Bagha Jatin - The Czech Interlude

The Czech Interlude

The plot leaked out through Czech revolutionaries who were in touch with their counterparts in the United States. In the beginning of World War I, in 1915, Emanuel Viktor Voska organised the minority of Czech patriots in USA into a network of counter-espionage, putting up to date the spying activity of the German and Austrian diplomats against USA and the Entente powers. (He described these events later in his book Spy and Counter-Spy.) American publicist of Czech origin Ross Hedvíček claims that had E. V. Voska not interfered in this history, today nobody would have heard about Mahatma Gandhi and the father of the Indian nation would have been Bagha Jatin. B. Jatin wanted to free India from the British hold but he had the idea of allying against them with the Germans from whom he expected to receive arms and other helps. Voska learnt it through his network and, as pro-American, pro-British and anti-German, he spoke of it to T. G. Masaryk. This latter rushed to keep the institutions informed about it. Thus, Voska transmitted it to Masaryk, Masaryk to the Americans, the Americans to the British. T. G. Masaryk mentions all these facts in the English version of the Making of a State.