Ghadar anniversary: A wealthy US peasant, the key mobiliser

Aparna Banerji

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, April 21

Nearly 116 years ago, on April 13, 1913, the foundation of the Ghadar Party was laid by some Indians in California. Starting off a movement of overseas Indians, an integral part of the Ghadar movement was the country’s peasantry, which was instrumental is mobilising a revolution against the British during the freedom struggle.

While the state faces an acute distress, experts look into the reasons why peasantry is not a mainstream influence in the country’s politics as it was back then.

The Kriti Kisan Lehar (movement), which came into being in 1928, was an offshoot of the Ghadar Party – which through its mouthpiece ‘Kirti’, exalted Babbar Akalis, gurdwara reform movement revolutionaries, and those martyred in the Guruka-Bagh incident, Budge-Budge riots, Jallianwala Bagh masscare and Jaito Morcha.

Potato King of the Ghadar movement

Baba Jwala Singh, called the ‘Potato King’ of the US, played an instrumental role in the Ghadar Movement. Having moved to California in 1908, a native of the Thatthian village in Amritsar, he gave up a lucrative farm sprawling 500 acres, 80 km away from San Francisco in Stockton, for which he earned the title ‘Potato King’. He was behind the establishment of the first gurdwara in the US at Stockton, which emerged as a major centre of the Ghadar Movement. His disillusionment with racist attacks on Indians in the US, coupled with endeavour for freedom back home, played a foundational role in the Ghadar.

Historian Chiranji Lal Kangniwal says, “Jwala Singh was the first president of the Punjab Kisan Sabha, a mass organisation of peasants. He also led the peasant movement of Nili Bar which embraced the districts of Mutlan and Montgomery. Lala Hardial, who was instrumental in establishing the Ghadar Newspaper and formed the ‘Hindi Association of Pacific Coast’ on April 23, 1913, at Astoria, Oregon, was a regular visitor to Baba Jwala Singh’s farm in Holtville (Stockton). It was on Lala’s insistence that Jwala started ‘Guru Gobind Singh Scholarship’ for Punjabi students in US.”

However, experts say, today’s peasantry isn’t mobilised that way.

Historian Prof Chaman Lal says, “The year Bhagat Singh was born, 1907, Punjab was going through same sort of farm distress. Bhagat Singh’s uncle Ajit Singh, along with Lala Lajpat Rai, formed a movement called ‘Pagri Sambhal Jatta’. They together organised the peasantry along with other leaders. Since 2000, a minimum of 3 lakh peasants have committed suicide across India and thousands are from Punjab. The peasantry today is in its worst crisis.”

Umendra Dutt, executive director of the Kheti Virasat Mission, says “It is unfortunate that farm distress is not a part of the mainstream narrative during elections. The Kirti Kisan Movement was huge but the contemporary peasantry isn’t mobilised like that. The development model of the country does not support farming. We need a Gandhian approach to address the rural sector and also dispel the myth of the green revolution.”

Farm leader Sukhdev Singh Kokri Kalan said “We plan major marches from May 2- 4 at Patiala where thousands of farmers shall gather. The farming distress needs to be the main issue in the 2019 elections.”