyam Acharya’, in Louis Louvet (ed.), Les Cahiers de Contre-Courant: Pionniers et Militants d-Avant-Garde, Paris: Contre-Courant, 1960, pp 219–224.
9 Subramanyam, M. P. T. Acharya, p 189.
10 A R Venkatachalapathy, ‘Communist Chronicler C S Subramanyam’, Economic and Political Weekly 48(3), 19 January 2013, n.p.
11 Manjapra, Age of Entanglement, p 45.
12 M P T Acharya, ‘What is Anarchism?’, in Iqbal Singh and Raja Rao (eds), Whither India? Baroda: Padmaja Publications, 1948, pp 117–140.
13 IOR/L/PJ/6/1968, file 3981.
14 IOR/L/PJ/12/174, file 7997/23; Subramanyam, M. P. T. Acharya; Andrew Davies, ‘Exile in the Homeland? Anti-Colonialism, Subaltern Geographies and the Politics of Friendship in Early Twentieth Century Pondicherry, India’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 35(3), 2017, pp 457–474; Bishamber Yadav, ‘Introduction’ to M. P. T. Acharya, Reminiscences of an Indian Revolutionary, New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 1991, p 3.
15 Yadav, ‘Introduction’, p 68.
16 Weekly Report of the Director of Criminal Intelligence, 17 July 1909; IOR/L/PJ/6/1039, file 3823.
17 Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, The Indian War of Independence of 1857, New Delhi: Rajdhani Granthagar, 1970 [1909], pp xiii–xix.
18 Ole Birk Laursen, ‘Anarchist Anti-Imperialism: Guy Aldred and the Indian Revolutionary Movement, 1909–1914’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 2018, pp 1–18. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2018.1431435.
19 Acharya, Reminiscences of an Indian Revolutionary, pp 101–107.
20 Subramanyam, M. P. T. Acharya, p 107.
21 Quoted in G. Adhikari (ed), Documents of the History of the Communist Party of India, New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1971, p 7.
22 Ole Birk Laursen, ‘“The Bomb Plot of Zurich”: Indian Nationalism, Italian Anarchism and the First World War’, in Ruth Kinna and Matthew S. Adams (eds), Anarchism, 1914–1918, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017, pp 135–154.
23 IOR/L/PJ/12/174, file 7997/23.
24 M P T Acharya, ‘The Most Anti-British Englishman: Walter Strickland’, The Mahratta, 9 September 1938, p 3.
25 Ramnath, Haj to Utopia, 171; A C Bose, Indian Revolutionaries Abroad, 1905–1927: Select Documents, New Delhi: Northern Book Centre, 2002, p 119.
26 IOR/L/PJ/12/174, file 7997/23; Subramanyam, M. P. T. Acharya, pp 121–123.
27 Ramnath, Haj to Utopia, pp 170–185.
28 ‘Sitzung des Holländisch-skandinavischen Komitees mit der Delegation aus Indien, 12. Juli 1917’, Dokument no. P/55. Available at: http://www.socialhistoryportal.org/stockholm1917/documents/111637.
29 Fredrik Petersson, ‘Subversive Indian Networks in Berlin and Europe, 1914–1918: The History and Legacy of the Berlin Committee’, in Rana T. S. Chhina (ed.), India and the Great War, 1914–1918, New Delhi: United Service Institution of India, 2017; for Acharya’s own perspective, see M P T Acharya, ‘Indian Propaganda During the Great War’, The Mahratta, 21 October 1938, p 3.
30 Nirode K Barooah, Chatto: The Life and Times of an Indian Anti-Imperialist in Europe, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004, pp 100–156.
31 IOR/L/PJ/6/1968, file 3981.
32 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1948, p 146.
33 Subramanyam, M. P. T. Acharya, p 154; K H Ansari, ‘Pan-Islam and the Making of the Early Indian Muslim Socialists’, Modern Asian Studies 20(3), 1986, p 520.
34 Ansari, ‘Pan-Islam’, p 531.
35 ‘Wireless Message of Greetings dated 14.5.20 from V. I. Lenin to Abdur Rabb Barq, Chairman, Indian Revolutionary Association’, in Roy Purabi, Sobhanlal Datta Gupta, Hari Vasudevan (eds), Indo-Russian Relations, 1917–1947: Select Documents from the Archives of the Russian Federation, Calcutta: Asiatic Society, 1999, p 6.
36 Subramanyam, M. P. T. Acharya, p 159; ‘Handwritten Minutes of Meetings Concerning the Formation of the Indian Communist Party at Tashkent between 18.10.20 and 26.12.20’, in Purabi et al., Indo-Russian Relations, pp 38–43.
37 ‘M.P.B.T. Acharya’s signed letter dated 30.8.21 to the Secretariat, Comintern raising allegations against M.N. Roy and his group’, in Purabi et al., Indo-Russian Relations, pp 96–98.
38 ‘Copy of letter of Provisional All India Central Revolutionary Committee dated 24.1.21. to M.P.B.T. Acharya removing him from membership of the Committee’, in Purabi et al., Indo-Russian Relations, pp 57–58.
39 Subramanyam, M. P. T. Acharya, p 162.
40 ‘Copy of letter dated 30.1.21 from Secretary, Indian Communist Party, to M.P.B.T. Acharya criticising his activities and informing him of his removal from the Chairmanship of the Central Committee’, in Purabi et al., Indo-Russian Relations, pp 58–59.
41 IOR/L/PJ/12/174, file 7997/23; Subramanyam, M. P. T. Acharya, pp 161–167; for more on Magda Nachman, see Lina Bernstein, ‘The Great Little Lady of the Bombay Art World’, in Christoph Flamm, Roland Marti, and Ada Raev (eds), Transcending the Borders of Countries, Languages, and Disciplines in Russian Émigré Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018, pp. 143–158.
42 Internationalen Arbeiter-Assoziation, Resolutionen Angenommen auf dem Internationalen Kongress der Revolutionären Syndikalisten zu Berlin, vom 25 Dezember 1922 bis 2 Januar 1923, Berlin: Verlag Fritz Kater, 1923.
43 ‘Bericht des Sekretariats der IAA über 1923–1924’. The names of the other Indians who attended the meeting are not known.
44 IOR/L/PJ/12/174, file 7997/23; Subramanyam, M. P. T. Acharya, pp 176–177.
45 Thomas Keell to Alexander Berkman, 7 August 1925, ARCH00040.42, Alexander Berkman Papers, IISH.
46 Emma Goldman, Living My Life, New York: A. A. Knopf, 1931, p 771: ‘Chatto was intellectual and witty, but he impressed me as a somewhat crafty individual. He called himself an anarchist, though it was evident that it was Hindu nationalism to which he had devoted himself entirely’.
47 Alexander Berkman (Berlin, Germany) to [Thomas H.] Keell (n.p.), 26 August 1925, Emma Goldman Papers, David M. Rubinstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
48 M Acharya to Alexander Berkman, 29 August 1925, ARCH00040.7, Alexander Berkman Papers, IISH.
49 IOR/L/PJ/12/174, file 7997/23.
50 IOR/L/E/7/1439, file 721.
51 ‘Communism in Its True Form’, The Mahratta, 13 June 1926, p 307. Acharya’s name is not given in this letter to the editor, but the address is listed as: ‘Berlin W. 62, Landgrafenstr. 3A II’, which was Acharya’s address in Berlin; italics in original.
52 Untitled essay reprinted in The Road to Freedom 3(1), 1 September 1926, pp 5–6; italics in original. Although Acharya was sentenced in absentia in the Ghadar Conspiracy Trials of 1918–1919, in the biographical note it incorrectly states that Acharya was ‘deported from the United States during the era of Mitchell Palmer’. I am grateful to Kenyon Zimmer for confirming this information.
53 M Acharya, ‘The Mystery Behind the Chinese Trouble’, The Road to Freedom 3(4), 1 November 1926, p 2.
54 M Acharya, ‘Dans l’Inde’, La Voix du Travail 2(9), April 1927, p 16.
55 M Acharya, ‘From a Bolshevik’, The Road to Freedom 4(6), January 1928, p 3; M Acharya, ‘Disruption of Marxism’, The Road to Freedom 3(12), July 1927, pp 6–7.
56 M Acharya, ‘Das Problem der Ausbeutung und ihrer Beseitigung’, Die Internationale 4(6), April 1931, pp 131–132: ‘Der Kapitalist oder auch der Staat kann und wird solange ausbeuten wie die Arbeiter damit einverstanden sind, dass sie Lohn gegen Auslieferung ihrer Erzeugnisse bekommen, während die Erzeugnisse durch Nichtproduzenten verteilt werden’. Author’s own translation.
57 M Acharya, ‘Some Confusion Among Workers’, The Road to Freedom 8(3), November 1931, p 1.
58 M P T Acharya, ‘Principles of Non-Violent Economics’, Economic Bulletin No. 1, International University of Non-Violence: University of Calcutta, [1928] 1947, p 2.
59 Acharya, ‘Principles of Non-Violent Economics’, p 3.
60 M Acharya, ‘The End of the Money System’, Man! A Journal of the Anarchist Ideal and Movement 1(4), April 1933, p 8.
61 M Acharya, ‘Is the Present System Doomed?’, Man! 1(10), October 1933, p 5.
62 IOR/L/PJ/6/1968, file 3981.
63 M. Acharya, ‘Anarchy or Chaos?’, Man! September–October 1934, p 4; see also M. Acharya, ‘Der Antimilitarismus in Indien’, Die Internationale May 1928, pp 14–17.
64 For more on Gandhi and non-violence, see Harish Trivedi, ‘Revolutionary Non-Violence: Gandhi in Postcolonial and Subaltern Discourse’, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 13(4), 2011, pp 521–549.
65 M Acharya, ‘Mother India’, p 7.
66 Hippolyte Havel, ‘Gandhi’s Ideal’, The Road to Freedom 6(10), June 1930, p 1; Sam Dolgoff, ‘Gandhi and Indian Freedom’, The Road to Freedom, April 1931, p 6.
67 M Acharya, ‘Gandhi and Non-Violence’, The Road to Freedom 7(1), September 1930, p 1.
68 M Acharya, ‘Nationalism in India’, Man! July 1933, p 2.
69 Acharya, ‘Nationalism in India’.
70 IOR/L/PJ/6/1968, file 3981.
71 M P T Acharya, ‘Lettre de l’Inde’, L’Unique, 11 June 1946, pp 13–14.
72 Letter to Hem Day, 15 May 1951, Mundaneum Archives, Belgium, MUND ARCH 15 ANAR 3F 01 30, correspondence avec Hem Day, ‘Mandyam Acharya, révolutionnaire agitateur indou’.
73 M P T Acharya, ‘Labour Splits in India’, Freedom: Anarchist Fortnightly 31 May 1947, p 5. I am grateful to the Bishopsgate Institute Library, London, for assistance and providing access to Freedom.
74 M P T Acharya, ‘El Fin de Una Era: Ecos Libres de la India’, Tierra y Libertad 8(113), July 1950, p 2; author’s own translation.
75 M P T Acharya, ‘An Indian Looks at “Independence”’, Freedom: The Anarchist Weekly 28 October 1950, p 3.
76 Acharya, ‘What is Anarchism?’, p 140; Garcia, ‘Mandyam Acharya’; Ramnath, Decolonizing Anarchism, pp 134–145.
77 Acharya, ‘What is Anarchism?’, pp 117, 119.
78 Acharya, ‘What is Anarchism?’, p 134.
79 M P T Acharya, ‘How Long Can Capitalism Survive?’, in World Scene from the Libertarian Point of View, Chicago, IL: Free Society Group of Chicago, 1951, p 53.
80 M P T Acharya, ‘Confusion Between Communism and State Capitalism’, Harijan, 27 October 1951, p 298.
81 Letter to Hem Day.
82 Meltzer, I Couldn’t Paint Golden Angels, pp 128–130.
83 Internationalist [Albert Meltzer], ‘M.P.T. Acharya’, Freedom: The Anarchist Weekly, 15(33), 14 August 1954, p 3.
84 Garcia, ‘Mandyam Acharya’, p 219, author’s own translation; Hem Day, ‘Voici Un Agitateur Indou: M.P. Acharya’, n.d., n.p.; author’s own translation.