Distorting Indian Freedom Struggle History To Strengthen
Indian Nationalism Anchored To Hindu Religious Ethos
By Jaspal Singh Sidhu
13 October, 2013
Countercurrents.org
Current centenary year of the Ghadar Party ,founded in America in March,1913
by Indians of Punjab origin with overwhelming participation of the
Sikhs to level of 96-97 per cent has not remained confined to
customary celebrations. American historian Johanna Jo Ogden who
recently finished her five-year unpaid research in Portland and
Astoria areas (USA) where the emigrant Sikh lived before joining
the Ghadar Party , has published her studies in ‘Oregon Historical
Quarterly’ (a report in Portland Tribune). Diaspora Sikh researchers
and their counterparts In Indian Punjab, also got prompted to
re-evaluate the ‘Ghadar’ (uprising) episode and claimed that their
investigations have thrown up altogether a different picture than
what was, till recently, prevailed and projected by the historians.
Five-six years ago, activists of the Ghadar party were being taken as
‘staunch nationalist Indians who transgressed communitarian and
religious trappings’. And those intellectuals who brought out ‘other
side of the story’ to the fore, have raised an accusing finger on the
erstwhile historians of the Ghadar Party blaming them for “willful
distortion the history of freedom struggle as to make it subservient
to the Indian Nationalism anchored to Hindu religious ethos”.
Researchers and historians coming out with new version of the Ghadar
history have contend that the distortion began with Sohan Singh Josh,
earlier Communist activist of 1920-30s era, who was obsessed with ‘’
mechanical materialistic interpretation of ‘communalism’, a third-rate
version of Euro-centric secularism ‘’. On becoming the editor of the
Kirti Party’s newspaper after the death of its founder editor Santokh
Singh, former general secretary of the Ghadar Party who had come down
to Amritsar following failure of the Ghadar movement, Josh made a
deliberate bid to detach the newspaper from Ghadari Babas (older
activists of the Ghadar movement ) who were practicing Sikhs had
drawn their revolutionary fervor from the Sikh history and
religious-cultural moorings. Those days in Punjab, divide between the
Kirti Party comprising most of the Ghadari Babas and the Communist
party of which Josh was a member, continued to smolder even though
both had joined hands on various anti-British agitation programs.
Another pertinent difference between the two was that the Ghadari
Babas were having closer and warm relations with leaders of the Akali
Party, a political outfit of the Sikhs that came into existence in
1920s while the Communists were nursing a strong aversion to the Sikh
religion and the Sikh way of life which their cadres are having till
the day.
Being molded in that Communist culture , Josh was the first to begin
with the distortion of the Ghadar Party’s history projecting Babas as
“nationalists and seculars’’ in his earlier write-ups much before
gaining a reckoning of being a third writer to pen down a
comprehensive history of Ghadarites as late as in 1978 . Earlier to
Josh, Gurcharn Singh Sainsara, another Left activist wrote the history
of the Ghadar Party in 1960s , painting Ghadari Babas as “
Left-leaning secular nationalists having no truck with the Akalis ”.
Before him, Jagjit Singh, author of a path-breaking Sikhs’ history
book, “ The Sikh Revolution” was the first historian to write the
history of the Ghadarites . His book “Ghadar Party Lehar” came out in
late 1950s but he, too, being under the Left intellectuals’ influence
could not do much justice to the Ghadar movement.
Sainsara wrote the history in Punjabi language (Gurmukhi script)
while Josh penned it down originally in English , later, to be
translated into Punjabi. Prof Harish Kumar Puri was the first
academician to write on the Ghadar Party in English whose historical
works got recognition throughout the country and abroad. Puri painted
the ‘Ghadari Babas’ as ‘secular nationalists who had shunned all sort
of communal feelings and detached themselves from their Sikh background’.
And, Left activists and their supporting intellectuals do hail Puri’s
historical writings as “an objective and authentic evaluation of the
role of Ghadar Party”.
Puri presented Lala Hardyal as ‘brain behind the Ghadar movement’.
Lala Hardyal was inspired by the Bengali Hindu nationalists like
Bankum Chatterjee and Arbindo Ghosh and VD Savarkar , the founder of
RSS and Hindutva political ideology and he convinced the Ghadarites
to adopt “Bande-Matrim” as their slogan and named the headquarter
of their newspaper ‘ Gadhar ’ in San Frasisco as “Yugantar Ashram”.
Ironically most of the Ghadari leaders from Punjab were not aware
about the anti-Muslim texture of ‘Bande-Matrim’ slogan as it had
originated in the Bangla traditions and culture.Otherwise, they would
not have adopted it as Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna, founder president of
Ghadar Party himself corroborated this fact in his auto-biography,
‘Meri Ram Kahani’, that they were keen to keep Indian Muslims in
Gadhar Party’s fold and kept one in the party (in US) even as his
credentials were doubtful ………..we adopted the slogan thinking that it
belonged to none of the participants and help them remaining united.’
Puri conveniently used innocence on the part of the Ghadarites on
this count to come out with his intended conclusion that the adoption
of ‘Bande-Matrim’ proved the nationalistic credentials of the Ghadari
Babas as the Sikhs among them had abjured their religious background
and slogans like that of ‘’Bole So Nihal’.
Of late, Sewak Singh, a research scholar of Punjabi University Patiala
during his course study raised a mild finger on hitherto accepted
version of history of the Ghadar Party and wrote a critical article
on the subject in a Punjabi weekly ‘Sikh Shahaadat’. That article
inspired the Sikh intellectuals to explore the facts ‘why the Sikhs
had overwhelmingly joined the Ghadar Party?’ and ‘why the Sikhs had
constituted the majority of those executed and sent to Adaman and
other jails?’. These queries prompted inquisitive Rajwinder Singh
Raahi to take up a serious study of the Ghadar movement. In a short
period, dedicated Raahi researched the records, dished out old
documents and authored three books on the subject--- Ghadar Lehar Di
Asli Gatha ( Real Story Behind Ghadar Movement)—Part 1 and Part 2
and “Meri Ram Kanani” –an autobiography of Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna,
the founder president of “Hind Association of Pacific Coast” which
later came to known as “Hindustan Ghadar Party” or “Ghadar Party”.
Meanwhile , Ajmer Singh, a Sikh historian and author of three highly
acclaimed books on ‘Sikhs in History and politics of Post-Independent
India’ who guided and actively collaborated with Raahi in latter’s
research project has also come out with his new book on the Ghadar
Party,
“ Ghadari Babe Kaun San ? Anmattiya De Kur Dahvihayan Da Khandan” (Who
were Ghadari Babas? Rejection of Distorted Claims) in Punjabi
(Gurmukhi script). This book rejects the historicity
hitherto built around the Ghadar movement and presents new and
hitherto unknown facts shredding to pieces the traditional
interpretation from Indian nationalistic perspective.
"Till 2006, I also was of the conviction - as prevailing and largely
acceptable - that Ghadari Babas had leftist orientation or they were
influenced by other ideologies and movements in the world while
remaining detached from Sikhism, its history and ethos. It was during
my work on another book that I started realizing this perception was
away from the truth. Then other material also started coming out,
which threw fresh light on the orientation of the movement," says
Ajmer Singh, a former Naxal (Ultra Communist) leader of Punjab, who
remained underground for 31 years from 1970 to 2001.
Apart from referring to several works, Ajmer has quoted extensively
from great Bengali revolutionary Sachindra Nath Sanyal's autobiography
‘Bandi Jiwan’.
"We have challenged the prevailing thesis, and now let there be honest
answers to our works after the original writings of the Ghadarites
have been published," adds Ajmer Singh.
Rebutting criticism by the Left intellectuals that he is bent upon
presenting the Ghadarites as the Sikh faithful , Ajmer Singh dishes
out the facts that leaving a few Hindu and Muslim participants in the
Ghadhar movement as many as 96-97 per cent were the Sikhs from Punjab,
particularly, from Lahore, Amrtisar, Gurdaspur, Ferozepur and Ludhiana
districts of the central Punjab dominated by the Sikhs agriculturists.
Rejecting Puri’s contention that the Ghadari Babas had dissolved their
Sikh identity into a pan-Indian identity, Ajmer’s book quotes
historical facts extensively affirming the warm relations of the
Gadhari Babas with the Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), a statutory
body that manages the Sikh religious affairs and the Akali Dal.
Installation of the Ghadari Baba , Waisakha Singh as Jathedar
(Religious Head) of the Akal Takht ( High Temporal Seat among the
Sikhs) in 1930s was a proof of that. In support of contention Ajmer
also quotes eminent Marxist thinker, Prof Randhir Singh who wrote a
pamphlet on the Ghadar movement in 1945 underlining the popularity of
Ghadari Babas among the Sikhs.“ The Sikh Panth has chosen Baba (Baba
Waisakha Singh) as Jathedar of the Akal Takht.... who is most
respected personality and a household- name among the Sikh farmer
families. Heroic tales of Ghadari Babas like that of Baba Gurmukh
Singh Lalto are on the lips of Sikh children in Punjab. Heroic deeds
of immortal Kartar Singh Sarabha and his companions are sung by the
Sikh farmer families.” Prof Singh, thus, presents an indisputable
testimony to the fact that the majority of Ghadarites were hailing
from Sikh farming families and they had settled in their native
villages following their escape from gallows and release from prisons.
Later, the proposing of Sohan Singh Bhakna as an unanimous choice for
the office of the SGPC president by the SGPC members in 1936 goes to
testify that the Ghadarites remained staunch Sikhs and closer to the
Sikh leadership. Anyhow, the proposal fell through at the eleventh
hour because of some extraneous factors.
Most of people from the Sikh families, no doubt , forced to leave for
US and Canada, Malaya islands and China because of economic stress
back home as being explained by Marxists like that of Dr Jaspal Singh
editor Des Sewak , a Punjabi newspaper but their urge for freedom from
the British yoke back home was stirred up by politically free
environment of the US particularly where the British Imperial rule
was overthrown through armed resurrection. Sikh religious ethos and
Sikh historical background impelled them to confront, instead of
submitting to, the racial and cultural humiliation they faced in
Canada and other foreign lands, thereby, sharpening their
determination for securing justice to the level of taking up arms
against the British rule. Otherwise, thousands of other Indians were
out there for earning bread and better for their families but they did
not join the Ghadar Party to jump into armed fray for ending the
slavery of Indian by the British.
Ajmer raises another pertinent question; ‘ what perturbed solely the
Sikhs so much that five to six thousand of them from America,
Singapore, Malaysia, China and other countries had joined the Ghadar
Party and came down to India to overthrow the British rule while a
few other Indians (non-Sikh) joined them ?’’ And ‘were the Sikhs still
sulking and repining over the loss of Khalsa Raj in Punjab to the
British?’ In the end, ‘how come among 150 Punjabis sent to gallows and
executed and more than 300 of them sent to Andaman and other jails
after the unsuccessful bid of the Ghadarties an overwhelming majority
were the Sikhs whose population was only 6 to 7 percent in the
undivided Punjab and around one per cent in the entire Indian
sub-continent?’. He points out pertinently that sacrifices made by
other than Sikhs in the early period of freedom struggle is countable
on fingers. And ‘what were characteristics of the Sikhs which impelled
them to take up arms against the British when the Congress leaders
were still dreaming of achieving a ‘dominion status’ for India?’ Ajmer
contested the traditional projection of the Ghadarites as being too
foolhardy and head strong to take into account the indifference of the
native Indian people towards their mission. They , says Ajmer, were
fully alive to Indian and international situation and had developed
good secret contacts with the Sikh regiments which would have revolted
at a crucial period when the British Empire was pre-occupied with the
first World War. ‘Only armchair historians could question the strategy
of the Ghadar Party since such intellectuals are supposed to have no
direct experience of actual revolt and armed struggles’.
Projection of Lal Hardyal as ‘brain’ behind, the Ghadar movement has
also been disputed by Ajmer as ‘an implicit attempt to reject and
subsume the Sikh identity of the Ghadar leaders into pan-Indian
identity’. He quotes Baba Bhakna as saying in his autobiography that ‘
Lala Hardyal was most intelligent person but had no consistency and
perseverance of a fighter ………..and he was hired only to edit the
Ghadar newspaper where he worked only for six months ……..and then left
for Germany thereafter not to come back to US again’. During stay in
Germany, Lala Hardyal lost his earlier anti-British fervor , rather,
began singing paeans of the British and later wrote a book in their
praise which was freely distributed in India by the British
administration. Ajmer contends that Lala Hardyal ,rather, trapped the
Ghadar Party leaders into adopting “ Bande-Matrim’ slogan---- an
anti-Muslim and Hindu ultra-nationalist war cry and naming of the
Ghadar Party’s headquarter as “Yugantar Ashram’’, a Bengali
Nationalists’ coinage.
A critique of traditional history presented in the book could be
summed up as: “ the Ghadar history was distorted by the way of
appropriating and co-opting the historic role of real freedom fighters
as pan-Indian phenomenon in Indian nationalistic perspective as to
help the Nation State building project laced to the majority cultural
and historical hegemony. And, the Left intellectuals have been
collaborator of Indian national elite in this project. Communists from
Punjab, invariably, helped in muddling up the history which for them
began from 1920s as if they have nothing do with what had happened
prior to that”.
Jaspal Singh Sidhu retired as a Special Correspondent with UNI , New
Delhi in 2008. Since then, has been writing on political, historical
affairs and agricultural issues. He can be reached at
[email protected]
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