Trace the origin of the Ghadar movement and discuss its impact on the revolutionaries in India.

Answer:

The Ghadar movement was founded in 1913 among Indian emigrants on the Pacific coast of North America. Born of racial humiliation abroad and patriotic feeling at home, it planned an armed rising in India and left a lasting mark on the revolutionary tradition.

Origins abroad

• Punjabi emigrants, mainly Sikh farmers and labourers, faced discrimination in Canada and the United States.
• Immigration restrictions and the Komagata Maru incident of 1914 deepened their anger.
• The Ghadar Party was founded at Astoria in 1913, with Sohan Singh Bhakna as president.
• Lala Har Dayal became its principal ideologue and propagandist.
• The weekly Ghadar, published in Urdu, Punjabi and other languages, spread the message.

Ideology and plan

• It was secular, egalitarian and republican, uniting Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims.
• It rejected constitutional methods entirely in favour of armed revolt.
• The outbreak of war in 1914 was seen as Britain's difficulty and India's opportunity.
• Thousands returned to India intending to subvert the army and raise a rebellion.
• The rising planned for February 1915 was betrayed and suppressed.

Suppression and immediate outcome

• The Defence of India Act of 1915 was passed to deal with the returning revolutionaries.
• Lahore Conspiracy Case trials led to executions, including that of Kartar Singh Sarabha.
• Kartar Singh Sarabha, hanged at nineteen, became a lasting symbol of sacrifice.

Impact on Indian revolutionaries

• Bhagat Singh regarded Sarabha as his hero and kept his photograph.
• Its secular and socialist outlook shaped the later HSRA.
• The Babbar Akali movement in Punjab drew directly on Ghadar traditions.
• Surviving Ghadarites helped found the Kirti Kisan Party and the communist movement in Punjab.
• It established the tradition of seeking foreign support during Britain's wars, later followed by Bose.

Assessment of its failure

• Planning was open and infiltrated by British intelligence from the outset.
• It overestimated the readiness of Indian troops to mutiny.
• It lacked organisation within India and any established leadership there.
• Its ideals nonetheless outlived its military failure.

The Ghadar movement thus failed in its immediate object but succeeded in bequeathing a tradition. As historians of Indian revolutionary politics observe, its secular, egalitarian and republican ideals passed directly to Bhagat Singh's generation, giving the later revolutionary movement both its martyrs and much of its ideological direction.