The successful outcome of the Greek War of Independence was not only due to the efforts of the fighters in enslaved Greece but also the actions of the diaspora and Philhellenes.
Movements favoring Greek independence manifested in several countries of Europe, while significant philhellenic centers were also in America and Asia, including India.
A strong philhellenic current developed in India, which was then under the colonial control of the British Empire. Its development was not accidental, as Greeks and Indians had maintained close relations since antiquity and, more specifically, since the time of Alexander the Great.
Also, the news of the beginning of the Revolution aroused the interest of Indians, who found similarities between the struggle of the enslaved Greeks against the Ottomans and their own against the British colonialists.
Another factor that contributed to the creation of a positive attitude towards the Greek Revolution was the presence and activity of European merchants in important cities of the Indian peninsula, such as Calcutta and Dhaka (the current capital of Bangladesh), who informed the locals about the development of the liberation struggle.
Philhellenism in India was expressed in three main ways: through the action of Greek immigrants in the country, the establishment and operation of the Philhellenic Committee of Calcutta, and the ideological support of Indian scholars.
Greeks of India
Most Greek immigrants to India settled in Bengal, a region that includes parts of today’s northeastern India and Bangladesh. The Greek community numbered 120 families and was one of the most active in the region. The Greek diaspora did not forget their compatriots who were fighting to throw off the Ottoman yoke and, therefore, supported the Freedom Struggle financially and morally.
It is striking that two decades before the start of the Revolution, and more specifically on the second day of Easter in 1802, the Greeks of Calcutta took an oath. They pledged to collect enough groschen and gold and silver coins to strengthen the efforts of the slaves in Greece when the time for the Revolution arrived.
One of the Greeks who worked in India and contributed to the enrichment of Greek and Indian culture was the Indologist Dimitrios Galanos, “the Athenian” (1760-1833). Galanos was born in Athens in 1760, and in 1786, he settled in Calcutta.
There, he worked as a teacher to the children of the Greek merchants of the city. After seven years, he moved to Varanasi (or Benares), where he studied Sanskrit.
He spent four decades in this city and began translating Sanskrit texts into Greek. After Greece’s liberation, Galanos planned to return to his homeland, but his dream did not come true. Most of his works were published and sent to Greece after his death.
Also noteworthy is the Zakynthian merchant Nikolaos Kefalas (1763-1847), who, in 1823, traveled to India with the approval of the provisional Greek government to raise money for the Struggle. Fundraisers eventually raised 2,200 pounds.
Furthermore, in India, he met Galanos, who gave him various manuscripts to deliver to the leaders of the Revolution, as well as a text by the philosopher Sanakeas written in Sanskrit.
In fact, the latter was accompanied by its Greek translation. However, upon his return to Europe, Kefalas went to Rome in 1825 and eventually delivered the original to the Vatican Library. At the same time, he himself published a Greek and an Italian translation of the text.
Philhellenic Committee of Calcutta
In the city of Calcutta, a Philhellenic Committee was founded in 1823, chaired by an Englishman. In addition to the Greeks of the local community, it included several Europeans (mainly English), Indian, American, and Chinese merchants.
This committee was quite active and mainly supported the Revolution financially through fundraising.
Important information about the committee’s activities can be gleaned from a letter from its members written in October 1824 and published in the Messolonghi newspaper “Hellenic Chronicles” in the issue of January 17, 1825.
According to newspaper, news from rebellious Greece reached India via ships that carried letters and informed the Greeks living elsewhere, such as in Psara, Samos, and Bodrum, about the successes of their compatriots. In fact, in October 1824, a meeting of the committee was organized in Calcutta to celebrate these victories.
In addition, the members, influenced by the exploits of the Greek fighters, showed interest in learning about ancient Greek history. Thus, they asked the English to teach them, while an American named Miller translated the book “History of Greece” (1809) by Oliver Goldsmith into the local language.
In order to publish the book, donations were made by many members. One of the donors was the young son of Fateh Ali Shahab Tipu, Sultan of Mysore, who fought against the British colonialists in the late 18th century.
A prominent member of the committee was the English bishop Reginald Heber (1783-1826). Heber arrived in Calcutta in October 1823 and remained in the city until June 1824. In July of the same year, he traveled to Northern India, showing interest in the ethnic communities of the region, including the Greek one.
On this trip, he met Dimitrios Galanos and was interested in both the news of the Greek community and the Greek Revolution. In fact, he offered 200 pounds for the needs of the Struggle.
It is worth emphasizing that this was not the first time the bishop dealt with the Greeks abroad; in the past (1806), he had expressed his support for the Greeks of Taganrog and Southern Russia.
Indian scholars and Brahmins
One of the Indian scholars who supported the Greek Revolution was the philhellene educator and poet Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809-1831), considered one of India’s first national poets.
Derozio was a radical thinker who studied Greek philosophy and classical literature and worked as a professor at the Hindu University of Calcutta. He admired the Greeks so much that he wrote a series of poems dedicated to ancient Greece, such as “Thermopylae, “To the Greeks of Marathon,” “Sappho,” and others.
As a professor, he taught his students Greek history and the Homeric epics. The Greek Revolution was one of the themes of his poetry, as he was influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution and Romanticism.
On January 26, 1826, he wrote the poem “Address to the Greeks,” in which he praised the fighters and called on them to rebel against the Ottomans, liberating the land of their ancestors. Also, in his poem “Greece” he presented the drama of Greek civilians and women and children who were killed by the Ottomans, at the same time that the European powers remained apathetic.
Another case of a scholarly Indian philhellene was that of Khettro Mohun Mookerjea, who was the first to write a history of Greece in Bengali.
His book, entitled “Greek Desher Itihas,” was published in 1833—just a few years after Greece’s independence—and was essentially a translation of Oliver Goldsmith’s “History of Greece.” It was 400 pages long and was published by the Calcutta School Book Corporation for use in schools and by students attending private lessons.
It is worth noting, however, that the Greek Revolution also provoked ambivalent feelings in a section of Indian society. More specifically, the Indian Brahmins (members of a higher religious caste), although moved by the Greeks’ struggle for freedom, considered the Revolution to be an intervention and attack by European powers against an Asian empire, such as the Ottoman Empire.
In summary, the Greeks and Philhellenes of India, although they were located thousands of kilometers away from the place of the Revolution, were not only informed about the development of the Struggle but also supported it financially and morally with their own forces and means. The Greek Revolution, therefore, inspired people who shared common values although they had different cultural origins, proving that the ideal of freedom has a timeless and universal character.
Giorgos Giannikos is a contributor to Efsyn.
READ MORE: PLATO’S ACADEMY – The World’s First University was in Ancient Athens.
