Sohan Singh

Name: Sohan Singh Arrested: October 13, 1914. Charged with: Conspiracy. Sentenced: To death, later commuted to life at Andamans. Sohan Singh was born in the year 1870 in a small town near Amritsar. Singh studied at a Gurudwara in his village Bhakhna. He was able to read and write Punjabi language at a very tender age. He got married to Bishan Kaur at the age of ten. At the very young age he was burdened with the marital responsibility. His marriage didnt affect his schooling and he finished his school at the age of 16. He was fluent in Urdu and Persian. He participated in nationalist movement and agrarian unrest that surfaced in Punjab in 1900. He also protested against anticolonization bill between the years 1906-1907. Subsequently, he left for United States in February 1909 to find a job for himself. Singh worked as a labourer in a timber mill. In the early 1900s, North America saw a huge number of immigrants coming from Punjab because of lack of economic and educational prospects in India. To deal with the rapid influx of immigrants, Canadian government started enacting laws to limit the entry of people from South Asia. They also imposed restrictive laws on the present South Asian community in Canada. Punjabis had expected an equal status and honour for themselves but they were surprised by the ill-treatment meted out to them. These laws increased protests, discontent and anti-colonial emotions among the Punjabi community. In order to avenge the insults the Punjabi community came up with their own political group. By 1908, it was able to attract many nationalists such as P S Khankhoje, Pandit Kanshi Ram, Taraknath Das, among others. This group later came to be known as Ghadar Party. The party quickly gained support from Indian refugees, especially in the United States, Canada and Asia. Ghadar meetings were held in Los Angeles, Oxford, Vienna, Washington, D.C., and Shanghai. The Ghadar Partys ultimate goal was to overthrow British colonial authority in India by violent attacks. Its main focus was to make Indian soldiers enter the revolt. For this purpose, Ghadar started a Yugantar Ashram Press in San Francisco and printed a newspaper called Ghadar. The Ghadarites, under the leadership of Sohan Singh, used Komagata Maru - the ship that sailed with immigrants from India to Canada but was turned back from Vancouver- as a rallying point. This issue successfully brought many unaffected Indians in North America into the party's fold. For the Ghadar conspiracy Singh sailed to India and directed the rebellion. He was arrested in Calcutta on 13 October 1914 and was sentenced to death. The sentence was subsequently commuted to imprisonment in the Andaman. In 1921, Sohan Singh was transferred to Coimbatore jail and then to Yervada. At Yervada, however, Singh went on a hunger strike in protest against Sikh prisoners not being allowed to wear turbans. In 1927, he was shifted to the Central Jail at Lahore, where he again went on hunger strike in June 1928 to protest against the segregation of the so-called low-caste Mazhabi Sikhs from other 'high-caste' Sikhs during meals. He served sixteen years before he was released

in July 1930. After his relase, he worked for the Communist party of India till he died of pneumonia on December 21, 1968 in Amritsar.

Sohan Singh Bhakna, Baba

Sohan Singh soon found work as a labourer in a timber mill being constructed near the city. In this first decade of the 1900s, the Pacific coast of North America saw large scale Indian immigration. A large proportion of the immigrants were especially from Punjab British India which was facing an economic depression and agrarian unrest. The Canadian government met this influx with a series of legislations aimed at limiting the entry of South Asians into Canada, and restricting the political rights of those already in the country. The Punjabi community had hitherto been an important loyal force for the British Empire and the Commonwealth, and the community had expected, to honour its commitment, equal welcome and rights from the British and commonwealth governments as extended to British and white immigrants. These legislations fed growing discontent, protests and anti-colonial sentiments within the community. Faced with increasingly difficult situations, the community began organising itself into political groups. A large number of Punjabis also moved to the United States, but they encountered similar political and social problems. Early works among these groups date back to the time around 1908 when Indian students and Punjabi immigrants of the likes of P S Khankhoje, Pandit Kanshi Ram, Taraknath Das and Bhai Bhagwan Singh were working towards and for a political movement. Khankhoje himself founded the Indian Independence League in Portland, Oregon. Sohan Singh at this time came to be strongly associated with this political movement taking shape among Indian immigrants. His works also brought him close to other Indian nationalists in United States at the time. Meanwhile, India House and nationalist activism of Indian students had begun declining in the East Coast towards 1910, but gradually shifted west to San Francisco. The arrival at this time of Har Dayal from Europe bridged the gap between the intellectual agitators in New York and the predominantly Punjabi labour workers and migrants in the west coast, and laid the foundations of the Ghadar movement.[2] In the summer of 1913, representatives of Indians living in Canada and the United States met at Stockton, where the decision was taken to establish an organization, Hindustani Workers of the Pacific Coast. The Pacific Coast Hindustan Association, was formed in 1913 in the United States under the leadership of Har Dayal, P.S. Khankhoje and Sohan Singh Bhakna. Bhakna was its president. It drew members from Indian immigrants, largely from Punjab.[1] Many of its members were also from the University of California at Berkeley including Dayal, Tarak Nath Das, Kartar Singh Sarabha and V.G. Pingle. The party quickly gained support from Indian expatriates, especially in the United States, Canada and Asia. Ghadar meetings were held in Los Angeles, Oxford, Vienna, Washington, D.C., and Shanghai. Sohan Singh was born in January 1870 at the village of Khutrai Khurd, north of Amritsar, which was the ancestral home of his mother Ram Kaur. His father was Bhai Karam Singh, who lived with his family in the village of Bhakna, 16 km southwest of Amritsar. Young Sohan Singh spent his childhood at Bhakhna, where he received his childhood education in the village Gurudwara. He learnt to read and write in the Punjabi language at an early age, and was also instructed on the rudiments of Sikh faith. Sohan Singh was married at the age of ten to Bishan Kaur, daughter of a landlord near Lahore by the name of Khushal Singh. Sohan Singh finished school at the age of sixteen, by which time he was also proficient in Urdu and Persian. His marriage to Bishan Kaur, however, remained childless. Sohan Singh became involved in the nationalist movement and the agrarian unrest that emerged in

Punjab in the 1900s. He participated in the protests against the anti-Colonization Bill in 1906-07. Two years later, in February 1909, he left home to sail for the United States. After a two month journey, Singh reached Seattle on 4 April 1909.

Ghadar Conspiracy
The Ghadar Party evolved from the Pacific coast association. The Ghadars ultimate goal was to overthrow British colonial authority in India by means of an armed revolution. It viewed the Congress-led mainstream movement for dominion status modest and the latters constitutional methods as soft. Ghadars foremost strategy was to entice Indian soldiers to revolt. To that end, in November 1913 Ghadar established the Yugantar Ashram press in San Francisco. The press produced the Hindustan Ghadar newspaper and other nationalist literature. The Ghadar leadership,under Sohan Singh Bhakna, began at this time their first plans for mutiny. The inflammatory passions surrounding the Komagata Maru incident helped the Ghadarite cause, and Ghadar leaders including Sohan Singh, Barkatullah and Taraknath Das used it as a rallying point and successfully brought many disaffected Indians in North America into the partys fold. Sohan Singh himself had contacted the returning Komagata Maru at Yokohama and delivered to Baba Gurdit Singh a consignment of arms when he learnt of hostilities breaking out in July 1914. The war in Europe hastened Ghadars plans. It was already in touch with Indian revolutionaries in Germany and with the German consulate in San Fracisco. Ghadar also had party members in South-East Asia and had made contact with the Indian revolutionary underground. Elaborate plans were made to ship funds and arms from the United States and from South-East Asia, to India in what came to be called the Hindu German Conspiracy. These were to be used for a planned mutiny in India sometime in late 1914 or early 1915. The plans for the latter came to be known as the Ghadar Conspiracy. Sohan Singh, as one of the top of the Ghadar leadership, sailed to India in the SS Namsang at the outbreak of the war, in the wake of the Komagata Maru incidence to organise and direct the rebellion from India. However, British intelligence was already picking up traces of the revolutionary conspiracy. Returning to India, Singh was arrested in Calcutta on 13 October 1914 and sent to Ludhiana for interrogation. He was subsequently sent to the Central Jail in Multan and later tried in the Lahore Conspiracy Case and sentenced to death, with forfeiture of property. The death sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment in the Andamans, where he reached on 10 December 1915 and where he undertook several hunger strikes successively to secure the detenues better treatment.

Later life
In 1921, Sohan Singh was transferred to Coimbatore jail and then to Yervada. Here however, Singh famously embarked on a hunger strike in protest against Sikh prisoners not being allowed to wear turbans and their Kaccha, amongst their religious obligations. In 1927, he was shifted to the Central Jail at Lahore, where he again went on hunger strike in June 1928 to protest against the segregation of the so-called low-caste Mazhabi Sikhs from other high-caste Sikhs during meals. In 1929, while still interned, Sohan Singh famously went on a hunger strike in support of Bhagat Singh. Sohan Singh ultimately served sixteen years before he was released early in July 1930.

After his release, Sohan Singh Bhakna continued working in the nationalist movement and labour politics. His works were identified closely with the works of the Communist party of India, devoting most of his time to organizing the Kisan Sabhas. He also made the release of interened Ghadarites a key part of his political work. He was interned a second time during World War II, when he was jailed at the Deoli Camp in what is today Rajasthan. He remained incarcerated for nearly three years. After Independence he veered decisively towards the Communist Party of India. He was arrested on 31 March 1948, but released on 8 May 1948. However, he was seized again, but jail-going ended for him finally at the intervention of Independent Indias first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Bent with age and ravaged by pneumonia, Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna died, at Amritsar, on 21 December 1968.

Sohan Singh Bhakna

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Born in January, 1870 at village Khutral Khurd, District Amritsar, Sohan Singh was the only son of Sardar Karam Singh, a well-to-do peasant who died when Sohan Singh was hardly a year old. As there was no school in the village, Sohal Singh received his early education at the local Gurudwara. When he was eleven a primary school was opened in the village. When he completed his primary education from here, he had already grown too old, so that he did not pursue his studies any further. He migrated to the U.S.A. about the year 1907 and joined the Punjabi immigrants in California. In course of time the miseries and hardships suffered by Indians in America made him an ardent nationalist. Driven to desperation by the attitude of foreign governments and desiring of seize the opportunity presented by the war, Sohan Singh, Lala Hardayal, Pt. Kanshi Ram and few others put heads together and founder the Pacific Coast Hindi Association. Sohan Singh was elected its first President. The same association later came to be known as the Ghadar Party. As desired by the Party, Sohan Singh left America even before the World War broke out and returned to India as the head of the band of revolutionaries by the ship Namsang following the Komagata Maru. He reached Calcutta in October, 1914 but was arrested immediately. He was then tried and sentenced to death in the First Lahore Conspiracy Case. Later, on appeal to the High court the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He was released after 16 years. In jail he went on hunger strike in 1929 in sympathy with Bhagat Singh and his comrades. When Bhagat Singh tried to dissuade him on account of his old age, he said, "What if the body looks old, the revolutionary in me is not old". Such was the spirit he retained right till his death.

When he stepped out of prison he again plunged into political activity. His first concern was to get the Ghadar prisoners released. Even so his main interest henceforward lay in the welfare of peasants and he participated in several Kisan Morchas. This brought him closer to the Communist Party of India. When the Second World War started, he was arrested and sent to jail at the Deoli Camp (Rajasthan). In 1943 he was released along with other detainee of his party. For the next twenty-five years of his life, he continued working for the Kisan Sabha and the Communist Party of India. At one time he was President of the All-India Kisan Sabha. He was so popular among its members that the Kisan Sabha decided to honor him by holding a conference at his village Bhakna Kalan from 2nd to 4th April 1943. It was sheer coincidence that Baba Ji had been released a day earlier.

Sohan Singh Bhakna, Baba Founder president of the Ghadr party in the U.S.A. (1870-1968) Source: TheSikhEncyclopedia.Com

Was the only son of Bhai Karam Singh, of the village of Bhakna, 16 km southwest of Amritsar. He was born in January 1870 at Khutrai Khurd, parental home of his mother, Ram Kaur, 3 km northeast of Guru ka Bagh in Amritsar district. He learnt reacting and writing Punjabi and the rudiments of Sikh faith in the village gurdwara and passed the fifth primary class in Urdu and Persian at the age of 16. He had been married when He was ten to Bishan Kaur, daughter of Khushal Singh, a landlord of jandiala in Lahore district, but the couple remained childless. Sohan Singh took part in the anti-Colonization Bill agitation of 1906-07. Two years later (3 February 1909) he left home to go to the United States, reaching Seattle on the West Coast on 4 April 1909. He soon found work as a labourer in a timber mill, under construction near Seattle. In those days, Indians in the United States and the neighbouring Canada, most. of them Sikhs from the Punjab, suffered severe discrimination, protest against which had been simmering. In the summer of 1913, representatives of Indians living in Canada and the United States, meeting at Stockton, decided to set. up an organization, Hindustani Workers of the Pacific Coast (Hindi Pacific Association, for short). Sohan Singh Bhakna was elected its president and Lala Hardayal, intellectual and revolutionary, its general secretary. A weekly paper Ghadr (lit. rebellion, revolt) was launched on 1 November 1913 to propagate the objective of the Association, which plainly was to make an armed rebellion against the British in India. The journal Ghadr imparted its name to the organization as well as to the movement itself. The United States government, at the instance of the British, issued arrest warrants against Lala Hardayal, but the party succeeded in smuggling him out. of the country in April 1914. The Ghadr

party, under Sohan Singh Bhakna, planned an uprising against the British for 1917, but rumours of a war in Europe between England and Germany and the Komagata Maru episode hastened events. Sohan Singh himself contacted the returning Komagata Maru at Yokohama and delivered to Baba Gurdit Singh a consignment. of arms. As he learnt there that hostilities had actually broken out on 28 July 1914, he took a boat to India. As soon as. the ship reached Calcutta on 13 October 1914, Sohan Singh was arrested and, after a few days interrogation at Ludhiana, was sent to Central Jail, Multan. He was tried in what is known as the first Lahore conspiracy, case and was sentenced to death with forfeiture of property. The death penalty was later commuted to life imprisonment in Andamans, where he reached on 10 December 1915 and where he undertook several hunger strikes successively to secure the detenues better treatment. In 1921 he was transferred to Coimbatore jail and then to Yervada. Here lie left off eating food again to register his protest against Sikh prisoners not being allowed to wear turbans and their kachhahiras or knickers which were their religious obligations. In 1927, he was shifted to Central Jail, Lahore, where he again went on hunger strike in june 1928 to protest against the segregation of the so-called low-caste Mazhabi Sikhs from other 'high-caste' Sikhs at mealtimes. He was released early in July 1930, but he continued to work for the freedom of the country. He devoted most of his time to organizing Kisan Sabhas (peasants' societies) . During World War II he was interned in Deoli Camp Jail (Rajasthan) for nearly three years. After Independence he veered decisively towards the Communist Party of India. He was arrested on 31 March 1948, but released on 8 May 1948. However, he was seized again, but jail-going ended for him finally at the intervention of Independent India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Bent with age and ravaged by pneumonia, Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna died, at Amritsar, on 21 December 1968.