Harnam Singh Saini | |
---|---|
Born | Fategarh village, Hoshiarpur, Punjab |
Died | 16 March 1917 |
Organization | Ghadar Party |
Movement | Indian independence movement, Ghadar Conspiracy |
Harnam Singh Saini (died March 16, 1917) 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. [1] [2]
Harnam Singh Saini was the son of Gopal Saini. He was resident of village Fatehgarh in district Hoshiarpur. [3]
Harnam Singh visited Canada and USA which were the breeding ground of Ghadar Conspiracy. He became an active member of Ghadar Party and participated in sedition.
Harnam Singh Saini was arrested in Batavia, a Dutch colony. Nothing incriminating was found on his person or on the ship Maverick in which he was travelling. In spite of this the Dutch authorities of Batavia heeded to the British request and handed him over to the Singapore police. He was taken to Calcutta and then to Lahore. [1] [2]
He was tried under Third Conspiracy Case at Lahore. The tribunal of this case consisted of Ellis, Major Frizelle, and Rai Bahadur Gopal Das Bhandari. The trial was held in Lahore Central Jail. [2]
The trial began on 8 November 1916 and ended on 5 January 1917. Harnam Singh Saini along with four other Ghadar revolutionaries, namely, Bhai Balwant Singh of Khurdpur, Babu Ram of Fatehgarh, Hafiz Abdullah of Jagraon and Dr. Arur Singh of Sanghowal, was charged with waging war against King Emperor and sentenced to death. Three other co-accused, namely, Karar Singh Nawan Chand, Fazal Din of Fategarh and Munsha Singh Dukhi of Jandiala were given life imprisonment. [2] [3]
Saini, along with four of his other Ghadar Party comrades, was executed on 16 March 1917. [1] All of their properties were also confiscated. [2]
Bhagat Singh was a charismatic Indian revolutionary who participated in the mistaken murder of a junior British police officer in what was to be retaliation for the death of an Indian nationalist. He later took part in a largely symbolic bombing of the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi and a hunger strike in jail, which—on the back of sympathetic coverage in Indian-owned newspapers—turned him into a household name in the Punjab region, and after his execution at age 23 into a martyr and folk hero in Northern India. Borrowing ideas from Bolshevism and anarchism, he electrified a growing militancy in India in the 1930s, and prompted urgent introspection within the Indian National Congress's nonviolent but eventually successful campaign for India's independence.
The Ghadar Movement was an early 20th century, international political movement founded by expatriate Indians to overthrow British rule in India. The early movement was created by revolutionaries who lived and worked on the West Coast of the United States and Canada, but the movement later spread to India and Indian diasporic communities around the world. The official founding has been dated to a meeting on 15 July 1913 in Astoria, Oregon, with the Ghadar headquarters and Hindustan Ghadar newspaper based in San Francisco, California.
Hoshiarpur is a city and a municipal corporation in Hoshiarpur district in the Doaba region of the Indian state of Punjab. It was founded, according to tradition, during the early part of the fourteenth century. In 1809, it was occupied by the forces of Maharaja Karanvir Singh and was united into the greater state of Punjab in 1849.
Hoshiarpur district is a district of Punjab state in northern India. Hoshiarpur, one of the oldest districts of Punjab, is located in the North-east part of the Punjab state and shares common boundaries with Gurdaspur district in the north-west, Jalandhar district and Kapurthala district in south-west, Kangra district and Una district of Himachal Pradesh in the north-east. Hoshiarpur district comprises 4 sub-divisions, 10 community development blocks, 9 urban local bodies and 1417 villages. The district has an area of 3365 km2. and a population of 1,586,625 persons as per census 2011.
The Revolutionary movement for Indian Independence was part of the Indian independence movement comprising the actions of violent underground revolutionary factions. Groups believing in armed revolution against the ruling British fall into this category, as opposed to the generally peaceful civil disobedience movement spearheaded by Mahatma Gandhi.
Kartar Singh Sarabha was an Indian revolutionary. He was 15-years old when he became a member of 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 when he was 19 years old.
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.
The Ghadar Mutiny (Hindustani: ग़दर राज्य-क्रान्ति, Ġadar Rājya-krānti, Ġadar Baġāvat), 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.
1915 Lahore Conspiracy Case trial or First Lahore Conspiracy Case, was a series of trials held in Lahore, and in the United States, in the aftermath of the failed Ghadar conspiracy from 26 April to 13 September 1915. There were nine cases in total. The trial was held by a Special tribunal constituted under the Defence of India Act 1915.
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.
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 at his residence a ball 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. Indoctrinated by 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 Lokamanya 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".
British counter-intelligence against the Indian revolutionary movement during World War I began from its initial roots in the late-19th century and ultimately came to span in extent from Asia through Europe to the West Coast of the United States and Canada. It was effective in thwarting a number of attempts for insurrection in British India during World War I and ultimately in controlling the Indian revolutionary movement both at home and abroad.
Bhai Balmukund was an Indian revolutionary freedom fighter. He was sentenced to death and hanged by the British Raj for his role in Delhi conspiracy case. He was a cousin of another revolutionary Bhai Parmanand, who was a founder member of Ghadar Party.
Pandit Kishori Lal was a communist Indian revolutionary from Punjab who worked with Sukhdev Thapar and the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA).
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.
Prithvi Singh Azad (1892–1989) was an Indian independence activist, socialist revolutionary and one of the founder members of Ghadar Party. He suffered incarceration several times during the pre-independence period, including a term in the Cellular Jail. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1977, for his contributions to society.
Hans Raj Vohra was an approver for British in HSRA, providing testimony for the British that identified his associates in return for his own freedom. In May 1930, his statement against Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar and Shivaram Rajguru, in the Lahore Conspiracy Case trial, became "crucial" in leading to passing of their death sentence as a result of which Singh, Thapar and Rajguru became heroes of the Indian independence movement.
Communists were actively involved in Indian independence movement through multiple series of protests, strikes and other activities. It was a part of revolutionary movement for Indian independence. Their main thrust was on organising peasants and working classes across India against the British and Indian capitalists and landlords.