Ghadar Party | |
---|---|
President | Sohan Singh Bhakna |
Founded | 15 July 1913 |
Dissolved | January 1948 |
Ideology | Indian independence Indian nationalism Communism [1] |
Colours | Red, saffron, green |
The Ghadar Movement or Ghadar Party was an early 20th-century, international political movement founded by expatriate Indians to overthrow British rule in India. [2]
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, some Ghadar Party members returned to the Punjab to incite armed revolution for Indian independence. Ghadarites smuggled arms into India and incited Indian troops to mutiny against the British. This uprising, known as the Ghadar Mutiny, was unsuccessful, and 42 mutineers were executed following the Lahore Conspiracy Case trial. From 1914 to 1917, Ghadarites continued underground anti-colonial actions with the support of Germany and Ottoman Turkey, known as the Hindu–German Conspiracy, which led to a sensational trial in San Francisco in 1917.
Following the war's conclusion, the party in the United States fractured into a communist and an Indian socialist faction. The party was formally dissolved in 1948. [2] Key participants in the Ghadar Movement included K. B. Menon, Sohan Singh Bhakna, Mewa Singh Lopoke, Kesar Singh, Baba Jawala Singh, Balwant Singh, Santokh Singh, Bhai Parmanand, Vishnu Ganesh Pingle, Bhagwan Singh Gyanee, Har Dayal, Tarak Nath Das, Bhagat Singh Thind, Kartar Singh Sarabha, Udham Singh, Abdul Hafiz Mohamed Barakatullah, Rai Nawab Khan, Rashbehari Bose, and Gulab Kaur. Although its attempts at overthrowing the British Raj were unsuccessful, the insurrectionary ideals of the Ghadar Party influenced members of the Indian independence movement opposed to Gandhian nonviolence.
Ghadar is a Punjabi and Urdu word derived from Arabic which means "revolt" or "rebellion". [3] It is often also spelled Ghadr or Gadar in English. The movement's name was closely associated with its newspaper, the Hindustan Ghadar .
Between 1903 and 1913, approximately 10,000 South Asians emigres entered North America, mostly from the rural regions of central Punjab. [4] [5] About half the Punjabis had served in the British military. The Canadian government decided to curtail this influx with a series of laws, which were aimed at limiting the entry of South Asians into the country and restricting the political rights of those already in the country. [6] Many migrants came to work in the fields, factories, and logging camps of Northern California and the Pacific Northwest, where they were exposed to labor unions and the ideas of the radical Industrial Workers of the World or IWW. The migrants of the Pacific Northwest banded together in Sikh gurdwaras and formed political Hindustani Associations for mutual aid.
Nationalist sentiments were also building around the world among South Asian emigres and students, where they could organize more freely than in British India. Several dozen students came to study at the University of Berkeley, some spurred by a scholarship offered by a wealthy Punjabi farmer. Revolutionary intellectuals like Har Dayal and Taraknath Das attempted to organize students and educate them in anarchist and nationalist ideas.
Rash Behari Bose on request from Vishnu Ganesh Pingle, an American trained Ghadar, who met Bose at Benares and requested him to take up the leadership of the coming revolution. But before accepting the responsibility, he sent Sachin Sanyal to the Punjab to assess the situation. Sachin returned very optimistic, [2] [7] in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule. The movement began with a group of immigrants known as the Hindustani Workers of the Pacific Coast. [2]
The Ghadar Party, initially the Pacific Coast Hindustan Association, was formed on 15 July 1913 in the United States but before a decision to create headquarter at Yugantar Ashram in San Francisco was taken at a meeting in the town of Astoria in the US state of Oregon under the leadership of Har Dayal, Sant Baba Wasakha Singh Dadehar, Baba Jawala Singh, Santokh Singh, and Sohan Singh Bhakna [8] as its president. The members of the party were Indian immigrants, largely from the Punjab. [6] Many of its members were students at University of California at Berkeley including Dayal, Tarak Nath Das, Maulavi Barkatullah, Harnam Singh Tundilat, Kartar Singh Sarabha, and V. G. Pingle. The party quickly gained support from Indian expatriates, especially in the United States, Canada, East Africa, and Asia.
The party was built around the weekly paper The Ghadar, which carried the caption on the masthead: Angrezi Raj Ka Dushman (an enemy of the British rule). "Wanted brave soldiers", the Ghadar declared, "to stir up rebellion in India. Pay-death; Price-martyrdom; Pension-liberty; Field of battle-India". The ideology of the party was strongly secular. In the words of Sohan Singh Bhakna, who later became a major peasant leader of Punjab: "We were not Sikhs or Punjabis. Our religion was patriotism". The first issue of The Ghadar, was published in San Francisco on 1 November 1913.
As Kartar Singh Sarabha, one of the founders of the party, wrote in the first issue: "Today there begins 'Ghadar' in foreign lands, but in our country's tongue, a war against the British Raj. What is our name? Ghadar. What is our work? Ghadar. Where will be the Revolution? In India. The time will soon come when rifles and blood will take the place of pens and ink."
Following the voyage of the Komagata Maru in 1914, a direct challenge to Canadian anti-Indian immigration laws, several thousand Indians resident in the United States sold their business and homes ready to drive the British from India. However, Har Dayal had fled to Europe concerned that the US authorities would hand him over to the British. Sohan Singh Bhakna was already in British hands, and the leadership fell to Ram Chandra. Following the entry of Canada into World War I, the organisation was centred in the US and received substantial funding from the German government. They had a very militant tone, as illustrated by this quote from Harnam Singh:
The party rose to prominence in the second decade of the 20th century, and grew in strength owing to Indian discontent over World War I and the lack of political reforms.[ citation needed ]
In 1914, Kasi Ram Joshi a member of the party from Haryana, returned to India from America. On 15 March 1915, he was hanged by the colonial government. [9]
In 1917, some of their leaders were arrested and put on trial in the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial in which their paper was quoted.[ citation needed ]
The Ghadar Party commanded a loyal following the province of the Punjab, but many of its most prominent activists were forced into exile to Canada and the United States. It ceased to play an active role in Indian politics after.[ citation needed ]
Although publications about an independent Hindustan and revolutionary activities of the Ghadar Party against British rule continued from 5 Wood Street San Francisco, where the Ghadar Memorial has been built, Har Dayal (one among its founding members) severed all connections with revolutionists. He penned an open letter published in March 1919 by Indian newspapers and the New Statesman , and by wrote to the British government for obtaining amnesty for himself. [10]
The party had active members in other countries such as Mexico, Japan, China, Singapore, Siam, the Philippines, Malaya, Indochina, and East Africa and Southern Africa.
Majha is a region located in the central parts of the historical Punjab region, currently split between the republics of India and Pakistan. It extends north from the right banks of the river Beas, and reaches as far north as the river Jhelum. People of the Majha region are given the demonym "Mājhī" or "Majhail". Most inhabitants of the region speak the Majhi dialect, which is the basis of the standard register of the Punjabi language. The most populous city in the area is Lahore on the Pakistani side, and Amritsar on the Indian side of the border.
Kartar Singh Sarabha was an Indian revolutionary. He was 15-years old when he became a member of the Ghadar Party; he then became a leading luminary member and started fighting for the independence movement. He was one of the most active members of the movement. In November 1915 at Central Jail, Lahore, he was executed for his role in the movement. He was 19 years old.
Jandiala is a village of the Jalandhar district situated in the Indian state of Punjab, in India.
The Indian Workers' Association (IWA) is a political organisation in Great Britain which consists of Indian immigrants to Britain and their descendants. IWA branches are organised in some major cities such as Birmingham and London. As one of the oldest and most active groups of immigrants, the organisation has been working in the fields of politics, race relations, industrial relations and social welfare, as well as many cultural issues. At the forefront of the struggle within trade unions, it has campaigned tirelessly against racism and on civil liberties issues.
The Hindu–German Conspiracy(Note on the name) was a series of attempts between 1914 and 1917 by Indian nationalist groups to create a Pan-Indian rebellion against the British Empire during World War I. This rebellion was formulated between the Indian revolutionary underground and exiled or self-exiled nationalists in the United States. It also involved the Ghadar Party, and in Germany the Indian independence committee in the decade preceding the Great War. The conspiracy began at the start of the war, with extensive support from the German Foreign Office, the German consulate in San Francisco, and some support from Ottoman Turkey and the Irish republican movement. The most prominent plan attempted to foment unrest and trigger a Pan-Indian mutiny in the British Indian Army from Punjab to Singapore. It was to be executed in February 1915, and overthrow British rule in the Indian subcontinent. The February mutiny was ultimately thwarted when British intelligence infiltrated the Ghadarite movement and arrested key figures. Mutinies in smaller units and garrisons within India were also crushed.
A jathedar is a leader of high regard chosen to head and ensure discipline within a jatha, a troop of Sikhs.
The Ghadar Mutiny, also known as the Ghadar Conspiracy, was a plan to initiate a pan-India mutiny in the British Indian Army in February 1915 to end the British Raj in India. The plot originated at the onset of World War I, between the Ghadar Party in the United States, the Berlin Committee in Germany, the Indian revolutionary underground in British India and the German Foreign Office through the consulate in San Francisco. The incident derives its name from the North American Ghadar Party, whose members of the Punjabi community in Canada and the United States were among the most prominent participants in the plan. It was the most prominent amongst a number of plans of the much larger Hindu–German Mutiny, formulated between 1914 and 1917 to initiate a Pan-Indian rebellion against the British Raj during World War I. The mutiny was planned to start in the key state of Punjab, followed by mutinies in Bengal and rest of India. Indian units as far as Singapore were planned to participate in the rebellion. The plans were thwarted through a coordinated intelligence and police response. British intelligence infiltrated the Ghadarite movement in Canada and in India, and last-minute intelligence from a spy helped crush the planned uprising in Punjab before it started. Key figures were arrested, and mutinies in smaller units and garrisons within India were also crushed.
Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna was a Sikh revolutionary, the founding president of the Ghadar Party, and a leading member of the party involved in the Ghadar Conspiracy of 1915. Tried at the Lahore Conspiracy trial, Sohan Singh served sixteen years of a life sentence for his part in the conspiracy before he was released in 1930. He later worked closely with the Indian labour movement, devoting considerable time to the Kisan Sabha.
Vishnu Ganesh Pingle was an Indian revolutionary and a member of the Ghadar Party who was one of those executed in 1915 following the Lahore conspiracy trial for his role in the Ghadar conspiracy.
The Hindustan Ghadar was a weekly publication that was the party organ of the Ghadar Party. It was published under the auspices of the Yugantar Ashram in San Francisco. Its purpose was to further the militant nationalist faction of the Indian independence movement, especially amongst Indian sepoys of the British Indian Army.
Pandit Kanshi Ram was an Indian revolutionary who, along with Har Dayal and Sohan Singh Bhakna, was one of the three key members in founding the Ghadar Party. He served as the treasurer of the party from its foundation in 1913 to 1914. In 1914, Ram returned to India as a part of the Ghadar Mutiny, which attempted to trigger mutinies in the British Indian Army during World War I. He was arrested in the aftermath of the failed February plot and later tried in the Lahore conspiracy trial. Ram was charged, along with Kartar Singh Sarabha and Vishnu Ganesh Pingle, and executed on 27 March 1915.
The first Christmas Day plot was a conspiracy made by the Indian revolutionary movement in 1909: during the year-ending holidays, the Governor of Bengal organised a ball at his residence in the presence of the Viceroy, the Commander-in-Chief and all the high-ranking officers and officials of the Capital (Calcutta). The 10th Jat Regiment was in charge of the security. Followers of Jatindranath Mukherjee, its soldiers decided to blow up the ballroom and take advantage of destroying the colonial Government. In keeping with his predecessor Otto von Klemm, a friend of Lokmanya Tilak, on 6 February 1910, M. Arsenyev, the Russian Consul-General, wrote to St Petersburg that it had been intended to "arouse in the country a general perturbation of minds and, thereby, afford the revolutionaries an opportunity to take the power in their hands." According to R. C. Majumdar, "The police had suspected nothing and it is hard to say what the outcome would have been had the soldiers not been betrayed by one of their comrades who informed the authorities about the impending coup".
Harnam Singh Saini was a notable Indian revolutionary who participated in Ghadar Conspiracy and was hanged by British colonial government on 16 March 1917 in Lahore for instigating revolt against the empire. He was tried under third Lahore Conspiracy Case trial.
Waryam Singh Sandhu is an Indian author of short stories. In 2000, he was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for his short story collection Chauthi koot. Although he writes in Punjabi, his works have been translated into Hindi, Bengali, Urdu and English.
Munsha Singh Dukhi was an Indian national revolutionary and poet, who fought for the Independence of India from the British Empire. He belonged to the Ghadar Party. He was tried under third Lahore Conspiracy Case trial.
Ram Nath Puri was an Indian-American freedom fighter best known as the editor of Circular-i-Azadi, a publication critical of the British Raj, often linked to the early history of the Ghadar Party.
The Yugantar Ashram was the building in San Francisco, California, US that housed the headquarters of the Ghadar Party, the liberation movement of India during rule by Great Britain. First headquarters was at 436 Hill St, San Francisco, California. Ghadar Party operated from there from 1913 to 1917. It housed a printing machine which published Ghadar a newspaper from here. In 1917, headquarters of Ghadar Party were shifted to 5 Wood Street, San Francisco, which is the present site of Ghadar Memorial. The Ashram building with historical records was handed over to Government of India in 1949. On a move from the local community since 1952 to set up a memorial, the Government of India sanctioned US$83,000 for restoration of dilapidated building. Ground breaking for restoration work was done by Indian Minister of External Affairs, S. Swaran Singh in September 1974. Ghadar Memorial was inaugurated in 1975 by TN Kaul, Indian ambassador to US. A memorial establishing a historical museum and library has been built there.
Jagat Singh Binjal was a Ghadar party revolutionary born in Binjal village of Ludhiana.
There were not many Scheduled Caste persons in the Ghadar movement, however; Mangoo Ram recalls only one other Chamar besides himself.[ self-published source? ]