Punjabi Rebels of the Columbia River

Indian migration and radicalization [at the turn of the 20^th century] transpired across two empires, those of Britain and the United States. Each was expanding globally, and each was dealing with tensions between rulers and ruled. Both were reliant on and enriched by colonialism’s worldwide circulation of goods and labor governed by white supremacy. Indians traveled within and across these two empires largely along two tracks of labor. (P.7, Punjabi Rebels of the Columbia River).

Independent Scholar Johanna Ogden’s Punjabi Rebels of the Columbia River provides a well-researched study of the Ghadar movement from its inception in 1913 through to 1921.  Ogden primarily focusses her study on the origins of the movement in mill towns located along the Columbia River in Oregon, USA. The book  is an eye-opening exploration of how a coterie of South Asian intellectuals and students from the University of California in Berkeley joined migrant west coast labourers and mill workers from Punjab, to organize and establish first the Ghadar print newspaper and later the Ghadar Party.

This reviewer who is familiar with what Ogden writes about learned in more detail about the origins of the Ghadar movement and party.

Events such as the race riots that took place in September, 1907 in Bellingham, Washington and in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada were followed a few years later by the one in St. Johns, Oregon in 1910. These riots precipitated the formation of an active organization called the Pacific Coast Hindustani Association (1912) after many of the riot instigators were not convicted or for those who were convicted were given convictions on lesser charges. 

Key members of the Association were instrumental in establishing the Ghadar Movement. Ghadar, which means “revolt” or “rebel” in Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu, was the clarion call for overthrowing the British Empire in India.  The Ghadar movement was not restricted by the principles non-violent resistance championed by Mohandas K Gandhi, later known worldwide as Mahatma Gandhi. Ghadar members on the west coast of the USA, reflected an early form of the Indian independence movement that were not averse to using guerilla tactics such as sabotage and violence.

The Ghadar revolutionaries are largely overshadowed by the beginnings of the Indian National Congress Party of India formed in the late 19^th century.  Even now much of the Independence movement narrative is dominated by the work of Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress Party of India.

The book references a cornucopia of archival materials exploring the many communal steps to the inception of the Ghadar Party and movement (1913-1917). This book revisits names like Sohan Singh Bhakna, Lala Har Dyal, Bhaghat Singh Thind, as well as Taraknath Das, who hold an important place as active organizers and workers of the Ghadar Party which quickly gained support from Indian expatriates. Meetings that were fundraisers for the Ghadar Party and newspaper were held in various international cities like Los Angeles, California, Oxford, Britain, Vienna, Austria , Washington D.C., USA and Shanghai, China.

Also significant in the book are the contributions of Kartar Singh Sarabha who worked directly on the Gurmukhi edition of the Ghadar paper and was instrumental in organizing acts of revolt in India during this time (1914-1915).  The smaller communities along the Columbia River became a lightning rod for these primarily Punjabi Sikh famers turned mill labourers working there and along the west coast down to places like San Francisco.

… young Kartar Singh Sarabha of Berkeley, California, worked to win military men and peasants to their [Ghadar’s] mutinous plan, attacked military caches, and some (controversially) carried out targeted banditry to secure arms and funds. (p.147, Footnote - Ramnath, Haj to Utopia, 46, 64, 66, 95–96; Sohi, Echoes of Mutiny, 57, 82, 91, 98.)

Sohan Singh Bhakna came to Oregon and settled into a  labourer’s job living in St. Johns, Oregon, a small town located on the Willamette River in Oregon. At the time, such small towns had not been amalgamated into what is now known as Portland, Oregon. Bhakna’s roots were from an agrarian village close to Amritsar, Punjab, India; he was steeped in activist organising in Punjab. He learned from and participated in the large-scale protests against the Colonization Bill of 1906–07 which allowed for the transfer of a deceased owner’s land in India to the British colonial government. The protests were a catalyst to Bhakana’s knowledge, which he carried with him to the mill towns of Oregan, USA.

Ogden does an exemplary job of tracing the revolutionary lives of the Ghadar members along the west coast of Canada and the USA, as well as providing a summary of the state sanctioned white supremacy and racism that was enshrined in the laws and legislation of places like Oregon, (USA), British Columbia (Canada) and California (USA). Ogden does a detailed analysis of how the unjust anti-Asian laws of the time along the west coast led to the formation of the Ghadar movement.

Another reoccurring presence during this time is William Hopkinson, the infamous secret agent who was deployed by the British Government to surveil the Punjabi community on the west coast.  He was also a manager, as Ogden’s scholarship reveals, of a large network of spies that were hired to keep a close eye on the emergent Punjabi labouring communities along the west coast in British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. Hopkinson was a primary informant who detailed the activities of Ghadar members through reports he prepared for various law enforcement and colonial policing players at that time. He was a key informant and drew a salary from the British colonial Government in India, the Government of Canada and the US Government. He was their chief intelligence officer for this geographic area during this time.

What is striking about Ogden scholarly research is that it captures in great detail the little-known background and daily lives of the west coast Indian mill workers who became revolutionaries. This is a community driven story of mobilization and courageous leadership.  It is a story that interweaves archival sources with robust story telling of the movements that led to the inception of the Ghadar Party and specifically in Oregan, USA. and serves as a valuable resource to those studying this area scholarship.