Articles by Catherine Putz

Indian Revolutionaries in America and the Fight to Overthrow the British Raj

As World War I loomed in Europe, in California's San Francisco Bay area an Indian activist named Har Dayal, smeared later as anarchist, printed off the first issue of an underground revolutionary paper, the Hindustan Ghadar. In Let My Country Awake: Indian Revolutionaries in America and the Fight to Overthrow the British Raj, Scott Miller explores a bit of overlooked history. Until the rise of Gandhi, the most significant challenge to British colonial rule was mounted from the American west coast by would-be revolutionaries and students, attracted to American ideals but viewed with suspicion by much of the U.S. political system. Even then, despite objectively racist immigration laws and treatment, U.S. authorities were not always quick to bow to British pressure to do something about anti-colonial Indian agitators. It wasn't really until World War I was in full swing, and the activities of the Indian independence activists began violating U.S. neutrality laws – by shipping guns and revolutionaries to India, while conspiring with German agents – that what had come to be known as the Ghadar movement met with the full opposition of the U.S. government. In the following interview with The Diplomat’s Managing Editor Catherine Putz, Miller discusses the movement’s charismatic leaders, its roots and evolution, and the importance of learning about the United States’ vast and varied immigration history. In the book, you describe Har Dayal as the early spiritual leader of what would come to be called the Ghadar movement. What made Dayal a compelling figure and how did he attempt to organize the Indians living in California in the early 1900s? Charismatic and bright, Dayal had the basic tools to lead a group like this. Through sheer force of personality, he was able to somehow unite a fractured collection of Indians then in the United States, including Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims. He could go into a logging camp or farm and connect with workers there as easily as he could with students on a university campus. At the revolutionary newspaper he edited, Dayal set aside space for poems by working men, which he printed complete with grammar mistakes, adding to their authentic appeal. Unlike many Indian immigrants, he also was fully confident in English and easily made American friends, some of whom no doubt were impressed by the fact he had studied at Oxford. Why, of all places, did the Ghadar movement take root in California? What was it about society or the environs of the time that was conducive to giving birth to such a movement? California and its top-notch universities were natural draws for Indians of all walks of life. Leftist groups such as the Industrial Workers of the World, which had many members in the west, held a natural appeal to Indians because it largely embraced immigrants and was opposed to colonialism. At the same time, Har Dayal found a natural home among the academic communities and lectured for a time at Stanford. Seattle and San Francisco were also the major entry points for Indian immigrants. Many found work on California fruit farms desperate for cheap labor after Chinese and Japanese workers were largely banned from the United States. Finally, the climate likely played a role as well. As one Indian student put it, American universities on the east coast were colder than American ice cream. How did later leaders of the movement, like Ram Chandra, evolve the group’s efforts to achieve Indian independence? Chandra was more prone to taking aggressive action than Dayal, who saw the Ghadar movement as an educational enterprise, at least to start with. When World War I began, Chandra jumped at the opportunity to launch armed revolution and held numerous rallies up and down the West Coast, where he urged Indian working men to return to India to fight. Where Dayal once was content publishing a paper and speaking, Chandra actively plotted where to send individual Ghadar members, not just to India, but also elsewhere in the Pacific where British troops were stationed. Although he wasn’t as fluent in English as Dayal, he actively courted American newspaper editors and authored dozens of articles that highlighted the plight of Indians under British rule. Nevertheless, he lacked the broad base of support that the charismatic Dayal enjoyed, especially among laboring Sikhs. This proved literally fatal to him. The Ghadar movement dovetailed with the advent of World War I on multiple fronts: German spies interested in stoking anything that would complicate life for the British, U.S. politicians striving to maintain neutrality; Indian revolutionaries looking for an opportunity to make a move. Ultimately, did WWI aid or hinder the would-be revolutionaries in working toward their goal of Indian independence? World War I presented the Ghadar movement with a golden opportunity. Desperate for manpower in the trenches of France, the British withdrew thousands of troops from India. This, Chandra realized, suddenly left India exposed to movements like the Ghadar. Urged on by Chandra, some 1,000 Indians sold their belongings in the United States and left for India. But like many revolutions that are based on the belief that “the people will rise up to join us,” it failed to generate popular support. A surprising number of Indians backed the British in World War I, either because they knew Indian troops who had joined the fight, or because they hoped that British would eventually reward them for their cooperation. The war also prompted Chandra to make a horrible mistake. He eagerly accepted help from Germany, failing to appreciate that he was tying himself to one of the main combatants in the war. Numerous Indians warned him against working too closely with Berlin, which they correctly understood cared much more about hampering Britain than freeing India. At first, it looked like Chandra’s gamble with the Germans might pay off. Together they hatched several schemes to smuggle weapons from the United States to India. But once American public opinion turned on Germany and the United States joined the war in April 1917, Chandra found himself in bed with America’s enemy. Do you see parallels between the political commentary of the time, which led to laws like the Immigration Act of 1917 (also called the Asiatic Barred Zone Act) and the arguments being had in the United States of 2025? Why do you think immigration, in the period of this book at least, struck up such intense sentiments? I see a couple of parallels between this period and the last few years. Both eras saw a massive surge in the number of immigrants. This stirred anxiety that newcomers were stealing jobs, especially from low-income Americans, and that their religious and political beliefs posed a threat to American society. This was compounded in both periods by the perception that the United States hadn’t taken adequate steps to protect its borders. The Ghadarites faced unique problems, though. American nativists feared they were the vanguard for what might become millions of immigrants from India. At the same time, the British were skillful at portraying Indian freedom fighters as leftist radicals who posed a threat to America, which was already nervous about anarchists and socialists. Finally, this book explores a bit of American – and Indian – history that isn’t necessarily widely known, even in the American West or Pacific Northwest where so much of it played out. Why are these stories important to explore? We are a nation of immigrants, and I think it’s important for Americans to know the stories of those who came here before us. Many are well known and celebrated. I’m of Swedish ancestry and there is a museum in Seattle that highlights the stories of Scandinavians who came to this country. There has been some excellent research into Indian immigration, such as Seema Sohi’s book Echoes of Mutiny. But compared to other groups, the history of immigrants from India hasn’t been widely told. This is shocking to me because it is such a compelling story. It’s a missing piece of our national narrative. Also, I think it’s important for Americans and Indians to know that they share a long history and values. Many of the Indians I talk about in my book were inspired by the writings of America’s Founding Fathers. There have been dark moments and setbacks along the way, but Indian immigrants, once tightly restricted, are now the second-largest immigrant group in the United States. The Diplomat is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and will earn a commission if you purchase a book using the link above.

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