An oft repeated cliche’ is that you can take an Indian out of India but you cannot take India out of an Indian. The umbilical relationship between Indian migrants abroad and India is best illustrated by the story of Ghadar Party, whose centenary we celebrate this year.
An oft repeated cliche’ is that you can take an Indian out of India but you cannot take India out of an Indian. The umbilical relationship between Indian migrants abroad and India is best illustrated by the story of Ghadar Party, whose centenary we celebrate this year.
Indians have migrated to distant shores over millennia. Evidence of Indian trading links with distant lands exists from the days of Harappan civilisation. They took their goods, their traditions and epics, medicine, mathematics and philosophy to distant places along with them. India’s infl uence spread not with the force of a sword but on the basis of its wisdom. The Arab world, the Central Asian world, the African world, the South East Asian world and the Far Eastern world of China, Korea and Japan welcomed them.
However, with the colonisation of India and the devastation wrought by the destruction of livelihood of peasantry; of the village system and traditional manufacturing, migration out of economic compulsions started. It accelerated further with British colonial barbarism post-1857. The migration of labour further increased with the semi-slave indentured labour system organised by the British. There are records of at least two million Indians, who were transported as indentured labour under inhuman conditions by British Colonialists, to distant parts of the world including Africa, Caribbean, South America, Mauritius, Malaya, Sri Lanka and so on.
In spite of the extreme oppression and devastation, the migrants did not lose their thirst for freedom.. A
major milestone in this migrant story was the rise of the consciousness that they will be treated as subjugated
unequal people everywhere as long as their motherland was colonised. The rise of an eager organisation based on enormous sacrifi ce of these immigrants, committed to contribute to India’s fi ght for freedom from colonialism, is the story of the Hindustani Ghadar Party. The revolutionaries of the early 20th century took their
inspiration from the unfulfi lled Ghadar (revolt) of 1857.
We too recognised on the 150th anniversary of 1857 that while we may no longer be colonised, the legacy of colonialism persists and haunts our minds; our body politic and our economy. Hence we adopted the name,
Ghadar Jari Hai, to indicate that the struggle continues for the decolonisation of the Indian mind and renewal of
our society, free of Eurocentric prejudices.
This issue has three major articles on Hindustani Ghadar Party. The cover story, contributed appropriately
by two of our overseas readers, Dalwinder Atwal and Salvinder Dhillon, records in brief the story of Ghadar
party, the sacrifi ce and spirit of the Ghadaris. Prof. Madhavi Thampi, a historian who has contributed to our understanding of India-China relations through her books and research papers, has written about Ghadar Party’s activities in China.
We have also profi led Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall, an excellent museum and cultural centre in Jalandhar, in
memory of Ghadari Babas and other patriots, all built with the contribution of thousands of working people.
An uprising in Eastern India in Chittagong and a wonderful movie made on it by Bedabrata Pain has been reviewed by Surkhraj Kaur, along with an interview of the film maker.
Dr. Shailaja D. Sharma, a mathematician and writer, has introduced us to a recent book by Dr.. C. K. Raju,
“Euclid and Jesus”. She points out that once again, Raju educates and provokes us about Eurocentric cultural and religious prejudices underlying many things that are taught to our students as being universal and the only
acceptable approach to the science of mathematics. We are happy to welcome Prof. Shekhar Pathak, a renowned scholar from Kumaon, who has written extensively about the history, culture and distress in the Himalayan region, in joining us as an editorial advisor.