Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The Ghadr Movement
- Ghadr - mutiny
- Two early mutinies of Pathans in winter of 1914-15
- Caused by fear that they would be led by Muslim officers
- Indian troops in Singapore learned from reports/personal letters about the death toll at Battle of the Somme (1916)
- Rumour that they were to go to France led to rampage and killing of European civilians, inc. women
- Woman wrote later that they thought horrors of the mutiny were to be repeated
- Order quickly established, 37 ringleaders publicly excecuted
- Most politically significant mutiny never happened.
- 1914- Japanese steamer (the Komagata Maru) commissioned by more than 300 Sikhs working in Malaya to take them to Canada
- Canadians refused entry despite voyage complying with new anti-Asian immigration laws
- After months in harbour, set sail for Calcutta
- By the time it arrived in 1914, war had broken out and suspicions were high
- Was known that Canadian coastal province of British Columbia was home to anti-British Indians
- Movement gave its name (Ghadr) to newspaper distributed in NA and the East
- Sub-title: 'enemy of the British government'
- Sikhs found troops waiting to escort them to holding camp
- Some made break for city, 22 shot
- Rest rounded up and moved across India
- Incident inflamed anti-British feeling in Punjab
- More so when official inquiry blamed Sikhs
- British secret police paid close attention to politics in Punjab
- Inside info led to break up of a planned uprising in 1915
- 5000 Ghadrites arrested, 200 jailed/transported abroad and 46 hanged
- Relief and satisfaction of British haunted by realism that loyalty of Punjab could no longer be counted on
- 4 yrs later, anxiety would lead to worst atrocity of British rule in India