#ghadar

[rajyvardhanrathore]

An Unshakeable Spirit: Rash Behari Bose

#OnThisDay in 1945, Rash Behari Bose left this world. But his story? It’s the stuff of spy thrillers and unwavering dedication.

Think about it: → Key planner in the 1912 Delhi bomb case on the Viceroy. → Mastermind behind the 1915 uprising. → British everywhere? He escapes to Japan. → Starts the Indian Independence League. → Creates the Indian National Army (INA) from scratch. → Hands over the INA to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in 1943.

He was India’s revolution, orchestrated from thousands of miles away. A man without a country, fighting for his country.

His life screams one thing: where there’s a will, there’s always a way.

[ayurvedicindia01]

Saluting a great freedom fighter, #PunjabKesari, #LalaLajpatRai on his 156th Birth Anniversary... Freedom fighters like him will always be our pride. . Visit: https://ayurvedicindia.in/ . .  #herbalayurveda #ayurvedic #ayurvedatips #ayurvedicmedicine #herbal 

[weaajkal]

اس شخص کو غدار کہا گیا جو ملک کے لیے مرتا ہے، ،نواز شریف #Nawazsharif #PMLNBunerJalsa #MarketingMonday #MondayBlues #MusicMonday #MondayMemories #MaxoutMonday #MondayRun #aajkalpk بونیر:مسلم لیگ ن کے قائدو سابق وزیراعظم میاں نواز شریف نے کہا ہے کہ اس شخص کو غدار کہا گیا جو ملک کے  لیے مرتا ہے، اگر میں غدار ہوں تو ایک قومی کمیشن بنایا جائے۔ اگر میں غدار ہوں تو ایک قومی کمیشن بنایا جائے تاکہ حساب کتاب ہو جائے،ہم نے قوم کے ساتھ جو بھی وعدے کیے پورے کیے، دہشت گردوں کی آنکھوں میں آنکھیں ڈال کر مقابلہ کیا اور امن قائم کرنے کا وعدہ پورا کیا، پاکستان کی ترقی کا وعدہ پورا کیا،عمران خان نے کے پی کے لیے کچھ نہیں کیا، سوات کے لوگوں سے جب پوچھا تو انہوں نے بتایا کہ عمران خان نے ہمیں ذلیل و رسوا کیا اور صوبے میں کوئی ترقی نہیں ہوئی،ہماری حکومت ہوتی تو بونیر میں موٹر وے بن چکی ہوتی لیکن اگر ابھی نہیں بنی تو 2018 کے بعد بن جائے گی،خیبر پختونخوا میں ہماری حکومت آئی تو صوبے کی تقدیر بدل دیں گے،۔ وہ پیر کو یہاں دورہ بونیر کے موقع پر مرکزئی بازار سواڑی میں جلسہ عام سے خطاب کر رہے تھے ۔جلسے سے مریم نواز،ن لیگ کے صوبائی صدر انجینئر امیرمقام ،ضلعی صدر سرزمین خان،کامران خان ،ساہ بخت روان،ودیگر نے بھی خطاب کیا۔نواز شریف نے اپنے خطاب میں کہا کہ ووٹ کی عزت کو پاؤں کی نیچے روندا جارہا ہے۔مگر میں ووٹ کی عزت کو پامال نہیں ہونے دوں گا۔تبدیلی سرکار کے وعدے اور دعوے جھوٹے ہے۔کے پی کے اب بھی وہی پرانا کے پی کے ہیں۔اگر یہاں مسلم لیگ ن کی حکومت ہوتی تو موٹر وے بونیر تک بن چکا ہوتا،اگر اللہ نے موقع دیا تو بونیر تک موٹر وے پہنچائیں گے۔ملک سے دہشتگردی،بدامنی،لوڈ شیڈنگ اور دیگر مسائیل ن لیگ نے ختم کر دئے۔عمران خان اور ان کی ٹیم نے یہاں کے عوام کیلئے کچھ نہیں کیا۔یہاں کے عوام تحریک انصاف کی حکومت میں اُلٹا ذلیل وخوار ہوئے۔ گند گرد وغبار ،ٹوٹی سڑکیں تبدیلی سرکار کے کے پی کے کے عوام کیلئے تبدیلی ہے۔ان کی اس تبدیلی پر ن لیگ لعنت بھیجتی ہے۔انشاء اللہ اگر اللہ نے موقع دیا تو 2018کے الیکشن میں کامیابی کے بعد بونیر سے لاہور بناوٗں گا۔نوازشریف نے کہا کہ افسوس کی بات ہے کہ ایک محب وطن کو غدار کہا جاتا ہے۔غلط پالیسوں اور سازشوں کی وجہ سے پاکستان تنہا ہوتا جارہا ہے۔انہوں نے مطالبہ کیا کہ ایک قومی کمیشن بنایا جائے اور پھر اس کا حساب کتاب ہوجائے اور جو مجرم نکلا انہیں سر عام پھانسی پر لٹکایا جائے۔عمران خان سے پوچھتا ہوں کہ کے پی کے اور بالخصوص یہاں کے نوجوانوں کیلئے آپ نے پانچ سال میں کیا کیا ۔نوجوان اب بھی ہاتھوں میں ڈگریاں لیکر بے روزگار گھومتے پھیر رہے ہیں۔ ان کی مستقبل کیلئے آپ نے کیوں نہیں سوچا۔انشاء اللہ یہ نوجوان ائیندہ الیکشن میں آپ سے احتساب کریں گے ۔اپنے خطاب میں انہوں نے کہا کہ چیئرمین نیب کو ہم اس طرح نہیں چھوڑیں گے، منی لانڈرنگ پر بھی کمیشن بننا چاہیے اور چیئرمین نیب کو بھی اس میں بلایا جائے۔انہوں نے کہا کہ نواز شریف ہمیشہ اپنے وعدے کی لاج رکھتا ہے اور میں عوام کے ووٹ کی حرمت کو پامال نہیں ہونے دوں گا۔ جلسے کے آخر میں میاں محمد نواشریف نے خود ووٹ کو عزت دو،بونیر ،کے پی کے اور پاکستان زندہ باد کے پر جوش نعرے لگائے۔

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while im at it here are some images/articles that I got from SAADA that I’m using in my thesis. the bottom two are from the September 1920 issue of the  Ghadar Party’s New-York / San Francisco-based The Independent Hindustan, while the top left is a Ghadar pamphlet distributed in California and India in 1914 urging the military in India as well as Sikh and Hindu immigrants to America to provoke a revolution against the British. The top right cover is for the paper The United States of India in May 1926.

[nishasembi]

The full mural I painted for "Goonj! Being Brown in Chinatown" at Centre A Gallery in Vancouver for Indian Summer Festival.

To the left, I painted the story of the Komagata Maru, a ship carrying 376 passengers from Punjab to BC in 1914 but was not allowed to dock on Vancouver shores due to racist exclusion laws that were designed to keep out Asian Immigrants. The scene depicts the passengers throwing bricks at the police after being told to sail back to India.

The life-sized cutouts are of 2 passengers aboard this ship along with Baba Gurdit Singh who's quote is above: "...The time for prayer & puja is past... This is the time to pick up the sword...."

The UC Berkeley Campanile is on the far right, which signifies the militant legacy of resistance against British colonizers lead by Kartar Singh Sarabha in Berkeley pictured above with pen & rifle. These two elements represent armed revolution & mobilizing the people through poetry & the Ghadar Newspaper.

We will have prints of the full mural for sale online soon since this piece will only exist for the duration of the show! Please spread the word & go see it in person while you can.

[lids-flutter-open]

Plan!! For thesis

 -ghadar history: through 1917

-contextualizing the independent Hindustan:

-connection with the irish

- in park’s book, example of ghadar’s appeal to other American immigrant communities, even the czech

- isolation from wider public and continued suspect status in the eyes of the state: park’s example, also example from kanta das (who wrote his book to dispel the kinds of rumors carried in park)

-engagement in american culture, imagery, and rhetoric: combatting isolation and persecution/outsider status

               - October 1920 review of stoddard’s book—confronting racism, undermining notions of “white race” as valid, and arguing that what Stoddard saw as a conspiracy between brown people based on racial affiliation was an economic anti-imperialist movement

               - a history of invoking American political heroes/calling their honor into question

               -images of victimized india as a woman + demands for accountability from American public, plus a cynical acknowledgement that America colluded with british government

-cosmopolitan womanhood+aparajita

               -if victimized india wasn’t going to get help from uncle sam, someone had better get on it--DIY

               -women with agency+ education appear in the independent Hindustan a lot. This partly due to presence of agnes Smedley and others on staff of paper, but also a result of earlier feminist undertones. Har dayal +madame cama.

               -aparajita—militant , educated, independent, also written by irishman

               -at the same time, a defensive tone: insistence that indian men already side with their women+ uplift them, insistence are capable of having equal gender relations with women, indian customs are not misogynist. Question how Sita story fits into this? Ghadar willing to adopt damsel narratives when convenient/also secularizes hindu mythology

-race and labor around the world

               -as ghadar insisted that indian men were already on the side of indian women, the ball was then rolled back into the rest of the world’s court: the view of women as ministering angels is turned on British in critiques of annie besant and women raising money for Dyer memorial—consciousness that white women are not invested in worldwide liberation of their indian sisters

               -image of india/Mesopotamia/Ireland/Egypt and murderous John Bull: we are all in it together!!

               -coverage of women laborers in Fiji +ghadar’s position as a labor movement, solidarity between colonized nations and their workers/coolies

               -this breaks down with the positioning of Indians vs Fijian strikebreakers, and also with the studious lack of mentions of south African indigenous peoples or their problems, as well as with the repeated use of Philippines as a positive example

               -ultimately it’s because of cold pragmatism on ghadar’s part, at least to an extent—rhetoric was useful, but based on the position of the paper and the movement, it was best to appeal to/try to relate to some movements over others. Antiblackness definitely also a part of it.

               -but they still WANT to rely on this rhetoric of workers-of-the-world-unite, and as they get closer with the Bolsheviks, they invoke it in new ways

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[lids-flutter-open]

organization, responding to prof’s ideas on my thesis:

-I agree with ramaswamy about what the images of bharat mata in The Independent Hindustan do–they adapt a lot of very specifically Indian icons into something that is possible to feed to an American audience -however , Ghadar was aware it wasn’t capable of assimilating into the American mainstream–despite Ram Chandra making appeals to Woodrow Wilson and Har Dayal discussing how America was a land of freedom which inspired Sikhs to free India, and despite the adoption of certain visual mainstays of American political cartoons (the colonized nation as a woman terrorized by a brute applied by Americans to Cuba/Spain to justify intervention in 1898), mainstream America registered Ghadar as a radical anarchist danger to the nation and an ally of Germany , if they registered it at all -Ghadar leaders, though theoretically seeking support from the public, were aware of this . however , they did receive support from other immigrants and radicals, and it was the Irish nationalists and socialists whose positive welcome and assistance in the 1920s resulted in the paper The Independent Hindustan -The Independent Hindustan is not regarded by most historians of Ghadar as representing the broad base of the Ghadar movement, who were still working in California, but rather an offshoot of the group run by Ghadar affiliate Taraknath Das and his friends, among them white feminists . However, the paper was the official party organ for the early 1920s . it was a paper on a scale which earlier u.s Ghadar publications had not approached–twenty or more pages long, published monthly, reprinting articles from papers in Bengal and Ireland as well as featuring fiction, editorials and cartoons. It, like Taraknath Das’s earlier short-lived and quickly suppressed individual project “ Free Hindustan”, was published on the same press as the Gaelic American. -earlier Ghadar publications had been informed by anarchist ideas of Free Love and the abolition of marriage. These parts of the party line may have reflected leaders’ rather than workers’ attitudes, since most Ghadarite Sikh laborers are not recorded as having been particularly unconventional in terms of interpersonal relationships with women–many arrived as bachelors and those who did not become revolutionaries either married Mexican women or returned home to their wives or fiancees. However, the pamphlets circulated among them often prioritized women’s rights. On the West coast in 1913-17, this stance may have helped Ghadarites make alliances with IWW groups and anarchist women that connected them with resources. Though the men of the Ghadar Party– like Ram Chandra , Har Dayal or Pandurang Khankhoje–were not necessarily progressive in terms of their individual interactions with women , the stance of their organization mirrored that of other radical labor movements in the Americas, particularly in Puerto Rico, where labor leaders repeatedly cited gender equality and sexual liberty as one of the aims of their movement (cite Eileen Findlay’s Imposing Decency). -on the east coast in the 1920s, the pressure in terms of gender politics was different. The women and men that Ghadar was interacting with, despite also being radical, had very specific values and priorities. One of the central goals was to raise money for bail/defense for Indians imprisoned after the 1917 trials. White allies of Ghadar wanted to limit the bombastic revolutionary tone in the party’s print media and also put a hold on calls for arms and militant overthrow of the British, instead prioritizing fundraisers and lecture tours - the pressures of this set of alliances seems to have driven the publications the party generated to not only attempt to whiten Indian women in images and secularize/explain/moralize Hindu mythology where it was referenced in nationalist allegories, but also to advocate for a specific kind of cosmopolitan and universal anti-imperial womanhood which required Indian women to be educated in English (so they could read Irish poetry), secular or neutral religiously, or comparable in some way to European or American women. Calls for the abolition of marriage were replaced with articles which explained that, while Indian marriages did have some oppressive elements, they weren’t really worse than those of Europe–and furthermore that polygamy wasn’t practiced Much and most Indian married couples were devoted to one another “much as in the Jewish custom” (actual quote!!) -this grates uncomfortably at times with the labor focus of the paper , which also turned its attention to labor conditions in India and British colonies like Fiji and South Africa on occasion . Indian women in Fiji were applauded for their aggressive strike in the paper, and their sufferings compared to that of slaves in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. There is an undercurrent here of recognition that the base of the Ghadar movement is made up of workers, and that labor rights are at the core of their politics . the valorization of these Indian women might have played into a larger current of anti-racist discourse about colonialism worldwide, if it had been carried into the rest of the paper. It would fit in with the paper's recognition of British Labor's hypocrisy in not supporting Indian freedom.

-However , in the same article that compares Fiji's Indian women coolies to the characters in Stowe's book, it is mentioned how the British are using Fijian indigenous people as strikebreakers , and the author mentions how these indigenous people “were three generations ago cannibals” and are still strong, brutal and menacing, undermining the potential racial solidarity between Indian coolies and other colonized/enslaved people. -this discomfort with the rare comparison of Indians to black / indigenous people appears repeatedly . in the articles about South Africa, sex trafficking of indigenous African women is mentioned in passing, but without the horrified passion given to indignities against Indians in the colony. Meanwhile, references to the Philippines always compare the American invasion to the British invasion of India in a way that favors America and touches not at all on the militant resistance to imperialism by the territory’s people.

-basically there is this evolving conception of India as allied with other colonized people , but the circumstances surrounding TIH’s birth necessitated a determination to link Indian achievements and nationalism to mainly European radical movements (and ottoman/ muslim ones?). the gendered images in TIH are part of this determination –not conceived of as assimilation, but pragmatic and expansive universalism, they were nevertheless mainly accessible to white audiences (???)

-the whole situation at the offices of TIH also caused rifts in the Ghadar Party . Irish support waned by 1926 and towards the end of the decade it became more important to seek alliances with Bolsheviks. TIH and its successor, The United States of India, folded and new publications took its place

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This afternoon: -try to compose a section of my thesis abt the history of the friends of freedom for India and the founders' background in women's rights/involvement w women , and if possible compare this w the involvement/lack of involvement in women's rights stuff etc among the base of the Ghadar party--tho I think the sources show that despite misogyny at all levels, Ghadar as a movement was generally in favor of womens education if not for radical specifically women's movements /liberation of women -or start a section abt the attempts in The Independent Hindustan to dispel myths abt misogyny in India being worse than misogyny in Europe slash America