Ghadar Party founded

Who: Sohan Singh Bhakna, a Sikh labourer from Bhakna near Amritsar, first president; Lala Har Dayal, general secretary; Kartar Singh Sarabha, a Berkeley student who printed the Gurmukhi edition of the paper; and the Stockton farmers Jawala Singh and Wasakha Singh; and the Punjabi mill and farm workers of the Pacific coast.

What: The party was built in steps, and the sources date different steps as its founding.

• 1912, Portland: migrant workers formed the Hindustani (or Hindi) Association of the Pacific Coast, with Bhakna as president and G. D. Kumar as general secretary (Encyclopaedia). Johanna Ogden, who calls it the Hindustani Association of America, dates it 12 March 1912, adding an Astoria chapter that year.
• 25 March 1913, St. Johns: with Har Dayal present, the workers voted for armed revolution and for a centre and press at San Francisco (Ogden).
• 30 May 1913, Astoria: at the Finnish Socialist Hall, with Har Dayal's keynote and delegates from along the Columbia River, the party's programme was passed (Ogden). The Encyclopaedia, not naming the town, says a May 1913 meeting decided to open the Yugantar Ashram and form a Ghadr party headquartered at San Francisco.
• 1 November 1913: the first issue of Ghadar, in Urdu, appeared from the Yugantar Ashram at 436 Hill Street, San Francisco; the Punjabi edition began on 9 December (UC Berkeley). The party took its name from the paper.
• 31 December 1913, Sacramento: a second organisational conference (Ogden), arranged by Jawala Singh and Wasakha Singh. California's Senate and Assembly resolutions say it was held to form the Ghadar Party; the Encyclopaedia says Wasakha Singh was elected there to the central executive committee.

Other dates in print: 23 April 1913 at Astoria (The Tribune, quoting a historian); 15 July 1913 (Wikipedia); a Stockton meeting in the summer of 1913 (the Encyclopaedia's entry on Bhakna); a Sacramento meeting on 31 October 1913 (its entry on Sarabha). Ogden's 30 May rests on a notice in the Astoria Budget.

Where: Portland, St. Johns and Astoria in Oregon; San Francisco, at the Yugantar Ashram; Sacramento; and Stockton, whose gurdwara helped fund the paper.

Why it mattered: The party aimed to end British rule in India by armed rebellion. California's legislature calls it the first organized, sustained resistance campaign against British rule there. In 1914 members sailed home; California's Senate resolution counts 616, of whom 527 were Sikhs. The Lahore conspiracy trials of 1915 tried 291 and sentenced 42 to death; Sarabha was hanged on 16 November 1915, aged 19, and Wasakha Singh was sentenced to transportation for life on 13 September. The Hindu-German conspiracy trial at San Francisco (arrests in 1917) convicted 29: 15 Indians and 14 Germans.