Ghadar Conspiracy
Encyclopedia
The Ghadar Conspiracy was a conspiracy
for a pan-Indian mutiny
in the British Indian Army
in February 1915 formulated by the Ghadar Party
. It was the most prominent plan amongst a number of plots of the much larger Indo-German Conspiracy, formulated between 1914 and 1917 to initiate a Pan-Indian rebellion against the British Raj
during World War I. The conspirators included the Indian nationalists
in India, United States
and Germany
, along with help from the Irish republicans
and the German Foreign Office
. The conspiracy originated on the onset of the World War, between the Ghadar Party
in the United States, the Berlin Committee
in Germany, the Indian revolutionary underground in India and the German Foreign Office through the consulate in San Francisco. The planned February mutiny was ultimately thwarted when British intelligence infiltrated the Ghadarite movement, arresting key figures. Mutinies in smaller units and garrisons within India were also crushed. The popular name of the conspiracy derives from the Indian "Ghadar" Party in the United States whose supporters were the most prominent amongst those involved in the plans for the insurrection.
and Punjab
remained hotbeds of anti colonial activities
. Militancy in Bengal, increasingly closely linked with the unrests in Punjab, was significant enough to nearly paralyse the regional administration. Also from the beginning of the war, expatriate Indian population, notably from United States, Canada, and Germany, headed by the Berlin Committee and the Ghadar Party, attempted to trigger insurrections in India on the lines of the 1857 uprising with Irish Republican, German and Turkish help in a massive conspiracy that has since come to be called the Hindu German conspiracy This conspiracy also attempted to rally Afghanistan against British India. A number of failed attempts were made at mutiny, of which the February mutiny plan and the Singapore mutiny
remains most notable. This movement was suppressed by means of a massive international counter-intelligence operation and draconian political acts (including the Defence of India Act 1915
) that lasted nearly ten years.
, similar organizations were opened in the United States and in Japan through the efforts of the growing Indian student population in the country at the time. Shyamji Krishna Varma
, the founder of India House, had built close contacts with the Irish Republican movement. The first of the nationalist organizations was the Pan-Aryan Association, modeled after Krishna Varma's Indian Home Rule Society
, opened in 1906 through the joint Indo-Irish efforts of Mohammed Barkatullah, S.L. Joshi and George Freeman
. Barkatullah himself had been closely associated with Krishna Varma during his earlier stay in London, and his subsequent career in Japan put him at the heart of Indian political activities there.
The American branch of the association also invited Madame Cama—who at the time was close to the works of Krishna Varma—to give a series of lectures in the United States. An "India House" was founded in Manhattan in New York in January 1908 with funds from a wealthy lawyer of Irish descent called Myron Phelps. Phelps admired Swami Vivekananda
, and the Vedanta Society
(established by the Swami) in New York was at the time under Swami Abhedananda
, who was considered "sedition
ist" by the British. In New York, Indian students and ex-residents of London India House took advantage of liberal press laws to circulate The Indian Sociologist and other nationalist literature. New York increasingly became an important centre for the global Indian movement, such that Free Hindustan, a political revolutionary journal published by Taraknath Das closely mirroring The Indian Sociologist, moved from Vancouver and Seattle to New York in 1908. Das collaborated extensively with the Gaelic American with help from George Freeman before Free Hindustan was proscribed in 1910 under British diplomatic pressure. After 1910, the American east coast activities began to decline and gradually shifted to San Francisco. The arrival of Har Dayal
around this time bridged the gap between the intellectual agitators and the predominantly Punjabi labour workers and migrants, laying the foundations of the Ghadar movement
.
and the Commonwealth
, and the community had expected, to honour its commitment, equal welcome and rights from the British and commonwealth governments as extended to British and white immigrants. These legislations fed growing discontent, protests and anti-colonial sentiments within the community. Faced with increasingly difficult situations, the community began organising itself into political groups. A large number of Punjabis also moved to the United States, but they encountered similar political and social problems.
Meanwhile, nationalist work among Indians in the east coast began to gain momentum from around 1908 when Indian students of the likes of P S Khankhoje, Kanshi Ram
, and Taraknath Das founded the Indian Independence League in Portland, Oregon
. His works also brought him close to other Indian nationalists in United States at the time, including Taraknath Das. In the years preceding World War I, Khankhoje was one of the founding members of the Pacific coast Hindustan association, and subsequently founded the Ghadar Party. He was at the time one of the most influential members of the party. He met Lala Har Dayal in 1911. He also enrolled at one point in a West Coast military academy.
The Ghadar Party, initially the Pacific Coast Hindustan Association, was formed in 1913 in the United States under the leadership of Har Dayal
, with Sohan Singh Bhakna
as its president. It drew members from Indian immigrants, largely from Punjab
. Many of its members were also from the University of California at Berkeley
including Dayal, Tarak Nath Das
, Kartar Singh Sarabha and V.G. Pingle
. The party quickly gained support from Indian expatriates, especially in the United States, Canada and Asia. Ghadar meetings were held in Los Angeles, Oxford, Vienna, Washington, D.C., and Shanghai.
Ghadar's ultimate goal was to overthrow British colonial authority in India by means of an armed revolution. It viewed the Congress
-led mainstream movement
for dominion status modest and the latter's constitutional methods as soft. Ghadar's foremost strategy was to entice Indian soldiers
to revolt. To that end, in November 1913 Ghadar established the Yugantar Ashram press in San Francisco. The press produced the Hindustan Ghadar
newspaper and other nationalist literature.
Har Dayal's contacts with erstwhile members of India House in Paris and in Berlin
allowed early concepts of Indo-German collaboration to take shape. Towards the end of 1913, the party established contact with prominent revolutionaries in India, including Rash Behari Bose
. An Indian edition of the Hindustan Ghadar essentially espoused the philosophies of anarchism
and revolutionary terrorism against British interests in India. Political discontent and violence mounted in Punjab, and Ghadarite publications that reached Bombay from California were deemed seditious and banned by the Raj. These events, compounded by evidence of prior Ghadarite incitement in the Delhi-Lahore Conspiracy of 1912, led the British government to pressure the American State Department to suppress Indian revolutionary activities and Ghadarite literature, which emanated mostly from San Francisco.
In September 1913, Mathra Singh, a Ghadarite, visited Shanghai and promoted the Ghadarite cause within the Indian community there. In January 1914, Singh visited India and circulated Ghadar literature amongst Indian soldiers through clandestine sources before leaving for Hong Kong. Singh's reported that the situation in India was favourable for a revolution.
In May 1914, the Canadian government refused to allow the 400 Indian passengers of the ship Komagata Maru
to disembark at Vancouver
. The voyage had been planned as an attempt to circumvent Canadian exclusion laws that effectively prevented Indian immigration. Before the ship reached Vancouver, its approach was announced on German radio, and British Columbia
n authorities were prepared to prevent the passengers from entering Canada. The incident became a focal point for the Indian community in Canada which rallied in support of the passengers and against the government's policies. After a 2 month legal battle, 24 of the them were allowed to immigrate. The ship was escorted out of Vancouver by the protected cruiser HMCS Rainbow and returned to India. On reaching Calcutta, the passengers were detained under the Defence of India Act at Budge Budge by the British Indian government, which made efforts to forcibly transport them to Punjab. This caused rioting at Budge Budge and resulted in fatalities on both sides. A number of Ghadar leaders, like Barkatullah and Taraknath Das, used the inflammatory passions surrounding the Komagata Maru incident as a rallying point and successfully brought many disaffected Indians in North America into the party's fold.
with German help. The first group of 60 Ghadarites led by Jawala Singh, left San Francisco for Canton
aboard the steamship SS Korea on 29 August. They were to sail on to India, where they would be provided with arms to organise a revolt. At Canton, more Indians joined, and the group, now numbering about 150, sailed for Calcutta on a Japanese vessel. They were to be joined by more Indians arriving in smaller groups. During the September – October time period, about 300 Indians left for India in various ships like SS Siberia, Chinyo Maru, China, Manchuria, SS Tenyo Maru, SS Mongolia and SS Shinyo Maru. The SS Korea's party was uncovered and arrested on arrival at Calcutta. In spite of this, a successful underground network was established between the United States and India, through Shanghai, Swatow, and Siam. Tehl Singh, the Ghadar operative in Shanghai, is believed to have spent $30,000 for helping the revolutionaries to get into India.
Amongst those who returned were Vishnu Ganesh Pingle
, Kartar Singh
, Santokh Singh
, Pandit Kanshi Ram
, Bhai Bhagwan Singh
, who ranked amongst the higher leadership of the Ghadar party. Pingle had known Satyen Bhushan Sen (Jatin Mukherjee’s emissary) in the company of Gadhar members (such as Kartar Singh Sarabha) at the University of Berkeley. Tasked to consolidate contact with the Indian revolutionary movement, as part of the Ghadar Conspiracy, Satyen Bhushan Sen, Kartar Singh Sarabha, Vishnu Ganesh Pingle
and a batch of Sikh militants sailed from America by the S.S. Salamin in the second half of October 1914. Satyen and Pingle halted in China for a few days to meet the Gadhar leaders (mainly Tahal Singh) for future plans. They met Dr Sun Yat-Sen
for co-operation. Dr Sun was not prepared to displease the British. After Satyen and party left for India, Tahal sent Atmaram Kapur, Santosh Singh and Shiv Dayal Kapur to Bangkok for necessary arrangements. In November, 1914, Pingle, Kartar Singh and Satyen Sen arrived in Calcutta. Satyen introduced Pingle and Kartar Singh to Jatin Mukherjee. "Pingle had long talks with Jatin Mukherjee, who sent them to Rash Behari" in Benares with necessary information during the third week of December. Satyen remained in Calcutta at 159 Bow Bazar [Street]. Tegart was informed of an attempt to tamper with some Sikh troops at the Dakshineswar gunpowder magazine. "A reference to the Military authorities shows that the troops in question were the 93rd Burmans" sent to Mesopotamia. Jatin Mukherjee and Satyen Bhushan Sen were seen interviewing these Sikhs. The Ghadarites rapidly established contact with the Indian revolutionary underground, notably that in Bengal, and the plans began to be consolidated by Rash Behari Bose and Jatin Mukherjee and the Ghadarites for a coordinated general uprising.
and Sri Aurobindo
, in 1908 this man had accompanied Lala in his UP lecture tour. His organ, the Swarajya of Allahabad, was warned in April 1908 against sedition. On 22 August 1909, Sundar Lal and Sri Aurobindo delivered “mischievous speeches” in College Square, Calcutta. The Karmayogi in Hindi was issued in Allahabad since September 1909: controlled by Sri Aurobindo, the Calcutta Karmagogin was edited by Amarendra Chatterjee
who had introduced Rash Behari to Sundar Lal. In 1915, Pingle will be received in Allahabad by the Swarajya group. Rash Behari Bose had been in Benares since early 1914. Large number of outrages were committed there between October 1914 and September 1915, 45 of them before February was over. On 18 November 1914, while examining two bomb caps, he and Sachin Sanyal had been injured. They shifted to a house in Bangalitola, where Pingle visited him with a letter from Jatin Mukherjee and reported that some 4000 Sikhs of the Ghadar
had already reached Calcutta. 15.000 more were waiting to come and join the rebellion. Rash Behari sent Pingle and Sachin to Amritsar, to discuss with Mula Singh who had come from Shanghai. Rash Behari’s man of confidence, Pingle led a hectic life in UP and Punjab for several weeks.
During the Komagata Maru
affray in Budge Budge, near Calcutta, on 29 September 1914, Baba Gurmukh Singh
had contacted Atulkrishna Ghosh
and Satish Chakravarti, two eminent associates of Jatin Mukherjee, who actively assisted them. Since then, angry letters from US-based Indians reached India with hope of a German victory; one of the emigrant leaders warned that his associates were in touch with the Bengal revolutionary party. It was at this juncture, in December 1914, that Pingle arrived in the Punjab, promising Bengali co-operation to the malcontent emigrants. A meeting demanded revolution, plundering of Government treasuries, seduction of Indian troops, collection of arms, preparation of bombs and the commission of dacoties. Rash Behari planned collecting gangs of villagers for the rebellion. Simultaneous outbreaks at Lahore, Ferozepore & Rawalpindi was designed. Rising at Dacca, Benares, Jubbalpur to be extended.
Preparing bombs was a definite part of the Gadhar programme. The Sikh conspirators – knowing very little about it – decided to call in a Bengali expert, as they had known in California Professor Surendra Bose, associate of Taraknath Das. Towards the end of December 1914, at a meeting at Kapurthala, Pingle announced that a Bengali babu was ready to co-operate with them. On 3 January 1915, Pingle and Sachindra in Amritsar received Rs 500 from the Ghadar, and returned to Benares.
leaders to meet him at Benares for co-ordinating and finalising their plans. Jatin Mukherjee, Atulkrishna Ghosh
, Naren Bhattacharya left for Benares (early January, 1915). In a very important meeting, Rash Behari announced the rebellion, proclaiming : "Die for their country." Though through Havildar Mansha Singh, the 16th Rajput Rifles at Fort William
was successfully approached, Jatin Mukherjee wanted two months for the army revolt, synchronising with the arrival of the German arms. He modified the plan according to the impatience of the Gadhar militants to rush to action. Rash Behari and Pingle went to Lahore. Sachin tampered with the 7th Rajputs (Benares) and the 89th Punjabis at Dinapore. Damodar Sarup [Seth] went to Allahabad. Vinayak Rao Kapile conveyed bombs from Bengal to Punjab. Bibhuti [Haldar, approver] and Priyo Nath [Bhattacharya?] seduced the troops at Benares; Nalini [Mukherjee] at Jabalpur. On 14 February, Kapile carried from Benares to Lahore a parcel containing materials for 18 bombs.
By the middle of January, Pingle was back in Amritsar with "the fat babu" (Rash Behari); to avoid too many visitors, Rash Behari moved to Lahore after a fortnight. In both the places he collected materials for making bombs and ordered for 80 bomb cases to a foundry at Lahore. Its owner out of suspicion refused to execute the order. Instead, inkpots were used as cases in several of the dacoities. Completed bombs were found during house searches, while Rash Behari escaped. "By then effective contact had been established between the returned Gadharites and the revolutionaries led by Rash Behari, and a large section of soldiers in the NW were obviously disaffected." "It was expected that as soon as the signal was received there would be mutinies and popular risings from the Punjab to Bengal." "48 out of the 81 accused in the Lahore conspiracy case , including Rash Behari’s close associates like Pingle, Mathura Singh & Kartar Singh Sarabha, recently arrived from North America."
Along with Rash Behari Bose
, Sachin Sanyal and Kartar Singh
, Pingle became one of the main coordinators of the attempted mutiny in February 1915. Under Rash Behari, Pingle issued intensive propaganda for revolution from December 1914, sometimes disguised as Shyamlal, a Bengali; sometimes Ganpat Singh, a Punjabi.
, the plot for the mutiny took its final shape. The 23rd Cavalry in Punjab was to seize weapons and kill their officers while on roll call on 21 February. This was to be followed by mutiny in the 26th Punjab, which was to be the signal for the uprising to begin, resulting in an advance on Delhi and Lahore. The Bengal revolutionaries contacted the Sikh troops stationed at Dacca through letters of introduction sent by Sikh soldiers of Lahore, and succeeded in winning them over. The Bengal cell was to look for the Punjab Mail entering the Howrah Station
the next day (which would have been cancelled if Punjab was seized) and was to strike immediately.
, Ferozepur and Rawalpindi
. Various plans had been made to attack the military arsenal at Mian Meer, near Lahore and initiate a general uprising on 15 November 1914. In another plan, a group of Sikh
soldiers, the manjha jatha, planned to start a mutiny in the 23rd Cavalry at the Lahore cantonment on 26 November. A further plan called for a mutiny to start on 30 November from Ferozepur under Nidham Singh. In Bengal, the Jugantar, through Jatin Mukherjee, established contacts with the garrison at Fort William
in Calcutta. In August 1914, Mukherjee's group had seized a large consignment of guns and ammunition from the Rodda company, a major gun manufacturing firm in India. In December, a number of politically motivated armed robberies
to obtain funds were carried out in Calcutta. Mukherjee kept in touch with Rash Behari Bose through Kartar Singh and V.G. Pingle. These rebellious acts, which were until then organised separately by different groups, were brought into a common umbrella under the leadership of Rash Behari Bose in North India, V. G. Pingle in Maharashtra
, and Sachindranath Sanyal in Benares. A plan was made for a unified general uprising, with the date set for 21 February 1915.
, the plot for the mutiny took its final shape. Under the plans, the 23rd Cavalry in Punjab was to seize weapons and kill their officers while on roll call on 21 February. This was to be followed by mutiny in the 26th Punjab, which was to be the signal for the uprising to begin, resulting in an advance on Delhi and Lahore. The Bengal cell was to look for the Punjab Mail entering the Howrah Station
the next day (which would have been cancelled if Punjab was seized) and was to strike immediately.
However, the Punjab CID successfully infiltrated the conspiracy at the last moment through Kirpal Singh: a cousin of the trooper Balwant Singh (23rd Cavalry), US-returned Kirpal, a spy, visited Rash Behari’s Lahore headquarters near the Mochi Gate, where over a dozen leaders including Pingle met on 15 February 1915. Kirpal informed the police. Sensing that their plans had been compromised, the D-day was brought forward to 19 February, but even these plans found their way to the Punjab CID. Plans for revolt by the 130th Baluchi Regiment at Rangoon on 21 February were thwarted. On 15 February, the 5th Light Infantry stationed at Singapore
was among the few units to actually rebel. About half of the eight hundred and fifty troops comprising the regiment mutinied on the afternoon of the 15th, along with nearly a hundred men of the Malay States Guides. This mutiny lasted almost seven days, and resulted in the deaths of forty-seven British soldiers and local civilians. The mutineers also released the interned crew of the SMS Emden. The mutiny was only put down after French, Russian and Japanese ships arrived with reinforcements. Of nearly two hundred tried at Singapore, forty seven were shot in a public execution,. Most of the rest were deported for life or given jail terms ranging between seven and twenty years. Some historians, including Hew Strachan
, argue that although Ghadar agents operated within the Singapore unit, the mutiny was isolated and not linked to the conspiracy. Others deem this as instigated by the Silk Letter Movement which became intricately related to the Ghadarite conspiracy. Plans for revolt in the 26th Punjab, 7th Rajput, 24th Jat Artillery and other regiments did not go beyond the conspiracy stage. Planned mutinies in Firozpur
, Lahore
, and Agra
were also suppressed and many key leaders of the conspiracy were arrested, although some managed to escape or evade arrest. A last ditch attempt was made by Kartar Singh and Pingle to trigger a mutiny in the 12th Cavalry regiment at Meerut. Kartar Singh
escaped from Lahore, but was arrested in Benares, and V. G. Pingle was apprehended from the lines of the 12th Cavalry at Meerut, in the night of 23 March 1915. He carried "ten bombs of the pattern used in the attempt to assassinate Lord Hardinge in Delhi," according to Bombay police report. It is said that it was enough to blow up an entire regiment. Mass arrests followed as the Ghadarites were rounded up in Punjab and the Central Provinces
. Rash Behari Bose escaped from Lahore and in May 1915 fled to Japan. Other leaders, including Giani Pritam Singh, Swami Satyananda Puri
and others fled to Thailand
or other sympathetic nations.
, the Annie Larsen arms plot
, Christmas Day Plot
, events leading up to the death of Bagha Jatin, as well as the German mission to Kabul, the mutiny of the Connaught Rangers in India, as well as, by some accounts, the Black Tom explosion
in 1916. The Indo-Irish-German alliance and the conspiracy were the target of a worldwide British intelligence effort, which was successful in preventing further attempts.American intelligence agencies arrested key figures in the aftermath of the Annie Larsen affair in 1917. The conspiracy led to legal trials like the Lahore conspiracy case
in India and the Hindu German Conspiracy Trial
in the United States, the latter being the longest and most expensive trial in the country at that date.
and a total of 291 conspirators were put on trial. Of these 42 were awarded the death sentence
, 114 transported for life
, and 93 awarded varying terms of imprisonment. A number of these were sent to the Cellular Jail
in the Andaman
. Forty two defendants in the trial were acquitted.
The Lahore trial directly linked the plans made in United States and the February mutiny plot. Following the conclusion of the trial, diplomatic effort to destroy the Indian revolutionary movement in the United States and to bring its members to trial increased considerably.
, and the enactment of the Rowlatt Act
s. The Jallianwallah Bagh massacre is also linked intimately with the Raj's fears of a Ghadarite uprising in India especially Punjab in 1919.
Conspiracy (political)
In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination....
for a pan-Indian mutiny
Mutiny
Mutiny is a conspiracy among members of a group of similarly situated individuals to openly oppose, change or overthrow an authority to which they are subject...
in the British Indian Army
British Indian Army
The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...
in February 1915 formulated by the Ghadar Party
Ghadar Party
The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule...
. It was the most prominent plan amongst a number of plots of the much larger Indo-German Conspiracy, formulated between 1914 and 1917 to initiate a Pan-Indian rebellion against the British Raj
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
during World War I. The conspirators included the Indian nationalists
Indian independence movement
The term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...
in India, United States
Ghadar Party
The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule...
and Germany
Berlin Committee
The Berlin Committee, later known as the Indian Independence Committee after 1915, was an organisation formed in Germany in 1914 during World War I by Indian students and political activists residing in the country. The purpose of the Committee was to promote the cause of Indian Independence...
, along with help from the Irish republicans
Irish Republicanism
Irish republicanism is an ideology based on the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic.In 1801, under the Act of Union, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
and the German Foreign Office
Foreign Office (Germany)
The Foreign Office is the foreign ministry of Germany, a federal agency responsible for both the country's foreign politics and its relationship with the European Union. From 1871 to 1919, it was led by a Foreign Secretary, and since 1919, it has been led by the Foreign Minister of Germany...
. The conspiracy originated on the onset of the World War, between the Ghadar Party
Ghadar Party
The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule...
in the United States, the Berlin Committee
Berlin Committee
The Berlin Committee, later known as the Indian Independence Committee after 1915, was an organisation formed in Germany in 1914 during World War I by Indian students and political activists residing in the country. The purpose of the Committee was to promote the cause of Indian Independence...
in Germany, the Indian revolutionary underground in India and the German Foreign Office through the consulate in San Francisco. The planned February mutiny was ultimately thwarted when British intelligence infiltrated the Ghadarite movement, arresting key figures. Mutinies in smaller units and garrisons within India were also crushed. The popular name of the conspiracy derives from the Indian "Ghadar" Party in the United States whose supporters were the most prominent amongst those involved in the plans for the insurrection.
Background
World War I began with an unprecedented outpouring of loyalty and goodwill towards the United Kingdom from within the mainstream political leadership, contrary to initial British fears of an Indian revolt. India contributed massively to the British war effort by providing men and resources. About 1.3 million Indian soldiers and labourers served in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, while both the Indian government and the princes sent large supplies of food, money, and ammunition. However, BengalBengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
and Punjab
Punjab (British India)
Punjab was a province of British India, it was one of the last areas of the Indian subcontinent to fall under British rule. With the end of British rule in 1947 the province was split between West Punjab, which went to Pakistan, and East Punjab, which went to India...
remained hotbeds of anti colonial activities
Revolutionary movement for Indian independence
The Revolutionary movement for Indian independence is often a less-highlighted aspect of the Indian independence movement -- the underground revolutionary factions. The groups believing in armed revolution against the ruling British fall into this category. The revolutionary groups were...
. Militancy in Bengal, increasingly closely linked with the unrests in Punjab, was significant enough to nearly paralyse the regional administration. Also from the beginning of the war, expatriate Indian population, notably from United States, Canada, and Germany, headed by the Berlin Committee and the Ghadar Party, attempted to trigger insurrections in India on the lines of the 1857 uprising with Irish Republican, German and Turkish help in a massive conspiracy that has since come to be called the Hindu German conspiracy This conspiracy also attempted to rally Afghanistan against British India. A number of failed attempts were made at mutiny, of which the February mutiny plan and the Singapore mutiny
1915 Singapore Mutiny
The 1915 Singapore Mutiny, also known as the 1915 Sepoy Mutiny, or Mutiny of the 5th Native Light Infantry was a mutiny involving up to half of 850 sepoys against the British in Singapore during the First World War, linked with the 1915 Ghadar Conspiracy...
remains most notable. This movement was suppressed by means of a massive international counter-intelligence operation and draconian political acts (including the Defence of India Act 1915
Defence of India Act 1915
The Defence of India Act 1915, also referred to as the Defence of India Regulations Act, was an Emergency Criminal Law enacted by the British Raj in India in 1915 with the intention of curtailing the nationalist and revolutionary activities during and in the aftermath of World War I...
) that lasted nearly ten years.
Indian Nationalism in US
Early works towards Indian Nationalism in the United States dates back to the first decade of the 20th century, when, following the example of London India HouseIndia House
India House was an informal Indian nationalist organisation based in London between 1905 and 1910. With the patronage of Shyamji Krishna Varma, its home in a student residence in Highgate, North London was launched to promote nationalist views among Indian students in Britain...
, similar organizations were opened in the United States and in Japan through the efforts of the growing Indian student population in the country at the time. Shyamji Krishna Varma
Shyamji Krishna Varma
Shyamji Krishna Varma was an Indian revolutionary, lawyer and journalist who founded the Indian Home Rule Society, India House and The Indian Sociologist in London. A graduate of Balliol College, Krishna Varma was a noted scholar in Sanskrit and other Indian languages...
, the founder of India House, had built close contacts with the Irish Republican movement. The first of the nationalist organizations was the Pan-Aryan Association, modeled after Krishna Varma's Indian Home Rule Society
Indian Home Rule Society
The Indian Home Rule Society was an Indian organisation founded in London in 1905 that sought to promote the cause of self-rule in British India. The organisation was founded by Shyamji Krishna Varma, with support from a number of prominent Indian nationalists in Britain at the time, including...
, opened in 1906 through the joint Indo-Irish efforts of Mohammed Barkatullah, S.L. Joshi and George Freeman
George Freeman
George Freeman is a Canadian comic book penciller, inker, and colorist.Freeman's comic book illustrating career began with Richard Comely's independent Canadian publication, Captain Canuck. He made the move to the majors and subsequently worked on several superhero comics, such as Green Lantern,...
. Barkatullah himself had been closely associated with Krishna Varma during his earlier stay in London, and his subsequent career in Japan put him at the heart of Indian political activities there.
The American branch of the association also invited Madame Cama—who at the time was close to the works of Krishna Varma—to give a series of lectures in the United States. An "India House" was founded in Manhattan in New York in January 1908 with funds from a wealthy lawyer of Irish descent called Myron Phelps. Phelps admired Swami Vivekananda
Swami Vivekananda
Swami Vivekananda , born Narendranath Dutta , was the chief disciple of the 19th century mystic Ramakrishna Paramahansa and the founder of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission...
, and the Vedanta Society
Vedanta Society
The Vedanta Society of Southern California, with its headquarters in Hollywood, was founded in 1930 by Swami Prabhavananda. The society is a branch of the Ramakrishna Order, and maintains subcenters in Pasadena, Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Trabuco Canyon...
(established by the Swami) in New York was at the time under Swami Abhedananda
Swami Abhedananda
Swami Abhedananda was a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, who Swami Vivekananda sent to the West to head the Vedanta Society, New York in 1897, and spread the message of Vedanta, a theme on which he authored several books through his life, and subsequently founded the Ramakrishna Vedanta Math,...
, who was considered "sedition
Sedition
In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent to lawful authority. Sedition may include any...
ist" by the British. In New York, Indian students and ex-residents of London India House took advantage of liberal press laws to circulate The Indian Sociologist and other nationalist literature. New York increasingly became an important centre for the global Indian movement, such that Free Hindustan, a political revolutionary journal published by Taraknath Das closely mirroring The Indian Sociologist, moved from Vancouver and Seattle to New York in 1908. Das collaborated extensively with the Gaelic American with help from George Freeman before Free Hindustan was proscribed in 1910 under British diplomatic pressure. After 1910, the American east coast activities began to decline and gradually shifted to San Francisco. The arrival of Har Dayal
Har Dayal
Lala Har Dayal was a Indian nationalist revolutionary who founded the Ghadar Party in America. He was a polymath who turned down a career in the Indian Civil Service...
around this time bridged the gap between the intellectual agitators and the predominantly Punjabi labour workers and migrants, laying the foundations of the Ghadar movement
Ghadar Party
The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule...
.
Ghadar Party
The Pacific coast of North America saw large scale Indian immigration in the 1900s, especially from Punjab which was facing an economic depression. The Canadian government met this influx with a series of legislations aimed at limiting the entry of South Asians into Canada, and restricting the political rights of those already in the country. The Punjabi community had hitherto been an important loyal force for the British EmpireBritish Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
and the Commonwealth
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
, and the community had expected, to honour its commitment, equal welcome and rights from the British and commonwealth governments as extended to British and white immigrants. These legislations fed growing discontent, protests and anti-colonial sentiments within the community. Faced with increasingly difficult situations, the community began organising itself into political groups. A large number of Punjabis also moved to the United States, but they encountered similar political and social problems.
Meanwhile, nationalist work among Indians in the east coast began to gain momentum from around 1908 when Indian students of the likes of P S Khankhoje, Kanshi Ram
Pandit Kanshi Ram
Pandit Kanshi Ram was an Indian revolutionary who, along with Har Dayal and Sohan Singh Bhakna was one of the three key members in founding the Ghadar Party. He served as the treasurer of the party from its foundation in 1913 to 1914...
, and Taraknath Das founded the Indian Independence League in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
. His works also brought him close to other Indian nationalists in United States at the time, including Taraknath Das. In the years preceding World War I, Khankhoje was one of the founding members of the Pacific coast Hindustan association, and subsequently founded the Ghadar Party. He was at the time one of the most influential members of the party. He met Lala Har Dayal in 1911. He also enrolled at one point in a West Coast military academy.
The Ghadar Party, initially the Pacific Coast Hindustan Association, was formed in 1913 in the United States under the leadership of Har Dayal
Har Dayal
Lala Har Dayal was a Indian nationalist revolutionary who founded the Ghadar Party in America. He was a polymath who turned down a career in the Indian Civil Service...
, with Sohan Singh Bhakna
Sohan Singh Bhakna
Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna was as Indian revolutionary, the founding president of the Ghadar Party, and a leading member of the party involved in the Ghadar Conspiracy of 1915. Tried at the Lahore Conspiracy trial, Sohan Singh served sixteen years of a life sentence for his part in the conspiracy...
as its president. It drew members from Indian immigrants, largely from Punjab
Punjab (British India)
Punjab was a province of British India, it was one of the last areas of the Indian subcontinent to fall under British rule. With the end of British rule in 1947 the province was split between West Punjab, which went to Pakistan, and East Punjab, which went to India...
. Many of its members were also from the University of California at Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
including Dayal, Tarak Nath Das
Tarak Nath Das
Taraknath Das was an anti-British Bengali Indian revolutionary and internationalist scholar. He was a pioneering immigrant in the west coast of North America and discussed his plans with Tolstoy, while organizing the Asian Indian immigrants in favor of the Indian freedom movement...
, Kartar Singh Sarabha and V.G. Pingle
Vishnu Ganesh Pingle
Vishnu Ganesh Pingle was an Indian revolutionary and a member of the Ghadar Party who was one of those executed in 1915 following the Lahore conspiracy trial for his role in the Ghadar conspiracy.-Early life:...
. The party quickly gained support from Indian expatriates, especially in the United States, Canada and Asia. Ghadar meetings were held in Los Angeles, Oxford, Vienna, Washington, D.C., and Shanghai.
Ghadar's ultimate goal was to overthrow British colonial authority in India by means of an armed revolution. It viewed the Congress
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...
-led mainstream movement
Indian independence movement
The term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...
for dominion status modest and the latter's constitutional methods as soft. Ghadar's foremost strategy was to entice Indian soldiers
British Indian Army
The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...
to revolt. To that end, in November 1913 Ghadar established the Yugantar Ashram press in San Francisco. The press produced the Hindustan Ghadar
Hindustan Ghadar
thumb|right|Ghadar Newspaper Vol. 1, No. 22, March 24, 1914The Hindustan Ghadar was a weekly publication that was the party organ of the Ghadar Party. It was published under the auspices of the Yugantar Ashram in San Francisco...
newspaper and other nationalist literature.
Ghadar Conspiracy
Berlin Committee
The Berlin Committee, later known as the Indian Independence Committee after 1915, was an organisation formed in Germany in 1914 during World War I by Indian students and political activists residing in the country. The purpose of the Committee was to promote the cause of Indian Independence...
allowed early concepts of Indo-German collaboration to take shape. Towards the end of 1913, the party established contact with prominent revolutionaries in India, including Rash Behari Bose
Rash Behari Bose
Rashbehari Bose was a revolutionary leader against the British Raj in India and was one of the key organisers of the Ghadar conspiracy and later, the Indian National Army.-Early life:...
. An Indian edition of the Hindustan Ghadar essentially espoused the philosophies of anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
and revolutionary terrorism against British interests in India. Political discontent and violence mounted in Punjab, and Ghadarite publications that reached Bombay from California were deemed seditious and banned by the Raj. These events, compounded by evidence of prior Ghadarite incitement in the Delhi-Lahore Conspiracy of 1912, led the British government to pressure the American State Department to suppress Indian revolutionary activities and Ghadarite literature, which emanated mostly from San Francisco.
1914
During World War I, the British Indian Army contributed significantly to the British war effort. Consequently, a reduced force, estimated to have been as low as 15,000 troops in late 1914, was stationed in India. It was in this scenario that concrete plans for organising uprisings in India were made.In September 1913, Mathra Singh, a Ghadarite, visited Shanghai and promoted the Ghadarite cause within the Indian community there. In January 1914, Singh visited India and circulated Ghadar literature amongst Indian soldiers through clandestine sources before leaving for Hong Kong. Singh's reported that the situation in India was favourable for a revolution.
In May 1914, the Canadian government refused to allow the 400 Indian passengers of the ship Komagata Maru
Komagata Maru
The Komagata Maru incident involved a Japanese steamship, the Komagata Maru, that sailed from Hong Kong to Shanghai, China; Yokohama, Japan; and then to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in 1914, carrying 376 passengers from Punjab, India. The 356 of passengers were not allowed to land in...
to disembark at Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
. The voyage had been planned as an attempt to circumvent Canadian exclusion laws that effectively prevented Indian immigration. Before the ship reached Vancouver, its approach was announced on German radio, and British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
n authorities were prepared to prevent the passengers from entering Canada. The incident became a focal point for the Indian community in Canada which rallied in support of the passengers and against the government's policies. After a 2 month legal battle, 24 of the them were allowed to immigrate. The ship was escorted out of Vancouver by the protected cruiser HMCS Rainbow and returned to India. On reaching Calcutta, the passengers were detained under the Defence of India Act at Budge Budge by the British Indian government, which made efforts to forcibly transport them to Punjab. This caused rioting at Budge Budge and resulted in fatalities on both sides. A number of Ghadar leaders, like Barkatullah and Taraknath Das, used the inflammatory passions surrounding the Komagata Maru incident as a rallying point and successfully brought many disaffected Indians in North America into the party's fold.
Outlines of mutiny
By October 1914, a large number of Ghadarites had returned to India and were assigned tasks like contacting Indian revolutionaries and organisations, spreading propaganda and literature, and arranging to get arms into the country that were being arranged to be shipped in from United StatesAnnie Larsen affair
The Annie Larsen affair was a gun-running plot in the United States during World War I. The plot, involving India's Ghadar Party, the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the German Foreign office, was a part of the larger Hindu German Conspiracy, and it was the prime offence cited in the 1917 Hindu...
with German help. The first group of 60 Ghadarites led by Jawala Singh, left San Francisco for Canton
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
aboard the steamship SS Korea on 29 August. They were to sail on to India, where they would be provided with arms to organise a revolt. At Canton, more Indians joined, and the group, now numbering about 150, sailed for Calcutta on a Japanese vessel. They were to be joined by more Indians arriving in smaller groups. During the September – October time period, about 300 Indians left for India in various ships like SS Siberia, Chinyo Maru, China, Manchuria, SS Tenyo Maru, SS Mongolia and SS Shinyo Maru. The SS Korea's party was uncovered and arrested on arrival at Calcutta. In spite of this, a successful underground network was established between the United States and India, through Shanghai, Swatow, and Siam. Tehl Singh, the Ghadar operative in Shanghai, is believed to have spent $30,000 for helping the revolutionaries to get into India.
Amongst those who returned were Vishnu Ganesh Pingle
Vishnu Ganesh Pingle
Vishnu Ganesh Pingle was an Indian revolutionary and a member of the Ghadar Party who was one of those executed in 1915 following the Lahore conspiracy trial for his role in the Ghadar conspiracy.-Early life:...
, Kartar Singh
Kartar Singh
Kartar Singh is a Indian wrestler who won gold medals at the Asian Games in 1978 and 1986.-Life:Kartar Singh was born in Sur Singh village of the present-day Tarn Taran district in Punjab. He won gold medals in the 1978 Asian Games held in Bangkok and the 1986 Asian Games held in Seoul. He won...
, Santokh Singh
Santokh Singh
Santokh Singh was a Malaysian national football player from Selangor. He played alongside the late Mokhtar Dahari, Soh Chin Aun and R. Arumugam. He participated in the 1972 Munich Olympic Games and one of qualifying team to the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. His partnership with Soh Chin Aun was the...
, Pandit Kanshi Ram
Pandit Kanshi Ram
Pandit Kanshi Ram was an Indian revolutionary who, along with Har Dayal and Sohan Singh Bhakna was one of the three key members in founding the Ghadar Party. He served as the treasurer of the party from its foundation in 1913 to 1914...
, Bhai Bhagwan Singh
Bhai Bhagwan Singh
Bhai Bhagwan Singh Gyanee was an Indian Nationalist and a leading luminary of the Ghadar Party. Elected the party president in 1914, he was extensively involved in the Ghadar Conspiracy of 1915 during World War I and in the aftermath of its failure fled to Japan...
, who ranked amongst the higher leadership of the Ghadar party. Pingle had known Satyen Bhushan Sen (Jatin Mukherjee’s emissary) in the company of Gadhar members (such as Kartar Singh Sarabha) at the University of Berkeley. Tasked to consolidate contact with the Indian revolutionary movement, as part of the Ghadar Conspiracy, Satyen Bhushan Sen, Kartar Singh Sarabha, Vishnu Ganesh Pingle
Vishnu Ganesh Pingle
Vishnu Ganesh Pingle was an Indian revolutionary and a member of the Ghadar Party who was one of those executed in 1915 following the Lahore conspiracy trial for his role in the Ghadar conspiracy.-Early life:...
and a batch of Sikh militants sailed from America by the S.S. Salamin in the second half of October 1914. Satyen and Pingle halted in China for a few days to meet the Gadhar leaders (mainly Tahal Singh) for future plans. They met Dr Sun Yat-Sen
Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese doctor, revolutionary and political leader. As the foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the "Father of the Nation" , a view agreed upon by both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China...
for co-operation. Dr Sun was not prepared to displease the British. After Satyen and party left for India, Tahal sent Atmaram Kapur, Santosh Singh and Shiv Dayal Kapur to Bangkok for necessary arrangements. In November, 1914, Pingle, Kartar Singh and Satyen Sen arrived in Calcutta. Satyen introduced Pingle and Kartar Singh to Jatin Mukherjee. "Pingle had long talks with Jatin Mukherjee, who sent them to Rash Behari" in Benares with necessary information during the third week of December. Satyen remained in Calcutta at 159 Bow Bazar [Street]. Tegart was informed of an attempt to tamper with some Sikh troops at the Dakshineswar gunpowder magazine. "A reference to the Military authorities shows that the troops in question were the 93rd Burmans" sent to Mesopotamia. Jatin Mukherjee and Satyen Bhushan Sen were seen interviewing these Sikhs. The Ghadarites rapidly established contact with the Indian revolutionary underground, notably that in Bengal, and the plans began to be consolidated by Rash Behari Bose and Jatin Mukherjee and the Ghadarites for a coordinated general uprising.
Early attempts
Indian revolutionaries under Lokamanya Tilak’s inspiration, had turned Benares into a centre for sedition since 1900s. Sundar Lal (b. 1885, son of Tota Ram, Muzaffarnagar) had given a very objectionable speech in 1907 on Shivaji Festival in Benares. Follower of Tilak, Lala Lajpat RaiLala Lajpat Rai
Lala Lajpat Rai was an Indian author, freedom fighter and politician who is chiefly remembered as a leader in the Indian fight for freedom from the British Raj. He was popularly known as Punjab Kesari or Sher-e-Punjab meaning the samem and was part of the Lal Bal Pal trio...
and Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo , born Aurobindo Ghosh or Ghose , was an Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet. He joined the Indian movement for freedom from British rule and for a duration became one of its most important leaders, before developing his own vision of human progress...
, in 1908 this man had accompanied Lala in his UP lecture tour. His organ, the Swarajya of Allahabad, was warned in April 1908 against sedition. On 22 August 1909, Sundar Lal and Sri Aurobindo delivered “mischievous speeches” in College Square, Calcutta. The Karmayogi in Hindi was issued in Allahabad since September 1909: controlled by Sri Aurobindo, the Calcutta Karmagogin was edited by Amarendra Chatterjee
Amarendra Chatterjee
Amarendranath Chatterjee was an Indian independence movement activist. In charge of raising funds for the Jugantar movement, his activities largely covered revolutionary centres in Bihar, Orissa and the United Provinces....
who had introduced Rash Behari to Sundar Lal. In 1915, Pingle will be received in Allahabad by the Swarajya group. Rash Behari Bose had been in Benares since early 1914. Large number of outrages were committed there between October 1914 and September 1915, 45 of them before February was over. On 18 November 1914, while examining two bomb caps, he and Sachin Sanyal had been injured. They shifted to a house in Bangalitola, where Pingle visited him with a letter from Jatin Mukherjee and reported that some 4000 Sikhs of the Ghadar
Ghadar
Ghadar may refer to:* Indian Rebellion of 1857 is also called Ghadar.*Ghadar Party, an Indian political party founded in San Francisco**Hindustan Ghadar, the weekly publication of the Ghadar Party...
had already reached Calcutta. 15.000 more were waiting to come and join the rebellion. Rash Behari sent Pingle and Sachin to Amritsar, to discuss with Mula Singh who had come from Shanghai. Rash Behari’s man of confidence, Pingle led a hectic life in UP and Punjab for several weeks.
During the Komagata Maru
Komagata Maru
The Komagata Maru incident involved a Japanese steamship, the Komagata Maru, that sailed from Hong Kong to Shanghai, China; Yokohama, Japan; and then to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in 1914, carrying 376 passengers from Punjab, India. The 356 of passengers were not allowed to land in...
affray in Budge Budge, near Calcutta, on 29 September 1914, Baba Gurmukh Singh
Baba Gurmukh Singh
Baba Gurmukh Singh was a Ghadr revolutionary and a Sikh leader.-Biography:Singh was born in Lalton Khurd, in the Ludhiana district. He studied up to matriculation at a church Mission School of Ludhiana and was a school-mate of Kartar Singh Sarabha...
had contacted Atulkrishna Ghosh
Atulkrishna Ghosh
Atulkrishna Ghosh was an Indian revolutionary, member of the Anushilan Samiti, and a leader of the Jugantar movement involved in Hindu German Conspiracy during World War I.-Early life:...
and Satish Chakravarti, two eminent associates of Jatin Mukherjee, who actively assisted them. Since then, angry letters from US-based Indians reached India with hope of a German victory; one of the emigrant leaders warned that his associates were in touch with the Bengal revolutionary party. It was at this juncture, in December 1914, that Pingle arrived in the Punjab, promising Bengali co-operation to the malcontent emigrants. A meeting demanded revolution, plundering of Government treasuries, seduction of Indian troops, collection of arms, preparation of bombs and the commission of dacoties. Rash Behari planned collecting gangs of villagers for the rebellion. Simultaneous outbreaks at Lahore, Ferozepore & Rawalpindi was designed. Rising at Dacca, Benares, Jubbalpur to be extended.
Preparing bombs was a definite part of the Gadhar programme. The Sikh conspirators – knowing very little about it – decided to call in a Bengali expert, as they had known in California Professor Surendra Bose, associate of Taraknath Das. Towards the end of December 1914, at a meeting at Kapurthala, Pingle announced that a Bengali babu was ready to co-operate with them. On 3 January 1915, Pingle and Sachindra in Amritsar received Rs 500 from the Ghadar, and returned to Benares.
Coordination
Pingle returned to Calcutta with Rash Behari’s invitation to the JugantarJugantar
Jugantar or Yugantar was one of the two main secret revolutionary trends operating in Bengal for Indian independence.This association, like Anushilan Samiti started in the guise of suburban fitness club. Several Jugantar members were arrested, hanged, or deported for life to the Cellular Jail in...
leaders to meet him at Benares for co-ordinating and finalising their plans. Jatin Mukherjee, Atulkrishna Ghosh
Atulkrishna Ghosh
Atulkrishna Ghosh was an Indian revolutionary, member of the Anushilan Samiti, and a leader of the Jugantar movement involved in Hindu German Conspiracy during World War I.-Early life:...
, Naren Bhattacharya left for Benares (early January, 1915). In a very important meeting, Rash Behari announced the rebellion, proclaiming : "Die for their country." Though through Havildar Mansha Singh, the 16th Rajput Rifles at Fort William
Fort William, India
Fort William is a fort built in Calcutta on the Eastern banks of the River Hooghly, the major distributary of the River Ganges, during the early years of the Bengal Presidency of British India. It was named after King William III of England...
was successfully approached, Jatin Mukherjee wanted two months for the army revolt, synchronising with the arrival of the German arms. He modified the plan according to the impatience of the Gadhar militants to rush to action. Rash Behari and Pingle went to Lahore. Sachin tampered with the 7th Rajputs (Benares) and the 89th Punjabis at Dinapore. Damodar Sarup [Seth] went to Allahabad. Vinayak Rao Kapile conveyed bombs from Bengal to Punjab. Bibhuti [Haldar, approver] and Priyo Nath [Bhattacharya?] seduced the troops at Benares; Nalini [Mukherjee] at Jabalpur. On 14 February, Kapile carried from Benares to Lahore a parcel containing materials for 18 bombs.
By the middle of January, Pingle was back in Amritsar with "the fat babu" (Rash Behari); to avoid too many visitors, Rash Behari moved to Lahore after a fortnight. In both the places he collected materials for making bombs and ordered for 80 bomb cases to a foundry at Lahore. Its owner out of suspicion refused to execute the order. Instead, inkpots were used as cases in several of the dacoities. Completed bombs were found during house searches, while Rash Behari escaped. "By then effective contact had been established between the returned Gadharites and the revolutionaries led by Rash Behari, and a large section of soldiers in the NW were obviously disaffected." "It was expected that as soon as the signal was received there would be mutinies and popular risings from the Punjab to Bengal." "48 out of the 81 accused in the Lahore conspiracy case , including Rash Behari’s close associates like Pingle, Mathura Singh & Kartar Singh Sarabha, recently arrived from North America."
Along with Rash Behari Bose
Rash Behari Bose
Rashbehari Bose was a revolutionary leader against the British Raj in India and was one of the key organisers of the Ghadar conspiracy and later, the Indian National Army.-Early life:...
, Sachin Sanyal and Kartar Singh
Kartar Singh
Kartar Singh is a Indian wrestler who won gold medals at the Asian Games in 1978 and 1986.-Life:Kartar Singh was born in Sur Singh village of the present-day Tarn Taran district in Punjab. He won gold medals in the 1978 Asian Games held in Bangkok and the 1986 Asian Games held in Seoul. He won...
, Pingle became one of the main coordinators of the attempted mutiny in February 1915. Under Rash Behari, Pingle issued intensive propaganda for revolution from December 1914, sometimes disguised as Shyamlal, a Bengali; sometimes Ganpat Singh, a Punjabi.
Setting a date
Confident of being able to rally the Indian sepoySepoy
A sepoy was formerly the designation given to an Indian soldier in the service of a European power. In the modern Indian Army, Pakistan Army and Bangladesh Army it remains in use for the rank of private soldier.-Etymology and Historical usage:...
, the plot for the mutiny took its final shape. The 23rd Cavalry in Punjab was to seize weapons and kill their officers while on roll call on 21 February. This was to be followed by mutiny in the 26th Punjab, which was to be the signal for the uprising to begin, resulting in an advance on Delhi and Lahore. The Bengal revolutionaries contacted the Sikh troops stationed at Dacca through letters of introduction sent by Sikh soldiers of Lahore, and succeeded in winning them over. The Bengal cell was to look for the Punjab Mail entering the Howrah Station
Howrah station
Howrah Station is one of the four intercity train stations serving Howrah and Kolkata, India; the others are Sealdah Station, Shalimar Station and Kolkata railway station in Kolkata. Howrah is situated on the West bank of the Hooghly River, linked to Kolkata by the magnificent Howrah Bridge which...
the next day (which would have been cancelled if Punjab was seized) and was to strike immediately.
Pan-Indian mutiny
By the start of 1915, a large number of Ghadarites (nearly 8,000 in the Punjab province alone by some estimates) had returned to India. However, they were not assigned a central leadership and begun their work on an ad hoc basis. Although some were rounded up by the police on suspicion, many remained at large and began establishing contacts with garrisons in major cities like LahoreLahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
, Ferozepur and Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi , locally known as Pindi, is a city in the Pothohar region of Pakistan near Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad, in the province of Punjab. Rawalpindi is the fourth largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad...
. Various plans had been made to attack the military arsenal at Mian Meer, near Lahore and initiate a general uprising on 15 November 1914. In another plan, a group of Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
soldiers, the manjha jatha, planned to start a mutiny in the 23rd Cavalry at the Lahore cantonment on 26 November. A further plan called for a mutiny to start on 30 November from Ferozepur under Nidham Singh. In Bengal, the Jugantar, through Jatin Mukherjee, established contacts with the garrison at Fort William
Fort William, India
Fort William is a fort built in Calcutta on the Eastern banks of the River Hooghly, the major distributary of the River Ganges, during the early years of the Bengal Presidency of British India. It was named after King William III of England...
in Calcutta. In August 1914, Mukherjee's group had seized a large consignment of guns and ammunition from the Rodda company, a major gun manufacturing firm in India. In December, a number of politically motivated armed robberies
Robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....
to obtain funds were carried out in Calcutta. Mukherjee kept in touch with Rash Behari Bose through Kartar Singh and V.G. Pingle. These rebellious acts, which were until then organised separately by different groups, were brought into a common umbrella under the leadership of Rash Behari Bose in North India, V. G. Pingle in Maharashtra
Maharashtra
Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...
, and Sachindranath Sanyal in Benares. A plan was made for a unified general uprising, with the date set for 21 February 1915.
February 1915
In India, confident of being able to rally the Indian sepoySepoy
A sepoy was formerly the designation given to an Indian soldier in the service of a European power. In the modern Indian Army, Pakistan Army and Bangladesh Army it remains in use for the rank of private soldier.-Etymology and Historical usage:...
, the plot for the mutiny took its final shape. Under the plans, the 23rd Cavalry in Punjab was to seize weapons and kill their officers while on roll call on 21 February. This was to be followed by mutiny in the 26th Punjab, which was to be the signal for the uprising to begin, resulting in an advance on Delhi and Lahore. The Bengal cell was to look for the Punjab Mail entering the Howrah Station
Howrah station
Howrah Station is one of the four intercity train stations serving Howrah and Kolkata, India; the others are Sealdah Station, Shalimar Station and Kolkata railway station in Kolkata. Howrah is situated on the West bank of the Hooghly River, linked to Kolkata by the magnificent Howrah Bridge which...
the next day (which would have been cancelled if Punjab was seized) and was to strike immediately.
However, the Punjab CID successfully infiltrated the conspiracy at the last moment through Kirpal Singh: a cousin of the trooper Balwant Singh (23rd Cavalry), US-returned Kirpal, a spy, visited Rash Behari’s Lahore headquarters near the Mochi Gate, where over a dozen leaders including Pingle met on 15 February 1915. Kirpal informed the police. Sensing that their plans had been compromised, the D-day was brought forward to 19 February, but even these plans found their way to the Punjab CID. Plans for revolt by the 130th Baluchi Regiment at Rangoon on 21 February were thwarted. On 15 February, the 5th Light Infantry stationed at Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
was among the few units to actually rebel. About half of the eight hundred and fifty troops comprising the regiment mutinied on the afternoon of the 15th, along with nearly a hundred men of the Malay States Guides. This mutiny lasted almost seven days, and resulted in the deaths of forty-seven British soldiers and local civilians. The mutineers also released the interned crew of the SMS Emden. The mutiny was only put down after French, Russian and Japanese ships arrived with reinforcements. Of nearly two hundred tried at Singapore, forty seven were shot in a public execution,. Most of the rest were deported for life or given jail terms ranging between seven and twenty years. Some historians, including Hew Strachan
Hew Strachan
Brigadier Professor Hew Francis Anthony Strachan, DL, FRSE, FRHS is a Scottish military historian, well known for his work on the administration of the British Army and the history of the First World War...
, argue that although Ghadar agents operated within the Singapore unit, the mutiny was isolated and not linked to the conspiracy. Others deem this as instigated by the Silk Letter Movement which became intricately related to the Ghadarite conspiracy. Plans for revolt in the 26th Punjab, 7th Rajput, 24th Jat Artillery and other regiments did not go beyond the conspiracy stage. Planned mutinies in Firozpur
Firozpur
Firozpur is a city on the banks of the Sutlej River in Firozpur District, Punjab, India, founded by Sultan Firoz Shah Tughlaq , a Muslim ruler of the Tughlaq Dynasty who reigned over the Sultanate of Delhi from 1351 to 1388.The Manj Rajputs say the town was named after their chief, a Rajput of...
, Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
, and Agra
Agra
Agra a.k.a. Akbarabad is a city on the banks of the river Yamuna in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, west of state capital, Lucknow and south from national capital New Delhi. With a population of 1,686,976 , it is one of the most populous cities in Uttar Pradesh and the 19th most...
were also suppressed and many key leaders of the conspiracy were arrested, although some managed to escape or evade arrest. A last ditch attempt was made by Kartar Singh and Pingle to trigger a mutiny in the 12th Cavalry regiment at Meerut. Kartar Singh
Kartar Singh
Kartar Singh is a Indian wrestler who won gold medals at the Asian Games in 1978 and 1986.-Life:Kartar Singh was born in Sur Singh village of the present-day Tarn Taran district in Punjab. He won gold medals in the 1978 Asian Games held in Bangkok and the 1986 Asian Games held in Seoul. He won...
escaped from Lahore, but was arrested in Benares, and V. G. Pingle was apprehended from the lines of the 12th Cavalry at Meerut, in the night of 23 March 1915. He carried "ten bombs of the pattern used in the attempt to assassinate Lord Hardinge in Delhi," according to Bombay police report. It is said that it was enough to blow up an entire regiment. Mass arrests followed as the Ghadarites were rounded up in Punjab and the Central Provinces
Central Provinces
The Central Provinces was a province of British India. It comprised British conquests from the Mughals and Marathas in central India, and covered parts of present-day Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra states. Its capital was Nagpur....
. Rash Behari Bose escaped from Lahore and in May 1915 fled to Japan. Other leaders, including Giani Pritam Singh, Swami Satyananda Puri
Swami Satyananda Puri
Swami Satyanda Puri may refer to:*Bhavabhushan Mitra- a Bengali Indian revolutionary intricately involved with the Jugantar Party and the Indo-German Conspiracy....
and others fled to Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
or other sympathetic nations.
Later efforts
Other related events include the 1915 Singapore Mutiny1915 Singapore Mutiny
The 1915 Singapore Mutiny, also known as the 1915 Sepoy Mutiny, or Mutiny of the 5th Native Light Infantry was a mutiny involving up to half of 850 sepoys against the British in Singapore during the First World War, linked with the 1915 Ghadar Conspiracy...
, the Annie Larsen arms plot
Annie Larsen affair
The Annie Larsen affair was a gun-running plot in the United States during World War I. The plot, involving India's Ghadar Party, the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the German Foreign office, was a part of the larger Hindu German Conspiracy, and it was the prime offence cited in the 1917 Hindu...
, Christmas Day Plot
Christmas Day Plot
The Christmas Day plot was a conspiracy made by the Indian revolutionary movement to initiate an insurrection in Bengal in British India during World War I with German arms and support...
, events leading up to the death of Bagha Jatin, as well as the German mission to Kabul, the mutiny of the Connaught Rangers in India, as well as, by some accounts, the Black Tom explosion
Black Tom explosion
The Black Tom explosion on July 30, 1916 in Jersey City, New Jersey was an act of sabotage on American ammunition supplies by German agents to prevent the materiel from being used by the Allies in World War I.- Black Tom Island :...
in 1916. The Indo-Irish-German alliance and the conspiracy were the target of a worldwide British intelligence effort, which was successful in preventing further attempts.American intelligence agencies arrested key figures in the aftermath of the Annie Larsen affair in 1917. The conspiracy led to legal trials like the Lahore conspiracy case
Lahore Conspiracy Case
This can refer to :* The First Lahore Conspiracy, also known as the Lahore Conspiracy Case trial in the aftermath of the Ghadar conspiracy in 1915* The Second Lahore Conspiracy Case, the trial of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev in 1931...
in India and the Hindu German Conspiracy Trial
Hindu German Conspiracy Trial
The Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial commenced in the District Court in San Francisco, California on November 12, 1917 following the uncovering of the Indo German plot for initiating a revolt in India...
in the United States, the latter being the longest and most expensive trial in the country at that date.
Trials
The conspiracy led to a number of trials in India, most famous among them being the Lahore Conspiracy trial, which opened in Lahore in April 1915 in the aftermath of the failed February mutiny. Other trials included the Benares, Simla, Delhi, and Ferozepur conspiracy cases, and the trials of those arrested at Budge Budge. At Lahore, a special tribunal was constituted under the Defence of India Act 1915Defence of India Act 1915
The Defence of India Act 1915, also referred to as the Defence of India Regulations Act, was an Emergency Criminal Law enacted by the British Raj in India in 1915 with the intention of curtailing the nationalist and revolutionary activities during and in the aftermath of World War I...
and a total of 291 conspirators were put on trial. Of these 42 were awarded the death sentence
Death Sentence
Death Sentence is a short story by the American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.-Plot summary:...
, 114 transported for life
Cellular Jail
The Cellular Jail, also known as Kālā Pānī , was a colonial prison situated in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. The prison was used by the British especially to exile political prisoners to the remote archipelago...
, and 93 awarded varying terms of imprisonment. A number of these were sent to the Cellular Jail
Cellular Jail
The Cellular Jail, also known as Kālā Pānī , was a colonial prison situated in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. The prison was used by the British especially to exile political prisoners to the remote archipelago...
in the Andaman
Andaman Islands
The Andaman Islands are a group of Indian Ocean archipelagic islands in the Bay of Bengal between India to the west, and Burma , to the north and east...
. Forty two defendants in the trial were acquitted.
The Lahore trial directly linked the plans made in United States and the February mutiny plot. Following the conclusion of the trial, diplomatic effort to destroy the Indian revolutionary movement in the United States and to bring its members to trial increased considerably.
Impact
The Indo-German conspiracy as a whole, as well as the intrigues of the Ghadar Party in Punjab during the war were one of the main stimulus for the enactment of the Defence of India Act, appointment of the Rowlatt CommitteeRowlatt Committee
The Rowlatt committee was a Sedition Committee appointed in 1918 by the British Indian Government with Mr Justice Rowlatt, an English judge, as its president. The purpose of the committee was to evaluate political terrorism in India, especially Bengal and Punjab, its impact, and the links with the...
, and the enactment of the Rowlatt Act
Rowlatt Act
The Rowlatt Act was a law passed by the British in colonial India in March 1919, indefinitely extending "emergency measures" enacted during the First World War in order to control public unrest and root out conspiracy...
s. The Jallianwallah Bagh massacre is also linked intimately with the Raj's fears of a Ghadarite uprising in India especially Punjab in 1919.