The Ghadr: UPSC Daily Important Topic | 4 January 2023

The Ghadr

• The Ghadr Party was a revolutionary group organized around a weekly newspaper ‘The Ghadr’ with its headquarters at San Francisco.

• These revolutionaries included mainly ex-soldiers and peasants who had migrated from Punjab to the USA and Canada in search of better employment opportunities.

• The Ghadr program was to organize assassinations of officials, publish revolutionary and anti-imperialist literature, work among Indian troops stationed abroad, procure arms and bring about a simultaneous revolt in all British colonies.

• The moving spirits behind the Ghadr Party were Lala Hardayal, Ramchandra, Bhagwan Singh, Kartar Singh Saraba, Barkatullah, and Bhai Parmanand.

• The Ghadrites intended to bring about a revolt in India. Their plans were encouraged by two events in 1914—the Komagata Maru incident and the outbreak of the First World War.