Dimdima
Online Children's Magazine from India
Revolutionaries Outside India |
Indian
revolutionaries got their weapons from various sources. Foreign sailors coming
ashore at Calcutta port were a good source of small arms. Some revolutionaries
purchased guns from drug smugglers operating between North India and Turkey.
One revolutionary secured employment with a firm of importers and managed to
divert ten cases of small arms and ammunition to his colleagues in the
movement. |
Ghadar which was published in Urdu, Hindi, Gurmukhi and English, declared:
"What is our name? Mutiny. What is our work? Mutiny. Where will mutiny break
out? In India. The time will come when rifles and blood will take the place of
pen and ink."
Lala Hardayal was the moving spirit behind the Ghadar movement in America. Later
Ram Chandra carried on the work.
The Ghadar party strived to mould public opinion in America in favour of Indian
independence. In 1915 in Philadelphia, 10,000 American citizens joined the
Ghadar parade to protest against British atrocities in India. Gadar reported :
"Philadelphia, the home of Benjamin Franklin knows full well what it is for a
nation to struggle for recognition of foreign powers."
Indian revolutionaries received ready support from the German government when
the First World War broke out in 1914. It suited German interests to promote
revolutionary activity in India. Nothing would have pleased the Germans more
than an armed rebellion in India with Indian soldiers rising in mutiny against
their English masters.
An Indo-German mission led by Raja Mahendra Pratap arrived in Afghanistan soon
after the war broke out. The raja succeeded in winning Afghan support and set up
a provisional government of India, in Kabul in December, 1915.
The government in India was perturbed by the activities of the revolutionaries
and sometimes reacted with panic.
When the Japanese vessel, Komagata Maru, carrying a large number of Punjabis
docked at Budge Budge near Hooghly on 29 September 1914, the government
suspected some of the passengers to be Ghadar sympathisers. The passengers were
in fact, Sikhs who had wanted to migrate to Canada. The Canadian authorities had
refused them entry and sent the ship back.
When the ship arrived at Budge Budge harbour, the authorities would not allow
the passengers to disembark and proceed to Calcutta where they could have found
employment. Instead they were ordered to board a train that was to take them to
the Punjab. When the Sikhs attempted to visit a Gurdwara at Hooghly they were
fired upon by the police and army units. Eighteen Sikhs were killed and
twenty-five injured.
This senseless slaughter of innocents turned the people of the Punjab against
the British. The Punjab and the Northwest provinces became a hotbed of
revolutionary activity.
Dimdima is the Sanskrit word for ‘drumbeat’. In olden days, victory in battle was heralded by the beat of drums or any important news to be conveyed to the people used to be accompanied with drumbeats.
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
K. M Munshi Marg,
Chowpatty, Mumbai - 400 007
email : editor@dimdima.com
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
505, Sane Guruji Marg,
Tardeo, Mumbai - 400 034
email : promo@dimdima.com
Dimdima.com, the Children's Website of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan launched in 2000 and came out with a Printed version of Dimdima Magazine in 2004. At present the Printed Version have more than 35,000 subscribers from India and Abroad.