Who was Pandurang Khankhoje, Ghadarite revolutionary and a hero of Mexico?

Who was Pandurang Khankhoje, Ghadarite revolutionary and a hero of Mexico?

Subject : History

Section: Personality

Context :Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, who is currently in Canada for the 65th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, will travel to Mexico where he will unveil statues of Swami Vivekananda and Maharashtra-born freedom fighter and agriculturalist Pandurang Khankhoje (1883-1967).

• Khankhoje had a close connection with Mexico, the country in which he sought refuge due to his association with the radical pro-Indian independence Ghadar Party.

Who was Pandurang Khankhoje?

• Born in Wardha, Maharashtra, in the late 19th century, Pandurang Khankhojecame in contact with other revolutionaries early on.
• Closer to home, the Hindu reformer Swami Dayanand and his Arya Samaj movement, which called for a spirit of reform and social change, became the hero to a young student group led by Khankhoje
• He joined the Mount Tamalpais Military Academy in California to fulfil his original purpose of leaving India

What was his association with the Indian independence movement?

• Khankhoje was one of the founding members of the Ghadar Party, established by Indians living abroad in 1914, mostly belonging to Punjab. Its aim was to lead a revolutionary fight against the British in India.
• Along with the Indian workers, militant action was planned by Khankhoje in India, but the outbreak of the First World War halted these He then reached out to BhikajiCama in Paris, and met with Vladimir Lenin in Russia among other leaders, seeking support for the Indian cause. However, as he was facing possible deportation from Europe and could not go to India, he sought shelter in Mexico.
• Soon, in part due to his prior friendship with Mexican revolutionaries, he was appointed a professor at the National School of Agriculture in Chapingo, near Mexico City. He researched corn, wheat, pulses and rubber, developing frost and drought-resistant varieties, and was part of efforts to bring in the Green Revolution in Mexico.
• Later on, the American agronomist Dr Norman Borlaug, called the Father of the Green Revolution in India, brought the Mexican wheat variety to Punjab.

Pre-Ghadr revolutionary activity

• As early as 1907 ,Ram nath Puri ,a political exile on the west coast issued a circular-e-azadi(circular of liberty) in which he also pressed support to the swadeshi movement ;
• Tarak Nath Das in Vancouver started the Free Hindustan and adopted a very militant nationalist tone;
• D.Kumar set up a Swadesh Sevak Home in Vancouver on the lines of the India house in London and also began to bring out a Gurumukhi paper called Swadesh Sewak which advocated social reform and also asked Indian troops to rise in revolt against the British.
• In 1910, TarakNath Das and G.D. Kumar, by now forced out of Vancouver, set up the united India house in Seattle and U.S.A..

The Ghadar Party

• The Ghadar Movement was formed in 1913 by expatriate Punjabis in the United States with shared leadership from Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims. The goal of the movement was to assist in overthrowing British colonial rule in India. The publicity that the group attracted in the United States was used as further justification for anti-Asian discrimination and suspicion.
• It was organized and headed by a Punjabi Hindu, Har Dayal, who was at Stanford University. Its early leaders also included two Sikhs and a Muslim and the masthead of its publication bore the names “Ram, Allah, and Nanak.”
• Sohan Singh, Kartar Singh, Abdul Mohamed Barakatullah, TarknathDas , and Rashbehari Bose were among the prominent leaders who laid the groundwork for the establishment of an Indian political organization in the United States and Canada.

Ghadar Party – Activities

• The Ghadrprogramme aimed to organise assassinations of officials, publish revolutionary and anti-imperialist literature, work with Indian troops stationed abroad, obtain arms, and spark a simultaneous revolt in all British colonies.
• When the First World War broke out in 1914, some members of the Ghadar Party arrived in Punjab to foment an armed revolution for India’s independence.
• They were also successful in smuggling weapons and inciting mutiny among Indian soldiers in the British Army.
• The ensuing uprising, now known as the Ghadar Mutiny, was brutally suppressed by the British, who executed 42 mutineers following the Lahore Conspiracy Case trial.
• Nonetheless, the Ghadar Party fought against colonialism from 1914 to 1917, with the support of Imperial Germany and the Ottoman Empire, both of which were Central Powers opposed to the British.
• The party was organized around the weekly newspaper The Ghadar, which featured the masthead caption: Angrezi Raj Ka Dushman (an enemy of British rule). “Wanted brave soldiers to stir up rebellion in India,” the Ghadar declared.
• Following the Komagata Maru Incident in 1914, which was a direct challenge to Canadian anti-Indian immigration laws, thousands of Indians living in the United States sold their businesses and homes in order to drive the British out of India, bolstering the ranks of the Ghadar Party.
• From 1914 to 1917 Ghadarites continued underground anti-colonial actions with the support of Germany and Ottoman Turkey, known as the Hindu–German Conspiracy, which led to a sensational trial in San Francisco in 1917.
• Although its attempts at overthrowing the British Raj were unsuccessful, the insurrectionary ideals of the Ghadar Party influenced members of the Indian Independence Movement opposed to Gandhian nonviolence.