Chittaranjan Das quotes

Chittaranjan Das was an Indian freedom fighter, lawyer, and political leader, widely recognized for his role in India’s independence movement. A key figure in the Non-Cooperation Movement, he also founded the Swaraj Party to promote self-governance. He inspired many with his dedication and leadership in the struggle against British rule. Here are 13 of his quotes:

We cannot forget that we live and have been living for many years in the midst of an empire. We cannot forget that the different provinces of India are gradually coming closer to one another and a new nationality which comprises not only the different provinces but the whole of India is growing up in our midst and we cannot forget that our interests, even our selfish interests, our hopes, our ambitions are indissolubly connected with the interest of the empire.

Chittaranjan Das

In the days of Ram Mohan Roy when English education was introduced in this country, the Mahomedans did not accept it... They did not accept English education and at the same time they were divorced from the culture which their fathers had advanced. The result was that whereas the Hindus got on in life, got into government employment, got many things which people value in life, the Mahomedans were left without it and gradually there came to be a sort of estrangement between the two nationalities at the time of the Swadeshi movement.

Chittaranjan Das

About Swami Vivekanada: I am not saying that the message of the Swami was the final word in our nationalism... But it was tremendous – something with an undying glory of its own. If you read his books, if you read his lectures, you are struck at once with his love of humanity, his patriotism, not abstract patriotism which came to us from Europe but of different nature altogether a more living thing, something which we feel within ourselves when we read his writings.

Chittaranjan Das

Swaraj means that we must live within ourselves, we must be self-contained. I tell you we are great slaves to-day. Our economic slavery is greater than our political slavery... From Manchester comes 60 crores rupees worth of cloth every year. You will not have to pay these 60 crores rupees which go out of India. If a householder works by Charkha for one o two hours a day at the end of the year he will find himself with all the necessaries of his family.

Chittaranjan Das

If it is suggested that I preached the idea of freedom for my country and this is against the law, I plead guilty to the charge. If that is the law here I say I have done that and I request you to convict me, but do not impute to me crimes I am not guilty of, deeds against which my whole nature revolts and which, having regard to my mental capacity, is something which could never have been perpetrated by me. If it is an offence to preach the ideal of freedom, I admit having done it. I have never disputed it. It is for this I have given up all the prospects of my life. It is for this that I came to Calcutta, to live for it and labour for it. It has been the one thought of my waking hours, the dream of my sleep. If that is my offence, there is no necessity of bringing witness to bring into the box to dispose different things in connection with that. Here am I and I admit it... If that is my fault you can chain me, imprison me, but you will never get out of me a denial of that charge.

Chittaranjan Das

In my whole legal career I have not met worse types of criminals than in politics.

Chittaranjan Das

I appeal to you, therefore, that a man like this stands not only before the bar of this court, but stands before the bar of the high court of History... Long after this controversy is hushed in silence, long after this turmoil and this agitation ceases, long after he is dead and gone, he will be looked upon as the poet of patriotism, as the prophet of nationalism and the lover of humanity. Long after he is dead and gone his words will be echoed and re-echoed not only in India but across distant seas and lands.

Chittaranjan Das

Gentlemen, when I consider the objections put forward to the grant of self-government I can hardly keep my patience. What is it that they say? They say that we are not educated enough to get self-government. My answer is: whose fault is it? For the last 150 years you have been governing this country and yet you have not succeeded in educating the people of this country to such an extent that they may be fit for governing themselves.

Chittaranjan Das

Each province has got a speciality of its own, I admit, but over and above that, all these different provinces are bound together in one common culture... If the whole of the Hindu races are bond up in that way you must also realise that the whole of the Mahomedan races all over India are also similarly bound up together and we must not forget that the two great cultures must meet together, and the result will be a great culture which is not purely Hindu, not purely Mahomedan but something which is made up of the contact of these two great races. And that is the ideal of Indian Nationality which must be preserved and developed to the fullest extent.

Chittaranjan Das

About Raja Rammohun Roy: There is no doubt that he was the first who held before us the ideal of freedom. He was the first to sound the note of freedom in every department of life and in every different culture that has met to-day in India. It may be that we have to modify that, it may we have to analyse that more carefully and more in details for the purpose of scientific study but it is enough for our purpose to say that he inaugurated many reforms – you might call that reforming activity. He inaugurated the reforms which again, in turn, gave rise to reaction which, again, gave rise to further reforms which made the nation turn on itself, till at last, it began to be self-conscious.

Chittaranjan Das

About Mahatma Gandhi: Great in taking decisions, great in executing them, Mahatma Gandhi was incomparably great in the last stand which he made on behalf of his country. He is undoubtedly one of the greatest men the world has ever seen. The world hath need of him, and if he is mocked and jeered at by "the people of importance,” "the people with a stake in this country,” – the Scribes and Pharisees of the days of Christ – he will be gratefully remembered, now and always, by a nation which he led from victory to victory.

Chittaranjan Das