Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

62 I Ramnath
Paris
After the Dhingra incident, London abruptly became too
hot fo r Indian radicals to fu nction freely, though a few
did try to maintain an active presence. Now the primary
center ofIndian overseas radicalism moved to Paris. The
political expatriate community there was already well established,
centered around Rana and Madame Bhikaj i
Rustomji Cama, both of whom maintained dose ties with
the London community.
Besides carrying the cachet of its revolutionary history,
France had the advantage of lying outside British jurisdiction.
Ironically, France's own colonial outposts inside India
offered them this functional free zone: French Pondicherry
became a key location fo r moving weaponry and literature
into the country, and "the great importance of both
Pondicherry and Chandernagore from the point of view
of the anarchists:' said the officiating director of Criminal
Intelligence Department, lay in their independent postal
connections with European countries.3s
Paris was also an unparalleled hub to r cross-fertilizatioil
among Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Egyptian, Lebanese, and
Filipino modernist, liberal and Left, anarchist, nationalist,
and internationalist movements, hosting exiles from countries
throughout East Asia and the Ottoman Empire. The
Indians fo rmed particularly strong bonds with the Egyptians.
It was the large population of Russian political exiles,
though, whom the Bengali revolutionists looked to as
their most significant source of inspiration as well as technical
and organizational mentorship. They admired the