Holt Farm

Holt Farm lay in the farmland around Stockton, California, and covered about 500 acres. It belonged to the Holt family, who made farm machinery and used the land to test it. Punjabis called it Bhaian da Dera, the Home of Brothers. By 1911 Sikh farmers from Punjab had taken it on contract, and Gurdev Singh Sidhu, writing in the Journal of Sikh and Punjab Studies, calls it a nursery of the Ghadar movement.

Key moments

• The contract: when Benjamin Holt found he could not manage both his factory and the farm, he leased the farm. Jawala Singh, born in 1866 at Thathian in Amritsar district, and Visakha Singh, born in 1877 at Dadehar and known elsewhere as Baba Wasakha Singh, took the farm on contract and ran it, with Hazara Singh and Naudh Singh as co-signers. The student Santokh Singh, born in 1893 at Dhardev, joined as a partner to keep the accounts. They grew mostly potatoes, and Jawala Singh became known as the King of Potatoes (Sidhu).
• The Home of Brothers: the farm gave free langar and lodging, to as many as 100 guests at a time, and no Punjabi who came was refused a stay. One room was kept for Sri Guru Granth Sahib, and nearby farmers joined the prayers (UC Davis).
• 27 December 1911: the farm's managers put a proposal for a gurdwara at Stockton to a gathering of Punjabis and other Indians in California. Thirty-five Muslims and twelve Hindus attended, among them Lala Har Dayal and Bhai Parmanand. The meeting agreed to the proposal, collected $5,000 and formed a committee of twelve, with Jawala Singh as president, Sant Tara Singh as secretary and Visakha Singh as treasurer. The UC Davis archive dates the Stockton gurdwara to 1912.
• Work away from the public eye: Sidhu argues that the farm's isolation allowed bomb making and weapons training, and that the Stockton gurdwara was set up partly to draw large gatherings away from it. He cites Sohan Singh Bhakna's memoir, which says military training began at the farm under Master Udham Singh, and the Ghadr Directory, which records a bomb that exploded in testing and hurt a man's arm.
• October 1914 to January 1915: the founders of the farm left for India with other Ghadar leaders. Nand Singh Ladher of Hoshiarpur stayed on, and according to the Ghadr Directory he was the main speaker at a meeting of Ghadarites held at the farm on 29 January 1915. UC Davis adds that Jawala Singh and Wasakha Singh eventually donated the farm to the Ghadar Party.

What it means today. Sidhu's argument is that historians gave the credit for the Ghadar Party to Lala Har Dayal and Bhai Parmanand, who were English-educated and whom British intelligence and the Lahore conspiracy trials treated as leaders, and overlooked the Sikh farmers who preferred action to publicity. He says his argument does not reduce Har Dayal's part. The UC Davis archive calls the ranch Holtville; this page uses Sidhu's name, Holt Farm.