Ghadar Party Hero : Kartar Singh Sarabha

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Nineteen and a half year old, Kartar Singh Sarabha was hanged to death in the Lahore Central Jail on 16 November 1915 along with six comrades-Baksheesh Singh (District Amritsar), Harnam Singh (District Sialkot), Jagat Singh (District Lahore), Surain Singh - 1, Surain Singh - 2 (both from District Amritsar) and Vishnu Ganesh Pingle (District Poona in Maharashtra). All the three from District Amritsar had links with village Gilwali. These martyrs and many more like them initiated a revolt, the Ghadar Movement, on 19 February 1915 against British colonialism in India.

The planning for this 'revolt', that is, this freedom struggle, was born in the USA in 1913 in the form of the Ghadar Party. Approximately eight thousand Indians abandoned their comfortable and luxurious lives in the USA and Canada and embarked on ships to reach India to liberate it from British rule. The Ghadar Movement was not a peaceful one; it was an armed revolt, but rather than carry it out surreptitiously, the Ghadar Party announced its intention publicly. The message was also disseminated among the Indian public through its mouthpiece, Ghadar the newspaper that was published in Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu and Gujarati. Inspired by the free soil of USA, this magnificent effort by the Ghadarites to liberate their own country was also inspired by their own first freedom struggle of 1857. The British castigated it and called it 'Ghadar' which means 'revolt', and it was to endow this term with veneration that the Indian patriots settled in America decided to call their party and the newspaper by this very epithet. Just as the story of the first freedom struggle of 1857 is a very exciting one, this second struggle for freedom, that is, the Ghadar Movement, is no less thrilling, though both proved to be unsuccessful.

More than 200 people were martyred in this Movement that spread all over the world. More than 315 people were sentenced to life imprisonment on the Andaman Islands, or other gaols in Ghadar related incidents, and 122 served sentences for comparatively shorter durations. Hundreds of Punjabis were placed under house arrest in their villages for years. This movement acquired a pan-Indian character with the participation of Ras Bihari Bose and Sachindra Nath Sanyal from Bengal, Vishnu Ganesh Pingle and Dr Khan Khoje from Maharashtra, D. Chenchiah and Chempakaraman Pillai from South India and Barkatullah from Bhopal, among others. Revolt in Shanghai, Manila, Singapore and several other cities abroad gave it an international character. Like the freedom struggle of 1857, the Ghadar Movement was also a secular movement in which people from all communities participated.

Another quality of the Ghadar Movement is also worth noting. The Ghadar Party did not die with the failure of the revolt; it retained its international spirit and joined the Communist Party. It continued to work in other countries towards the freedom of India, so its contribution to the Indian national movement was considerable. Later in 1925-26, the revolt by the youth of Punjab, led by the popular hero of the movement, Bhagat Singh, was deeply inspired by the Ghadar Party and Kartar Singh Sarabha. It can be said that Bhagat Singh's personality and ideology was shaped by the adoption of the tradition of the Ghadar Party and he carried it forward in a more developed form.

Kartar Singh Sarabha became the hero of Ghadar Party just as later in 1925-31 Bhagat Singh was the star of the revolutionary movement. It is but natural that Kartar Singh Sarabha was Bhagat Singh's favourite leader, and the latter always carried a photograph of Sarabha in his pocket. Moreover, through a youth organisation called 'Naujawan Bharat Sabha' he used to show a slide show on Kartar Singh Sarabha's life to the youth of Punjab to inspire them. In every public meeting of the 'Naujawan Bharat Sabha' Kartar Singh Sarabha's photo was placed on the dais and bedecked with a garland of flowers.

Kartar Singh Sarabha, in his short political career, emerged as the hero of the Ghadar Movement through his enthusiastic participation in party activities. Within a period of two or three years, the rays from his potent personality bathed the youth of India in patriotic hues and they burst forth in nationalistic fervour. Even the judge who tried him wished to save such a brave lad from the death sentence, and he offered a chance to Sarabha to alter his statement, but this beacon of inspiration for the youth of India refused to negotiate and gave an even more uncompromising statement and accepted his death sentence cheerfully.

Today there is an even greater need for the youth to know and understand the stories of such inspiring people. National Book Trust, India is fulfilling a very important role by publishing the biographies of such inspiring leaders. The history of the Ghadar Party is indissolubly linked to Kartar Singh Sarabha, and thus his life becomes a short history of the Ghadar Party. I hope that the young generation of the country will be interested in the inspiration stored in these pages.

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