THE GHADAR MOVEMENT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA, 1914-1918

Abstract

One of the most interesting features in the history of the Indian nationalist movementduring the first two decades of the 206 century was the prevalence of revolutionaryconspiracies, which aimed to overthrow the British Government in India by violentmeans. It is also interesting to note that the nationalist movement was one of themost eminent themes in the Indian historiography at this time. This can be conceivedfrom the massive studies which related to this theme.2 There are two categories ofscholars who dealt with this theme. The first concenffated more on the Indian NationalCongress, and personalities such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru etc.3 Thesecond concentrated their studies on the Indian people and Indian subject.a Bothgroups shared the same objective; to free India from the British.Besides the differences in character, the development of the Indian nationalistmovement may also be divided into different phase. The first phase was the pcriodbetween 1857 to 1905, followed by the second phase between 1905 to 1920, and thefinal phase between 1920 to 1947. During these three phases, the second was theone when, in 1905, "the Indian Revolution began" marking a new trend in the Indiannationalist movement. This new trend emerged as 'great achievement' in Indianhistory. It revealed that Indians did not rely solely on one method to attainrndependence. The Indian nationalist used a variety of method available. For example,the method as advocated by the moderates centered on the belief that the safest.andthe surest road to achieve the goal ofindependence was through the confidence andgood wishes of the British electorate. On the other hand, revolutionaries such as theBengal revolutionaries believed that in order to win their freedom, they needed toput some pressure on the British rulers through various means of violence.However, under the weight of repressive measures imposed by the BritishIndia, the Indian revolutionary movement declined inside the country. The IndianGovemmentemployed all its availablepressure to therevolutionary movementwithinthe sub-continent. When pressure from the Government increased day after day,the Indian revolutionaries fled abroad, and again started their revolutionary workfrom their new bases, especially in North America and Europe. The movernentmade rapid strides in foreign lands, where it received the ardent support from Indianss'ho were resident abroad. During the period of the First World War, the Indianrevolutionaries in Canada andUnited States ofAmerica (U.S.A.) became dominantactors in the Indian nationalist movement. Under the banner of the Ghadar Partyand co-operation with the Indian Committee in Berlin, the revolutionaries absorbedall the possibly aggressive and violent methods as a means of liberating India from61 Jati, Bilangan 7, Disember 2002the British. Originally, the Ghadar Party was formed in the U.S.A in 1913.5 Itsheadquarters were in San Francisco, but branches were established in most countrieswhere Indians lived. Branches were formed atTokyo, Shanghai, Manila, Hong Kcing,Batavia (Jakarta), Sumatra and the Malay States. They could be found in the variousparts of South East Asia (s.E.A), from chiangrnai in the north, to the remote islandofMindanao in the Philippines.