Book on Ghadar Movement dwells on forgotten heroes

Ghadar Movement, India’s only known diaspora-led political rebellion movement, has had a significant ideological legacy in India’s nationalist movement. Lala Hardyal Singh, a Punjabi immigrant, along with others gave a call to “brave soldiers to stir up a rebellion’ in San Francisco against the British imperialism and launched a political movement with the name Ghadar Party, that became a catalyst for the freedom movement in India.

19-year-old Kartar Singh Sarabha, a Gadarite, was hanged and his death inspired another icon of the Independence, Shaheed Bhagat Singh. While the world knows some of the names that are etched in the annals of history, there are many who have since been forgotten. Remembering the ones who led from the front and sidelines of the Ghadar Movement, Majha House recently held an event centred on Rana Preet Gill’s latest book “The Ghadar Movement: A Forgotten Struggle”.

Part of the conversation was the author and scholar Prof Sukhdev Sohal, who said that the Ghadar Movement, though political in nature, was an equalizer in many senses. “Ghadar Party had peasants, immigrants, mostly the lesser educated class of India, rubbing shoulder with shoulder with highly qualified Indian leaders, including Vishnu Ganesh Pingley. It had many Dalit members, including Mangu Ram, who became one of the leading members of Ghadar Movement in Europe. Caste was irrelevant to Ghadarites,” said Sohal.

Rana, a veterinary officer, said something stirred inside her when she visited the Cellular Jail in the Andamans last year which compelled her to know about these men, whose names had been engraved on a pillar outside the jail. “Not many know about Pt Ram Rakha Bali or Mangu Ram or many others, who sowed the seed of nationalist movement while being away from home. It prompted me to write about them, but to do that I had know everything for myself.”

She spend most of her days later at Desh Bhagat Yaadgar Hall in Jalandhar. “The book brings to life the inspiring stories of men from my own Doaba region, especially Hoshiarpur, and other parts of Punjab and India.”

Prof Sohal said that the Ghadar Movement in the current context would always haunt us. “The ghost of Ghadar Movement will always haunt us, but to study it, we also need to study the Indian state. The ruling elite has always restricted this movement, whether in history or otherwise. But these men brought mass consciousness among the diaspora and people back home during the time of the British rule,” he said.

Amritsar