Ghadar Party

The Ghadar Party was a revolutionary movement of Indian migrants on the Pacific coast of North America, most of them Punjabi Sikh farmers and labourers, that aimed to end British rule in India by armed rebellion. "Ghadr" means mutiny.

How it began: the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says the Hindustan Association of the Pacific Coast was formed at Portland in 1912 and decided in May 1913 to set up a Ghadr party with its headquarters at San Francisco. The Tribune gives April 1913 and says the Hindi Association of the Pacific Coast was formed at Astoria, Oregon, on 23 April 1913. Sohan Singh Bhakna was president and Har Dayal general secretary. The weekly Ghadr first appeared in Urdu in November 1913, with a Punjabi edition a few weeks later.

Leaders, in order: Sohan Singh Bhakna led the party. Har Dayal, its general secretary, was arrested in America, sent to Switzerland and took no further part. Kartar Singh Sarabha, who returned to India in 1914 to spread the movement in Ludhiana district, was one of its leaders there. Jawala Singh, the "Potato King" of Stockton, gave up a 500-acre farm to join the cause, and The Tribune says the Stockton gurdwara became a major centre.

Key moments

• 1914: the party rallied support when the Komagata Maru was turned back. After war began in July 1914, leaders met on 5 August and declared war on the British. Ships left Vancouver on 22 August and San Francisco on 29 August. Government records show 2,312 Ghadr men entering India between 13 October 1914 and 25 February 1915, and more than 8,000 by 1916.
• February and March 1915: arrests broke the rising before it took shape. The Lahore conspiracy trials opened on 26 April 1915. Of 291 people tried, 42 were sentenced to death and 114 to transportation for life.
• 16 November 1915: Kartar Singh Sarabha, born in 1896, was hanged at Lahore, about 19 years old, with Vishnu Ganesh Pingle. He had been arrested on 2 March 1915 and sentenced on 13 September.
• 20 November 1917 to 24 April 1918: the Hindu-German Conspiracy Trial in San Francisco tried 35 defendants, nine Germans, nine Americans and 17 Indians, over a plot to ship arms to India. Ram Chandra was shot dead in court by an associate, Ram Singh, who was then shot by an officer. Scroll says the party disbanded in 1919.

Legacy: Michael O'Dwyer, then Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, called it the most serious attempt to subvert British rule in India, according to the Encyclopaedia. The Kirti Kisan Lehar, formed in 1928, grew out of the party, The Tribune notes.