14) TIME TO CELEBRATE 100 YEARS OF GHADAR PARTY
By Gurpreet Singh, Surrey, BC
All secularist and progressive groups active in Canada need to get together to celebrate 100 years of the Ghadar Party, a revolutionary movement launched in the U.S. by Indian immigrants who believed in an armed struggle to liberate India from the British occupation.
The Hind Pacific Association, formed with an objective to defeat British Imperialism through armed rebellion, came to be known as the Ghadar (Mutiny) Party after the name of its official newspaper, first published on November 1, 1913. Ghadar gave a call to Indians to take up arms against the foreign invaders, and ran inflammatory articles and poems.
Most of the founders of the Ghadar Party came to Canada and the U.S. for a better life, and had previously worked for the British army. Many believed they were British subjects and trusted in the "fairness" of British rule. However, racism and a hostile environment against immigrants, particularly in Canada, which also was a British dominion, transformed them into political activists.
The British Empire did not come to their rescue when they petitioned for equal rights. Thanks to the indifference of the Empire towards the concerns of its coloured subjects, these men were convinced that until their home country was free, they could not earn dignity abroad. Thus, the ground was ready for the Ghadar Party, giving these men a platform to organize against colonialism.
A number of community activists in Vancouver became members of the Ghadar Party, and also participated in campaigns for equal rights in Canada. Indians were not allowed to bring their families back then. They were disfranchised in 1907, and there was a conspiracy to relocate them to Honduras. An infamous "Continuous Journey Law" was passed to keep Canada white. The Komagata Maru ship carrying over 300 Indian passengers was turned away in 1914 under this discriminatory law.
Many of these Ghadar activists, who returned to India with intent to stir an armed revolt, were hanged or sentenced to life imprisonment. In later years, many became Communists while others joined different political parties.
Though the members of the Ghadar Party were predominantly Sikhs, they decided to keep religion and politics apart. It remained a secular movement throughout its political journey. Some prominent non-Sikh names associated with the Ghadar Party were Pandurang Khankhoje, Taraknath Dass, G.D. Kumar, Barkat Ullah and Hassan Rahim. Of these Dass, Kumar and Rahim were active in Vancouver.
Notably, some of the Ghadar party members tried to save Muslims from Hindu and Sikh extremists during religious violence that followed the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. The Hindu and Sikh fundamentalists together targeted Muslims on the Indian side of the border during independence.
Ironically, religious fundamentalist groups are now trying to appropriate the Ghadar heroes to justify their own acts of violence. Such appropriation is visible in Vancouver, where those seeking a theocratic Sikh homeland openly glorify the Ghadar activists alongside their own militants. The idea is to justify the armed movement for a separate Sikh nation and confuse ordinary people.
The pro-Sikh homeland group now controls a temple established by the Ghadar activists in Stockton, California. This group celebrated the centenary of the Ghadar Party recently, projecting the founders as devout Sikhs, but deliberately obscuring the contributions of non-Sikh Ghadar activists. It has become morally important for all secularist groups to jointly celebrate the Ghadar Party centenary, and present its true and undistorted image to make the world understand that they were not trigger-happy religious extremists, but social justice activists who believed in equality and not theocracy.