“56 years have passed since the Ghadar of 1857, now there is
urgent need of the second one…” -- Ghadar, 1 November, 1913
Above lines were published in the first issue of the Ghadar
newspaper of the November 1913. April 2013 marks the birth centenary of the
Hindustan Ghadar party, which was formed by the
Ghadar means “rebellion” or “revolt”. The
movement did not emerge out of any romanticism or anarchism but it was an organized
political movement. The seed of its birth were sown in 1907 with a leaflet
“Circular-e-Azadi” and a magazine named “Free Hindustan” published by Taraknath
Das in 1908. In the beginning of 1912, there was a large gathering in Portland
where a party named ‘Hindi Association of Pacific Coast’ was unanimously
formed with Sohan Singh Bhakna as its President
and Lala Hardyal as its General Secretary. Lala Hardyal was also the editor
of the “Ghadar” newspaper. This movement has some popular leaders to its name for
instance Gulab Kaur, Bhai Balwant Singh Khurdpur, Harnam Singh Sahri, Taraknath
Das, Bhai Jawala Singh, Pandit Kanshi Ram, Bhai Bhagwan Singh, Ram Chandra,
Maulavi Muhammad Barqtullah, Hussain Raheem, Kartar Singh Sarabha etc. The
Ghadar movement tried to organise the Indians living in different cities of
America and Canada to unite for Indian independence.
Ideology of the Ghadar movement: Under
the able leadership of Lala Hardyal, the party started publishing the newspaper
‘Ghadar’ from November 1, 1913 to organize Indians. This played a significant
role in popularizing the movement.
Initially, the newspaper was published in Urdu. Subsequently, it started
publishing in Punjabi, Bengali, Hindi, Gujarati, and Nepali. The first issue
contained the fourteen points describing how the British rule is responsible
for the terrible condition of the Indians. From the beginning, there was
consensus on this view that independence cannot be gained through appeals or
petitions but only through an armed rebellion on a large scale by mobilizing
people to get rid of the imperialist leeches. They were clear that the
Indians should accept nothing less than ‘complete independence’. They gave
the slogan to end the British rule completely. They put forth the concept
of true and genuine nationalism and also implemented it. The leaders of Indian
National Congress, according to them, instead of fighting for ‘Inqlab’ but were
ready to make small compromises and were only limited to reforms.
Despite of the fact that the majority
of its members were of Punjabi origin, the biggest achievement of the Ghadar
movement was to aim for the freedom of the all Indian people. As the
movement was influenced by the worldwide national liberation struggles, it went
beyond the issues of religion, caste, race, and regionalism to include Punjabi,
Bengalis, Tamils and Marathi revolutionaries at the same time. According to its
constitution, religion was considered a private affair and anyone, who believes
in caste or untouchability, cannot be a member of Ghadar party.
As the British government was fighting
to sustain during the world war in 1914, the Ghadarites took it as an
opportunity to rebel against them with the help of the Indian army. Nearly 8000
Ghadarites reached India in 1916 to organize a revolt. However, the British
government issued an ordinance to crush the returning Ghadarites and other
revolutionaries. This maintained that the government could arrest any person
coming from outside even if he/she is an Indian citizen. The passengers of Komagata
maru became the first victims of this ordinance. The ship had 356 passengers
who were not allowed to land in Canada. Most of the passengers were arrested on
their return to India and more than 40 were killed in firing at Calcutta.
However, nearly 2000 Ghadarites escaped arrest. Kartar Singh Sarabha was one
among them. Later on, they organized the
rest of the Ghadarites and contacted other Indian revolutionaries to make arrangements
for revolt. They started making detachments in the British Indian army to
organize revolt. Contrary to the first plan, the date was changed to 19th
February as the British government came to know the earlier plans. However, the
second date was also leaked by informer Kirpal Singh. The British disarmed the
affected regiments and the troops favouring the Ghadarites faced court martial.
British government severely crushed and thwarted the movement. Hundreds of
Ghadarites were hanged while many more were put into prisons.
Even when the movement was thwarted,
they were still determined and proceeded ahead after analyzing the situation.
The Russian revolution of 1917 made a huge impact on them where the Communist Party
established the State of workers after ending the Czarist dictatorship. Many
Indians were sent to Russia to get ideological and military training from
there. After their return, the Ghadar party started a newspaper “Kirti” whose slogan
was: Workers of the World, Unite. This leaflet chose the path of
continuous struggle against the British government with the aim to unite the
labourers and peasants. It exposed the policies of the government and supported
all the people who were struggling on different fronts.
Relevance of Ghadar today:
The saga of Ghadar is essentially a story to relate the national liberation
with equality, justice and emancipation from exploitation and oppression. Today,
when the unemployment and inflation has crossed all barriers, when the economic
condition of the people is constantly deteriorating and youth in huge numbers
is moving abroad in search of employment opportunities, peasantry committing
suicides under the burden of debt, for the workers the matter of bread and
butter is the sole question and the question of education and health facilities
is not even in the frame and the government is exploiting the people in the
same manner as the British did, it is paramount to remember and learn from the
Ghadar legacy. Even after 100 years, the Ghadar movement is a source of
inspiration for all the Indians who want to change society in favour of the
masses. The dream of Ghadarites is still incomplete. Today when the natural
resources of the country are being sold to the foreign and Indian corporate
sectors under the name of liberalization, privatization, and globalization, the
relevance of the Ghadar becomes even more pronounced.
The Ghadar movement was not limited to liberate
the country from the clutches of British imperialism instead the Ghadar martyrs
struggled for such a society in which people will not be divided on the lines
of religion, caste, race or color. They gave the message of equality and wanted
end of exploitation in society. Even today when Casteism one of the base of
exploitation and oppression and the political parties are dividing people on
issues of religion and caste. Today, such a reactionary politics is branded as
nationalism which under the name of ‘development’ is selling away the natural
resources and the laboring power of Indian masses. On the other hand, any voice
that is raised against State oppression is stamped as anti-national. It is
clear that the present reality is drastically different from what the Ghadar
martyrs dreamt of. In such a scenario, Ghadar again connects us to the real
essence of nationalism that lies in struggling for the rights of the exploited
and oppressed. Instead of only emotionally reciting about bravery, martyrdom,
and sacrifice of Ghadarites we should understand their dreams, thoughts and ideology
of those patriots. The struggles of Adivasis for their life, or the struggle of
the peasants deep under debt, or the unemployed struggling for jobs or the
workers struggling for their basic rights are just the personification of the
same struggle. The saga of the Ghadar needs to be repeated till it reaches its
mission. Till then the Ghadar continues…..