Ghadar Movement

{{Short description|Indian anti-colonial activist organisation (1913–1948)}}

{{Infobox political party

| name = Ghadar Party

| colorcode = #CC0000

| logo = Ghadar Flag.png

| logo_size = 150px

| founded = {{start date and age|1913|07|15|df=yes}}

| dissolved = {{end date and age|1948|01}}

| president = Sohan Singh Bhakna

| ideology = Indian independence
Indian nationalism

| country = India

| predecessor =

| colours = Red, saffron, green

}}

The Ghadar Movement or Ghadar Party was an early 20th-century, international political movement founded by expatriate Panjabi s to overthrow British rule in India.{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/232350/Ghadr|title=Ghadr (Sikh political organization)|publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=18 September 2010|archive-date=10 November 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101110212806/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/232350/Ghadr|url-status=live}} Many of the Ghadar Party founders and leaders, including Sohan Singh Bhakna, went on and join the Babbar Akali Movement and helped it in logistics as a party and publishing its own newspaper in the post-World War I era.{{Cite book |last=Singh |first=Satindra |title=Ghadar, 1915, India's First Armed Revolution |publisher=R & K Publishing House |year=1966 |edition=3rd |pages=133–135}} The early movement was created by revolutionaries who lived and worked on the West Coast of the United States and Canada, and 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,{{cite journal |last1=Ogden |first1=Joanna |title=Ghadar, Historical Silences, and Notions of Belonging: Early 1900s Punjabis of the Columbia River |journal=Oregon Historical Quarterly |date=Summer 2012 |volume=113 |issue=2 |pages=164–197 |doi=10.5403/oregonhistq.113.2.0164 |jstor=10.5403/oregonhistq.113.2.0164 |s2cid=164468099 }} and the group splintered into two factions the first time in 1914, with the Sikh-majority faction known as the “Azad Punjab Ghadar” and the Hindu-majority faction known as the “Hindustan Ghadar.”{{Cite book |last=Singh |first=Gurdev |title=The Role of the Ghadar Party in the National Movement |publisher=University of California |year=1969 |isbn=9780842612340 |edition=3rd |pages=72–77}} The Azad Punjab Ghadar Party’s headquarters and anti-colonial newspaper publications headquarters remained in the Stockton Gurdwara in Stockton, California, and the Hindustan Ghadar Party’s headquarters and Hindustan Ghadar newspaper relocated to nearby Oakland, California.

During World War I in 1914, the Ghadar Movement, a group of Indian revolutionaries, allied with Germany, finding common ground in their opposition to British imperial rule in India. 1 Germany strategically considered these revolutionaries vital allies against the British Empire. Their collaborative goal was to destabilize British control through a multifaceted strategy, encompassing a synchronized effort to invade British India via Afghanistan, provide resources to bolster the Indian independence movement, and disseminate propaganda to incite mutiny within the British Indian Army.[https://theprint.in/pageturner/ghadar-movement-german-ambition-invading-india-kashmir-key/2608445/?utm_source=TPWeb&utm_medium=Telegram&utm_campaign=TappChannel When Ghadarites supported German ambition of invading India. Kashmir was key to their plan], The Print, 30 April 2025. Consequently, some Ghadar party members returned to Punjab to instigate an armed revolution for Indian Independence. The Ghadar Mutiny, as this uprising became known, involved Ghadarites smuggling arms into India and encouraging Indian troops to revolt against the British. This attempt was ultimately unsuccessful, leading to the execution of 42 mutineers after the Lahore Conspiracy Case trial. Undeterred, Ghadarites continued underground anti-colonial actions from 1914 to 1917 with support from Germany and Ottoman Turkey, a period known as the Hindu–German Conspiracy, which culminated in 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. Key participants in the Ghadar Movement included K. B. Menon, Sohan Singh Bhakna, Mewa Singh Lopoke, 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, Rashbehari Bose, Ishar Singh Gill and Gulab Kaur. The insurrectionary ideals of the Ghadar Party influenced members of the Indian Independence Movement opposed to Gandhian nonviolence. To carry out other revolutionary activities, "Swadesh Sevak Home" at Vancouver and United India House at Seattle was set-up.{{Cite web |last=Aspirant |first=Civil |date=2020-07-04 |title=203. Tarak Nath Das- Founder of Swadesh Sevak Home |url=https://civilaspirant.in/tarak-nath-das/ |access-date=2022-07-05 |website=Civil Aspirant |language=en-US |archive-date=18 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220518090138/https://civilaspirant.in/tarak-nath-das/ |url-status=live }}

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.[http://haryanasamvad.gov.in/store/document/11%2012%201%20HARYANA%20SAMVAD%20NOV-%20JAN%202017-2018%20FOR%20for%20web.pdf Haryana Samvad] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180827125256/http://haryanasamvad.gov.in/store/document/11%2012%201%20HARYANA%20SAMVAD%20NOV-%20JAN%202017-2018%20FOR%20for%20web.pdf |date=2018-08-27 }}, Jan 2018. Founding member Har Dayal severed all connections in an open letter published in March 1919 in Indian newspapers and wrote to the British Government asking for amnesty.{{Cite book|title=Har Dayal:Hindu Revolutionary and Rationalist|last=Brown|first=Emily C|publisher=Arizona University Press|year=1975|pages=222}}

Background

File:Ghadr_Party_heroes_poster,1916.jpg

File:Ghadar di gunj.jpg, an early Ghadarite compilation of nationalist and socialist literature, was banned in India in 1913.]]

Between 1903 and 1913 approximately 10,000 South Asians emigres entered North America, mostly from the rural regions of central Punjab.{{cite book |last1=Puri |first1=Harish K. |title=Ghadar Movement: ideology, organisation, and strategy |date=1993 |publisher=Guru Nanak Dev University |location=Amritsar |pages=17–18 |edition=2nd |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015037866715&view=1up&seq=10 |access-date=14 May 2020 |archive-date=27 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210727170204/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015037866715&view=1up&seq=10 |url-status=live }}{{sfn|Ramnath|2011|p=17}} 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.{{Harvnb|Strachan|2001|p=795}} 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.

RasBihari 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,{{cite web|url=https://www.hindujagruti.org/articles/90.html|title=Rash Behari Bose : The Greatest Indian Revolutionary|website=Hindu Janajagruti Samiti|date=6 July 2017 |access-date=17 April 2019|archive-date=10 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210210202203/https://www.hindujagruti.org/articles/90.html|url-status=live}} 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.

[The Ghadar Party, initially the Pacific Coast Hindustan Association, was formed on 15 July 1913 in the United States.{{Cite web|url=https://portlandtribune.com/pt/9-news/194913-oregon-marks-ties-with-india-revolutionaries|title=Oregon marks ties with India revolutionaries|last=Law|first=Steve|date=19 September 2013|work=Portland Tribune|language=en-us|access-date=2019-03-29|archive-date=29 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190329172350/https://portlandtribune.com/pt/9-news/194913-oregon-marks-ties-with-india-revolutionaries|url-status=dead}} as its president. The members of the party were Indian immigrants, largely from Punjab. Many of its Members who were students at University of California at Berkeley included Dayal, Tarak Nath Das, Maulavi Barkatullah, Kartar Singh Sarabha and V.G. Pingle.

Newspaper

File:Hindustan Ghadar article detailing arrest of Lala Hardayal (March 24, 1914).jpg

File:The Independent Hindustan Volume I Number 4.djvu

The party's weekly paper was The Ghadar.

Notable founding members

Sohan Singh Bhakna (President)
Bhagwan Singh Gyanee (President, 1914)
Kartar Singh Sarabha (Editor, Punjabi Gadar)
Pt. Kanshi Ram (Treasurer)
Lala Hardayal (General Secretary & Editor, Urdu Gadar)
Udham Singh
Bhai Parmanand
Tarak Nath Das
V. G. Pingle
Mangu Ram Mugowalia{{cite web | title=Manguram Muggowal, a former Ghadar Party member, later joined the Dalit [the proper term for so-called untouchables] emancipation movement. | website=Georgia Straight Vancouver's News & Entertainment Weekly | date=26 July 2013 | url=https://www.straight.com/news/404576/gurpreet-singh-bujha-singhs-sacrifice-proves-ghadar-struggle-didnt-end-indian-independence | access-date=7 October 2015 | archive-date=4 March 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304122044/http://www.straight.com/news/404576/gurpreet-singh-bujha-singhs-sacrifice-proves-ghadar-struggle-didnt-end-indian-independence | url-status=live }}{{cite web |title=REMARKABLE MISSION OF BABU MANGOO RAM MUGOWALIA |url=http://www.ambedkartimes.com/babu_manguram.htm |website=www.ambedkartimes.com |quote=There were not many Scheduled Caste persons in the Ghadar movement, however; Mangoo Ram recalls only one other Chamar besides himself. |access-date=24 July 2014 |archive-date=22 August 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140822031337/http://ambedkartimes.com/babu_manguram.htm |url-status=live }}{{self-published inline|date=November 2023}}
Amir Chand
Maulavi Barkatullah
Harnam Singh Saini
Pandurang Sadashiv Khankhoje
Ganda Singh Phangureh
Karim Bux
Baba Prithvi Singh Azad
Gulab Kaur
Pt. Ram Rakha
Sohanlal Pathak

References

= Citations =

= General and cited references =

{{cite book |last1=Ramnath |first1=Maia |title=Haj to Utopia: How the Ghadar Movement Charted Global Radicalism and Attempted to Overthrow the British Empire |date=2011 |publisher=University of California Press |id={{Project MUSE|26045|type=book}} |isbn=978-0-520-95039-9 }}
{{Cite book |last=Strachan |first=Hew |year=2001 |title=The First World War |volume=I: To Arms |publisher=Oxford University Press USA |isbn= 0-19-926191-1}}

External links

[http://www.centralsikhmuseum.com/gallery/gadar-party/ A Gallery on Gadar Party]
[http://www.saadigitalarchive.org/collection/gadar-party Ghadar Party materials in the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)]
[http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape17/PQDD_0001/MQ36004.pdf Ghadar: The Indian Immigrant Outrage Against Canadian Injustices 1900–1918] by Sukhdeep Bhoi
[http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/SSEAL/SouthAsia/gadarcol.html The Hindustan Ghadar Collection]. The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
[http://www.cgpi.org Communist Ghadar Party of India]