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M. Madhavan (1914-1942) was an Indian student from Mahe (Malabar region) who was executed in 1942 for being a member of the French Resistance

Born into a middle class family on 7 July 1914 in Mahe, a former French colony off the Malabar Coast, Madhavan completed his matriculation from a French school in Mahe, before proceeding to do his Bachelors in Pondicherry. Coming from a middle class family, Madhavan was first actively involved in the local politics of Mahe.

A turning point in Madhavan’s life came in 1934 when Mahatma Gandhi visited the French colony of Mahe. He had arrived there on a mission to uplift the Dalit community. His trip led to the creation of the Youth League in French Indian territories and set the scene for their own freedom struggle. Madhavan joined the Youth League in Mahe before moving to Pondicherry for higher studies. Here he joined the Harijan Sevak Sangh, an organisation Mahatma Gandhi had founded to help members of lower castes access education and temples.

A common practice in French colonies across the world back then was that the brightest students in universities were invited to study at the prestigious Sorbonne University in Paris. Madhavan enrolled at the Sorbonne University in 1937 at age 23, a few years before Nazi Germany invaded and occupied of France. From 1937 to 1942, He studied mathematics. He lived in the Cité Universitaire, a hotel for students at Rue Émile-Deutsch-de-la-Meurthe in the 14th arrondissement. There, before 1940, he spent many nights walking around Paris with Varadarajulu Subbiah, who went on to become secretary of the Communist Party of French India. It is believed that Subbiah was the one who turned Madhavan into a communist.

In June 1940, France surrendered to Hitler's troops and the country was divided into two zones, the German occupation zone in the North and Vichy France (ruled by a French collaborationist government). Paris was in the North and under German control. The Gestapo (Nazi secret police) spared none and any form of resistance was punishable by death or deportation.

Madhavan joined the French communist party in Autumn 1940 and the French Resistance in spring 1941 where he helped to distribute anti-Nazi leaflets and organize a Resistance cell in Lycee Buffon. He was reported by a local collaborator and arrested by French police on March 9, 1942.

Madhavan was, from April 1942 onwards, tortured and interrogated by the Gestapo and in August 1942, he was moved to Fort Romainville, a notorious prison run by the SS. In September 1942, the French Resistance carried out a bomb attack on Rex cinema hall in Paris which resulted in the death of two High ranking SS officers. As a retaliation for this attack, Heinrich Himmler, chief of the SS, ordered that 116 captured members of the French resistance to be executed including the 46 prisoners held in Fort Romainville. And that included Madhavan.

On September 21, 1942, Madhavan and 3 other French resistance members were tied to a pole and blindfolded. As for their final words, they sang the French national anthem and were shot by an SS firing squad in the compound of Fort Romainville. He was only 28 years old when he died.

Gisele Mollet (1920-1943), Madhavan's French girlfriend, was also arrested in a roundup in April 1942, convicted and deported to Auschwitz in Poland where she died of exhaustion due to slave labour in August 1943.

Madhavan's name is engraved in the monument dedicated to the fallen French Resistance members at Fort Romainville, Paris.

Sources -

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kochi/september-21-1942/articleshow/86500147.cms

https://thebetterindia.com/262757/michilotte-madhavan-mahe-executed-nazi-germany-france-world-war2-forgotten-hero/

http://www.memoirevive.org/gisele-mollet-31677/

References

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