REVOLUTIONARY TRENDS [1880s - 1919] Study Materials

Revolutionary Trends [1880s - 1919]

We will highlight Revolutionary Activities from the 1880s to the 1920s. We will cover various factors, events in different regional centres, giving special attention to movements like the Ghadar Movement.

The emergence of revolutionary thinking in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the result of several internal and external influences working on the minds of the young men. 

FACTORS RESPONSIBLE FOR SURGE OF REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVITIES

The most vital factor was the growth of religious revival of the late nineteenth century. 

The renaissance had led to a rediscovery of an ancient Indian past. The spirit of militancy came in the wake of religious awakening, which lent its support to Hindu revivalism and strengthened the feelings of respect for national traditions.

Besides this, there were several foreign influences, like the impact of the American War of Independence, the Irish struggle for freedom, the unification of Italy, the lives of Mazzini and Garibaldi, the Japanese victory over Russia and last but not the least, the revolution against the Tsarist regime in Russia. 

C. Pal held Mazzini to be one of the principal sources of the birth of new nationalism in India. Annie Besant also compared Mazzini and Aurobindo and described them as the men of the same type. V.D. Savarkar translated Mazzini’s Autobiography into Marathi.

All these factors together introduced in the nationalist struggle a strong revolutionary element.

BENGAL

The revolutionary movement in Bengal drew inspiration from Bankim Chandra Chatterji and Swami Vivekanand, with Aurobindo Ghosh as a key contributor.

Bankim Chandra Chatterji imbued the idea of motherland with religious significance, portraying the goddess Durga as a symbol of India’s future greatness.

The revolutionary cult of Shakti encouraged Bengalis to take extreme actions against oppressors.

The first significant revolutionary group, the Midnapore Society, was established in 1902, followed by the founding of a gymnasium in Calcutta by Sarala Ghosal.

Dhaka Anushilan Samiti was formed in March 1902 by Satish Chandra Basu.

The Calcutta Anushilan Samiti, led by Barindra Kumar Ghosh and others, engaged in revolutionary activities.

In April 1906, an inner circle of Anushilan initiated the weekly Yugantar and carried out minor revolutionary actions.

In 1907, the Yugantar group attempted an assassination on Sir Fuller, the Lt. Governor of Eastern Bengal, which failed, leading to the execution of Prafulla Chaki and the trial of Khudiram Bose.

The Maniktala group, including Aurobindo and Barindra Kumar Ghosh, were arrested and tried for their involvement in revolutionary activities.

Aurobindo was acquitted, while Barindra Ghosh and Ullaskar Dutt received life imprisonment.

Barrah dacoity in 1908 was organized by Dacca Anushilan under Pulin Das to fund revolutionary activities.

In December 1912, Rash Behari Bose and Sachin Sanyal attempted to assassinate Viceroy Hardinge, leading to the Delhi Conspiracy trial where several were executed.

Jatindranath Mukherjee (Bagha Jatin) revitalized the western Anushilan Samiti, forming Jugantar, which expanded revolutionary activities beyond Bengal.

During World War I, Jugantar organized the Indo-German conspiracy to bring about an all-India insurrection.

Bagha Jatin coordinated efforts with Rash Behari Bose for the ‘German Plot’ or ‘Zimmerman Plan.’

The plot involved dacoities, including taxicab and boat dacoities, to finance the Indo-German conspiracy.

The betrayal of the German plot led to Jatin Mukherjee’s death in Balasore, Orissa, in September 1915.

Revolutionary newspapers and journals like 'Sandhya' and ' Yugantar' in Bengal, and ' Kal' in Maharashtra, promoted revolutionary activities.

Sachin Sanyal established an Anushilan Samiti in Benares in 1908, later renamed Young Men’s Association.

Hardayal, Amir Chand, and Dinanath actively participated in revolutionary activities.

The revolutionary movement ultimately faced severe suppression by the colonial government.

MAHARASHTRA

The first significant revolutionary activity in Maharashtra began with the organization of the Ramosi Peasant Force by Vasudev Balwant Phadke in 1879. The group aimed to incite an armed revolt against British rule by disrupting communication lines and sought funds through dacoities. However, it was suppressed prematurely.

In the 1890s, Bal Gangadhar Tilak promoted a spirit of militant nationalism through Ganapati and Shivaji festivals, along with his journals *Kesari* and *Mahratta*. His speeches and writings inspired young revolutionaries like the Chapekar brothers—Damodar and Balkrishna.

The Chapekar brothers formed the Hindu Dharm Sangrakshini Sabha, responsible for the assassination of several British officers, including Plague Commissioner Rand and Lt. Ayerst, in 1897.

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and his brother established the Mitra Mela in 1899, a secret society, which merged with Abhinav Bharat in 1904. The name was inspired by the Young Italy movement led by Giuseppe Mazzini.

In 1909, Nasik, Poona, and Bombay became key centers for bomb manufacture. Anant Lakshman Kanhere, a member of Abhinav Bharat, assassinated A.M.T. Jackson, the Collector of Nasik, who was a well-known indologist.

The assassination of Jackson was part of a larger conspiracy to overthrow British rule through armed revolution. As a result, 38 people were arrested, with Savarkar identified as the mastermind behind the conspiracy.

During the trial, Savarkar was recognized as the central figure, the inspiration, and the driving force behind the conspiracy. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and forfeiture of all his property.

PUNJAB

Punjab extremism was fueled by issues such as frequent famines, an increase in land revenue and irrigation taxes, the practice of ‘begar’ by zamindars, and events in Bengal.

The Punjab Colonisation Act of 1906 played a significant role in unrest, allowing government acquisition of property when a person died without heirs.

Lala Lajpat Rai was active in Punjab, bringing out Punjabee with its motto of self-help at any cost.

Ajit Singh, Bhagat Singh’s uncle, organized the extremist Anjuman-i-Mohisban-i-Watan in Lahore, along with its journal, Bharat Mata.

Before adopting extremism, Ajit Singh’s group worked to urge non-payment of revenue and water rates among Chenab colonists and Bari Doab peasants.

Other leaders included Aga Haidar, Syed Haider Raza, Bhai Parmanand, and radical Urdu poet Lalchand ‘Falak’.

Extremism in Punjab was curtailed quickly when the government banned political meetings and deported Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh in May 1907.

Following deportation, Ajit Singh and a few other associates—Sufi Amba Prasad, Lalchand, Bhai Parmanand, Lala Hardayal transitioned into full-scale revolutionaries.

During World War I, Rash Behari Bose played a significant role in the Ghadr Revolution.

At the end of 1913, Bose met Jatin to discuss a nationwide armed uprising similar to the 1857 revolt.

Bose collaborated with Bagha Jatin to extend the Bengal plan to Punjab and other northern provinces.

After the revolution plan failed, Rash Behari Bose fled to Japan in 1915. Later, he played a crucial role in establishing the Indian National Army.

REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVITIES ABROAD

Indian revolutionaries sought refuge abroad to avoid oppressive laws and press controls, while also sourcing arms and spreading revolutionary ideas.

Shyamji Krishnavarma started the Indian Home Rule Society, also known as ‘India House’, in London in 1905, which provided a platform for Indian students and published 'The Indian Sociologist'.

Savarkar and Lala Hardayal were among the members of India House.

Madanlal Dhingra, from this circle, assassinated India Office bureaucrat Curzon-Wyllie in 1909.

After Savarkar’s extradition and life imprisonment in 1910 for his involvement in the Nasik conspiracy, London became unsafe for revolutionaries.

New revolutionary centers emerged in Paris and Geneva. Madam Bhikaji Cama operated in these cities, connecting with French socialists and publishing Bande Mataram.

Virendranath Chattopadhyaya chose Berlin as his base after 1909 due to deteriorating Anglo-German relations.

In 1915, Virendranath Chattopadhyay, Bhupendranath Dutta, and Lala Hardayal established the Berlin Committee for Indian Independence with support from the German foreign office under the ‘Zimmerman Plan’.

Indian revolutionaries conducted missions to Baghdad, Persia, Turkey, and Kabul to mobilize anti-British sentiments among local populations and Indian prisoners of war.

Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh, Barkatullah, and Obaidullah Sindhi organized a provisional Indian government in Kabul with the assistance of Crown Prince Amanullah.

THE GHADAR MOVEMENT

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 presented a unique opportunity for Indian nationalists to challenge British rule. With Britain deeply involved in the war, many believed the country would be too occupied to effectively counter the nationalist movements. This challenge was spearheaded by two distinct groups— the Ghadar revolutionaries operating from North America, and the Home Rule Leagues led by Tilak and Annie Besant within India.

Background of the Movement

The Ghadar revolutionaries were primarily composed of Punjabi immigrants who settled on the West Coast of North America starting from at least 1904.

Many of these individuals were debt-ridden and land-hungry peasants from Punjab, especially regions like Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur. Their previous service in the British Indian Army gave them the confidence and means for emigration.

Hostile attitudes from local populations, white labour unions, and increasingly restrictive immigration laws, aided by the Secretary of State for India, pushed the Indian community towards self-organization to resist racial discrimination.

Tarak Nath Das, an early leader of the Indian community in North America, recognized the British government's contradictory stance on encouraging Indian labour in Fiji while discouraging their emigration to North America, fearing the spread of revolutionary ideas.

Early Activities

The first stirrings of political activity among Indian immigrants became evident as early as 1907 when a Circular-e-Azad (Circular of liberty) was brought out by Ramnath Puri, a political exile, in which he pledged support to the Swadeshi movement.

Tarak Nath Das started the Free Hindustan and G.D. Kumar brought out a Gurmukhi paper Swadesh Sevak advocating social reform and asking Indian troops to rise in revolt.

By 1910, Das and Kumar had set up the United India House in Seattle in the USA and began lecturing every week to a group of Indian labourers.

They also developed close links with the Khalsa Diwan Society which resulted in 1913 in a decision to send a deputation to meet the Colonial Secretary in London and the Viceroy and other officials in India.

They failed to meet the Colonial Secretary, despite a wait of a month, but succeeded in securing an audience with the Viceroy and the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab. 

Their visit to Punjab became the occasion for a series of public meetings in different Punjab towns and enthusiastic support from the people and the press.

Meanwhile, in early 1913, Bhagwan Singh, a Sikh priest who had worked in Hong Kong and the Malay states, visited Vancouver in Canada and openly preached the violent overthrow of British rule.

Such was the effect of his exhortations that he was externed from Canada after three months, but his ideas had fired the imagination of his audiences.

Towards Organisation

Disappointed with the lack of response from the Indian and British governments, convinced that their inferior status in foreign lands was a consequence of their being citizens of an enslaved country, and aroused to nationalist consciousness and a feeling of solidarity by the consistent political agitation, the Indian community in North America felt the acute need for a central organisation and a leader.

The leader they found was Lala Hardayal, a political exile from India, who had come to the U.S. in 1911 and had been lecturing at Stanford University as well as to the various American groups of intellectuals, radicals and workers on the anarchist and syndicalist movements but had not shown much interest in the affairs of Indian immigrants. 

His attitude changed with the news of the bomb attack on the Viceroy in Delhi in December 1912 which convinced him that the revolutionary spirit was still alive.

He assumed leadership of the immigrant Indian community and, in May 1913, the need for a central organisation was met with the setting up of the Hindi Association in Portland, which later changed its name to Hindustan Ghadar Party.

Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna was elected the President, Lala Hardayal the General Secretary and Pandit Kanshi Ram Maroli the Treasurer at the first meeting of the Association which was also attended by others including Bhai Parmanand and Harnam Singh Tundilat.

The headquarter was set up by the name of Yugantar Ashram in San Francisco and started a weekly paper, the Ghadar, for free circulation.

Strategy and Action

The plans of political action outlined by Lala Har Dayal and accepted by the Hindi Association were based on the understanding that British rule could only be overthrown by armed revolt.

He also believed that the freedom available in America should be used to fight the British and not the Americans, for in any case Indians would never be accepted as equals abroad till they were free in their own land. Basing themselves on this understanding, the militant nationalists launched a vigorous propaganda campaign, touring factories and farms where Indian immigrants worked.

Launching of Paper and its Impact

The paper Ghadar was launched on the first of November, 1913; the first issue was in Urdu followed a month later by the Gurmukhi version.

On its masthead was inscribed the caption : Angezi Raj Ka Dushman or ‘An Enemy of British Rule’. Besides, the front page of each issue carried the ‘Angrezi Raj Ka Kacha Chittha’ or ‘An Expose of British Rule’, which consisted of 14 points enumerating the negative effects of British rule.

This Chittha was in effect a summary of the entire nationalist critique of British rule on the issues of drain of wealth, high land revenue, low per capita income, recurrence of famines which killed millions of Indians, high expenditure on Army and low expenditure on health, the policy of divide and rule by pitting Hindus and Muslims against each other.

The most popular proved to be the poems that were published in the paper, which were soon put together in the form of a collection called Ghadar Ki Goonj, and were recited and sung at gatherings of Indians.

The Ghadar also exhorted the Punjabi to atone for his pro-British role in the Revolt of 1857 by playing a leading part in throwing off the British yoke and it changed his self-image from that of a loyal soldier, an image that had been assiduously cultivated by the British, to that of a rebel whose only aim was freedom.

THE MAIN EVENTS OF THE GHADAR MOVEMENT Arrest of Lala Hardayal

In March, 1914 Hardayal was arrested. The most likely reason was the pressure exerted by the British government who for obvious reasons would like to see him removed from the leadership of the Ghadar Movement, but the stated reason was his anarchist activities. 

He was released on bail and it was decided that he jump bail and go to Switzerland.

Komagata Maru Incident

Gurdit Singh, an Indian contractor living in Singapore chartered a ship, the Komagata Maru, and, with 376 Indian passengers originating from various places in East and South East Asia, set sail for Vancouver.

On arrival, the ship was not allowed into the port and was cordoned off by the police. Despite the strenuous efforts of the “Shore Committee” in Vancouver led by Husain Rahim, Sohan Lal Pathak and Balwant Singh and a powerful campaign in the USA led by Barkatullah, Bhagwan Singh, Ram Chandra and Sohan Singh Bhakna the Komagata Maru was forced out of Canadian waters.

Before it reached Japan, the First World War broke out and the British government ordered that no passenger was to be allowed to leave the ship till it reached Calcutta.

Its return journey triggered off a wave of resentment at every port of call among the communities of immigrant Indians and heightened anti-British feelings. When the ship reached Budge Budge near Calcutta, the hostile attitude of the police led to a clash which resulted in the death of 18 passengers.

Outbreak of the First World War

The third and most important event that brought about a dramatic change in the situation was the outbreak of the First World War. This was the opportunity that the Ghadarites had been waiting for to seize and to make the best of Britain’s difficulty.

A special meeting of the leading workers of the party met and decided that the time had come for action and that their biggest weakness, lack of arms, could be made good by persuading the Indian soldiers to revolt.

The Ghadar party accordingly issued its Ailan-e-Jung or ‘Proclamation of War’, which was circulated among Indians living abroad. 

Ghadar activists also embarked on tours exhorting people to return to India and organise a revolt. The response was tremendous, with large numbers offering themselves and their entire belongings to the cause of the nation.

Encouraged by this the Ghadar party began the exodus to India, and batches of revolutionaries began to arrive in India by different routes in the latter half of 1914.

Repression

The British responded to the wartime threat with severe repressive measures, most notably through the Defence of India Act passed in March 1915, aimed at suppressing the Ghadar movement.

This included widespread detentions without trial, harsh sentences from special courts, and numerous court-martials of army personnel.

Additionally, radical pan-Islamists such as the Ali brothers, Maulana Azad, and Hasrat Mohani were interned for extended periods.

EVALUATION OF GHADAR MOVEMENT Achievements

The Ghadarites succeeded in popularising nationalist ideology especially the critique of colonialism and the understanding that Indian poverty and backwardness was a consequence of British rule-among vast masses of Indians in India and abroad.

They created a cadre of highly motivated nationalists who continued to play an important role in building up the national and later the left and peasant movements in Punjab and other parts of India for many decades to follow.

Ghadar ideology was also strongly egalitarian and democratic in content. Their aim was to set up an independent republic in India.

But perhaps the most important achievement of the Ghadarites was that despite the fact that the vast majority of their followers were recruited from amongst Punjabi Sikh immigrants, they never betrayed any communal tendencies and were, on the contrary, strongly secular in their outlook.

Weaknesses

The Ghadar movement inevitably had its share of weaknesses as well, the chief of which was its over-estimation of the level of readiness of the movement.

They also underestimated the might of the British rulers, the strength of the ideological foundations of their rule, and thought that all that the people of India needed was a call to revolt.

It failed politically and militarily due to the lack of a well-organized and sustained leadership, underestimating the necessary level of preparation in terms of organization, ideology, finance, and strategy, with Lala Hardayal perhaps being unsuitable for the role of an organizer.