Context: 

The Prime Minister of India paid tributes to the great freedom fighter Shyamji Krishna Varma on his 95th death anniversary.

Shyamji Krishna Varma

He was born on October 4, 1857 in Mandvi, Gujarat, and passed away on March 30, 1930 in Geneva, Switzerland.

He completed his education in India and later moved to London to teach Sanskrit at Oxford University.

He was also a lawyer, revolutionary freedom fighter and a journalist.

He was the first non-Brahmin, who was conferred the prestigious title of Pandit by the Pandits of Kashi in 1877.

Varma became the first President of the Bombay Arya Samaj in 1877.

In 1885, he returned to India and enrolled himself as an advocate of the Mumbai High Court and started his practice. Then he was appointed as Diwan (chief minister) of Ratlam State by the king of the state.

In 1905, Varma was a barrister in London when he was barred from practising law by the Inner Temple following charges of sedition for writing against the colonial government. 

• Inner Temple is one of the four professional associations for barristers and judges in London. 
• Varma was posthumously reinstated by the Inner Temple in 2015 after the Inn’s governing council noted that Varma “did not receive an entirely fair hearing”.

He founded the India House in 1905 in London to promote the nationalist views among the Indians of Britain.

He also founded the Indian Home Rule Society in London in 1905 to promote Home Rule through passive resistance and non-violent self-rule. The society was shut down in 1910 as a result of financial issues and internal conflicts.

He published a monthly newspaper, “Indian Sociologist”, in London in 1905 which became an outlet for nationalist idea

In the face of criticism by the British, Varma, shifted his base from England to Paris and continued his movement. 

After the outbreak of the First World War, however, he moved to Geneva in Switzerland and spent the rest of his life there.

Shyamji Krishna Verma expired on 30th March 1930. A memorial called Kranti Teerth dedicated to him was built and inaugurated in 2010 near Mandvi in Gujarat. 

Shyamji Krishna Varma’s Ideology

• He was an admirer of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, an exponent of Vedas, a radical reformer, and staunch nationalist, and later became his disciple.
• Shyamji toured all over Bharat propagating the philosophy of the Vedas.
• He succeeded in his vision and inspired revolutionaries such as Veer Savarkar who was a member of India House in London, Madam Bhikhaiji Cama, Sardarsinh Rana, Krantivir Vinayak Savarkar, Virendra Chattopadhyay, and Hardayalji etc.