C. R. Das
Bengal nationalist leader, barrister, and Swaraj Party founder
Chittaranjan Das became a leading nationalist lawyer after defending Aurobindo Ghosh in the 1908 Alipore Bomb Case. He later abandoned his legal practice during the Non-cooperation Movement, opposed the Congress boycott of legislatures, and founded the Swaraj Party with Motilal Nehru and other colleagues in 1923.
Early twentieth-century Bengal, where anti-colonial mass politics, constitutional obstruction, municipal government, and debates over Hindu-Muslim representation increasingly overlapped. Das argued that elected councils could be used for continuous opposition to colonial rule.
As a Swarajist leader, Das helped win a major 1923 Bengal Legislative Council victory and became Calcutta's first elected mayor in 1924. His Bengal Pact sought Hindu-Muslim political accommodation, while his leadership influenced figures including Subhas Chandra Bose and left a lasting mark on Bengal's nationalist politics.