India and China rightfully celebrate the legacy of Dr. Dwarkanath Kotnis, an Indian physician who selflessly served as a volunteer in mobile clinics to treat wounded Chinese soldiers for five years until his death at the age of 32 in 1942. Kotnis was part of the five-member Indian Medical Mission sent by the Indian National Congress, after General Zhu De made a personal request to Jawaharlal Nehru.
The person leading this humanitarian mission was Dr. Madan Mohan Lal Atal, who was attracted to left-wing ideology from his days as a medical student in Edinburgh, Scotland. An anti-colonialist and staunch believer in the right of self-determination of peoples, Atal got involved in causes that were well beyond the borders of British India.
In 1937 he joined the Spanish Medical Aid Committee, a British organisation that supported the Republicans in the war against the nationalist General Franco regime.
“The Red Cross work is more absorbing when it is in connection with a struggle,” Atal was quoted as saying in the Amrita Bazar Patrika newspaper. “It also lends encouragement to feel that it is for a people who one considers are fighting and fighting under severe hardships for the idea held of freedom.”
A year later when the Indian National Congress decided to send a medical mission to China, which was then fighting off a brutal invasion by Imperial Japan. Atal was asked to return to India from Spain and lead the mission. While returning to Bombay, he specifically brought medical equipment and supplies for China.
For the mission, India sent five doctors, equipment and medicines. An ambulance and truck were also ordered from the US for the mission.
The group went to China by ship and arrived in Hong Kong before going to Guangzhou and travelling overland. The Chinese National Red Cross Society facilitated their movement in the war-ravaged country.
Once they reached Hankow (now a part of Wuhan), they were incorporated into the Curative Unit No. 15 of the Chinese Red Cross.
Atal who was 50 years-old at that time was well aware of the personal risk involved in the mission. “How long we stay in China depends on the accuracy of Japanese aviators,” he told international correspondents in October 1938. “I interviewed [Mahatma] Gandhi before I left India. I told him we would stay until the end of the war, and if we were slaughtered by the Japanese, another unit would take our place.”
An article in the Malaya Tribune described Atal as “grey-haired and bitter regarding the horrors of the hostilities” of the Japanese attacks.
“I saw a horrible sight in the village of Yoyang, between Changsha and Hankow, which was bombed two hours before our arrival,” he said. “Rows of houses had been flattened to the ground, and I saw people extricating dead women from the debris.”
Solidarity with China
Atal said that the cause of the Chinese people resonated with Indians who were fighting for their own freedom from British rule at that time. “The funds for the unit here were raised by all classes in sympathy with China’s just cause; this is apparent on all sides,” he said.
Over 700 people applied to join the mission in China when a special committee called for volunteers. These included over 100 doctors, including two women. The applications came from all across the Indian subcontinent, Mauritius, East Africa, Syria and England. Finally four doctors were chosen to accompany Atal, based on what the news agency United Press International said was “the fact of the experience they had, their preparedness to meet death and capacity to carry on work under adverse circumstances.”
The committee managed to raise 35,000 Indian rupees, which is equivalent to $230,000 in today’s money.
As the head of the mission, Atal worked in China for 21 months under the most challenging of circumstances. He returned to India in 1940, by which time his affection for the people of China and respect for the spirit of the Chinese resistance against Imperial Japan had grown even stronger.
Atal addressed the local press when he arrived in Hong Kong in August 1940. “From all accounts the Chinese soldiers are fighting well,” he told reporters. “If China continues to resist, I think she will emerge victorious, provided of course Chinese leaders remain united.” Atal added that there was a great deal of unity at that time and he only made that statement as a reminder to the leaders who had put aside their conflicting ideologies in a bid to free the country.
“We used mostly the medical supplies we brought from India,” he said. “Our main difficulty was shortage of them, and we had to look for continued support from the Chinese Red Cross.”
In his hospital in Yan’an in the Shaanxi province, Atal met the leaders of the Eighth Route Army (which later became the People’s Liberation Army). While speaking to the Hong Kong press, the Indian surgeon said rumours of Mao Zedong’s death were absolutely unfounded and that he was “hale and hearty.” Atal said Zhou Enlai had a broken arm and he had suggested that the leader seek treatment in Russia.
“What impressed me most in north Shensi (Shaanxi) was the stress laid on educational and cultural pursuits,” he told reporters in Hong Kong. “The people were encouraged to study and lectures were frequently given. The morale of the people is high.”
A wired press report with a Hong Kong dateline said Atal looked “more haggard and thin than when he first arrived” in the city in 1938.
The Indian doctor also spoke of international solidarity in China. “I received able support from my Chinese colleagues, many of whom are able surgeons trained in China,” he said. “I also met a Czech doctor named Kisch from Prague and a German named Dr. Hans Muller who did splendid work among the war wounded.”
Atal returned to India in 1940 and Atal took part in the country’s independence movement. He was even imprisoned by the British along with other freedom fighters.
In 1947, India attained independence from the British Empire. Two years later, the People’s Republic of China was established.
On April 1, 1950, India became the first non-Socialist bloc country to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. A year later, Atal would return to China to attend a meeting of the Standing Committee of the World Peace Council.
The Indian surgeon would make one last visit to his beloved China in 1957. In September of that year, the surviving members of the Indian Medical Mission were invited to participate in China’s National Day celebrations. Almost immediately after his arrival, Atal started feeling unwell and was hospitalised.
He was diagnosed with advanced-stage cirrhosis. While he was in hospital, many of his friends and former colleagues visited him. Among the visitors was Premier Zhou Enlai. On December 1, after battling illness for two months, the Indian doctor passed away.
Such was his love for China that Atal, in his dying days, wrote in his will that he wanted his half his ashes immersed in the Yellow River, according to the Study Times, the official newspaper of the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China.
Atal was cremated in Beijing, and half his ashes were transported to India, where they were immersed at Sangam, the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati in Allahabad. The other half was immersed in the Yellow River by Li Deqi, a close doctor friend of his.
“We will never forget the noble and precious support shown to the Chinese people by the great Indian people and their outstanding son, Dr. Atal,” Zhou Enlai said at the memorial service in Beijing.
A monument was erected in Atal’s honour at the China Martyrs’ Cemetery in Shijiazhuang in the Hebei province.
The Indian doctor’s contribution to the liberation of China from an expansionist and imperialist force showed that true humanitarianism transcends national boundaries.
Ajay Kamalakaran is a writer and journalist, primarily based in Mumbai. His main areas of interest are Russia, the former Soviet republics and China.
(Disclaimer: The views don't necessarily represent those of FPJ.)
