Amarendranath Chatterjee - Fish of The Deep

Fish of The Deep

At the top of a period of hectic preparations from the revolutionaries’ side, when on 7 August 1915, Denham searched the Harry & Sons and the Shramajibi Samabaya, he had no warrant for arresting Amarendra, but warned the latter: “You are a fish of the deep water!” That was the last contact the police had with Amarendra, just before he absconded. Sealy’s Report desperately added: “In 1915 his very important share in the gun-running conspiracy and its ramifications came to light but he disappeared and has completely baffled all efforts to trace him.”

While absconding in Chandernagore after Jatin Mukherjee’s heroic self-undoing in 1915, Amarendra narrowly escaped in the teeth of an armed Police cordon, travelled through Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, received initiation as a Sikh monk, tirelessly visiting pilgrimages all over India, under the identity of the Punjabi Sadhu (“Hermit”). After the War, on learning about the amnesty during a lecture tour in the South, still disguised as a sannyasi, he paid a visit to Sri Aurobindo, who received heartily the old disciple.