Haj to Utopia. Maia Ramnath

dharmsala to confer, “Pingle told him that he could obtain four or five pistols, but needed money to bring a Bengali friend of his who knew how to manufacture bombs like that thrown at the Viceroy (Lord Hardinge) on his ceremonial entrance to Delhi two years before. Mula Singh asked if the friend was the man who had thrown it, but he was met with a smile and told that it was not necessary for him to know that.”¹¹⁰

      Soon afterward, the headquarters moved from Amritsar to two secluded houses in Lahore to avoid police attention. Bose himself, when he arrived in Lahore after informing his comrades in Varanasi that he was going to “fix dates in consultation with the Sikhs,” then laid claim to the role of directing “all departments of revolutionary work.”¹¹¹ Bose’s claims aside, these departments included (a) the seduction of troops, (b) the massacre of loyal subjects and officials, (c) the setting up of a revolutionary flag, (d) the breaking of jails, (e) the looting of treasuries, (f) the seduction of youths, (g) the propagation of seditious literature, (h) union with foreign enemies, (i) the commission of dacoities, (j) the procuring of arms, (k) the manufacture of bombs, (l) the foundation of secret societies, (m) the looting of police stations, (n) the destruction of railways and telegraphs, and (o) the seduction of villagers.¹¹² The latter were to be encouraged toward actions of resistance, starting with the refusal to pay revenue, and eventually leading toward more confrontational tactics.¹¹³ (If we were to rephrase this agenda, replacing “seduction of” with “outreach to”; “massacre of [loyalists]” with “assassination of [loyalists]”; and “seditious” with “revolutionary,” I doubt any Ghadarite would have denied it.)

      The planning committee in Berlin had given returnees to understand that they would be supplied with weapons upon arrival, but the promised German shipments went awry.¹¹⁴ The returnees smuggled in a few guns and cartridges themselves, having taken them aboard in small quantities in Japanese or Chinese ports, and sometimes hiding such weapons acquired en route under false bottoms of packing cases or in hollow table legs. But this would not be enough; raids on armories, magazines, and police posts would be necessary to build up their arsenal.¹¹⁵ Resourceful rebels armed themselves in the meantime with cavalry swords or bamboo staves topped with removable axe-blades.¹¹⁶

      Besides weapons, the other pressing need was money. Throughout October and November, debates occurred on whether and where to loot treasuries. Although some leaders felt that this would simply invite unwanted attention and needlessly risk premature arrest, nevertheless they undertook a modest series of fundraising dacoities.¹¹⁷ The Bengalis collected 59,410 rupees in their home territory, while the Punjabis carried out up to fifteen attacks on villages, treasuries, and train stations, in one case leveraging a mandatory contribution of 22,000 rupees from “a pro-British rich man” whom they induced to do his duty and “replenish the national treasury.”¹¹⁸

      Some were punctilious in their intention to choose targets in accordance with wealth and sympathies, and in their adherence to chivalry in action. One anecdote, for example, portrayed Kartar Singh taking pity on a widow whose house they were robbing, and leaving her with sufficient funds to get her daughter married honorably. In total, between mid-October 1914 and January 1915, “no fewer than 33 serious crimes, including five murders and several raids by large and well-armed gangs, were definitely traced by the Government of India to the ‘Ghadar incitement.’ ”¹¹⁹

      A fascination with explosives had not abated since the Swadeshi days, and now the returnees from abroad were seeking out a mysterious “Bengali expert.”¹²⁰ Ram Saran Das recommended blowing up all the railway bridges in Punjab to forestall troop movements once the rising was initiated. “Hundred pound bombs would do the work,” he supposed, “unless the Bengali whom Sanyal had gone to fetch preferred the use of dynamite.”¹²¹ Not that the returnees lacked their own expertise, having trained with the same manual as their domestic counterparts had. Mathra Singh, bombing coordinator for the returning Ghadarites, had recently produced some successful samples from easily obtained ingredients. He had been part of a team that also included Amar Singh and Harnam Singh Tundilat, to undertake experiments at a remote workshop at Jawala Singh’s ranch in California, based on a copy of the bomb manual compiled by the Swadeshi activist Hemchandra Das in Paris under the tutelage of Russian Revolutionary Socialist exiles and delivered to California by Taraknath Das. (In the process an accident led to the loss of Harnam Singh’s hand.) Amar Singh, who was experimenting with electrical ignitions, suggested an iron foundry in Lahore where casings could be made. When the foundry proprietor’s growing suspicions led them to cancel the order, they made use of some brass ink pots they found in the Amritsar bazaar.¹²²

      But even explosives would be useless without the most important component of all: popular support. Soon after the shift to Lahore—which had for the moment overtaken San Francisco as functional operating center, once most of the leaders had crossed over—they had purchased six duplicators to churn out revolutionary leaflets in Urdu, Gurmukhi, and Hindi.¹²³ Printing and distributing materials from inside India could circumvent the increasing hazards of smuggling them in past the customs inspectors; lately some travelers had taken to simply learning texts by heart and importing them that way. Moreover, since their arrival the returnees had been addressing gatherings at fairs and festivals in Sikh holy places, urging people to rise in rebellion against their British rulers.

      While Harnam Singh Tundilat tramped from village to village bearing the message of revolt, Kartar Singh racked up hundreds of miles on his bicycle, making the rounds of the cantonments to talk with soldiers.¹²⁴ Above all, the envisioned rising depended upon the mutiny of troops; without this element, the agitators must remain ineffectual. With the empire’s military strength concentrated elsewhere, the Indian posts were being refilled with relatively raw and inexperienced “territorials.” As for the Indian soldiers, the Ghadarites felt deep kinship with them, so why not rally them? They were family, friends, and fellow villagers, and they held all the weapons. Their eyes only needed to be opened. Although most were content to spread literature and persuasion among the cantonments, a few, including Balwant Singh, even enlisted in order to better implant the desire for mutiny from within. “Already the army was seething with discontent,” said Rattan Singh. “Soldiers hated the idea of going abroad, to Mesopotamia, to France, to strange lands to die at the bidding of the British Government.”¹²⁵

      During January and February of 1915, Ghadar emissaries reached most of the cantonments in northern India. Kartar Singh, Randhir Singh, and Nidhan Singh focused on Ferozepore, while Harnam Singh and Pyara Singh traveled to the frontier cantonments; Nidhan Singh and others to Jhelum, Rawalpindi, and Hoti Mardan; and Mathra Singh and Amar Singh to “stir up the Afridis on the frontier.”¹²⁶ The emissaries were equipped with tricolor flags (yellow for Sikhs, red for Hindus, blue for Muslims) and tools such as files, safety pliers, and wire cutters thought to be for use on telegraph or electric lines.¹²⁷ Their most successful “seductions” were among the Twenty-third Cavalry at Lahore Cantonment and the sepoys of the Twenty-sixth Punjabis at Ferozepore, whose “infect[ion] with sedition” while stationed in Hong Kong had already led to their redeployment back to India. But the Ghadarites also found receptive ears among the 128th Pioneers, the Twelfth Cavalry regimental lines at Meerut, and a few others.

      In late October 1914 a reservist sowar (cavalryman) brought news to the Twenty-third that a sizable group of returned emigrants armed with guns, pistols, and bombs was planning to capture the fort at Lahore and was hoping for regimental support in this enterprise. Several sowars and officers were sympathetic, although reticent about unleashing mutiny prematurely. They wanted to be sure the rising was actually under way before risking it. But if a solid six to seven hundred emigrants were in place to attack the cavalry lines, they allowed, that might be a sufficient signal for the mutinous troops to kill their officers, commandeer the rifle racks and magazine, and deal with any unconvinced comrades-in-arms.

      The “disaffected” cavalry regiment (stirred by two freshly enlisted returnees among their ranks) then kept faithfully in touch through Prem Singh and Hira Singh throughout the intervening lull, awaiting their moment for months.¹²⁸ Even so a few restive soldiers decided they couldn’t wait any longer and left to “do some mischief to the Government” by cutting telegraph lines and breaking railroad