Politics and Career
Satyen Mitra, as he was popularly known as, was drawn into the revolutionary politics of the Jugantar Party trying to throw off the British yoke during the First World War. These activities led to his arrest in 1916, and he was interned at Janjira, an island (“char”) in the Padma River basin in what is now Bangladesh. He lost both his parents while he was interned. He was released in 1919.
He participated in the Congress Party’s session in 1920 in Calcutta, when the “Non-cooperation” Resolution was passed. In 1921, he became a follower of Deshabandhu Chittaranjan Das, along with Subhas Chandra Bose. Deshabandhu chose Satyen to be his Assistant, which he was until Deshabandhu’s death. He was Secretary of the Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee in 1922–23. Subsequently, he organised and joined the Swarajya Party started by Deshabandhu Chittaranjan Das.
In 1923, he was arrested along with Subhas Chandra Bose and others, by the British Indian Government under Regulation III of 1818 and detained without trial till 1927 in Mandalay Jail in Burma (now Myanmar). In 1924, while in prison, he was elected to the Bengal Legislative Council as a Swarajya Party member. In 1926, he was elected to the Central Legislative Assembly as a Swarajya Party member. It was the Assembly that carried a motion for his release (despite the British Indian Government’s opposition). On being released, he was elected the Chief Whip of the Swarajya Party, when Pandit Motilal Nehru (Jawaharlal Nehru’s father and Indira Gandhi’s grandfather) was the Leader of the Party in the Assembly. He organised the defeat of the Government by the Swarajists on many occasions in the Assembly (now the Indian Parliament).
A few years after Deshabandhu’s death, the Swarajya Party merged with the Congress. In 1930, Congress members resigned from the Assembly to organise direct action (Civil disobedience) under Gandhiji. Satyen Mitra disagreed with the policy and after some time resigned from the Congress Party and sought re-election to the Central Legislative Assembly and won. He was not re-elected in 1935.
In 1937, he was elected by the members of the Assembly to the upper House, the Bengal Legislative Council, and was then elected President of the Legislative Council, a position he held until his death in 1942. He was in close touch with Subhas Chandra Bose till his death on 27 October 1942.
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