Small beginnings often lead to surprising outcomes. At the university, I teach a Contemporary English course to Honours students from the social sciences. The collection I teach from features an extract from a semi-autobiographical novel by Agnes Smedley called Daughter of Earth (published 1929). As part of my preparation, I began to read around Smedley, for I knew little of her. That small beginning led to revelations that are stunning because of the remarkable life the writer-journalist-revolutionary led on the one hand, and on the other, her deep connection with Indians and the cause of India’s independence from British rule.
Born in 1892, Smedley grew up in Colorado, a coalminer’s daughter. She taught as a country school teacher and later took a business school diploma to work as a travelling salesperson. She recovered from stress at a sanatorium and later enrolled at Tempe Normal School, where she began writing for students’ newspapers; while there she also befriended students who introduced her to communism. She married and divorced and moved to New York where she was involved in feminist issues, including her advocacy for birth control pills.
It is at this stage of her life, around the time of WWI, when various revolutionary leaders from India were busy trying to organise resistance activities in the US. Smedley came in contact with lala lajpat Rai (the leader from the Punjab was in the US through the course of the WW, and returned to India in 1919). She also came in contact with many Bengali Indian revolutionaries then located in the US. This was the time when revolutionaries from Bengal and the Punjab were joining hands. In any case these were pre-Gandhi days when lal-Bal-Pal were the major force against British rule (lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal).
Smedley became close, about this time, with MN Roy (the exceptional thinker and political theorist who spoke of ‘radical humanism’ — Jaipal Reddy apparently is an ardent follower of Roy, ie, he’s a Royist). Roy was tried later by the British for being an ‘ultra’ (which indeed he was not). But his dynamic writings and attractive mind drew Smedley to the Indian cause. She also met Sailendranath Ghose and became the node for the exchange of clandestine messages between Indian revolutionaries then in the United States. She also came to know Bhai Bhagwan Singh and Taraknath Das, and was involved with activities of the Gadar Party, a revolutionary group of activists comprising mainly of workers from south Asia working around the Pacific Coast. Her involvement in the Hindu-German conspiracy led to she being tailed by the British secret service. Playing true to her under cover and revolutionary role, she would often change homes to prevent detection and interference with her mail. Documentary evidence is sparse, but clearly she shared the romanticism and revolutionary zeal of many patriotic Indians who in those early days tried to mount a credible resistance to British rule.
Years later, when she wrote Daughter of Earth while in Germany, aspects of her years of revolutionary participation with the Indian cause featured in her story, with the character modelled on herself actually marrying an Indian. This particular motif she might have borrowed from her special relationship with one of the many revolutionaries she was closely associated with. later, she became involved with communist, Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, and moved to Germany with him. She spent several years there, involved with left-wing causes. She opened Berlin’s first birth control clinic. Somewhere along the way her interest shifted from the Indian freedom cause to China and Mao’s revolutionary efforts. She donned fatigues and moved with the revolutionary army. Here she wrote her Portraits of Chinese Women in Revolution. She later became involved with a Soviet spy and worked, it is believed, against American interests, which included a stint in Japan.
The jury is still out on who really Agnes Smedley was. But it is clear that for the longest period she was a deep sympathiser and activist for the Indian national cause. She was hounded out of the US and died in the UK post complications for ulcer surgery. The closest one can come to knowing more about Smedley is through Ruth Price’s investigative enquiry — The lives of Agnes Smedley. Clearly, Smedley’s archives promise a rich harvest for researchers.