M. P. T. Acharya


Mandayam Parthasarathi Tirumal Acharya was an Indian nationalist, communist and anarchist who was among the founding members of the Communist Party of India. In a long political and activist life, Acharya was at various times associated with India House in London and the HinduGerman Conspiracy during World War I when, as a key functionary of the Berlin Committee, he along with Har Dayal sought to establish the Indian National Volunteer Corps with Indian prisoners of war from the battlefields of Mesopotamia and Europe. Acharya subsequently moved in 1919 after the end of the war to the Soviet Union, where he was one of the founding members of the Communist Party of India at Tashkent. However, disappointed with the Communist International, Acharya returned to Europe in the 1920s where he was involved with the League against Imperialism and subsequently is known to have been involved with the International Anarchist movement.

M.P.T. Acharya was born in 1887 in Madras to a family of Aiyangar brahmins. His father, M.P. Narasimha Aiyangar, was an employee in the Madras Public Works Department whose family had originally migrated from the state of Mysore. Young M.P.T. was exposed to nationalism from childhood, with his family playing a prominent role in the rise of Indian nationalism in South India. His close relatives included M.C. Alasinga Perumal, one of the cofounders of the Brahmavadin journal, as well as Prof. Rangachari of Madras Presidency College. Acharya himself was an admirer of Swami Vivekananda in his childhood.

Source: Wikipedia