Interpreting Ghadar Echoes Of Voices Past

2013·2.2 MB·English

by  Satwinder Kaur Bains

Interpreting Ghadar

Echos of Voices Past

Edited by
Satwinder Kaur Bains
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Interpreting Ghadar:

Echoes of Voices Past

Ghadar Centennial

Conference Proceedings

October 2013

Edited by

Satwinder Kaur Bains

Published by the Centre for Indo-Canadian Studies
University of the Fraser Valley

Abbotsford, BC, Canada
Centre for Indo Canadian Studies, 2013
University of the Fraser Valley www.ufv.ca/cics

ISBN 978-0-9782873-4-4
Bibliothèque et Archives Canada | Library and Archives Canada
Partial funding for this publication has been received from
The Offce of Research, Engagement and Graduate Studies at UFV

The Centre for Indo Canadian Studies
Ghadar Conference Proceedings
33844 King Road
Abbotsford, BC
V2S 7M8
Canada

Edited by: Satwinder Kaur Bains
EPUB Produced by: David Thomson
The link to the epub can be found at:
www.ufv.ca/cics/research/cics-research-projects/
Cover Design: Suvneet Kaur Bains
Table of Contents

Acknowledgements vii

1 Introduction ix
Satwinder Kaur Bains

PART ONE GHADAR LITERATURE 1

2 The 1907 Anti-Punjabi Hostilities in Washington State: 3
Prelude to the Ghadar Movement
Paul Englesberg

3 Rebellious Rhymes: Understanding the History of 21
Radical South Asian Immigrants on the West Coast
of North America through the Ghadar Narrative
Gurpreet Singh

PART TWO SOCIAL JUSTICE 45

4 Gadar Movement and the Role of Irish Americans 47
Inder Singh

5 A Comparison of the Literature of the Sikh Gurus 65
and the Writings of the Ghadar Party
Amandip Singh Sidhu

6 The Ghadar Movement: Revisiting its Genesis 81
and Exploring Prospects of Another Ghadar
Movement in Contemporary India
Khushvir Saini

v
P ART THREE TRANSNATIONAL 97
HISTORIOGRAPHIES

7 His Master’s Voice?: Ubayd Allah Sindhi’s 99
Re-interpretation of Orthodox Islam as
Inclusive Revolutionary Ideology
Mohammed Ayub Khan

8 The Ghadar Movement and its Impact on 117
South Asian Canadian Women
Rishma Johal

9 Peer Reviewers 141

10 Contributors 143

vi
Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the invaluable fnancial and moral support
for this project from the Research, Engagement and Graduate Studies
Offce (Research Offce) at the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV).
From the very beginning when we decided to host a conference on
the centenary of the Ghadar movement’s genesis, the Research Offce
gave its full support for the initiative.

The Interpreting Ghadar: Echoes of Voices Past conference held at
UFV on October 17 ,t h2 013 brought together scholars and students
who presented their work amongst colleagues, friends and the public.
Their papers make up this special collection of papers marking the
centenary. Special thanks go to all the anonymous reviewers of the
papers who read, critiqued, and improved the papers submitted for
this publication.

I would like to thank all those that participated in the stimulating event
as well as the many people who contributed to its success. Poets who
joined us at the end of the conference to share evocative and inspiring
poetry that stirred the souls of Ghadarites one hundred years ago, were
warmly appreciated. The conference was the culmination of a year’s
work by the Centre for Indo Canadian Studies (CICS) at UFV to
commemorate the centenary of this important movement in Canada.
Although the movement actively lasted from 1913-1919 in Canada, its
impact and repercussions were felt well up until India’s independence
from British rule in 1947.

I would also like to thank David Thomson, friend and colleague
at UFV who provided us with the support necessary to produce an
e-publication for this collection of papers. As well, my colleague and
compatriot Sharanjit Kaur Sandhra, Coordinator at the Centre for Indo
Canadian Studies, deserves much thanks for providing all the support
necessary to successfully complete this work.

Satwinder Kaur Bains, Editor
Director, Centre for Indo Canadian Studies
University of the Fraser Valley
May 2015
vii
viii
INTRODUCTION
INTERPRETING GHADAR: ECHOES OF VOICES PAST
SATWINDER KAUR BAINS

This publication is made up of a selection of papers presented at
a conference held in Oct, 2013 at the University of the Fraser Valley,
Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada to mark an important moment
in North American history. The centennial conference, Interpreting
Ghadar: Echoes of Voices Past explored the early twentieth century
Ghadar (revolution) movement (established in 1913) that began
in North America and quickly established itself around the globe
wherever members of the Indian Diaspora existed. The movement’s
revolutionary genesis and goal was to rid India of British rule and to
fght for fair and just treatment for those Indian immigrants living in
Canada and the United States of America. Using an interdisciplinary
approach the conference provided a venue for scholars to present
diverse viewpoints on the Ghadar.

The conference papers in this collection attempt to fll the
acknowledged void created by a porous and omission-oriented
Canadian history of South Asian historical events and movements.
The papers are also located within a rich and vibrant year (2013)
where many Universities, Cities, organizations, agencies, media
and individuals marked the centenary in various ways. Conferences,
proclamations, markers, gatherings, poetry readings and academic
discourses were part of the centennial year commemorations across
North America.

Early Indian migrants to the Pacifc Northwest (frst recorded
arrival was in 1902) arrived without fully realizing the racially
hierarchical realities of colonial expansion in North America and the
practicing doctrines, ideologies and practices of colonialism in an
era of high imperialism (Buchignani, Indra & Srivastiva, 1985) . As
well, at that time Irish, German, Italian and Jewish immigrants in the
United States and Canada were involved in radical socialist labour
movements, demanding social reform in the industrial labour markets
(Ogden, 2011). Canada’s ‘whites only’ policy encouraged a west coast
racism-fuelled version of European origin settler communities as the
order of the day in the late nineteenth and into the early twentieth
ix
century. European settlers believed in the inherent unassimilable
nature of Asian immigrants and countered their migration with racist
legislation and laws to prevent their entry.

Popular Canadian attitudes led by hostile stereotypes created
aggressive, prejudicial and often violent encounters with Indian
immigrants. Indian immigrants, who were looking to create new
lives in Canada, saw that British colonial rule had created two tiers of
citizens and it was made painfully obvious to them that they were in
the lower tier. Under the Raj, poor treatment of Indian citizens in India
by the British gave them an inferior bargaining position in the new
land. The western frontier was the last bastion for colonial expansion,
creating immense human mobility from all parts of the world to meet
the need for industrial growth. This movement of peoples created a
racial tension that would affect the many diverse populations living in
North America, like the Punjabi’s. As Odgen (2012) points out, “The
Punjabis arrived in the midst of this western moment and became
for a time its political lightening rod, simultaneously indispensable
labour and indispensable political fodder.” Much racial strife and
outright racism was experienced by new immigrants and their lives
were increasingly becoming untenable. The time was right for Indian
revolutionary intellectuals to begin to articulate their demands for an
equitable and just society (both in Canada and India) in consort with
the other marginalized immigrant groups, while striking out on their
own by initiating an ideologically secular pro-national movement.
Anderson’s (2006) concept of an imagined nation provides the frame
to understand the impetus how Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims came
together with a singular purpose – to work and even die for the cause.
As Benedict Anderson in his work on imagined communities (2006)
suggests, “regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may
prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal
comradeship. Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible,
over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so
much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings” (p.7).

Intellectuals and average wage labourers came together inAstoria,
Oreg on in June 1913 to form an organization that would mobilize
Indians all over North America and around the globe to fght injustice
against them and their brethren. The founding member’s penultimate
goal was to rid India of the British and to proclaim self-rule, but they
also articulated social reforms to create a more just and equitable
x