On the birth anniversary of one of India's most selfless freedom fighters, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Thursday, 5 November 2026 paid tribute to Chittaranjan Das, the towering nationalist known as 'Deshbandhu' (Friend of the Nation), honouring a life devoted entirely to the cause of swaraj.

CM Gupta wrote: 'Heartfelt salutations on the birth anniversary of the great freedom fighter, ardent nationalist thinker and founder of the Swaraj Party, Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das. By dedicating his glorious life to the freedom of the motherland, he established an unparalleled ideal of sacrifice and national service. His contribution to spreading the consciousness of Swaraj to every person and to guiding national heroes like Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose is unforgettable.'

Who was Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das?

Chittaranjan Das was born on 5 November 1870 — a Bengali barrister who gave up a flourishing legal career to plunge into the independence movement alongside Mahatma Gandhi. His title 'Deshbandhu' was not an honorific handed down by a committee; it was bestowed by the people who felt his extraordinary bond with ordinary Indians. He stood for the accused in the Alipore Bomb Case and defended Bal Gangadhar Tilak in court, before channelling that same fierce conviction into mass politics.

When Gandhi suspended the Non-Cooperation Movement after the Chauri Chaura incident in 1922, Das felt the energy of the struggle needed a new outlet. Together with Motilal Nehru, he founded the Swaraj Party in 1923 — a bold attempt to enter the British-era legislative councils not to collaborate but to obstruct imperial machinery from within. It was politics as organised resistance.

Mentor to Netaji: a bond that shaped history

Among the many legacies CM Gupta highlighted is Das's role as mentor to Subhas Chandra Bose. The young Bose, freshly returned from Cambridge, fell under Das's magnetic influence in Calcutta and chose him as his political guru over all others. Das gave Bose his first real organisational responsibilities in Calcutta's civic politics — shaping the man who would later raise the Indian National Army and challenge British rule from Southeast Asia. That lineage of radical nationalism runs directly from Das to Bose, and BJP leaders citing it draws a deliberate arc from pre-independence sacrifice to contemporary nationalist pride.

BJP's pattern of honouring independence-era icons

CM Gupta's post fits a consistent pattern of BJP leaders publicly commemorating pre-independence nationalist figures on their birth and death anniversaries. The party has long argued that the full breadth of India's freedom struggle — beyond any single political family — deserves equal public memory. Chittaranjan Das, who died in office as Mayor of Calcutta in 1925 at the age of 54, leaving behind wealth and comfort for a life of sacrifice, is a figure few Indians would contest as a genuine hero.

Das's legacy belongs to no party. But the act of invoking him — his tyaag (sacrifice), his rashtraseeva (national service), his gift of direction to Netaji — signals that the idea of Swaraj as a living value, not a museum exhibit, still commands political and moral currency in Delhi in 2026.

Deshbandhu gave everything. The least history owes him is remembrance.