Born: 15th June 1884
Died: 22nd December 1958
Shri Taraknath Das was born on June 15th, 1884, in Majipara (a village near Kolkata). After completing his basic education in the village’s schools he worked as a tutor to help fund his high school education. Das’s father expired soon after he passed his matriculation exams at Calcutta University. He eventually gave up his studies and started working as a traveling preacher by choice as he was a talented speaker and community activist. Das traveled from village to village rallying the groups around India’s disconsolate economic, educational, and political condition. During the period, Das was also involved with the Bengali Anusilan Samiti also known as the radical anti-colonial organization.
He also established several village schools for the labor classes during the time. After a brief stint in Japan, Das went to the U.S. three days after his twenty-second birthday i.e, on 18th June 1906. He worked as a laborer on the railroads, as a laundry boy in hospitals and janitor, and in libraries as a page until he saved up enough money to attend the University of California. When he was a student there, he passed the United States Civil Service examination (for “Hindu interpreter”). On July 5, 1907, was appointed to the U.S. Immigration Service in Vancouver, British Columbia. During his tenure, Das started The Free Hindusthan (in Vancouver), which was the only publication of that type in North America advocating freedom and political, social, and religious reform of India. In September 1908, he passed the matriculation examination for Norwich University in Vermont, (the oldest private military university in the U.S.) as a second-year student. He wanted to be trained for armed rebellion in India. As a passionate writer, he became a contributor to the college paper. The Norwich University suspended Das for his anti-British organizing. In 1909, he returned to Seattle, and there he became involved in the Gadar Party, and its growing revolutionary activities. In 1910, Das completed his graduation from the University of Washington and obtained his B.A. degree in Political Science. He also earned a Master’s degree and a teaching certification before being accepted as a citizen of the U.S. in 1914. In the same year, he joined as a research fellow at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1917 he published his first book named, “Is Japan a Menace to Asia?” while teaching in Japan. In the U.S he received a notice of warrant for his arrest. On April 30th, 1918, he was sentenced to prison for a period of twenty-two months. The time in prison did not decrease Das’s fervor for political organizing, however. In the first issue of The Independent Hindustan, he published an essay in September 1920. Das’s citizenship was canceled when the U.S. The Supreme Court ruled naturalized citizens from India were not “white”. Soon he earned his first Ph.D. at “Georgetown University”. Das and his wife (Mary Keatinge Morse) together founded the India Institute in Munich to motivate Indian students to join German universities. After his return to the U.S, He was cooperatively appointed as a professor of Political Science at the University of Columbia and got a fellowship at Georgetown University. He and his wife also founded the Taraknath Das Foundation at Columbia University in 1935 to boost educational and cultural exchange between the U.S. and Asia. Das did not regain his U.S. citizenship until 1946, during his time he became friends with the Watumull family in Hawaii, who in 1952 allowed him to return to India as a Visiting Professor of the Watumull Foundation. After forty-six years in exile, Das stayed in India for six years and founded the Vivekananda Society in Calcutta. He continued to raise his voice for India until his death. Das died on December 22nd,1958, at the age of 74 in the United States.
