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The University of Chicago Echoes of Freedom

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The University of Chicago Echoes of Freedom THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ECHOES OF FREEDOM: RADICAL INDIAN THOUGHT AND INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM, 1905-1920 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVINITY SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY SUNIT SARVRAJ SINGH CHICAGO, ILLINOIS MARCH 2018 Give flowers to the rebels failed. — Pietro Gori Whether historical conditions are ever ripe enough to let something happen is always judged after the fact, with hindsight. And it is very hard to say whether, given the extremely complex and often irrational structure of history, things might not have turned out differently for once, and mankind might have been able to raise itself out of the mire. — Adorno Table of Contents List of figures iv Acknowledgements v Prologue 1 Introduction 6 Chapter 1 31 Liberalism in Extremis: The Indian National Congress in Britain and the Election of 1906 Chapter 2 103 India at the International Chapter 3 152 Western Clarion: The Political Firmament of the Pacific Coast Chapter 4 221 Ghadar: The Comet in the Political Firmament Epilogue 284 Ghadar on Trial Bibliography 308 iii List of Figures Figure I.1 26 Bhagwan Singh Gyanee in Yokohama, Japan, January 1914 Figure I.2 27 Bhagwan Singh Gyanee, September 1919 Figure 2.1 147 Madame Cama and S. R. Rana, who attended the Stuttgart congress of the Second International, August 1907 Figure 3.1 154 Indian immigrants at the quay in in British Columbia with the CPR steamer the Monteagle in the background, ca. 1907-1909 Figure 3.2 169 Sikh men in front of a Canadian Pacific Railway carriage, ca. 1905-1908 Figure 3.3 185 Sikh sawmill workers at North Pacific Lumber Company in Barnet, British Columbia, date unknown Figure 3.4 185 Sikh workman at Imperial Cannery in Steveston, British Columbia, ca. 1913 Figure 3.5 185 Sikh on an Imperial Cannery salmon boat, ca. 1913 Figure 3.6 187 Sikh railroad gang in California, date unknown Figure 3.7 187 Sikh railroad workers on Pacific and Eastern Railway which ran from Medford to Butte Falls, Oregon, ca. 1910 Figure 3.8 202 Teja Singh in New York Figure 3.9 212 Sikh religious march, ca. 1905 Figure 4.1 252 Hardayal in London, April 1934 iv Acknowledgements For their generosity, direction, and succor I am deeply indebted to the members of my dissertation committee, Muzaffar Alam, Wendy Doniger, Moishe Postone, and Andrew Sartori. It is a testament to her magnanimity that Wendy helped me tackle a project that is so distant from her own intellectual interests. She has been unflaggingly supportive throughout and the most charitable of readers. Andrew, always incisive, was a friend before he became a mentor, and I am thankful to have him as both. Ever since I first interviewed him in the fall of 2001, Alam Sahib has modeled for me what it means to be a meticulous scholar, unpretentiously erudite, and an example of gentlemanly integrity. Without Moishe my outlook would have been self- provincializing and the shape and scope of this dissertation would have been much less ambitious. That I am now a South Asianist owes in substantial measure to the fact that, while I was still an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, I found exemplary scholar-teachers who studied modern India. The Rudolphs, Lloyd and Susanne, were responsible for packing me off to the Landour School to study Hindi in 1999, which turned out to be an eye-opening experience. Dipesh Chakrabarty nurtured me first as I wrote my BA, then as I finished my first MA, and as I floundered to find my own voice as a PhD student. I started in on my studies in the sociology of religion at the Divinity School under the supervision of the late Martin Riesebrodt. Martin, whose life was tragically shortened by cancer, was the kind of advisor who was always able to see the best in his students, in spite of their intellectual insecurities, unfinished ideas, and misguided impulses. v Elena Bashir of the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations patiently taught me Urdu, Panjabi, and scriptural Gurmukhi. Without her noble efforts and those of my teachers at the Hindi, Panjabi, and Urdu summer programs run by the American Institute of Indian Studies, I would never have been able to undertake the kind of archival research that this project necessitated. Other teachers who helped shape my ideas, within the classroom and without, include Ralph Austen, Homi Bhabha, Bruce Lincoln, Sheldon Pollock, Ronald Inden, C. M. Naim, and William Sewell. Within the wider institution, Alicia Czaplewski, Gretchen Holmes, Kathleen Kish, Sally Noble, Brooke Noonan, and Sandy Norbeck were always kind to look out for me. The research for this project was funded partially by the American Institute of Pakistan Studies, the Committee on Southern Asian Studies at the University of Chicago, the Fulbright program, and the Mellon Foundation. I was graciously hosted overseas by Mohinder Singh at the Bhai Vir Singh Sahitya Sadan in New Delhi and welcomed by Heike Liebau at the Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin. The list of archivists who facilitated the research for this project includes Gerhard Keiper of the Auswärtiges Amt; Mary Wilke of the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago; Jaya Ravindran of the National Archives of India; Balwinder Kaur at the Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall in Jalandhar; Surendra Kumar at the P.C. Joshi Archive at Jawaharlal Nehru University; the staff in the manuscripts division at the Nehru Memorial Library; James Nye at the Regenstein Library; Samip Mallick of the South Asian American Digital Archive; and Adnan Malik of the South Asia Collection at the University of California, Berkeley. A number of institutions have graciously let me use photographs from their collections for this dissertation: the Meriam Library Special Collections at California State University, Chico; the Kislak Center for Special Collections at the University of Pennsylvania; the South Asian American Digital vi Archive; the Southern Oregon Historical Society; the University of Washington; and the Vancouver Public Library. Colleen Mullarkey of the Dissertation Office at the Regenstein Library was invaluable in the final stages of putting this document together. For well over decade, I have been able to count on the camaraderie of Christopher Cutrone and Spencer Leonard, from whom I learned to think about the disputes on imperialism within the Second and the Third International and the historical death of the Left. Nate Smith has ably helped me edit my messes for a while now; I would probably have shrunk away in fright from the blank page were it not for his invaluable assistance. Susan Lipson has listened and helped me reintegrate different sides of myself as I wrestled with this dissertation. Other friends who have been colleagues, co-teachers, and interlocutors on this prolonged journey at the University of Chicago include Brad Aaron, Manan Ahmed, Sareeta Amrute, Kevin Anzzolin, Jayson Beaster- Jones, Whitney Cox, Zeb Dingley, Jennifer Dubrow, Rajeev Kinra, Ethan Kroll, Amanda Lucia, Larisa Reznik, Adam Sargent, Dwaipayan Sen, Prithvi Chandra Datta Shobhi, and James Vaughn. Beyond Hyde Park, I would like to thank Jairus Banaji, Sita Ram Bansal, Gregor Baszak, Carla Bellamy, Peter Campbell, Jeevan Deol, Tim Dobe, Daniel Elam, Paul Engelsberg, Arvind-Pal Mandair, Anne Murphy, Dinyar Patel, Harish Puri, Ali Raza, Savitri Sawhney, Dilip Simeon, Gurhapal Singh, and Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh, Ravinder Singh, and Ben Zachariah. With hindsight, the choice to write on this dissertation was overdetermined, though I was slow to recognize my own interest in the Ghadar party. Throughout my adolescence, on visits to see relatives in Ludhiana, my uncle Tejbir Singh or “Chota Mamu,” tried in vain to interest me in the tale of a local legend, Kartar Singh Sarabha, who, as an idealistic young member of the Ghadar party, had returned from California to foment a revolution in India, when he was arrested, tried in the First Lahore Conspiracy Case, and then hanged. Squeezed onto the back of a vii scooter, I caught almost none of what my uncle was trying to tell me, though his fascination with history left some kind of an impression. Later, though we rarely if ever saw eye to eye on our interpretations of historical events, Chota Mamu remained charitable toward my fascination with the Ghadar party and socialism in India, gathering dust-caked books, clipping out articles of interest, and transporting me to and from archives. I hope I can muster half the verve and enthusiasm with which he narrated his scooter-ride tutorials. I have never been more appreciative of the extended Singh clan than when I was overseas trying to conduct dissertation research. I am especially indebted to all those who offered me refuge as I conducted my research: the Ahujas in Rajendra Nagar, the Bakshis of New Friends Colony, Surendra Kochar in Wembley, the Kumars of Tughlak Lane, the Mehras of Panchsheel Park, the Pauls in Jullandar, Margit Pernau in Berlin, and the Uberais of Ealing. Although more than once I have remarked in jest that I was going to finish this dissertation in spite of the endless prodding from my over-anxious mother and father, the truth is that without them and their undying affection, I would have been lost. Atiya and Amrita amplify all the colors, music, and sweetness of life. I dedicate this dissertation to them as my way, however inadequate, of saying thanks. The title of this dissertation pays homage to Azadi di goonj (Echoes of freedom), a compendium of Ghadar poetry, and is a reminder that even more than revolt or revolution, the concern of the Ghadarites was freedom. Unless noted otherwise, all translations from French, German, Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu are my own.
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