Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c14.s4.t32: Raja Mahendra Pratap
Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c14.s4.t32
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Raja Mahendra Pratap
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Raja Mahendra Pratap (December 1, 1886 – April 29, 1979) was a revolutionary Indian nationalist and political activist. He was the founder and president of the first Provisional Government of India formed outside India in Kabul in 1915. Exiled by the British for his nationalist activities, he was forced to spend many decades abroad. He travelled to and lived in many countries, including China, Japan, Afghanistan, Germany and the United States of America. He was an indefatigable campaigner for the cause of India's freedom from British rule, who sought and received support from a wide variety of people across the globe.
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Pratap first entered China in 1925 when the tide of anti-imperialist sentiment in China was in the ascendant. Over the course of several visits to China in the 1920s and 1930s, he met and interacted with a wide variety of Chinese political figures, including Soong Ching-ling (Mme Sun Yat-sen), Sun Fo, Feng Yuxiang and others, many of whom he considered to be his friends. A fiery orator, he seems to have been in demand as a speaker in China and appears to have received a sympathetic hearing from his audiences. On two occasions, at least, he attempted to take a mission to Tibet from hinterland of China, as part of his campaign to get support from Tibet for his plan to march on India with an armed force to liberate the country from colonial rule. However, Pratap did not succeed in getting to Lhasa.
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He was not only a nationalist, but also a pan-Asianist and a believer in the idea of a World Federation. While in Beijing he established the headquarters of his proposed World Federation and brought out a journal for that purpose. However, his continued espousal of pan-Asianism, even after Japan launched its invasion of Manchuria and then the rest of China, lost him a good part of his support in China. He had to leave China, and remained in Japan for the duration of World War II, until he was finally allowed to return home to India on the eve of its independence in 1946. He continued to be politically active in independent India, and was elected to the lower house of the Indian Parliament. A prolific writer, his books, including *My Life Story* and *Reflections of an Exile*, contain many vivid descriptions of his interesting experiences in Republican China.
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(*Madhavi Thampi*)