by the British.”13
The first number was dated 1 November 1913. It came out in an Urdu print run of six thousand, with a comparable Gurmukhi edition starting a month later, and a smaller Gujarati edition in May 1914.14 Behari Lal said that in accordance with the custom of Indian nationalist journalism of the time, only Har Dayal’s name appeared as editor-publisher, for security reasons. As in India, “when the authorities eventually put him away in jail, another stepped forward—just ONE MORE…. The succession was to be maintained … one by one.”15 Nevertheless, Har Dayal was adamant that “no man was ever to usurp all power, all responsibility,” and that although “the Editor was to be at the front, facing the public, and the opponents, … he must deal on terms of democratic, constitutional equality with the men of the Council.”16
The writing, translating, lettering, and printing were a true collective effort. About twenty-five volunteers lived and worked full-time at the Ashram in exchange for food, clothing, and “two dollars a month pocket money,”17 while everybody else available on the premises chipped in. According to Vatuk (who may be harboring a romantic bias, though since the core Ghadar workers were themselves consumed with this kind of idealism, maybe it isn’t inappropriate), “People lived there in a democratic way in a life style based on equality and devoid of any casteism, racism, religious bigotry and sectarianism of any kind. All who lived there were just Indian. They cooked, ate, and lived together like a family. They were the followers of one path.”18 This is quite a telling statement; however, rather than limiting the significance of the observation that they were all “just Indian” to nationalism per se, I find the inference of egalitarian participatory democracy equally suggestive. Moreover, this prefigurative practice implies that they were more clearly conscious of what their desired postrevolutionary society should look like than the Ghadar movement is oft en given credit for.
Important staffers among this utopian family included Ram Chandra, Amar Singh,19 Kartar Singh, Munshi Ram, and Hari Singh Usman.20 Godha Ram Channon was the chief Urdu calligrapher, among other tasks. Behari Lal described his good friend as a quiet man who never pushed himself forward but “served with devotion” throughout the editorial regimes of both Har Dayal and Ram Chandra, and on into the 1920s incarnation. Behari Lal himself was kept busy as main liaison to the Anglophone world, in charge of maintaining contacts with the network of Bay Area intellectuals who regarded him as “Har Dayal’s younger brother … a Horatio to that Hamlet.” For their benefit he wrote pieces in English in addition to those he was contributing to the Ghadar almost daily. It became “a matter of principle” for him to write Urdu and Hindi articles on history and natural and social science, passing on the content of his own postgraduate studies at the University of California to those who would otherwise have no access to such information. To that end, he said: “I gave my books to the growing Gadar Office library. Now and then I would discuss for hours some new scientific or historical or ethical concepts with the boys.”21
The Ghadar
The paper’s purpose, in a nutshell, was stated in the first issue: “It conveys the message of a rebellion to the nation once a week. It is brave, outspoken, unbridled, soft footed and given to the use of strong language. It is lightning, a storm and a flame of fire…. We are the harbinger of freedom.” It was also, according to the masthead, the “Enemy of the British Race.”22 The lead article, “Our Name and Our Work,” declared the two to be identical: in a word, mutiny. A rising would be inevitable within perhaps a decade, and in the meantime all must prepare for it.
The paper’s task, the editor continued, would be to nurture the mental and spiritual growth necessary to future mutineers, offering the right type of nourishment and edification to “purg[e] the soul of avarice, greed, pride, fear and ignorance” while exhorting young men to embrace the ideals of sacrifice, revenge, and unity in taking action. Recalling the stages of “Hardayalism,” this was the first stage of moral preparation. But stage two was coming soon, at which “rifle and blood will be used for pen and ink.”23 (Yet at the same time, the editor noted, in the pages of the Ghadar “the pen has done the work of a cannon, shaken the foundation of the tyrannous government.”)24 In accordance with Sohan Singh Bhakna’s earlier advice, Har Dayal extolled the value of vernacular materials in movement building among the people and (although the label fit much of the staff) accused English-educated Indians of selfish hypocrisy: “No movement can grow strong till books, pamphlets and newspapers written in easy vernacular are brought out. No great work has ever been accomplished with the aid of a foreign tongue.”25
Har Dayal’s introductory editorial stressed the need for an accurate understanding of politics and the science of political economy. Indian youth should be sent to military schools or to “schools of other nations to learn how to govern” and to root out spies and traitors, all in order to hasten the coming mutiny. He made sure to associate the present movement in the minds of readers, allies and foes, with all the revolutionists that had come before, in 1857 and 1905, and in a subsequent issue yet again compared the work of the Bengali militants to the Russians who had been enforcing justice against “bad officers” since 1881. He invoked the names of Ajit Singh, Lajpat Rai, Tilak, Hemchandra Das Kanungo, Aurobindo, Sufi Amba Parishad, Krishnavarma, and Cama, of whose august company now “a band of the same army has arrived in America.” California offered to them “a second free Punjab where they can talk openly to their brothers.”26 Har Dayal seamlessly and cumulatively melded the casts of both revolutionary streams.27
A typical weekly issue might contain accounts of past and present revolutionary actions, oft en featuring appeals or references to the other nationalist groups within the British Empire, namely, those in Ireland and Egypt; or other groups recently and currently involved in struggles against autocratic or imperial rule, such as those in Russia, China, and Mexico. One might also find biographical sketches of independence fighters of India, Ireland, Italy, Poland, or even colonial America, such as that renowned anti-British guerrilla fighter George Washington. Other edifying historical examples ranged from episodes of the French Revolution to services rendered by the likes of William Tell or Lafayette against foreign domination and for the principle of freedom, to even the unification of Germany.28 There was a special edition of Rusi Bagion ke Dastaanen (Stories of Russian Revolutionaries),29 praising the faithful toils, daring exploits, stirring statements, abscondments from oppressive marriages, prison stints, prison breaks, and martyrdoms of radicals such as Vera Figner, Leo Deutsch, and Vera Zasulich.
There was much praise of the Bengali movement for keeping the government in a state of anxiety, and of course frequent invocation of the Mutiny of 1857 (“the old Gadar”), including serialized installments from Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s book on the Mutiny of 1857. Following the practice of the London India House group, these were read out at public meetings, and a special anniversary issue came out annually on 10 May, featuring the Rani of Jhansi’s image on the cover.30 Special issues commemorating such landmarks as 1857 or the Hardinge bomb of 1912 were printed on red or yellow paper, making visual the text’s exhortations to don the saffron of the patriot, martyr, and warrior.31
The Ghadar also printed meeting notices and accounts of proceedings, such as an important gathering described in the 6 January 1914 issue, held in Sacramento on 31 December 1913. Here, according to quite another sort of description, courtesy of the ubiquitous intelligence agents, “poems were read and violent seditious speeches delivered, the point of which was emphasized by lantern slides. Portraits of famous seditionists and murderers and revolutionary mottoes were displayed on the screen.”32 The now-familiar gallery included Mazzini, William Tell, Lenin, and Sun Yat-sen; 1857 heroes Nanasahib Peshwa, Tatya Tope, and Lakshmi Bai; and Swadeshi-era revolutionists Khudiram Bose, Kanailal Dutta, and the Maharashtrian Chapekar.33 This pantheon was always expanding: there was a notice in the 13 December 1916 issue kindly requesting “from 1857 to date, photos of all the martyrs … from those brethren having them,” and noting: “Some of the Punjab
