Translating Peasant Resistance to Anti-Colonialism: the Ghadar Party in Punjab, 1914-1915

Abstract

The Ghadar Party introduced a radical anti-colonial praxis to Punjab, British India, in the early 1910s. Much of the literature on the Ghadar Party situates the birth of the movement among Punjabi peasants along the Pacific coast of North America who returned to their homeland intent on waging an anti-colonial mutiny. Harish Puri (1993) locates the failure of the Ghadar Party in the impossibility of translating their migrant political consciousness among their co-patriots in Punjab. Further, he argues that their lack of organization skills led to their demise. I argue in this paper that the Ghadar Party's political organizing made attempts at translating anti-colonial ideology into Punjab. This was accomplished through translating extant forms of peasant resistance, such as banditry and mutiny, into the social and political context of 1910s Punjab. Further, the appearance of lack of organization really was a belief in organized spontaneity and an under-mediated notion of rebellion.The Ghadar Party introduced a radical anti-colonial praxis to Punjab, British India, in the early 1910s. Much of the literature on the Ghadar Party situates the birth of the movement among Punjabi peasants along the Pacific coast of North America who returned to their homeland intent on waging an anti-colonial mutiny. Harish Puri (1993) locates the failure of the Ghadar Party in the impossibility of translating their migrant political consciousness among their co-patriots in Punjab. Further, he argues that their lack of organization skills led to their demise. I argue in this paper that the Ghadar Party's political organizing made attempts at translating anti-colonial ideology into Punjab. This was accomplished through translating extant forms of peasant resistance, such as banditry and mutiny, into the social and political context of 1910s Punjab. Further, the appearance of lack of organization really was a belief in organized spontaneity and an under-mediated notion of rebellion.