Chittaranjan Das (Deshbandhu): The Barrister Who Founded the Swaraj Party
He was one of the highest-paid barristers in Bengal. He gave up the practice, gave away the house, and died at fifty-four with almost nothing left.
- How did a top barrister become a nationalist hero?
- How did losing a vote at Gaya lead to a new political party?
- What did the Bengal Pact actually try to do?
- How did the Swaraj Party end up running Calcutta itself?
- Why was Das a serious poet as well as a politician?
- What did Das leave behind when he died at fifty-four?
- Exam Angle
How did a top barrister become a nationalist hero?
A defining, unpaid legal victory turned one of Bengal’s wealthiest barristers into a national nationalist figure.
Chittaranjan Das, usually called C.R. Das, was born on 5 November 1870 in Calcutta. His honorific was Deshbandhu, meaning “friend of the country.”
He studied law at the Middle Temple in London, between 1890 and 1894, and built one of the largest, wealthiest legal practices in Bengal.
His defining case was the Alipore Bomb Case, tried in 1908-09. He defended Aurobindo Ghose in that trial, and secured his acquittal.
He took the case without payment, and also defended other accused revolutionaries for no fee.
That defence made his national reputation, and tied his legal career to the nationalist cause.
Source: standard record of C.R. Das’s legal career and the Alipore Bomb Case, 1908-09.
Pause and decide · 1 of 8
C.R. Das defended Aurobindo Ghose in the 1908-09 Alipore Bomb Case without taking any fee, and secured his acquittal. True or false?
True. He also defended other accused revolutionaries for no fee, and this defence made his national reputation.
How did losing a vote at Gaya lead to a new political party?
A Congress split over strategy pushed Das to resign the party presidency, and within days he had launched a rival organisation instead.
Das gave up his legal practice for the Non-Cooperation Movement around 1920-21. He burned his own European clothes and switched to khadi.
Non-Cooperation was suspended after Chauri Chaura in 1922. That left Congress divided about what to do next, splitting between pro-changers and no-changers.
Pro-changers, led by Das, wanted to enter the legislative councils and obstruct the government from inside. No-changers wanted to continue the constructive programme outside the councils.
Das presided over the Gaya session of Congress in December 1922, and put council entry to a vote. He lost, and then resigned the Congress presidency.
Within days he moved to form a new party with Motilal Nehru. It was first called the Congress-Khilafat Swaraj Party, and was renamed the Swarajya Party in February 1923. Das led it; Motilal Nehru was among its secretaries.
At the Bombay AICC meeting in May 1923, the council-entry policy finally carried, by 96 votes to 71.
Source: standard record of the 1922 Congress split and the founding of the Swarajya Party.
Pause and decide · 2 of 8
Das won the council-entry vote at the December 1922 Gaya session, and continued as Congress president afterward. True or false?
False. He lost the vote and resigned the Congress presidency — within days he formed a new party with Motilal Nehru, later renamed the Swarajya Party.
What did the Bengal Pact actually try to do?
Das’s attempt at concrete Hindu-Muslim power-sharing was rejected by Congress and quietly abandoned after his death, but historians still treat it as a genuine road not taken.
Das negotiated an agreement with Bengali Muslim leaders, approved on 16 December 1923. It is known as the Bengal Pact, and it tried to settle communal power-sharing in concrete terms.
Representation in the Bengal Legislative Council would follow population, with separate electorates. In local bodies, the split would be 60% to the majority community and 40% to the minority.
Muslims were eventually to hold 55% of government posts in the province. Until that share was reached, 80% of new appointments would go to Muslims.
The pact also barred music in processions passing in front of mosques. On cow slaughter, it kept the matter out of Council legislation and left it to community agreement.
Congress rejected the pact at its Coconada (Kakinada) session, in December 1923. After Das died, his own supporters abandoned it, and disappointed Muslim politicians formed the Independent Muslim Party in 1926.
This is why historians treat the pact as a genuine road not taken in Bengal politics.
Source: standard record of the Bengal Pact, December 1923.
Pause and decide · 3 of 8
Congress rejected the Bengal Pact at its Coconada session, and Das’s own supporters abandoned it after his death. True or false?
True. Disappointed Muslim politicians went on to form the Independent Muslim Party in 1926, and historians treat the pact as a genuine road not taken.
How did the Swaraj Party end up running Calcutta itself?
A municipal election victory made Das mayor of Calcutta and gave a young Subhas Chandra Bose his first serious administrative role.
The Swaraj Party contested the Calcutta Corporation elections in 1924, and won a majority. Das became the first Mayor of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation under the new arrangement.
Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy served as Deputy Mayor. Subhas Chandra Bose was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation.
That appointment matters. It gave the young Bose his first serious administrative role. Das was Bose’s political mentor, and Bose’s early career runs directly through Das’s circle.
Das also launched the newspaper Forward, whose first issue appeared on 23 October 1923. He was its editor-in-chief. The paper was later renamed Liberty.
Source: standard record of the 1924 Calcutta Corporation elections and Das’s mayoralty.
Pause and decide · 4 of 8
Subhas Chandra Bose’s appointment as Chief Executive Officer of the Calcutta Corporation gave him his first serious administrative role, under his political mentor Das. True or false?
True. Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy served as Deputy Mayor under Das in this same 1924 Calcutta Corporation administration.
Why was Das a serious poet as well as a politician?
Das wrote and published poetry throughout his career, and used his wealth to fund other writers and nationalist publications.
Das was a working poet, not just a politician who wrote verse occasionally. His collections include Malancha and Mala.
Sagar Sangeet, “The Songs of the Sea,” was published in 1913. He paid Aurobindo Ghose to translate that work into English.
He founded the monthly journal Narayana. Its contributors included Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay and Bipin Chandra Pal.
Earlier, he had helped finance the nationalist paper Bande Mataram.
His wife, Basanti Devi, was herself active in the movement and long outlived him, dying in 1974.
Source: standard record of C.R. Das’s literary work and patronage.
Pause and decide · 5 of 8
C.R. Das only wrote poetry as an occasional hobby, with no published collections or serious literary output. True or false?
False. He was a working poet with published collections including Malancha, Mala, and Sagar Sangeet (1913), which he had Aurobindo Ghose translate into English.
What did Das leave behind when he died at fifty-four?
Das gave away his own house before his death, and his fifteen-year public career compresses the wider arc of Indian nationalism into a single life.
Before his death he gave away his house and its grounds for a women’s welfare institution. It became the Chittaranjan Seva Sadan. The site later housed a cancer hospital founded in 1950, now the Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute.
His health broke down in May 1925. He went to Darjeeling to recover, and died there on 16 June 1925, aged 54.
Gandhi had visited him at Darjeeling shortly before, and led his funeral procession through Calcutta.
His name is now attached to a great deal: Chittaranjan Avenue in Kolkata, Chittaranjan Park in Delhi, and the town of Chittaranjan in West Bengal. The Chittaranjan Locomotive Works takes its name from that town.
Notice what the career actually traces. He moved from courtroom defence, to mass agitation, to contesting elections, in about fifteen years — revolutionary defence, then non-cooperation, then working the councils, compressing the wider story of Indian nationalism in this period into one life.
Source: standard record of C.R. Das’s final years, death, and legacy, 1925.
Pause and decide · 6 of 8
Das’s public career traced a full arc, from revolutionary courtroom defence, to mass non-cooperation, to contesting elections through the councils, in about fifteen years. True or false?
True. Gandhi visited him at Darjeeling shortly before his death on 16 June 1925, and led his funeral procession through Calcutta.
Exam Angle: The Pro-Changer / No-Changer Trap
CAPF (ACs) 2026 asked the identical question: who was not a No-Changer. The answer, again, was Vithalbhai Patel.
Vithalbhai Patel was a Pro-Changer (Swarajist) alongside C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru. His brother Vallabhbhai Patel, C. Rajagopalachari, and Rajendra Prasad were all No-Changers.
CDS I 2022 asked who did NOT belong to the No-Changers — again, Vithalbhai Patel. He sided with Das and Motilal Nehru’s Pro-Changers, who wanted council entry, while his younger brother Vallabhbhai Patel was a No-Changer instead, a genuine family split.
UPSC Mains 2019, GS Paper I (Q11) asked about the many voices that strengthened the nationalist movement in the Gandhian phase — Das’s Swaraj Party brought a constitutional strand into that movement.
Source: CAPF (ACs) 2026, GAI Q38; CDS I 2022, GK Q96; UPSC Mains 2019, GS1 Q11.
Pause and decide · 7 of 8
Vithalbhai Patel sided with the Pro-Changers alongside C.R. Das, while his younger brother Vallabhbhai Patel was a No-Changer instead. True or false?
True. This exact family-split trap has been tested in both CAPF (ACs) 2026 and CDS I 2022.
Pause and decide · 8 of 8
C. Rajagopalachari and Rajendra Prasad were both Pro-Changers, siding with C.R. Das on council entry. True or false?
False. Both were No-Changers — only Vithalbhai Patel, among the well-known names tested in this exact trap, was the Pro-Changer.
Check your understanding
Answer the eight checks above. You will see each explanation after choosing.
Primary sources
- Standard record of Chittaranjan Das’s legal career, the Congress split of 1922-23, the Bengal Pact, and his mayoralty of Calcutta.
- CAPF (ACs) 2026, GAI Q38; CDS I 2022, GK Q96; UPSC Mains 2019, GS1 Q11.
Practice what you learned
Question 1 of 1
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