Berlin Committee
Encyclopedia
The Berlin Committee, later known as the Indian Independence Committee after 1915, was an organisation formed in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 in 1914 during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 by Indian students and political activists residing in the country. The purpose of the Committee was to promote the cause of Indian Independence
Indian independence movement
The term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...

. Initially called the Berlin-Indian Committee, the organisation was renamed the Indian Independence Committee in 1915 and came to be an integral part of the Hindu-German Conspiracy. Famous members of the committee included Virendranath Chattopadhyaya
Virendranath Chattopadhyaya
Virendranath Chattopadhyaya alias Chatto was a prominent Hindu Indian revolutionary who aimed to overthrow the British Raj in India by using violence as a tool...

, Champakaraman Pillai
Champakaraman Pillai
Chempakaraman Pillai was an Indian revolutionary during the Indian Independence Movement, who went abroad to organise an army to declare war against the British for India's freedom.-Early life:...

 and Abinash Bhattacharya

Background

A number of Indians, notably Shyamji Krishna Varma
Shyamji Krishna Varma
Shyamji Krishna Varma was an Indian revolutionary, lawyer and journalist who founded the Indian Home Rule Society, India House and The Indian Sociologist in London. A graduate of Balliol College, Krishna Varma was a noted scholar in Sanskrit and other Indian languages...

 had formed the India House
India House
India House was an informal Indian nationalist organisation based in London between 1905 and 1910. With the patronage of Shyamji Krishna Varma, its home in a student residence in Highgate, North London was launched to promote nationalist views among Indian students in Britain...

 in England in 1905. This organisation, with the support of Indian luminaries like Dadabhai Naoroji
Dadabhai Naoroji
Dadabhai Naoroji , known as the Grand Old Man of India, was a Parsi intellectual, educator, cotton trader, and an early Indian political leader. His book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India brought attention to the draining of India's wealth into Britain...

, Lala Lajpat Rai
Lala Lajpat Rai
Lala Lajpat Rai was an Indian author, freedom fighter and politician who is chiefly remembered as a leader in the Indian fight for freedom from the British Raj. He was popularly known as Punjab Kesari or Sher-e-Punjab meaning the samem and was part of the Lal Bal Pal trio...

, Madame Bhikaji Cama and others, offered scholarships to Indian students, promoted nationalistic work, and was a major platform for anticolonial opinions and views. The Indian Sociologist
The Indian Sociologist
The Indian Sociologist was an Indian nationalist publication in the early twentieth century. Its subtitle was An Organ of Freedom, and Political, Social, and Religious Reform....

published by Krishna Varma was a notable anticolonial publication. A number of prominent Indian Nationalists were associated with the India House, including Damodar Savarkar, Virendranath Chattopadhyaya
Virendranath Chattopadhyaya
Virendranath Chattopadhyaya alias Chatto was a prominent Hindu Indian revolutionary who aimed to overthrow the British Raj in India by using violence as a tool...

, Har Dayal
Har Dayal
Lala Har Dayal was a Indian nationalist revolutionary who founded the Ghadar Party in America. He was a polymath who turned down a career in the Indian Civil Service...

.

The India House was soon put under scrutiny for the nature of its work and the increasingly inciting tone of The Indian Sociologist. In 1909, Madan Lal Dhingra
Madan Lal Dhingra
Madan Lal Dhingra was an Indian revolutionary freedom fighter. While studying in England, he assassinated Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie, a British official, hailed as one of the first acts of revolution in the Indian independence movement in the 20th century.-Early life:Madan Lal Dhingra was born...

, closely associated with the India House, shot dead William Hutt Curzon Wyllie
William Hutt Curzon Wyllie
Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie KCIE was an Indian army officer, and later an official of the British Indian Government. Over a career spanning three decades, Curzon Wyllie rose to be Lieutant Colonel in the British Indian Army and occupied a number of administrative and diplomatic posts...

, the political ADC to the Secretary of State for India. In the aftermath of the assassination, India House was rapidly suppressed and its leaders, including Krishna Varma, were forced to flee to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. Some, including Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, moved to Germany, while a number of the leadership moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.

World War I

At the outbreak of World War I, the idea of using the opportunity to further the nationalist cause was not lost on the Indians. The German Foreign Office had considered supporting the Pan-Islamist and Bengali
Bengali people
The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...

 revolutionary movement in India to weaken the British position as early as 1912.

The Kaiser
Kaiser
Kaiser is the German title meaning "Emperor", with Kaiserin being the female equivalent, "Empress". Like the Russian Czar it is directly derived from the Latin Emperors' title of Caesar, which in turn is derived from the personal name of a branch of the gens Julia, to which Gaius Julius Caesar,...

 himself had considered the option on 31 July 1914 when Russian mobilisation was confirmed and the scope of British mobilisation against Germany was looming. In September 1914, the German Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, was authorised by the Kaiser to sanction German activity against British India. The German effort was headed by Max von Oppenheim
Max von Oppenheim
Max Freiherr von Oppenheim was a German ancient historian, and archaeologist, "the last of the great amateur archaeological explorers of the Near East."....

, archaeologist and the head of the newly formed Intelligence bureau for the east. Upon Oppenheim fell the task of arranging the Indian student groups into a cohesive group. Oppenheim also convinced Har Dayal of the feasibility of the project.

A group of Indians resident in Germany, headed by M. Prabhakar (then teaching at Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

 after graduating from Heidelberg) along with Abd ur Rahman and A Siddiqui, had issued statements condemning England and France for their support of the Czar. However, given that these students were political novices, Oppenheim sought to find more prominent revolutionaries who would carry more weight. A young officer of the Auswärtiges Amt, Otto Gunther von Wesendonck, was given the task of organising revolutionary outbreaks along the Indian and Russian border.
Similar statement were also issued at this time by Abhinash Bhattacharya and Virendra Nath Chattopadhyay which with the help of a close acquaintance Anna Maria Simon, was also distributed in Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 and Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 in addition to Germany, attracting editorial comments. However, although the German foreign office was slow to identify these, the duo, with the help of Frau Simon, were able to establish meetings with the Berlin Foreign office.

Berlin Committee

Arriving at Berlin, they were assigned a building in the Schöneberg
Schöneberg
Schöneberg is a locality of Berlin, Germany. Until Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was a separate borough including the locality of Friedenau. Together with the former borough of Tempelhof it is now part of the new borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg....

 suburbs, which was to be their new headquarters. In their first meeting with the foreign office liaison Max von Oppenheim
Max von Oppenheim
Max Freiherr von Oppenheim was a German ancient historian, and archaeologist, "the last of the great amateur archaeological explorers of the Near East."....

, on 3 September 1915, the aims and requirements of the committee were given to the German government by Chattopadhyay:
  • With a view to starting a revolution in India,
    • Money, arms ammunition as well as expert advice were needed.
    • They should be carried to the Indian coast.
    • Early arrangement should be made to send the men themselves back to India.
  • A large number of 10 Rupee notes were to be forged and sent to India to create some confusion in their money market.
  • An Indo-German Committee should be constituted to co-ordinate and carry on these activities.


With the help of Oppenheim, messages were sent out to Indian students in German universities, as well as Switzerland, Austria and Holland who were likely share the same views. Among those who joined the organisation at the time were Dr. Dhiren Sarkar, Chanji Kersasp, N. S. Marathe, Dr. J. N. Dasgupta, C. Padmanabhan Pillai, whose brother, Champak Raman Pillai, was quick to step in. It was at this time that the 'Champak-Chatto' Berlin Committee came into existence.

However, Oppenheim refused to approach Shyamji Krishnavarma, then in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

, nor did he attempt to get in touch with Lala Lajpat Rai
Lala Lajpat Rai
Lala Lajpat Rai was an Indian author, freedom fighter and politician who is chiefly remembered as a leader in the Indian fight for freedom from the British Raj. He was popularly known as Punjab Kesari or Sher-e-Punjab meaning the samem and was part of the Lal Bal Pal trio...

, then in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The latter was suspected by British intelligence in the United States to be deeply involved in the seditionist movement although he personally refused to enter an alliance with another Imperialist Power. In 1915, Har Dayal
Har Dayal
Lala Har Dayal was a Indian nationalist revolutionary who founded the Ghadar Party in America. He was a polymath who turned down a career in the Indian Civil Service...

 and Barkatullah
Maulavi Barkatullah
Maulavi Abdul Hafiz Mohamed Barakatullah or Maulana Barkatullah was a staunch anti-British Indian revolutionary with sympathy for the Pan-Islamic movement. Barkatullah was born on 7 July 1854 at Itwra Mohalla Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, India...

 became actively involved in the organisation and its goals. The committee is known to have sent missions to Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

, Persia, Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

, as well as Kabul
Kabul
Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...

.

Hindu German Conspiracy

The committee soon established contacts with Indian revolutionaries, including Bagha Jatin
Bagha Jatin
Bagha Jatin , born Jatindranath Mukherjee was an Bengali revolutionary philosopher against British rule....

, visiting armament and explosives factories, as well as meeting Indian Prisoners of War to recruit them to the nationalist cause. Lala Har Dayal, who had fled to Germany after his arrest in the United States, was also convinced to lend his support to the committee's cause. Contacts were established with the Ghadarite movement
Ghadar Party
The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule...

 in the United States. Dr. Dhiren Sarkar and N.S. Marathe left for Washington on 22 September 1915, and through the German Ambassador, Johann von Bernstoff, were able to establish links with the Ghadar Party. The culmination of the American episode was the Annie Larsen arms plot.

Kabul mission

The Berlin-Indian committee (which became the Indian Independence Committee after 1915) also resulted in an Indo-German-Turkish mission to the Indo-Iranian border to encourage the tribes to strike against British interests.

The Berlin committee at this time was in touch with the Khairi brothers (Abdul Jabbar Khairi and Abdul Sattar Khairi), who had at the onset of the war, settled at Constantinopole and later in 1917 proposed to the Kaiser a plan to lead tribes in Kashmir
Kashmir
Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...

 and North-West Frontier Province
North-West Frontier Province
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa , formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province and various other names, is one of the four provinces of Pakistan, located in the north-west of the country...

 against British interests. Another group, led by the Deobandi
Deobandi
Deobandi is a movement of Sunni Islam. The movement began at Darul Uloom Deoband in Deoband, India, where its foundation was laid on 30 May 1866.-History:...

 Maulana Ubaid Allah Sindhi and Mahmud al Hasan (principle of the Darul Uloom Deoband
Darul Uloom Deoband
The Darul Uloom Deoband is an Islamic school in India where the Deobandi Islamic movement was started. It is located at Deoband, a town in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, India. It was founded in 1866 by several prominent Islamic scholars , headed by Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanotvi...

), had proceeded to Kabul in October 1915 with plans to initiate a Muslim insurrection in the tribal belt of India. For this purpose, Ubaid Allah was to propose that the Amir of Afghanistan should declare war against Britain
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....

 while Mahmud al Hasan sought German and Turkish help. Hasan proceeded to Hijaz. Ubaid Allah, in the meantime, was able to establish friendly relations with Amir. At Kabul, Ubaid Allah, along with some students who had preceded him to Ottoman Turkey
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 to join the Caliph
Caliph
The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word   which means "successor" or "representative"...

's "Jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...

" against Britain, decided instead that the pan-Islamic cause would be better served by focussing on the Indian Freedom Movement. This group was met by the Indo-German-Turkish mission to Kabul
Kabul
Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...

 in December 1915, headed by Oskar von Niedermayer
Oskar von Niedermayer
Oskar Ritter von Niedermayer was a famous German General, professor and adventurer. Sometimes referred to as the German Lawrence , Niedermayer is famous for having led in 1915-1916 the Indo-German-Turkish mission to Afghanistan during World War I to enlist Emir Habibullah Khan's support against...

 and including among its members Werner Otto von Hentig
Werner Otto von Hentig
Werner Otto von Hentig was a German diplomat from Berlin. He was the elder brother of criminal psychologist Hans von Hentig and the father of Hartmut von Hentig....

, the German diplomatic representative to Kabul, and Raja Mahendra Pratap
Raja Mahendra Pratap
Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh was a freedom fighter, journalist, writer and revolutionary social reformist of India. He was popularly known as the Aryan Peshwa. He was born in Thenua gotra Jat Hindu princely family of state of Mursan in Hathras District of Uttar Pradesh on 1 December 1886. He was...

, Barkatullah
Maulavi Barkatullah
Maulavi Abdul Hafiz Mohamed Barakatullah or Maulana Barkatullah was a staunch anti-British Indian revolutionary with sympathy for the Pan-Islamic movement. Barkatullah was born on 7 July 1854 at Itwra Mohalla Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, India...

 and other prominent nationalists from the Berlin group. The mission, along with bringing members of the Indian movement right to India's border, also brought messages from the Kaiser
Kaiser
Kaiser is the German title meaning "Emperor", with Kaiserin being the female equivalent, "Empress". Like the Russian Czar it is directly derived from the Latin Emperors' title of Caesar, which in turn is derived from the personal name of a branch of the gens Julia, to which Gaius Julius Caesar,...

, Enver Pasha and the displaced Khedive
Khedive
The term Khedive is a title largely equivalent to the English word viceroy. It was first used, without official recognition, by Muhammad Ali Pasha , the Wāli of Egypt and Sudan, and vassal of the Ottoman Empire...

 of Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, Abbas Hilmi
Abbas II of Egypt
HH Abbas II Hilmi Bey was the last Khedive of Egypt and Sudan .-Early life:...

, expressing support for Pratap's mission and inviting the Amir to move against India The mission's immediate aim was to rally the Amir against British India  and to obtain from the Afghan Government a right of free passage.

Although the Amir refused to commit for or against the proposals at the time, it found support amongst the Amir's immediate and close political and religious advisory group, including his brother Nasrullah Khan, his sons Inayatullah Khan
Inayatullah Khan
Inayatullah Khan Seraj was the King of Afghanistan from 14 January 1929 to 17 January 1929. He was the son of former Afghan King, Habibullah Khan...

 and Amanullah Khan
Amanullah Khan
Amanullah Khan was the King of the Emirate of Afghanistan from 1919 to 1929, first as Amir and after 1926 as Shah. He led Afghanistan to independence over its foreign affairs from the United Kingdom, and his rule was marked by dramatic political and social change...

, religious leaders and tribesmen. It also found support in one of Afghanistan's then most influential newspaper, the Siraj al-Akhbar, whose editor Mahmud Tarzi
Mahmud Tarzi
Mahmūd Bēg Tarzī was one of Afghanistan's greatest intellectuals. He is known as the father of Afghan journalism...

 took Barkatullah as an officiating editor in early 1916. In a series of articles, Tarzi published a number of inflammatory articles by Raja Mahendra Pratap
Raja Mahendra Pratap
Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh was a freedom fighter, journalist, writer and revolutionary social reformist of India. He was popularly known as the Aryan Peshwa. He was born in Thenua gotra Jat Hindu princely family of state of Mursan in Hathras District of Uttar Pradesh on 1 December 1886. He was...

, as well as increasingly anti-British and pro-Central Powers
Central Powers
The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...

 articles and propaganda. By May 1916, the tone in the paper was deemed serious enough for the British Raj
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...

 to intercept its issues. A further effort resulted in the establishment of the Provisional Government of India
Provisional Government of India
Provisional Government of India was a provisional government-in-exile established by Indian Nationalists in Afghanistan during World War I with support from the Central Powers. Its purpose was to enroll support from both the Afghan Emir, as well as Tsarist Russia, China and Japan for the Indian...

 in Kabul in 1916.

Although hopes for the Amir's support were not met, the Provisional Government of India
Provisional Government of India
Provisional Government of India was a provisional government-in-exile established by Indian Nationalists in Afghanistan during World War I with support from the Central Powers. Its purpose was to enroll support from both the Afghan Emir, as well as Tsarist Russia, China and Japan for the Indian...

 was formed in early 1916 to emphasise its seriousness of intention and purpose. The government had Raja Mahendra Pratap
Raja Mahendra Pratap
Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh was a freedom fighter, journalist, writer and revolutionary social reformist of India. He was popularly known as the Aryan Peshwa. He was born in Thenua gotra Jat Hindu princely family of state of Mursan in Hathras District of Uttar Pradesh on 1 December 1886. He was...

 as President, Barkatullah
Maulavi Barkatullah
Maulavi Abdul Hafiz Mohamed Barakatullah or Maulana Barkatullah was a staunch anti-British Indian revolutionary with sympathy for the Pan-Islamic movement. Barkatullah was born on 7 July 1854 at Itwra Mohalla Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, India...

 as Prime Minister, Ubaid al Sindhi as the Minister for India, Maulavi Bashir as War Minister and Champakaran Pillai as Foreign Minister. It attempted to obtain support from Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

ist Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, Republican China, and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. Support was also obtained from Galib Pasha, proclaiming Jihad against Britain.

Following the February Revolution
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...

 in Russia in 1917, Pratap's Government is known to have corresponded with the nascent Soviet Government. In 1918, Mahendra Pratap had met Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

 in Petrograd before meeting the Kaiser in Berlin, urging both to mobillise against British India. Under pressure from the British, Afghan cooperation was withdrawn and the mission closed down. However, the mission and the offers and liaisons of the German mission at the time had a profound impact on the political and social situation in the country, starting a process of political change that ended with the assassination of Habibullah in 1919 and the transfer of power to Nasrullah and subsequently Amanullah and precipitating the Third Anglo-Afghan War
Third Anglo-Afghan War
The Third Anglo-Afghan War began on 6 May 1919 and ended with an armistice on 8 August 1919. It was a minor tactical victory for the British. For the British, the Durand Line was reaffirmed as the political boundary between the Emirate of Afghanistan and British India and the Afghans agreed not to...

 that led to Afghan Independence.

End of the Indian Independence Committee

The Committee was formally disbanded in November 1918, with most of the members shifting their attention to the nascent Soviet Russia
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

. Between 1917 and 1920, most of the members became active in communism.
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