Hindu–German Conspiracy - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Hindu–German Conspiracy^{(Note on the name)} was a series of plans formulated between 1914 and 1917 to initiate a Pan-Indian rebellion against the British Raj

British Raj

British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...

during World War I. The conspirators included radical nationalists in India, the Ghadar Party

Ghadar Party

The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule...

in the United States and the Indian independence committee in Germany. The conspiracy was drawn up at the beginning of the war, and was extensively supported by the Irish republican movement

Irish Republicanism

Irish republicanism is an ideology based on the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic.In 1801, under the Act of Union, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...

, the German Foreign Office and the German consulate in San Francisco, as well as some help from Ottoman Turkey. The most prominent plan attempted to foment unrest and trigger a Pan-Indian mutiny in the British Indian Army

British Indian Army

The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...

from Punjab

Punjab (British India)

Punjab was a province of British India, it was one of the last areas of the Indian subcontinent to fall under British rule. With the end of British rule in 1947 the province was split between West Punjab, which went to Pakistan, and East Punjab, which went to India...

to Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

. This plot was planned to be executed in February 1915 with the aim of overthrowing the Raj from the Indian subcontinent

Indian subcontinent

The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...

. The February mutiny

Ghadar Conspiracy

The Ghadar Conspiracy was a conspiracy for a pan-Indian mutiny in the British Indian Army in February 1915 formulated by the Ghadar Party...

was ultimately thwarted when British intelligence infiltrated the Ghadarite movement, arresting key figures. Mutinies in smaller units and garrisons within India were also crushed.

Other related events include the 1915 Singapore Mutiny

1915 Singapore Mutiny

The 1915 Singapore Mutiny, also known as the 1915 Sepoy Mutiny, or Mutiny of the 5th Native Light Infantry was a mutiny involving up to half of 850 sepoys against the British in Singapore during the First World War, linked with the 1915 Ghadar Conspiracy...

, the Annie Larsen arms plot

Annie Larsen affair

The Annie Larsen affair was a gun-running plot in the United States during World War I. The plot, involving India's Ghadar Party, the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the German Foreign office, was a part of the larger Hindu German Conspiracy, and it was the prime offence cited in the 1917 Hindu...

, the Jugantar-German plot, the German mission to Kabul, the mutiny of the Connaught Rangers in India, as well as, by some accounts, the Black Tom explosion

Black Tom explosion

The Black Tom explosion on July 30, 1916 in Jersey City, New Jersey was an act of sabotage on American ammunition supplies by German agents to prevent the materiel from being used by the Allies in World War I.- Black Tom Island :...

in 1916. Parts of the conspiracy included efforts to subvert the British Indian Army

British Indian Army

The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...

in the Middle-Eastern theatre of World War I.

The Indo-Irish-German alliance and the conspiracy were the target of a worldwide British intelligence effort, which was successful in preventing further attempts. American intelligence agencies arrested key figures in the aftermath of the Annie Larsen affair in 1917. The conspiracy resulted in the Lahore conspiracy case

Lahore Conspiracy Case trial

The Lahore Conspiracy Case trial also known as the First Lahore Conspiracy Case, were the trials held in Lahore in the aftermath of the failed Ghadar conspiracy in 1915. The trial was held by a Special tribunal constituted under the Defence of India Act...

trials in India as well as the Hindu German Conspiracy Trial

Hindu German Conspiracy Trial

The Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial commenced in the District Court in San Francisco, California on November 12, 1917 following the uncovering of the Indo German plot for initiating a revolt in India...

—at the time the longest and most expensive trial ever held in the United States.

This series of events was consequential to the Indian independence movement

Indian independence movement

The term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...

. Though largely subdued by the end of World War I, it came to be a major factor in reforming the Raj's Indian policy. Similar efforts were made during World War II in Germany, Italy, and in Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...

which saw the formations of Indische Legion, Battaglione Azad Hindoustan

Battaglione Azad Hindoustan

The Battaglione Azad Hindoustan was a foreign legion unit formed in Fascist Italy under the Raggruppamento Centri Militari in July 1942...

and Indian National Army

Indian National Army

The Indian National Army or Azad Hind Fauj was an armed force formed by Indian nationalists in 1942 in Southeast Asia during World War II. The aim of the army was to overthrow the British Raj in colonial India, with Japanese assistance...

respectively.

Background

Nationalism had been on the rise in India throughout the last decades of the 19th century as a result of the social, economic and political changes that were instituted in the country through the greater part of the century. The Indian National Congress

Indian National Congress

The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...

founded in 1885 developed as a major platform for loyalists’ demands of political liberalisation and increased autonomy. The nationalist movement grew with the founding of underground groups in the 1890s. It developed to be particularly strong, radical and violent in Bengal

Bengal

Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...

and Punjab

Punjab (British India)

, along with smaller but nonetheless notable movements in Maharashtra

Maharashtra

Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...

, Madras and other places of South India. In Bengal the revolutionaries were, more often than not, the educated youth of the urban middle class

Middle class

The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....

Bhadralok

Bhadralok is a Bengali term used to denote the new class of 'gentlefolk' who arose during colonial times in Bengal. It is still used to indicate members of the upper middle and middle classes of Bengal.-Caste and Class makeup:...

community that epitomised the "classic" Indian revolutionary, while in Punjab organised violence was sustained by the rural and military society.

Indian revolutionary underground

The controversial 1905 partition of Bengal had a widespread political impact. Acting as a further stimulus for the radical nationalist opinion in India and abroad, it became a focal issue for Indian revolutionaries. Revolutionary organisations like Jugantar

Jugantar

Jugantar or Yugantar was one of the two main secret revolutionary trends operating in Bengal for Indian independence.This association, like Anushilan Samiti started in the guise of suburban fitness club. Several Jugantar members were arrested, hanged, or deported for life to the Cellular Jail in...

and Anushilan Samiti

Anushilan Samiti

Anushilan Samiti was an armed anti-British organisation in Bengal and the principal secret revolutionary organisation operating in the region in the opening years of the 20th century. This association, like its offshoot the Jugantar, operated under the guise of suburban fitness club...

had emerged in the 20th century. Several significant events were witnessed. These included assassinations and attempted assassinations of civil servants, prominent public figures and Indian informants, including one in 1907 aimed to kill the Bengal Lieutenant-Governor Sir Andrew Fraser. The culmination was the 1912 Delhi-Lahore Conspiracy, led by erstwhile Jugantar member Rash Behari Bose

Rash Behari Bose

Rashbehari Bose was a revolutionary leader against the British Raj in India and was one of the key organisers of the Ghadar conspiracy and later, the Indian National Army.-Early life:...

, to assassinate the then Viceroy of India, Charles Hardinge. In the aftermath of this event, the British Indian police made concentrated police and intelligence efforts to destroy the Bengali and Punjabi revolutionary underground. Though the movement came under intense pressure for some time, Rash Behari successfully evaded capture for nearly three years. By the time World War I had begun in Europe, the revolutionary movement had been revived in Punjab and Bengal. In Bengal the movement, with a safe haven in the French base of Chandernagore, was strong enough to nearly paralyse the state administration. The earliest mention of a conspiracy for armed revolution in India is found in Nixon's Report on Revolutionary Organisation, which reported that Jatin Mukherjee (Bagha Jatin) and Naren Bhattacharya had met the Crown Prince of Germany during the latter's visit to Calcutta in 1912, and obtained an assurance that arms and ammunition would be supplied to them. During the same time, an increasingly strong pan-Islamic movement started developing, mainly in the north and north-west regions of India. With the onset of the war, the members of this movement formed an important component of the conspiracy.

Indian and Irish networks

At the time of the partition of Bengal, the India House

India House

India House was an informal Indian nationalist organisation based in London between 1905 and 1910. With the patronage of Shyamji Krishna Varma, its home in a student residence in Highgate, North London was launched to promote nationalist views among Indian students in Britain...

was founded in London by Shyamji Krishna Varma

Shyamji Krishna Varma

Shyamji Krishna Varma was an Indian revolutionary, lawyer and journalist who founded the Indian Home Rule Society, India House and The Indian Sociologist in London. A graduate of Balliol College, Krishna Varma was a noted scholar in Sanskrit and other Indian languages...

and received extensive support from notable expatriate Indians including Madam Bhikaji Cama, Lala Lajpat Rai

Lala Lajpat Rai

Lala Lajpat Rai was an Indian author, freedom fighter and politician who is chiefly remembered as a leader in the Indian fight for freedom from the British Raj. He was popularly known as Punjab Kesari or Sher-e-Punjab meaning the samem and was part of the Lal Bal Pal trio...

, S.R. Rana, and Dadabhai Naoroji

Dadabhai Naoroji

Dadabhai Naoroji , known as the Grand Old Man of India, was a Parsi intellectual, educator, cotton trader, and an early Indian political leader. His book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India brought attention to the draining of India's wealth into Britain...

. The organisation — ostensibly a residence for Indian students — in reality sought to promote nationalist opinion and pro-independence work. India House drew young radical activists of the likes of M. L. Dhingra

Madan Lal Dhingra

Madan Lal Dhingra was an Indian revolutionary freedom fighter. While studying in England, he assassinated Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie, a British official, hailed as one of the first acts of revolution in the Indian independence movement in the 20th century.-Early life:Madan Lal Dhingra was born...

, V. D. Savarkar

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar

Vināyak Dāmodar Sāvarkar was an Indian freedom fighter, revolutionary and politician. He was the proponent of liberty as the ultimate ideal. Savarkar was a poet, writer and playwright...

, V. N. Chatterjee

Virendranath Chattopadhyaya

Virendranath Chattopadhyaya alias Chatto was a prominent Hindu Indian revolutionary who aimed to overthrow the British Raj in India by using violence as a tool...

, M. P. T. Acharya

M. P. T. Acharya

Mandayam Parthasarathi Tirumal Acharya was an Indian nationalist, a key member of India House, and one of the founding members of the Communist Party of India...

and Lala Har Dayal

Har Dayal

Lala Har Dayal was a Indian nationalist revolutionary who founded the Ghadar Party in America. He was a polymath who turned down a career in the Indian Civil Service...

. It developed links with the revolutionary movement in India and nurtured it with arms, funds and propaganda. The Indian Sociologist

The Indian Sociologist

The Indian Sociologist was an Indian nationalist publication in the early twentieth century. Its subtitle was An Organ of Freedom, and Political, Social, and Religious Reform....

and other literature published by the house came to be banned in India as "seditious". Under V. D. Savarkar's leadership, the house rapidly developed as a centre for intellectual and political activism and a meeting ground for radical revolutionaries among Indian students in Britain, earning the moniker "The most dangerous organisation outside India" from Valentine Chirol. The culmination was in 1909 in London, when M. L. Dhingra

Madan Lal Dhingra

fatally shot Sir W. H. Curzon Wyllie

William Hutt Curzon Wyllie

Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie KCIE was an Indian army officer, and later an official of the British Indian Government. Over a career spanning three decades, Curzon Wyllie rose to be Lieutant Colonel in the British Indian Army and occupied a number of administrative and diplomatic posts...

, political aide-de-camp

Aide-de-camp

An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant, secretary, or adjutant to a person of high rank, usually a senior military officer or a head of state...

to the Secretary of State for India

Secretary of State for India

The Secretary of State for India, or India Secretary, was the British Cabinet minister responsible for the government of India and the political head of the India Office...

. In the aftermath of the assassination, the India House

India House

was rapidly suppressed by the Metropolitan Police

Metropolitan Police Service

The Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...

and the Home Office

Home Office

The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...

. Its leadership fled to Europe and the United States. Some like Chatterjee moved to Germany, Har Dayal and many others moved to Paris.

The example of London India House was emulated in similar organisations opened in the United States and in Japan. Krishna Varma nurtured close interactions with Turkish and Egyptian nationalists and Clan na Gael

Clan na Gael

The Clan na Gael was an Irish republican organization in the United States in the late 19th and 20th centuries, successor to the Fenian Brotherhood and a sister organization to the Irish Republican Brotherhood...

in the United States. The Pan-Aryan Association — modeled after Krishna Varma's Indian Home Rule Society

Indian Home Rule Society

The Indian Home Rule Society was an Indian organisation founded in London in 1905 that sought to promote the cause of self-rule in British India. The organisation was founded by Shyamji Krishna Varma, with support from a number of prominent Indian nationalists in Britain at the time, including...

— was founded in New York in 1906 through the joint efforts of Mohammed Barkatullah, S.L. Joshi and George Freeman

George Freeman (newspaper editor)

George Freeman, an Irish-American, was editor of the Gaelic American newspaper.. He also worked for the Free Hindustan newspaper and was involved in attempts to incite a revolt in British-ruled India....

. Barkatullah himself was closely associated with Krishna Varma during a previous stay in London, and his subsequent career in Japan also put him at the heart of Indian political activities there. An "India House" was founded in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

in New York in January 1908 by Myron Phelp, an acquaintance of Krishna Varma and an admirer of Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda , born Narendranath Dutta , was the chief disciple of the 19th century mystic Ramakrishna Paramahansa and the founder of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission...

. Amidst a growing Indian student population, erstwhile members of the India House in London were able to extend the nationalist work across the Atlantic. Articles from the Indian Sociologist were reprinted in the Gaelic American

Gaelic American

The Gaelic American was an Irish Catholic newspaper published in the United States that was, along with the Irish Nation, owned by John Devoy. A weekly publication of the Sinn Féin, it was amongst the foremost Irish ethnic newspapers till the Great Depression when its readership declined. It had at...

while liberal press laws allowed free circulation of the Indian Sociologist. Such nationalist literature and pamphlets could be shipped freely across the world. New York increasingly became an important centre for the Indian movement, such that Free Hindustan— a political revolutionary journal closely mirroring the Indian Sociologist and the Gaelic American published by Taraknath Das— moved in 1908 from Vancouver and Seattle to New York. Das was able to establish extensive collaboration with the Gaelic American with help from George Freeman before it was proscribed in 1910 under British diplomatic pressure. This Irish collaboration with Indian revolutionaries resulted in some of the early but failed efforts to smuggle arms into India, including a 1908 attempt on-board a ship called the SS Moraitis which sailed from New York for the Persian Gulf

Persian Gulf

The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...

before it was searched at Smyrna

Smyrna

Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...

. The Irish community later provided valuable intelligence, logistics, communication, media, and legal support to the German, Indian, and Irish conspirators. Those involved in this liaison, and later involved in the plot, included major Irish republicans and Irish-American nationalists like John Devoy

John Devoy

John Devoy was an Irish rebel leader and exile.-Early life:Devoy was born near Kill, County Kildare. In 1861 he travelled to France with an introduction from T. D. Sullivan to John Mitchel...

, Joseph McGarrity

Joseph McGarrity

Joseph McGarrity was born in Carrickmore, County Tyrone, Ireland. He emigrated to the USA in 1892 at the age of 18 and settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. From 1893 until his death he was a leading member of the Clan na Gael organisation. He also was a successful businessman; however, his...

, Roger Casement

Roger Casement

Roger David Casement —Sir Roger Casement CMG between 1911 and shortly before his execution for treason, when he was stripped of his British honours—was an Irish patriot, poet, revolutionary, and nationalist....

, Éamon de Valera

Éamon de Valera

Éamon de Valera was one of the dominant political figures in twentieth century Ireland, serving as head of government of the Irish Free State and head of government and head of state of Ireland...

, Father Peter Yorke and Larry de Lacey. These pre-war collusions effectively set-up a network which, as war began in Europe, was tapped into by the German foreign office.

Ghadar Party

There was large scale Indian immigration to the Pacific coast of North America in the 20th century, especially from Punjab which was facing an economic depression. The Canadian government met this influx with legislation aimed at limiting the entry of South Asians into Canada, and restricting the political rights of those already in the country. The Punjabi community had hitherto been an important loyal force for the British Empire

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

and the Commonwealth

Commonwealth of Nations

The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...

. The community had expected that its commitment would be honoured by the same welcome and rights from the British and Commonwealth governments extended to British and white immigrants. The restrictive legislation fed growing discontent, protests and anti-colonial sentiments within the community. Faced with increasingly difficult situations, the community began organising itself into political groups. Many Punjabis also moved to the United States, but they encountered similar political and social problems. Meanwhile, India House and nationalist activism of Indian students had begun declining in the east coast of North America towards 1910, but gradually shifted west to San Francisco. The arrival at this time of Har Dayal

Har Dayal

Lala Har Dayal was a Indian nationalist revolutionary who founded the Ghadar Party in America. He was a polymath who turned down a career in the Indian Civil Service...

from Europe bridged the gap between the intellectual agitators in New York and the predominantly Punjabi labour workers and migrants in the west coast, and laid the foundations of the Ghadar movement

Ghadar Party

The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule...

.

The Ghadar Party, initially the Pacific Coast Hindustan Association, was formed in 1913 in the United States under the leadership of Har Dayal

Har Dayal

Lala Har Dayal was a Indian nationalist revolutionary who founded the Ghadar Party in America. He was a polymath who turned down a career in the Indian Civil Service...

, with Sohan Singh Bhakna

Sohan Singh Bhakna

Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna was as Indian revolutionary, the founding president of the Ghadar Party, and a leading member of the party involved in the Ghadar Conspiracy of 1915. Tried at the Lahore Conspiracy trial, Sohan Singh served sixteen years of a life sentence for his part in the conspiracy...

as its president. It drew members from Indian immigrants, largely from Punjab

Punjab (British India)

. Many of its members were also from the University of California at Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

including Dayal, Tarak Nath Das

Tarak Nath Das

Taraknath Das was an anti-British Bengali Indian revolutionary and internationalist scholar. He was a pioneering immigrant in the west coast of North America and discussed his plans with Tolstoy, while organizing the Asian Indian immigrants in favor of the Indian freedom movement...

, Kartar Singh Sarabha and V.G. Pingle

Vishnu Ganesh Pingle

Vishnu Ganesh Pingle was an Indian revolutionary and a member of the Ghadar Party who was one of those executed in 1915 following the Lahore conspiracy trial for his role in the Ghadar conspiracy.-Early life:...

. The party quickly gained support from Indian expatriates, especially in the United States, Canada and Asia. Ghadar meetings were held in Los Angeles, Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

, Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, and Shanghai.

Ghadar's ultimate goal was to overthrow British colonial authority in India by means of an armed revolution. It viewed the Congress

Indian National Congress

-led mainstream movement

Indian independence movement

for dominion status modest and the latter's constitutional methods as soft. Ghadar's foremost strategy was to entice Indian soldiers

British Indian Army

The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...

to revolt. To that end, in November 1913 Ghadar established the Yugantar Ashram press in San Francisco. The press produced the Hindustan Ghadar

Hindustan Ghadar

thumb|right|Ghadar Newspaper Vol. 1, No. 22, March 24, 1914The Hindustan Ghadar was a weekly publication that was the party organ of the Ghadar Party. It was published under the auspices of the Yugantar Ashram in San Francisco...

newspaper and other nationalist literature.

Towards the end of 1913, the party established contact with prominent revolutionaries in India, including Rash Behari Bose

Rash Behari Bose

Rashbehari Bose was a revolutionary leader against the British Raj in India and was one of the key organisers of the Ghadar conspiracy and later, the Indian National Army.-Early life:...

. An Indian edition of the Hindustan Ghadar essentially espoused the philosophies of anarchism

Anarchism

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...

and revolutionary terrorism against British interests in India. Political discontent and violence mounted in Punjab, and Ghadarite publications that reached Bombay from California were deemed seditious and banned by the Raj. These events, compounded by evidence of prior Ghadarite incitement in the Delhi-Lahore Conspiracy of 1912, led the British government to pressure the American State Department to suppress Indian revolutionary activities and Ghadarite literature, which emanated mostly from San Francisco.

Germany and the Berlin Committee

With the onset of World War I, an Indian revolutionary group called the Berlin Committee

Berlin Committee

The Berlin Committee, later known as the Indian Independence Committee after 1915, was an organisation formed in Germany in 1914 during World War I by Indian students and political activists residing in the country. The purpose of the Committee was to promote the cause of Indian Independence...

(later called the Indian Independence Committee) was formed in Germany. Its chief architects were C. R. Pillai and V. N. Chatterjee. The committee drew members from Indian students and erstwhile members of the India House including Abhinash Bhattacharya, Dr. Abdul Hafiz, Padmanabhan Pillai, A. R. Pillai

A. R. Pillai

Ayyappan Pillai Raman Pillai , also known as A. Raman Pillai or A. R. Pillai, was an Indian expatriate who worked for India's freedom in Germany, journalist, writer and a book publisher in Göttingen in Germany.-Early life:...

, M. P. T. Acharya

M. P. T. Acharya

Mandayam Parthasarathi Tirumal Acharya was an Indian nationalist, a key member of India House, and one of the founding members of the Communist Party of India...

and Gopal Paranjape. Germany had earlier opened the Intelligence Bureau for the East

Intelligence Bureau for the East

The Intelligence Bureau for the East was a German intelligence organisation established on the eve of World War I dedicated to promoting and sustaining subversive and nationalist agitations in the British Indian Empire and the Persian and Egyptian satellite states...

headed by archaeologist and historian Max von Oppenheim

Max von Oppenheim

Max Freiherr von Oppenheim was a German ancient historian, and archaeologist, "the last of the great amateur archaeological explorers of the Near East."....

. Oppenheim and Arthur Zimmermann

Arthur Zimmermann

Arthur Zimmermann was State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the German Empire from November 22, 1916, until his resignation on August 6, 1917. His name is associated with the Zimmermann Telegram during World War I...

, the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the German Empire, actively supported the Berlin committee, which had links with Jatin Mukherjee

Bagha Jatin

Bagha Jatin , born Jatindranath Mukherjee was an Bengali revolutionary philosopher against British rule....

— a Jugantar Party member and at the time one of the leading revolutionary figures in Bengal. The office of the t25-member committee at No.38 Wielandstrasse was accorded full embassy status.

The German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg authorised German activity against India as World War I broke out in September 1914. Germany decided to actively support the Ghadarite plans. Using the links established between Indian and Irish residents in Germany (including Irish nationalist and poet Roger Casement

Roger Casement

) and the German Foreign Office, Oppenheim tapped into the Indo-Irish network in the United States. Har Dayal had helped organise the Ghadar party before being arrested in the United States in 1914. He however jumped bail and made his way to Switzerland, leaving the party and publications in the charge of Ram Chandra Bharadwaj

Ram Chandra Bharadwaj

Ram Chandra Bharadwaj, also known as Pandit Ram Chandra was the president of the Ghadar Party between 1914 and 1917. As a member of the Ghadar Party, Ram Chandra was also one of the founding editors of the Hindustan Ghadar and a key leader of the party in its role in the Indo-German Conspiracy...

, who became the Ghadar president in 1914. The German consulate in San Francisco was tasked to make contact with Ghadar leaders in California. A naval lieutenant by the name of Wilhelm von Brincken with the help of the Indian nationalist journalist Tarak Nath Das

Tarak Nath Das

and an intermediary by the name of Charles Lattendorf established links with Bharadwaj. Meanwhile in Switzerland the Berlin committee was able to convince Har Dayal that organising a revolution in India was feasible.

Conspiracy

In May 1914, the Canadian government refused to allow the 400 Indian passengers of the ship Komagata Maru

Komagata Maru

The Komagata Maru incident involved a Japanese steamship, the Komagata Maru, that sailed from Hong Kong to Shanghai, China; Yokohama, Japan; and then to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in 1914, carrying 376 passengers from Punjab, India. The 356 of passengers were not allowed to land in...

to disembark at Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

. The voyage had been planned as an attempt to circumvent Canadian exclusion laws that effectively prevented Indian immigration. Before the ship reached Vancouver, its approach was announced on German radio, and British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

n authorities were prepared to prevent the passengers from entering Canada. The incident became a focal point for the Indian community in Canada which rallied in support of the passengers and against the government's policies. After a two-month legal battle, 24 of them were allowed to immigrate. The ship was escorted out of Vancouver by the Protected cruiser

Protected cruiser

The protected cruiser is a type of naval cruiser of the late 19th century, so known because its armoured deck offered protection for vital machine spaces from shrapnel caused by exploding shells above...

and returned to India. On reaching Calcutta, the passengers were detained under the Defence of India Act at Budge Budge by the British Indian government, which made efforts to forcibly transport them to Punjab. This caused rioting at Budge Budge and resulted in fatalities on both sides. Ghadar leaders like Barkatullah and Taraknath Das used the inflammatory passions surrounding the Komagata Maru event as a rallying point and successfully brought many disaffected Indians in North America into the party's fold.

The British Indian Army

British Indian Army

The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...

, meanwhile, was contributing significantly to the Allied

Allies of World War I

The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...

war effort in World War I. Consequently a reduced force, estimated to have been 15,000 troops in late 1914, was stationed in India. It was in this scenario that concrete plans for organising uprisings in India were made.

In September 1913 a Ghadarite named Mathra Singh visited Shanghai to promote the nationalist cause amongst Indians there, followed by a visit to India in January 1914 when Singh circulated Ghadar literature amongst Indian soldiers through clandestine sources before leaving for Hong Kong. Singh reported that the situation in India as favourable for revolution.

By October 1914, many Ghadarites had returned to India and were assigned tasks like contacting Indian revolutionaries and organisations, spreading propaganda and literature, and arranging to get arms into the country. The first group of 60 Ghadarites led by Jawala Singh, left San Francisco for Canton

Guangzhou

Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...

aboard the steamship Korea on 29 August. They were to sail on to India, where they would be provided with arms to organise a revolt. At Canton, more Indians joined, and the group, now numbering about 150, sailed for Calcutta on a Japanese vessel. They were to be joined by more Ghadarites arriving in smaller groups. During September and October, about 300 Indians left for India in various ships like SS Siberia, Chinyo Maru, China, Manchuria, SS Tenyo Maru, SS Mongolia and SS Shinyo Maru. Although the Koreas party itself was uncovered and arrested on arrival at Calcutta, a successful underground network was established between the United States and India, through Shanghai, Swatow, and Siam. Tehl Singh, the Ghadar operative in Shanghai, is believed to have spent $30,000 for helping the revolutionaries to get into India. The Ghadarites in India were able to establish contact with sympathisers within the British Indian Army

British Indian Army

The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...

as well as build networks with underground revolutionary groups.

East Asia

Efforts had begun as early as 1911 to procure arms and smuggle them into India. When a clear idea of the conspiracy emerged, more earnest and elaborate plans were made to obtain arms and to enlist international support. Herambalal Gupta, who had arrived in the United States in 1914 at the Berlin Committee's directives, took over the leadership of American wing of the conspiracy after the failure of the SS Korea mission. Gupta immediately began efforts to obtain men and arms. While men were in plentiful supply with more and more Indians coming forward to join the Ghadarite cause, obtaining arms for the uprising proved to be more difficult.

The revolutionaries started negotiations with the Chinese government through James Dietrich, who held Sun Yat Sen's power of attorney, to buy a million rifles. However, the deal fell through when it was realised that the weapons offered were obsolete flintlock

Flintlock

Flintlock is the general term for any firearm based on the flintlock mechanism. The term may also apply to the mechanism itself. Introduced at the beginning of the 17th century, the flintlock rapidly replaced earlier firearm-ignition technologies, such as the doglock, matchlock and wheellock...

s and muzzle loaders. From China, Gupta went to Japan to try to procure arms and to enlist Japanese support for the Indian independence movement. However, he was forced into hiding within 48 hours when he came to know that the Japanese authorities planned to hand him over to the British. Later reports indicated he was protected at this time by Toyama Mitsuru

Toyama Mitsuru

was a right-wing political leader in early 20th century Japan and founder of the Genyosha nationalist secret society.-Early life:Tōyama was born to a poor samurai family in Fukuoka City in Kyūshū...

.

The Indian Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...

, a strong supporter of Pan-Asianism

Pan-Asianism

Pan-Asianism is an ideology or a movement that Asian nations unite and solidify and create a continental identity to defeat the designs of the Western nations to perpetuate hegemony.-Japanese Asianism:...

, met Japanese premier Count Terauchi and Count Okuma, a former premier, in an attempt to enlist support for the Ghadarite movement. Tarak Nath Das urged Japan to align with Germany, on the grounds that American war preparation could actually be directed against Japan. Later in 1915, Abani Mukherjee— a Jugantar activist and associate of Rash Behari Bose— is also known to have tried unsuccessfully to arrange for arms from Japan.
The ascendancy of Li Yuanhong

Li Yuanhong

Li Yuanhong was a Chinese general and political figure during the Qing dynasty and the republican era. He was twice president of the Republic of China.- Early history :...

to Chinese Presidency in 1916, led to the negotiations reopening through his former private secretary who resided in the United States at the time. In exchange for allowing arms shipments to India via China's borders, China was offered German military assistance and the rights to 10% of any material

Material

Material is anything made of matter, constituted of one or more substances. Wood, cement, hydrogen, air and water are all examples of materials. Sometimes the term "material" is used more narrowly to refer to substances or components with certain physical properties that are used as inputs to...

shipped to India via China. The negotiations were ultimately unsuccessful due to Sun Yat Sen's opposition to an alliance with Germany.

Europe and United States

The Indian nationalists then in Paris

Paris Indian Society

The Paris Indian Society was an Indian nationalist organisation founded in 1905 at Paris under the patronage of Madam Bhikaji Rustom Cama, B.H. Godrej and S. R. Rana...

had, with Egyptian revolutionaries, made plans to assassinate Lord Kitchener

Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener

Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, ADC, PC , was an Irish-born British Field Marshal and proconsul who won fame for his imperial campaigns and later played a central role in the early part of the First World War, although he died halfway...

as early as 1911. These plans were however not implemented. After the war began, this plan was revived, and Har Dayal's close associate Gobind Behari Lal visited Liverpool in March 1915 from New York to put this plan in action. He may also have intended at this time to bomb the docks in Liverpool. However, these plans ultimately failed. Chattopadhyaya also attempted at this time to revive links with the remnants of India House

India House

that survived in London, and through Swiss, German and English sympathisers then resident in Britain. Among them were Meta Brunner (a Swiss woman), Vishna Dube (an Indian man) and his common law German wife Anna Brandt, and Hilda Howsin (an English woman in Yorkshire). Chattopadhyaya's correspondences were however traced by censor, leading to the arrest of the cell. Among other plans that were considered at the time were large scale conspiracies in June 1915 to assassinate the Foreign Secretary Lord Grey and War minister Lord Kitchener. In addition, they also intended to target the French President Raymond Poincaré

Raymond Poincaré

Raymond Poincaré was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France on five separate occasions and as President of France from 1913 to 1920. Poincaré was a conservative leader primarily committed to political and social stability...

and Prime Minister René Viviani

René Viviani

Jean Raphaël Adrien René Viviani was a French politician of the Third Republic, who served as Prime Minister for the first year of World War I. He was born in Sidi Bel Abbès, in French Algeria. In France he sought to protect the rights of socialists and trade union workers.-Biography:His...

, King Emmanuel III of Italy and his Prime Minister Antonio Salandra

Antonio Salandra

Antonio Salandra was a conservative Italian politician who served as the 33rd Prime Minister of Italy between 1914 and 1916...

. These plans were coordinated with the Italian anarchists, with explosives manufactured in Italy. Barkatullah, by now in Europe and working with the Berlin Committee, arranged for these explosives to be sent to the German consulate in Zurich, from where it was expected to be taken charge of by an Italian anarchist named Bertoni. However, British intelligence was able to infiltrate this plot, and successfully pressed Swiss police to expel Abdul Hafiz.

In the United States, an elaborate plan and arrangement was made to ship arms from the country and from the Far East

Far East

The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...

through Shanghai, Batavia

Jakarta

Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...

, Bangkok

Bangkok

Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...

and Burma. Even while Herambalal Gupta was on his mission in China and Japan, other plans were explored to ship arms from the United States and East Asia. The German high command decided early on that assistance to the Indian groups would be pointless unless given on a substantial scale. In October 1914, German Vice Consul E.H von Schack in San Francisco approved the arrangements for funds and armaments. $200,000 worth of small arms and ammunition were acquired by the German military attaché Captain Franz von Papen

Franz von Papen

Lieutenant-Colonel Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen was a German nobleman, Roman Catholic monarchist politician, General Staff officer, and diplomat, who served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933–1934...

through Krupp

Krupp

The Krupp family , a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th...

agents, and arranged for its shipment to India through San Diego, Java, and Burma. The arsenal included 8,080 Springfield rifle

Springfield Rifle

The term Springfield Rifle may refer to any one of several types of small arms produced by the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts, for the United States armed forces....

s of Spanish-American War

Spanish-American War

The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...

vintage, 2,400 Springfield carbines, 410 Hotchkiss

Hotchkiss et Cie

Société Anonyme des Anciens Etablissements Hotchkiss et Cie was a French arms and car company established by United States engineer Benjamin B. Hotchkiss, who was born in Watertown, Connecticut. He moved to France and set up a factory, first at Viviez near Rodez in 1867, then at Saint-Denis near...

repeating rifle

Repeating rifle

A repeating rifle is a single barreled rifle containing multiple rounds of ammunition. These rounds are loaded from a magazine by means of a manual or automatic mechanism, and the action that reloads the rifle also typically recocks the firing action...

s, 4,000,000 cartridge

Cartridge (firearms)

A cartridge, also called a round, packages the bullet, gunpowder and primer into a single metallic case precisely made to fit the firing chamber of a firearm. The primer is a small charge of impact-sensitive chemical that may be located at the center of the case head or at its rim . Electrically...

s, 500 Colt revolvers with 100,000 cartridges, and 250 Mauser pistols along with ammunition. The schooner

Schooner

A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....

Annie Larsen

The Annie Larsen was a schooner that was involved in arms shipment in the Hindu German Conspiracy during World War I.The ship came into the spotlight when it was seized on 25 June 1915 by US customs officials at Grays Harbour and found to be carrying large quantities of small arms and ammunitions...

and the sailing ship SS Henry S were hired to ship the arms out of the United States and transfer it to the SS Maverick

SS Maverick

SS Maverick was an oil tanker built in 1890 for the Standard Oil of New York, later Mobil Oil. After the ship had changed hands sometime between 1910 and 1915, it was used during World War I as part of the Hindu–German Conspiracy to foment rebellion in India and overthrow the British Raj...

. The ownership of ships were hidden under a massive smokescreen involving fake companies and oil business in south-east Asia. For the arms shipment itself, a successful cover was set up to lead British agents to believe that the arms were for the warring factions of the Mexican Civil War. This ruse was successful enough that the rival Villa faction offered $15,000 to divert the shipment to a Villa-controlled port.

Although the shipment was meant to supply the mutiny planned for February 1915, it was not dispatched until June of that year, by which time the conspiracy had been uncovered in India and major leaders had been arrested or gone into hiding. The plot for the shipment itself failed when disastrous coordination prevented a successful rendezvous off Socorro Island

Socorro Island

Socorro Island is a small volcanic island in the Revillagigedo Islands, a Mexican possession lying some 600 kilometers off the country's western coast at 18°48'N, 110°59'W. The size is 16.5 by 11.5 km, with an area of 132 km².- Geology :...

with the Maverick. The plot had already been infiltrated by British intelligence through Indian and Irish agents linked closely with the conspiracy. Upon returning to Hoquiam, Washington after several failed attempts, the Annie Larsen's cargo was promptly seized by US customs. The cargo was sold at an auction despite the German Ambassador Count Johann von Bernstoff's attempts to take possession, insisting they were meant for German East Africa

German East Africa

German East Africa was a German colony in East Africa, which included what are now :Burundi, :Rwanda and Tanganyika . Its area was , nearly three times the size of Germany today....

. The Hindu German Conspiracy Trial

Hindu German Conspiracy Trial

opened in 1917 in the United States on charges of gun running and at the time was one of the lengthiest and most expensive trials in American legal history.

Among other events in the United States that have been linked to the conspiracy is the Black Tom explosion

Black Tom explosion

when, on the night of July 30, 1916, saboteurs blew up nearly 2 million tons of arms and ammunition at the Black Tom terminal at New York harbour awaiting shipment in support of the British war effort. Although blamed solely on German agents at the time, later investigations by the Directorate of Naval Intelligence in the aftermath of the Annie Larsen incident unearthed links between the Black Tom explosion and Franz von Papen, the Irish movement, the Indian movement as well as Communist elements active in the United States.

Pan-Indian mutiny

By the start of 1915, many Ghadarites (nearly 8,000 in the Punjab province alone by some estimates) had returned to India. However, they were not assigned a central leadership and begun their work on an ad hoc basis. Although some were rounded up by the police on suspicion, many remained at large and began establishing contacts with garrisons in major cities like Lahore

Lahore

Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...

, Ferozepur and Rawalpindi

Rawalpindi

Rawalpindi , locally known as Pindi, is a city in the Pothohar region of Pakistan near Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad, in the province of Punjab. Rawalpindi is the fourth largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad...

. Various plans had been made to attack the military arsenal at Mian Meer, near Lahore and initiate a general uprising on November 15, 1914. In another plan, a group of Sikh

Sikh

A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...

soldiers, the manjha jatha, planned to start a mutiny in the 23rd Cavalry at the Lahore cantonment on 26 November. A further plan called for a mutiny to start on 30 November from Ferozepur under Nidham Singh. In Bengal, the Jugantar, through Jatin Mukherjee, established contacts with the garrison at Fort William

Fort William, India

Fort William is a fort built in Calcutta on the Eastern banks of the River Hooghly, the major distributary of the River Ganges, during the early years of the Bengal Presidency of British India. It was named after King William III of England...

in Calcutta. In August 1914, Mukherjee's group had seized a large consignment of guns and ammunition from the Rodda company, a major gun manufacturing firm in India. In December 1914, several politically motivated armed robberies

Robbery

Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....

to obtain funds were carried out in Calcutta. Mukherjee kept in touch with Rash Behari Bose through Kartar Singh and V.G. Pingle. These rebellious acts, which were until then organised separately by different groups, were brought into a common umbrella under the leadership of Rash Behari Bose in North India, V. G. Pingle in Maharashtra

Maharashtra

Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...

, and Sachindranath Sanyal in Benares. A plan was made for a unified general uprising, with the date set for February 21, 1915.

February 1915

In India, unaware of the delayed shipment and confident of being able to rally the Indian sepoy

Sepoy

A sepoy was formerly the designation given to an Indian soldier in the service of a European power. In the modern Indian Army, Pakistan Army and Bangladesh Army it remains in use for the rank of private soldier.-Etymology and Historical usage:...

, the plot for the mutiny took its final shape. Under the plans, the 23rd Cavalry in Punjab was to seize weapons and kill their officers while on roll call on 21 February. This was to be followed by mutiny in the 26th Punjab, which was to be the signal for the uprising to begin, resulting in an advance on Delhi and Lahore. The Bengal cell was to look for the Punjab Mail entering the Howrah Station

Howrah station

Howrah Station is one of the four intercity train stations serving Howrah and Kolkata, India; the others are Sealdah Station, Shalimar Station and Kolkata railway station in Kolkata. Howrah is situated on the West bank of the Hooghly River, linked to Kolkata by the magnificent Howrah Bridge which...

the next day (which would have been cancelled if Punjab was seized) and was to strike immediately.
However, Punjab CID successfully infiltrated the conspiracy at the last moment through a sepoy named Kirpal Singh

Kirpal Singh (spy)

Kirpal Singh was a soldier of the British Indian Army who is best known for his role in passing on to the Punjab CID the intelligence on the date of the Ghadar Conspiracy in February 1915 during World War I...

. Sensing that their plans had been compromised, D-Day was brought forward to 19 February, but even these plans found their way to the intelligence. Plans for revolt by the 130th Baluchi Regiment at Rangoon on January 21 were thwarted. Attempted revolts in the 26th Punjab, 7th Rajput, 130th Baluch, 24th Jat Artillery and other regiments were suppressed. Mutinies in Firozpur

Firozpur

Firozpur is a city on the banks of the Sutlej River in Firozpur District, Punjab, India, founded by Sultan Firoz Shah Tughlaq , a Muslim ruler of the Tughlaq Dynasty who reigned over the Sultanate of Delhi from 1351 to 1388.The Manj Rajputs say the town was named after their chief, a Rajput of...

, Lahore

Lahore

, and Agra

Agra

Agra a.k.a. Akbarabad is a city on the banks of the river Yamuna in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, west of state capital, Lucknow and south from national capital New Delhi. With a population of 1,686,976 , it is one of the most populous cities in Uttar Pradesh and the 19th most...

were also suppressed and many key leaders of the conspiracy were arrested, although some managed to escape or evade arrest. A last ditch attempt was made by Kartar Singh and V. G. Pingle to trigger a mutiny in the 12th Cavalry regiment at Meerut. Kartar Singh escaped from Lahore, but was arrested in Varanasi

Varanasi

-Etymology:The name Varanasi has its origin possibly from the names of the two rivers Varuna and Assi, for the old city lies in the north shores of the Ganga bounded by its two tributaries, the Varuna and the Asi, with the Ganges being to its south...

, and V. G. Pingle was apprehended in Meerut. Mass arrests followed as the Ghadarites were rounded up in Punjab and the Central Provinces

Central Provinces

The Central Provinces was a province of British India. It comprised British conquests from the Mughals and Marathas in central India, and covered parts of present-day Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra states. Its capital was Nagpur....

. Rash Behari Bose escaped from Lahore and in May 1915 fled to Japan. Other leaders, including Giani Pritam Singh, Swami Satyananda Puri

Bhavabhushan Mitra

Bhavabhushan Mitra, or Bhaba Bhusan Mitter, alias Swami Satyananda Puri was a Bengali Indian freedom fighter and an influential social worker....

and others fled to Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

.

On February 15, the 5th Light Infantry stationed at Singapore

Singapore

was among the few units to mutiny successfully. Nearly eight hundred and fifty of its troops mutinied on the afternoon of the 15th, along with nearly a hundred men of the Malay States Guides. This mutiny lasted almost seven days, and resulted in the deaths of 47 British soldiers and local civilians. The mutineers also released the interned crew of the SMS Emden, who were asked by the mutineers to join them but refused and actually took up arms and defended the barracks after the mutineers had left (sheltering some British refuges as well) until the prison camp was relieved. The mutiny was suppressed only after French, Russian and Japanese ships arrived with reinforcements. Of 200 people tried at Singapore, 47 mutineers were shot in public executions, the rest were transported for life to East Africa. Most of the rest were deported for life or given jail terms ranging between seven and twenty years. In all 800 mutineers were either shot imprisoned or exiled Some historians, including Hew Strachan

Hew Strachan

Brigadier Professor Hew Francis Anthony Strachan, DL, FRSE, FRHS is a Scottish military historian, well known for his work on the administration of the British Army and the history of the First World War...

, argue that although Ghadar agents operated within the Singapore unit, the mutiny was isolated and not linked to the conspiracy. Others deem this as instigated by the Silk Letter Movement which became intricately related to the Ghadarite conspiracy.

Christmas Day Plot

In April 1915, unaware of the failure of the Annie Larsen plan, Papen arranged, through Krupp

Krupp

's American representative Hans Tauscher, a second shipment of arms, consisting of 7,300 Springfield rifles, 1,930 pistols, 10 Gatling gun

Gatling gun

The Gatling gun is one of the best known early rapid-fire weapons and a forerunner of the modern machine gun. It is well known for its use by the Union forces during the American Civil War in the 1860s, which was the first time it was employed in combat...

s and nearly 3,000,000 cartridges. The arms were to be shipped in mid June to Surabaya

Surabaya

Surabaya is Indonesia's second-largest city with a population of over 2.7 million , and the capital of the province of East Java...

in the East Indies

East Indies

East Indies is a term used by Europeans from the 16th century onwards to identify what is now known as Indian subcontinent or South Asia, Southeastern Asia, and the islands of Oceania, including the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines...

on the Holland American

Holland America Line

The Holland America Line is a cruise shipping company. It was founded in 1873 as the Netherlands-America Steamship Company , a shipping and passenger line. Headquartered in Rotterdam and providing service to the Americas, it became known as Holland America Line...

steamship SS Djember. However, the intelligence network operated by Courtenay Bennett, the Consul General to New York, was able to trace the cargo to Tauscher in New York and passed the information on to the company, thwarting these plans as well. In the meantime, even after the February plot had been scuttled, the plans for an uprising continued in Bengal through the Jugantar cohort under Jatin Mukherjee (Bagha Jatin). German agents in Thailand and Burma, most prominently Emil and Theodor Helferrich— brothers of the German Finance minister Karl Helfferich

Karl Helfferich

Karl Theodor Helfferich was a German politician, economist, and financier from Neustadt an der Weinstraße in the Palatinate.-Biography:...

— established links with Jugantar through Jitendranath Lahiri in March that year. In April, Jatin's chief lieutenant Narendranath Bhattacharya met with the Helfferichs and was informed of the expected arrival of the Maverick with arms. Although these were originally intended for Ghadar use, the Berlin Committee modified the plans, to have arms shipped into India to the eastern coast of India, through Hatia on the Chittagong

Chittagong

Chittagong ) is a city in southeastern Bangladesh and the capital of an eponymous district and division. Built on the banks of the Karnaphuli River, the city is home to Bangladesh's busiest seaport and has a population of over 4.5 million, making it the second largest city in the country.A trading...

coast, Raimangal in the Sunderbans and Balasore

Balasore

Balasore is a strategically located city in the state of Orissa, about north of the state capital Bhubaneswar, in eastern India. It is the administrative headquarters of Balasore district. It is best known for Chandipur beach. It is also the site of the Indian Ballistic Missile Defense...

in Orissa

Orissa

Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...

, instead of Karachi

Karachi

Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...

as originally decided. From the coast of the Bay of Bengal

Bay of Bengal

The Bay of Bengal , the largest bay in the world, forms the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. It resembles a triangle in shape, and is bordered mostly by the Eastern Coast of India, southern coast of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to the west and Burma and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the...

, these would be collected by Jatin's group. The date of insurrection was fixed for Christmas Day of 1915, earning the name "The Christmas Day Plot". Jatin estimated that he would be able to win over the 14th Rajput Regiment in Calcutta and cut the line to Madras at Balasore and thus take control of Bengal. Jugantar also received funds (estimated to be Rs 33,000 between June and August 1915) from the Helfferich brothers through a fictitious firm in Calcutta. However, it was at this time that the details of the Maverick and Jugantar plans were leaked to Beckett, the British Consul at Batavia, by a defecting Baltic-German agent under the alias "Oren

Oren (spy)

Oren was the codename assigned to a Baltic-German double agent in South-East Asia by British Intelligence during World War I. Although his true identity is unknown, he is believed to be a man of Swedish descent...

". The Maverick was seized, while in India, police destroyed the underground movement in Calcutta as an unaware Jatin proceeded according to plan to the Bay of Bengal coast in Balasore. He was followed there by Indian police and on September 9, 1915, he and a group of five revolutionaries armed with Mauser pistols made a last stand on the banks of the river Burha Balang. Seriously wounded in a gun battle that lasted seventy five minutes, Jatin died the next day in the town of Balasore.

To provide the Bengal group enough time to capture Calcutta and to prevent reinforcements from being rushed in, a mutiny coinciding with Jugantar's Christmas Day insurrection was planned for Burma with arms smuggled in from neutral Thailand. Thailand (Siam) was a strong base for the Ghadarites, and plans for rebellion in Burma (which was a part of British India at the time) had been proposed by the Ghadar party as early as October 1914, which called for Burma to be used as a base for subsequent advance into India. This Siam-Burma plan was finally concluded in January 1915. Ghadarites from branches in China and United States, including Atma Ram

Atma Ram

Atma Ram was a Hindu minister in Afghanistan during the early 1800's. He was said to have dominated trade between India and Turan in this period.-References:*Levi, Scott Cameron. The Indian Diaspora in Central Asia and Its Trade, 1550-1900. BRILL, 2002....

, Thakar Singh, and Banta Singh from Shanghai and Santokh Singh and Bhagwan Singh from San Francisco, attempted to infiltrate Burma Military Police in Thailand, which was composed mostly of Sikh

Sikh

s and Punjabi Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

s. Early in 1915, Atma Ram had also visited Calcutta and Punjab and linked up with the revolutionary underground there, including Jugantar

Jugantar

. Herambalal Gupta

Herambalal Gupta

Heramba Lal Gupta was an Indian Nationalist linked to the Berlin Committee and the Ghadar Party extensively involved in the Hindu-German Conspiracy, who later turned a British agent and passed in intelligence on Mahendra Pratap's Kabul Government....

and the German consul at Chicago arranged to have German operatives George Paul Boehm, Henry Schult, and Albert Wehde sent to Siam through Manila

Manila

Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...

with the purpose of training the Indians. Santokh Singh returned to Shangai tasked to send two expeditions, one to reach the Indian border via Yunnan

Yunnan

Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...

and the other to penetrate upper Burma and join with revolutionary elements there. The Germans, while in Manila, also attempted to transfer the arms cargo of two German ships, the Sachsen and the Suevia, to Siam in a schooner

Schooner

A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....

seeking refuge at Manila harbour. However, US customs stopped these attempts. In the meantime, with the help of the German Consul to Thailand Remy, the Ghadarite established a training headquarters in the jungles near the Thai-Burma border for Ghadarites arriving from China and Canada. German Consul General at Shanghai, Knipping, sent three officers of the Peking Embassy Guard for training and in addition arranged for a Norwegian agent in Swatow to smuggle arms through. However, the Thai Police high command, which was largely British, discovered these plans and Indian police infiltrated the plot through an Indian secret agent who was revealed the details by the Austrian

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

chargé d'affaires

Chargé d'affaires

In diplomacy, chargé d’affaires , often shortened to simply chargé, is the title of two classes of diplomatic agents who head a diplomatic mission, either on a temporary basis or when no more senior diplomat has been accredited.-Chargés d’affaires:Chargés d’affaires , who were...

. Thailand, although officially neutral, was allied closely with Britain and British India. On July 21, the newly arrived British Minister Herbert Dering presented Foreign Minister Prince Devawongse with the request for arrest and extradition of Ghadarites identified by the Indian agent, ultimately resulting in the arrest of leading Ghadarites in August. Only a single raid into Burma was launched by six Ghadarites, who were captured and later hanged.

Also to coincide with the proposed Jugantar insurreection in Calcutta was a planned raid on the penal colony

Penal colony

A penal colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general populace by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory...

in the Andaman Islands

Andaman Islands

The Andaman Islands are a group of Indian Ocean archipelagic islands in the Bay of Bengal between India to the west, and Burma , to the north and east...

with a German volunteer force raised from East Indies. The raid would release the political prisoners, helping to raise an expeditionary Indian force that would threaten the Indian coast. The plan was proposed by Vincent Kraft

Vincent Kraft

Vincent Kraft was a German double agent in South-East Asia during World War I who was extensively involved in British counter-intelligence in the Hindu-German Conspiracy. Kraft was sent to South-East Asia during the war by the German high command as a part of the larger Indo-German Conspiracy and...

, a German planter in Batavia who had been wounded fighting in France. It was approved by the foreign office on May 14, 1915, after consultation with the Indian committee, and the raid was planned for Christmas Day 1915 by a force of nearly one hundred Germans led by a former naval officer von Müller. Knipping made plans for shipping arms to the Andaman islands. However, Vincent Kraft was a double agent

Double agent

A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...

, and leaked details of Knipping's plans to British intelligence. His own bogus plans for the raid were in the meantime revealed to Beckett by "Oren

Oren (spy)

", but given the successive failures of the Indo-German plans, the plans for the operations were abandoned on the recommendations of both the Berlin Committee and Knipping.

Afghanistan and the Middle East

Another arm of the conspiracy was directed at the Indian troops who were serving in Middle East, while efforts were directed at drawing Afghanistan into the war on the side of the Central Powers

Central Powers

The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...

, which it was hoped would incite a nationalist or pan-Islamic uprising in India and destabilise the British recruiting grounds in Punjab and across India. After Russia's defeat in the 1905 Russo-Japanese war, her influence had declined, and it was Afghanistan that was at the time seen by Britain as the only power in the sub-continent capable of directly threatening India.

In the spring of 1915, an Indo-German expedition

Niedermayer-Hentig Expedition

The Niedermayer-Hentig Expedition was a diplomatic mission sent by the Central Powers to Afghanistan in 1915-1916. The purpose was to encourage Afghanistan to declare full independence from the United Kingdom, enter World War I on the side of the Central Powers, and attack India. The expedition was...

was sent to Afghanistan via the overland route through Persia. Led by the exiled Indian prince Raja Mahendra Pratap

Raja Mahendra Pratap

Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh was a freedom fighter, journalist, writer and revolutionary social reformist of India. He was popularly known as the Aryan Peshwa. He was born in Thenua gotra Jat Hindu princely family of state of Mursan in Hathras District of Uttar Pradesh on 1 December 1886. He was...

, this mission sought to invite the Afghan Emir Habibullah Khan to break with Britain, declare his independence, join the war on the Central side, and invade British India. It managed to evade the considerable Anglo-Russian efforts that were directed at intercepting it in Mesopotamia and in the Persian deserts before it reached Afghanistan in August 1915. In Afghanistan, it was joined in Kabul by members of the pan-Islamic group Darul Uloom Deoband

Darul Uloom Deoband

The Darul Uloom Deoband is an Islamic school in India where the Deobandi Islamic movement was started. It is located at Deoband, a town in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, India. It was founded in 1866 by several prominent Islamic scholars , headed by Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanotvi...

led by Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi

Ubaidullah Sindhi

Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi was a noted pan-Islamic leader a political activist of the Indian independence movement...

. This group had left India for Kabul at the beginning of the war while another group under Mahmud al Hasan made its way to Hijaz, where they hoped to seek support from the Afghan Emir, the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

and Imperial Germany for a pan-Islamic insurrection beginning in the tribal belt of north-west India

North-West Frontier Province

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa , formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province and various other names, is one of the four provinces of Pakistan, located in the north-west of the country...

. The Indo-German mission pressed Emir Habibullah to break from his neutral stance and open diplomatic relations with Germany, eventually hoping to rally the Emir to the German war effort. Habibullah Khan vacillated on the mission's proposals through much of the winter of 1915, hoping to maintain his neutral stance till the course of the war offered a concrete picture. However, the mission opened at this time secret negotiations with the pro-German elements in the Emir's court and advisory council, including his brother Nasrullah Khan and son Amanullah Khan. It found support among Afghan intellectuals, religious leaders and the Afghan press which rallied with increasingly anti-British and pro-Central articles. BY 1916 the Raj was forced to intercept copies of the Afghan newspaper Siraj al Akhbar sent to India. It raised to the Emir a threat of a coup d'état in his country and unrest among his tribesmen, who were beginning to see him as subservient to British authority even as Turkey called for a pan-Islamic Jihad.

In December 1915, the Indian members founded the Provisional Government of India

Provisional Government of India

Provisional Government of India was a provisional government-in-exile established by Indian Nationalists in Afghanistan during World War I with support from the Central Powers. Its purpose was to enroll support from both the Afghan Emir, as well as Tsarist Russia, China and Japan for the Indian...

, which it was hoped would weigh on Habibullah's advisory council to aid India and force the Emir's hands. In January 1916, the Emir approved a draft treaty with Germany to buy time. However, the Central campaign in the Middle East faltered at around this time, ending hopes that an overland route through Persia could be secured for aid and assistance to Afghanistan. The German members of the mission left Afghanistan in June 1916, ending the German intrigues in the country. Nonetheless, Mahendra Pratap and his Provisional Government stayed behind, attempting to establish links with Japan, Republican China and Tsarist Russia. After the Russian revolution, Pratap opened negotiations with the Soviet Union, visiting Trotsky in Red Petrograd in 1918, and Lenin in Moscow in 1919 before he visited the Kaiser in Berlin that year. He pressed for a joint Soviet-German offensive through Afghanistan into India. This was considered by the Soviets for some time after the 1919 coup in Afghanistan in which Amanullah Khan was instated as the Emir and the third Anglo-Afghan war began. Pratap may also have influenced the "Kalmyk Project

Kalmyk Project

The Kalmyk Project was the name given to Soviet plans to launch a surprise attack on the northwest frontier of India via Tibet and other Himalayan buffer states in 1919-1920. It was a part of Soviet plans for destabilising Britain and the Western European powers through unrest in the Colonial...

", a Soviet plan to invade India through Tibet and the Himalayan buffer states.

In the Middle Eastern theatre, members of the Berlin Committee, including Har Dayal

Har Dayal

Lala Har Dayal was a Indian nationalist revolutionary who founded the Ghadar Party in America. He was a polymath who turned down a career in the Indian Civil Service...

and M. P. T. Acharya

M. P. T. Acharya

Mandayam Parthasarathi Tirumal Acharya was an Indian nationalist, a key member of India House, and one of the founding members of the Communist Party of India...

, were sent on missions to Baghdad and Syria in the summer of 1915, tasked to infiltrate the Indian Expeditionary Force in southern Mesopotamia and Egypt and to attempt to assassinate British officers. The Indian effort was divided into two groups, one consisting of a Bengali revolutionary P.N. Dutt (alias Dawood Ali Khan) and Pandurang Khankoje. This group arrived at Bushire, where they worked with Wilhelm Wassmuss and distributed nationalist and revolutionary literature among Indian troops in Mesopotamia and Persia. The other group, working with Egyptian nationalists, attempted to block the Suez Canal

Suez Canal

The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...

. These groups carried out successful clandestine work in spreading nationalist literature and propaganda amongst the Indian troops in Mesopotamia, and on one occasion even bombed an officer's mess

Mess

A mess is the place where military personnel socialise, eat, and live. In some societies this military usage has extended to other disciplined services eateries such as civilian fire fighting and police forces. The root of mess is the Old French mes, "portion of food" A mess (also called a...

. Nationalist work also extended at this time to recruiting Indian prisoners of war in Constantinopole, Bushire, Kut-al-Amara. M.P.T. Acharya's own works were directed at forming the Indian National Volunteer Corps with the help of Indian civilians in Turkey, and to recruiting Indian prisoners of war. He is further known to have worked along with Wilhelm Wassmuss

Wilhelm Wassmuss

Wilhelm Wassmuss was a German diplomat, also known as the "Wassmuss of Persia". He attempted to foment trouble for the British in the Persian Gulf in the First World War.- Birth and schooling :...

in Bushire amongst Indian troops. The efforts were, however, ultimately hampered by diffences between the Berlin committee members who were predominantly Hindus, and Indian revolutionaries already in Turkey who were largely Muslims. Further, the Egyptian nationalists distrusted the Berlin Committee, which was seen by the former as a German instrument.

Nonetheless, in culmination of these efforts, Indian prisoners of war from France, Turkey, Germany, and Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

—especially Basra

Basra

Basra is the capital of Basra Governorate, in southern Iraq near Kuwait and Iran. It had an estimated population of two million as of 2009...

, Bushehr

Bushehr

Bushehr Bushehr lies in a vast plain running along the coastal region on the Persian Gulf coast of southwestern Iran. It is the chief seaport of the country and the administrative centre of its province. Its location is about south of Tehran. The local climate is hot and humid.The city...

, and from Kut al Amara

Siege of Kut

The siege of Kut Al Amara , was the besieging of 8,000 strong British-Indian garrison in the town of Kut, 100 miles south of Baghdad, by the Ottoman Army. Its known also as 1st Battle of Kut. In 1915, its population was around 6,500...

—were recruited, raising the Indian Volunteer Corps that fought with Turkish forces on many fronts. The Deobandis, led by Amba Prasad Sufi, attempted to organise incursions from the western border of India from Persia, through Baluchistan

Balochistan (region)

Balochistan or Baluchistan is an arid, mountainous region in the Iranian plateau in Southwest Asia; it includes part of southeastern Iran, western Pakistan, and southwestern Afghanistan. The area is named after the numerous Baloch tribes, Iranian peoples who moved into the area from the west...

, to Punjab. Amba Prasad was joined during the war by Kedar Nath Sondhi, Rishikesh Letha and Amin Chaudhry. These Indian troops were involved in the capture of the frontier city of Karman

Karman

- Science :* Born–von Karman boundary condition* Karman cannula* Kármán–Howarth equation* Kármán line* Kármán vortex street* Theodore von Karman Medal* Kármán–Trefftz airfoil, also known as the Joukowsky transform* Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics...

and the detention of the British consul there, and also successfully harassed Percy Sykes

Percy Sykes

Brigadier-General Sir Percy Molesworth Sykes KCIE, CB, CMG was a soldier, diplomat and scholar, with a considerable literary output. He wrote historical, geographical, and biographical works, as well as describing his travels in Persia. Sykes was born in Brompton, Kent, England the only son of Rev...

' Persian campaign against the Baluchi and Persian tribal chiefs who were aided by the Germans. The Aga Khan

Aga Khan

Aga Khan is the hereditary title of the Imam of the largest branch of the Ismā'īlī followers of the Shī‘a faith. They affirm the Imamat of the descendants of Ismail ibn Jafar, eldest son of Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq, while the larger Twelver branch of Shi`ism follows Ismail's younger brother Musa...

's brother was killed while fighting the rebels. The rebels also successfully harassed British forces in Sistan

Sistan

Sīstān is a border region in eastern Iran , southwestern Afghanistan and northern tip of Southwestern Pakistan .-Etymology:...

in Afghanistan, confining them to Karamshir in Baluchistan, and later moving towards Karachi. Some reports indicate they took control of the coastal towns of Gawador and Dawar. The Baluchi chief of Bampur, having declared his independence from British rule, also joined the Ghadarites. It was not before the war in Europe turned for the worse for Turkey and Baghdad

Baghdad

Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

was captured by the British forces. The Ghadarite forces, their supply lines starved, were finally dislodged. They retreated to regroup at Shiraz, where they were finally defeated after a bitter fight during the siege of Shiraz

Shiraz

Shiraz may refer to:* Shiraz, Iran, a city in Iran* Shiraz County, an administrative subdivision of Iran* Vosketap, Armenia, formerly called ShirazPeople:* Hovhannes Shiraz, Armenian poet* Ara Shiraz, Armenian sculptor...

. Amba Prasad Sufi was killed in this battle, but the Ghadarites carried on guerrilla warfare along with Iranian partisans until 1919.

Culmination

By the end of 1917, divisions had begun appearing between the Ghadar Party in America on the one hand, and the Berlin Committee and the German high command on the other. Reports from German agents working with Ghadarites in Southeast Asia and the United States clearly indicated to the European wing a significant element of disorganisation, as well as unrealism in gauging public mood and support within the Ghadarite organisation. The failure of the February plot, the lack of bases in Southeast Asia following China's participation in the war in 1917, and the problems of supporting a Southeast Asian operation through the sea stemmed the plans significantly. Infiltration by British agents, change in American attitude and stance, and the changing fortunes of the war meant the massive conspiracy for revolution within India never succeeded.

One of the last events linked to the conspiracy derives from the Irish involvement when, on June 28, 1920, units of the Connaught Rangers mutinied at Jullundur in Punjab when five men from C Company refused to take orders from their officers, declaring their intent not to serve the King until British forces left Ireland. The mutiny spread to Solan before it was suppressed. Nearly 400 men joined the mutiny, of whom eighty-eight were subsequently court martialled. Fourteen were sentenced to death and the rest given up to 15 years in gaol. Thirteen of the men sentenced to die later had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment

Life imprisonment

Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...

. 21-year-old James Daly was shot by a firing squad in Dagshai prison on November 2, 1920; he was the last member of British Forces to be executed for mutiny. Daly and John Miranda (who died in prison) were buried at the Dagshai graveyard.

Counter intelligence

British intelligence began to note and track outlines and nascent ideas of the conspiracy by as early as 1911. Incidents like the Delhi-Lahore Conspiracy and the Komagata Maru

Komagata Maru

incident had already alerted the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the existence of a large-scale network and plans for pan-Indian militant unrest. Measures were taken which focussed on Bengal—the seat of the most intense revolutionary terrorism at the time—and on Punjab, which was uncovered as a strong and militant base in the wake of Komagata Maru. Har Dayal's extant group was found to have strong links with Rash Behari Bose, and were "cleaned up" in the wake of the Delhi bomb case.

In Asia

At the outbreak of the war, Punjab CID sent teams to Hong Kong to intercept and infiltrate the returning Ghadarites, who often made little effort to hide their plans and objectives. These teams were successful in uncovering details of the full scale of the conspiracy, and in discovering Har Dayal's whereabouts. Immigrants returning to India were double checked against a list of revolutionaries.

In Punjab, the CID, although aware of possible plans for unrest, was not successful in infiltrating the conspiracy for the mutiny until February 1915. A dedicated force was formed, headed by the Chief of Punjab CID, and including amongst its members Liaqat Hayat Khan (later head of Punjab CID himself). In February that year, the CID was successful in recruiting the services of Kirpal Singh to infiltrate the plan. Singh, who had a Ghadarite cousin serving in the 23rd Cavalry, was able to infiltrate the leadership, being assigned to work in his cousin's regiment. Singh was soon under suspicion of being a spy, but was able to pass on the information regarding the date and scale of the uprising to British Indian intelligence. As the date for the mutiny approached, a desperate Rash Behari Bose brought forward the mutiny day to the evening of February 19, which was discovered by Kirpal Singh on the very day. No attempts were made by the Ghadarites to restrain him, and he rushed to inform Liaqat Khan of the change of plans. Ordered back to his station to signal when the revolutionaries had assembled, Singh was detained by the would-be mutineers, but managed to escape under the cover of answering the call of nature.

The role of German or Baltic-German double-agents, especially the agent named "Oren"

Oren (spy)

, was also important in infiltrating and preempting the plans for autumn rebellions in Bengal in 1915 and in as scuttling Bagha Jatin's plans in winter that year. Another source was the German double agent Vincent Kraft, a planter from Batavia, who passed information about arms shipments from Shanghai to British agents after being captured. Maps of the Bengal coast were found on Kraft when he was initially arrested and he volunteered the information that these were the intended landing sites for German arms. Kraft later fled through Mexico to Japan where he was last known to be at the end of the war. Later efforts by Mahendra Pratap's Provisional Government in Kabul were also compromised by Herambalal Gupta after he defected in 1918 and passed on information to Indian intelligence.

In Europe and the Middle East

By the time the war broke out, the Indian Political Intelligence Office

Indian Political Intelligence Office

The Indian Political Intelligence Office was an Intelligence organisation initially established in England in 1909 in response to the dissemination of anarchist and revolutionary elements of Indian nationalism to different countries in Europe after the liquidation of India House in London in 1909...

, headed by John Wallinger

John Wallinger

Sir John Arnold-Wallinger was a British Indian intelligence officer who led the prototype Indian Political Intelligence Office from 1909 to 1916. He was also the literary prototype of the spymaster of a number of Somerset Maugham's short stories...

, had expanded into Europe. In scale this office was larger than those operated by the British War Office, approaching the European intelligence network of the Secret Service Bureau. This network already had agents in Switzerland against possible German intrigues. After the outbreak of the war Wallinger, under the cover of an officer of the British General Head Quarters, proceeded to France where he operated from Paris, working with the French political police, the Sûreté

Sûreté

Sûreté is a term used in French speaking countries or regions in the organizational title of a civil police force, especially the detective branch thereof.-France:...

. Among Wallinger's recruits in the network was Somerset Maugham, who was recruited in 1915 and used his cover as author to visit Geneva while avoiding Swiss interference. Among other enterprises, the European intelligence network attempted to eliminate some of the Indian leaders in Europe. A British agent named Donald Gullick was dispatched to assassinate Virendranath Chattopadhaya while the latter was on his way to Geneva to meet Mahendra Pratap to offer Kaiser Wilhelm II's invitation. It is said that Somerset Maugham based several of his stories on his first-hand experiences, modelling the character of John Ashenden

Ashenden: Or the British Agent

Ashenden: Or the British Agent is a 1928 collection of loosely linked stories by W. Somerset Maugham. It is partly based on the author's experience as a member of British Intelligence in Europe during the First World War.-Plot summary:...

after himself and Chandra Lal after Virendranath. The short story "Giulia Lazzari" is a blend of Gullick's attempts to assassinate Virendranath and Mata Hari

Mata Hari

Mata Hari was the stage name of Margaretha Geertruida "M'greet" Zelle , a Dutch exotic dancer, courtesan, and accused spy who was executed by firing squad in France under charges of espionage for Germany during World War I.-Early life:Margaretha Geertruida Zelle was born in Leeuwarden, Friesland,...

's story. Winston Churchill reportedly advised Maugham to burn 14 other stories.

The Czech

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

revolutionary network in Europe also had a role in the uncovering of Bagha Jatin

Bagha Jatin

Bagha Jatin , born Jatindranath Mukherjee was an Bengali revolutionary philosopher against British rule....

's plans. The network was in touch with the members in the United States, and may have also been aware of and involved in the uncovering of the earlier plots. The American network, headed by E.V. Voska, was a counter-espionage network of nearly 80 members who, as Habsburg

Habsburg

The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...

subjects, were presumed to be German supporters but were involved in spying on German and Austrian diplomats. Voska had begun working with Guy Gaunt

Guy Gaunt

-External links:...

, who headed Courtenay Bennett's intelligence network, at the outbreak of the war and on learning of the plot from the Czech European network, passed on the information to Gaunt and to Tomáš Masaryk

Tomáš Masaryk

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk , sometimes called Thomas Masaryk in English, was an Austro-Hungarian and Czechoslovak politician, sociologist and philosopher, who as an eager advocate of Czechoslovak independence during World War I became the founder and first President of Czechoslovakia, also was...

who further passed on the information the American authorities.

In the Middle East, British counter-intelligence was directed at preserving the loyalty of the Indian sepoy in the face of Turkish propaganda and the concept of The Caliph's Jihad, while a particularly significant effort was directed at intercepting the Kabul Mission. The East Persian Cordon

Seistan Force

The Seistan Force, originally called East Persia Cordon, was a force of British Indian Army troops set up to prevent enemy infiltration from Persia into Afghanistan during World War I. The force was established to protect British interests in Persia from subversion by German agents, most notably...

was established in July 1915 in the Sistan

Sistan

Sīstān is a border region in eastern Iran , southwestern Afghanistan and northern tip of Southwestern Pakistan .-Etymology:...

province of Persia to prevent the Germans from crossing into Afghanistan, and to protect British supply caravans in Sarhad from the Damani, Reki and Kurdish Baluchi tribal raiders who may have been tempted by German gold. Among the commanders of the Sistan force was Reginald Dyer

Reginald Dyer

Colonel Reginald Edward Harry Dyer CB was a British Indian Army officer who as a temporary Brigadier-General was responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar ....

who led it between March and October 1916.

In the United States

In the United States, the conspiracy was successfully infiltrated by British intelligence through Irish and Indian channels. The activities of Ghadar

Ghadar Conspiracy

The Ghadar Conspiracy was a conspiracy for a pan-Indian mutiny in the British Indian Army in February 1915 formulated by the Ghadar Party...

on the Pacific coast were noted by W. C. Hopkinson

W. C. Hopkinson

William Charles Hopkinson was an Indian Police officer and later an immigration inspector in the Canadian Immigration Branch in Vancouver, B.C., who is noted for his role in infiltration and intelligence on the Ghadarite movement in North America in the early 1900s.-Early life:Hopkinson was born...

, who was born and raised in India and spoke fluent Hindi. Initially Hopkinson had been despatched from Calcutta to keep the Indian Police informed about the doings of Taraknath Das.
The Home department of the British Indian government had begun the task of actively tracking Indian seditionists on the East Coast

East Coast of the United States

The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...

as early as 1910. Francis Cunliffe Owen, the officer heading the Home Office agency in New York, had become thoroughly acquainted with George Freeman

George Freeman (newspaper editor)

alias Fitzgerald and Myron Phelps, the famous New York advocate, as members of the Clan-na-Gael. Owens' efforts were successful in thwarting the SS Moraitis plan. The Ghadar Party

Ghadar Party

The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule...

was incidentally established after Irish Republicans, sensing infiltration, encouraged formation of an exclusively Indian society.

Following this, several approaches were adopted, including infiltration through an Indian national named Bela Singh who successfully set up a network of agents passing on information to Hopkinson, and through the use of the famous American Pinkerton's detective agency. Bela Singh was later murdered in India in the 1930s. Hopkinson was assassinated in a Vancouver courthouse by a Ghadarite named Mewa Singh, in October, 1914.
Charles Lamb, an Irish double agent, is said to have passed on the majority of the information that compromised the Annie Larsen and ultimately helped the construction of the prosecution. An Indian operative, codenamed "C" and described most likely to have been the adventurous Chandra Kanta Chakravarty (later the chief prosecution witness in the trial), also passed on the details of the conspiracy to British and American intelligence.

Trials

The conspiracy led to several trials in India, most famous among them being the Lahore Conspiracy trial, which opened in Lahore in April 1915 in the aftermath of the failed February mutiny. Other trials included the Benares, Simla, Delhi, and Ferozepur conspiracy cases, and the trials of those arrested at Budge Budge. At Lahore, a special tribunal was constituted under the Defence of India Act 1915

Defence of India Act 1915

The Defence of India Act 1915, also referred to as the Defence of India Regulations Act, was an Emergency Criminal Law enacted by the British Raj in India in 1915 with the intention of curtailing the nationalist and revolutionary activities during and in the aftermath of World War I...

and a total of 291 conspirators were put on trial. Of these 42 were awarded the death sentence

Death Sentence

Death Sentence is a short story by the American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.-Plot summary:...

, 114 transported for life

Cellular Jail

The Cellular Jail, also known as Kālā Pānī , was a colonial prison situated in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. The prison was used by the British especially to exile political prisoners to the remote archipelago...

, and 93 awarded varying terms of imprisonment. Several of these were sent to the Cellular Jail

Cellular Jail

in the Andaman Islands

Andaman Islands

The Andaman Islands are a group of Indian Ocean archipelagic islands in the Bay of Bengal between India to the west, and Burma , to the north and east...

. Forty two defendants in the trial were acquitted.
The Lahore trial directly linked the plans made in United States and the February mutiny plot. Following the conclusion of the trial, diplomatic effort to destroy the Indian revolutionary movement in the United States and to bring its members to trial increased considerably.

In the United States, the Hindu German Conspiracy trial

Hindu German Conspiracy Trial

commenced in the District Court in San Francisco on November 12, 1917 following the uncovering of the Annie Larsen affair

Annie Larsen affair

. One hundred and five people participated, including members of the Ghadar Party, the former German Consul-General and Vice-Consul, and other members of staff of the German consulate in San Francisco. The trial itself lasted from November 20, 1917 to April 24, 1918. The last day of the trial was notable for the sensational assassination of the chief accused, Ram Chandra

Ram Chandra Bharadwaj

, by a fellow defendant, Ram Singh, in a packed courtroom. Singh himself was immediately shot dead by a US Marshal. In May 1917, eight Indian nationalists of the Ghadar Party were indicted by a federal grand jury on a charge of conspiracy to form a military enterprise against Britain. In later years the proceedings were criticised as being a largely show trial designed to preempt any suggestions that the United States was joining an imperialist war. The jury during the trial was carefully selected to exclude any Irish person with republican views or associations. Strong public support in favour of the Indians, especially the revived Anglophobic sentiments following the colonial provisions of the Treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...

, allowed the Ghadarite movement to be revived despite British concerns.

Impact

The conspiracy had a significant impact on Britain's policies, both within the empire and in international relations. The outlines and plans for the nascent ideas of the conspiracy were noted and tracked by British intelligence as early as 1911. Alarmed at the agile organisation, which repeatedly reformed in different parts of the country despite being subdued in others, the chief of Indian Intelligence Sir Charles Cleveland was forced to warn that the idea and attempts at pan-Indian revolutions were spreading through India "like some hidden fire". A massive, concerted, and coordinated effort was required to subdue the movement. Attempts were made in 1914 to prevent the naturalisation of Tarak Nath Das as an American citizen, while successful pressure was applied to have Har Dayal interned.

Political impact

The conspiracy, judged by the British Indian Government's own evaluation at the time, and those of several contemporary and modern historians, was an important event in the Indian independence movement and was one of the significant threats faced by the Raj in the second decade of the 20th century.

In the scenario of the British war effort and the threat from the militant movement in India, it was a major factor for the passage of the Defence of India Act 1915

Defence of India Act 1915

. Among the strongest proponents of the act was Michael O'Dwyer

Michael O'Dwyer

Michael Francis O'Dwyer, KCIE was Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab in India from 1912 until 1919. O'Dwyer endorsed General Reginald Dyer's action regarding the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and termed it a "correct action"...

, then the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, and this was largely due to the Ghadarite movement. It was also a factor that guided British political concessions and Whitehall's India Policy during and after World War I, including the passage of Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms

Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms

The Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms were reforms introduced by the British Government in India to introduce self-governing institutions gradually to India. The reforms take their name from Edwin Samuel Montagu, the Secretary of State for India during the latter parts of World War I and Lord Chelmsford,...

which initiated the first round of political reform in the Indian subcontinent in 1917. The events of the conspiracy during World War I, the presence of Pratap's Kabul mission in Afghanistan and its possible links to the Soviet Union, and a still-active revolutionary movement especially in Punjab and Bengal (as well as worsening civil unrest throughout India) led to the appointment of a Sedition committee

Rowlatt Committee

The Rowlatt committee was a Sedition Committee appointed in 1918 by the British Indian Government with Mr Justice Rowlatt, an English judge, as its president. The purpose of the committee was to evaluate political terrorism in India, especially Bengal and Punjab, its impact, and the links with the...

in 1918 chaired by Sydney Rowlatt, an English judge. It was tasked to evaluate German and Bolshevik links to the militant movement in India, especially in Punjab and Bengal. On the recommendations of the committee, the Rowlatt Act

Rowlatt Act

The Rowlatt Act was a law passed by the British in colonial India in March 1919, indefinitely extending "emergency measures" enacted during the First World War in order to control public unrest and root out conspiracy...

, an extension of the Defence of India Act 1915

Defence of India Act 1915

, was enforced in India.

The events that followed the passage of the Rowlatt Act in 1919 were also influenced by the conspiracy. At the time, British Indian Army troops were returning from the battlefields of Europe and Mesopotamia to an economic depression in India. The attempts of mutiny in 1915 and the Lahore conspiracy trials were still in public attention. News of young Mohajirs who fought on behalf of the Turkish Caliphate and later fought in the ranks of the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

during the Russian Civil War

Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...

was also beginning to reach India. The Russian Revolution had also cast its long shadow into India. It was at this time that Mohandas K. Gandhi, until then relatively unknown in the Indian political scene, began emerging as a mass leader.

Ominously, in 1919, the third Anglo-Afghan war

Third Anglo-Afghan War

The Third Anglo-Afghan War began on 6 May 1919 and ended with an armistice on 8 August 1919. It was a minor tactical victory for the British. For the British, the Durand Line was reaffirmed as the political boundary between the Emirate of Afghanistan and British India and the Afghans agreed not to...

began in the wake of Amir Habibullah's assassination and institution of Amanullah

Amanullah Khan

Amanullah Khan was the King of the Emirate of Afghanistan from 1919 to 1929, first as Amir and after 1926 as Shah. He led Afghanistan to independence over its foreign affairs from the United Kingdom, and his rule was marked by dramatic political and social change...

in a system blatantly influenced by the Kabul mission. In addition, in India, Gandhi's call for protest against the Rowlatt Act achieved an unprecedented response of furious unrest and protests. The situation especially in Punjab was deteriorating rapidly, with disruptions of rail, telegraph and communication systems. The movement was at its peak before the end of the first week of April, with some recording that "practically the whole of Lahore was on the streets, the immense crowd that passed through Anarkali was estimated to be around 20,000." In Amritsar, over 5,000 people gathered at Jallianwala Bagh. This situation deteriorated perceptibly over the next few days. Michael O'Dwyer is said to have been of the firm belief that these were the early and ill-concealed signs of a conspiracy for a coordinated uprising around May, on the lines of the 1857 revolt, at a time when British troops would have withdrawn to the hills for the summer. The Amritsar massacre, as well as responses preceding and succeeding it, contrary to being an isolated incident, was the end result of a concerted plan of response from the Punjab administration to suppress such a conspiracy. James Houssemayne Du Boulay

James Houssemayne Du Boulay

Sir James Houssemayne Du Boulay KCIE ; CSI was a British civil servant in India.-Life and career:...

is said to have ascribed a direct relationship between the fear of a Ghadarite uprising in the midst of an increasingly tensed situation in Punjab, and the British response that ended in the massacre.

Lastly, British efforts to downplay and disguise the nature and impact of the revolutionary movement at this time also resulted in a policy designed to strengthen the moderate movement in India, which ultimately saw Gandhi's rise in the Indian movement.

International relations

The conspiracy influenced several aspects of Great Britain's international relations, most of all Anglo-American relations

Anglo-American relations

British–American relations encompass many complex relations over the span of four centuries, beginning in 1607 with England's first permanent colony in North America called Jamestown, to the present day, between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of...

during the war, as well as, to some extent, Anglo-Chinese relations. After the war, it was one of the issues that influenced Anglo-Japanese relations.

At the start of the war, the American government's refusal to check the Indian seditionist movement was a major concern for the British government. By 1916, a majority of the resources of the American department of the British Foreign Office were related to the Indian seditionist movement. Before the outbreak of the war, the political commitments of the Wilson Government, (especially of Secretary of State

United States Secretary of State

The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...

William Jennings Bryan

William Jennings Bryan was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States...

who had eight years previously had authored "British Rule in India", a highly critical pamphlet, that was classified as seditionist by the Indian and Imperial governments), and the political fallouts of the perception of persecution of oppressed people by Britain prevented the then ambassador Cecil-Spring Rice from pressing the issue diplomatically. After Robert Lansing

Robert Lansing

Robert Lansing served in the position of Legal Advisor to the State Department at the outbreak of World War I where he vigorously advocated against Britain's policy of blockade and in favor of the principles of freedom of the seas and the rights of neutral nations...

replaced Bryan as Secretary of State in 1916, Secretary of State for India

Secretary of State for India

The Secretary of State for India, or India Secretary, was the British Cabinet minister responsible for the government of India and the political head of the India Office...

Marquess of Crewe

Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe

Robert Offley Ashburton Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe KG, PC , known as The Lord Houghton from 1885 to 1895 and as The Earl of Crewe from 1895 to 1911, was a British statesman and writer....

and Foreign Secretary Edward Grey forced Spring-Rice to raise the issue and the evidences obtained in Lahore Conspiracy trial were presented to the American government in February. The first investigations were opened in America at this time with the raid of the Wall Street office of Wolf von Igel, resulting in seizures of papers that were later presented as evidence in the Hindu German conspiracy trial

Hindu German Conspiracy Trial

. However, a perceptibly slow and reluctant American investigation triggered an intense neutrality dispute through 1916, aggravated by belligerent preventive measures of the British far-eastern fleet

China Station

The China Station was a historical formation of the British Royal Navy. It was formally the units and establishments responsible to the Commander-in-Chief, China....

on the high seas that threatened the sovereignty of American vessels. German and Turkish passengers were seized from the American vessel China by the 'HMS Laurentic at the mouth of the Yangtze River

Yangtze River

The Yangtze, Yangzi or Cháng Jiāng is the longest river in Asia, and the third-longest in the world. It flows for from the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai eastward across southwest, central and eastern China before emptying into the East China Sea at Shanghai. It is also one of the...

. Several incidents followed, including the SS Henry S, which were defended by the British government on grounds that the seized ship planned to foment an armed uprising in India. These drew strong responses from the US government, prompting the U.S. Atlantic Fleet

United States Fleet Forces Command

The United States Fleet Forces Command is an Atlantic Ocean theater-level component command of the United States Navy that provides naval resources that are under the operational control of the United States Northern Command...

to dispatch destroyers to the Pacific to protect the sovereignty of American vessels. Authorities in the Philippines were more cooperative, which assured Britain of knowledge of any plans against Hong Kong. The strained relations were relaxed in May 1916 when the Britain released the China prisoners and relaxed its aggressive policy seeking cooperation with the United States. However, diplomatic exchanges and relations did not improve before November that year.

The conspiracy issue was ultimately addressed by William G. E. Wiseman, head of British intelligence in the United States, when he passed details of a bomb plot directly to the New York Police

New York City Police Department

The New York City Police Department , established in 1845, is currently the largest municipal police force in the United States, with primary responsibilities in law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City...

bypassing diplomatic channels. This led to the arrest of Chandra Kanta Chuckrevarty. As the links between Chuckervarty's papers and the Igel papers became apparent, investigations by federal authorities expanded to cover the entire conspiracy. Ultimately, the United States agreed to forward evidence so long as Britain did not seek admission of liability for breaches of neutrality. At a time that diplomatic relations with Germany were deteriorating, the British Foreign Office directed its embassy to cooperate with the investigations resolving the Anglo-American diplomatic disputes just as the United States entered the war.

Through 1915-16, China and Indonesia were the major bases for the conspirators, and significant efforts were made by the British government to coax China into the war to attempt to control the German and Ghadar intrigues. This would also allow free purchase of arms from China for the Entente powers

Triple Entente

The Triple Entente was the name given to the alliance among Britain, France and Russia after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907....

. However, Yuan's proposals for bringing China into the war were against Japanese interests and gains from the war. This along with Japanese support for Sun Yat Sen and rebels in southern China laid the foundations for deterioration of Anglo-Japanese relations as early as 1916. After the end of the Great War, Japan increasingly became a haven for radical Indian nationalists in exile, who were protected by patriotic Japanese societies. Notable among these were Rash Behari Bose, Tarak Nath Das, and A M Sahay. The protections offered to these nationalists, most notably by Toyama Mitsuru's Black Dragon Society

Black Dragon Society

The was a prominent paramilitary, ultranationalist right-wing group in Japan.-History:The Kokuryūkai was founded in 1901 by Uchida Ryohei, and was descended from the Genyōsha. Its name is derived from the Amur River, called Heilongjiang or "Black Dragon River" in Chinese , read as Kokuryū-kō in...

, effectively prevented British efforts to repatriate them and became a major policy concern.

Ghadar Party and IIC

The IIC was formally disbanded in November 1918. Most of its members became closely associated with communism

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

and the Soviet Union. Bhupendranath Dutta

Bhupendranath Dutta

Dr. Bhupendranath Dutta was a famous Indian revolutionary and later a noted Sociologist. In is youth, he was closely associated with the Jugantar movement, serving as the editor of Jugantar Patrika till his arrest and imprisonment in 1907. In his later revolutionary career, he was privy to the...

and Virendranath Chattopadhyay alias Chatto arrived in Moscow in 1920. Narendranath Bhattacharya, under a new identity of M.N. Roy, was among the first Indian communists and made a memorable speech in the second congress of the Communist International that rejected Leninist views and foreshadowed Maoist peasant movements. Chatto himself was in Berlin until 1932 as the general secretary of the League Against Imperialism

League against Imperialism

The League against Imperialism was founded in the Egmont Palace in Brussels, Belgium, on February 10, 1927, in presence of 175 delegates, among which 107 came from 37 countries under colonial rule. The Congress aimed at creating a "mass anti-imperialist movement" at a world scale, and was...

and was able to convince Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru , often referred to with the epithet of Panditji, was an Indian statesman who became the first Prime Minister of independent India and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the...

to affiliate the Indian National Congress

Indian National Congress

with the league in 1927. He later fled Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

for the Soviet Union but disappeared in 1937 under Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

's Great Purge

Great Purge

The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...

.

The Ghadar Party, suppressed during the war, revived itself in 1920 and openly declared its communist beliefs. Although sidelined in California, it remained relatively stronger in East Asia, where it allied itself with the Chinese Communist Party.

World War II

Although the conspiracy failed during World War I, the movement being suppressed at the time and several of its key leaders hanged or incarcerated, several prominent Ghadarites also managed to flee India to Japan and Thailand. The concept of a revolutionary movement for independence also found a revival amongst later generation Indian leaders, most notably Subhas Chandra Bose who, towards the mid-1930s, began calling for a more radical approach towards colonial domination. During World War II, several of these leaders were instrumental in seeking Axis support to revive such a concept. Bose himself, from the very beginning of World War II, actively evaluated the concept of revolutionary movement against the Raj, interacting with Japan and subsequently escaping to Germany to raise an Indian armed force, the Indische Legion, to fight in India against Britain. He later returned to Southeast Asia to take charge of the Indian National Army

Indian National Army

which was formed following the labour of exiled nationalists, efforts from within Japan to revive a similar concept, and the direction and leadership of people like Mohan Singh

Mohan Singh Deb

Mohan Singh was an Indian Military officer and member of the Indian Independence Movement most famous for his role in organising and leading the First Indian National Army in South East Asia during World War II...

, Giani Pritam Singh, and Rash Behari Bose. The most famous of these saw the formation of the Indian Independence League

Indian Independence League

The Indian Independence League was a political organisation operated from the 1920s to the 1940s to organize those living outside of India into seeking the removal of British colonial rule over India...

, the Indian National Army

Indian National Army

and ultimately the Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind in Southeast Asia.

Commemoration

The Ghadar Memorial Hall in San Francisco honours members of the party who were hanged following the Lahore conspiracy trial, and the Ghadar Party Memorial Hall in Jalandhar

Jalandhar

Jalandhar is a city in Jalandhar District in the state of Punjab, India. It is located 144 km northwest of the state capital, Chandigarh...

, Punjab commemorates the Ghadarites who were involved in the conspiracy. Several of those executed during the conspiracy are today honoured in India. Kartar Singh is honoured with a memorial at his birthplace of the Village of Sarabha. The Ayurvedic Medicine College

College

A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...

in Ludhiana is also named in his honour. The Indian government has produced stamps

Postage stamp

A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...

honouring several of those involved in the conspiracy, including Har Dayal

Har Dayal

Lala Har Dayal was a Indian nationalist revolutionary who founded the Ghadar Party in America. He was a polymath who turned down a career in the Indian Civil Service...

, Bhai Paramanand, and Rash Behari Bose

Rash Behari Bose

Rashbehari Bose was a revolutionary leader against the British Raj in India and was one of the key organisers of the Ghadar conspiracy and later, the Indian National Army.-Early life:...

. Several other revolutionaries are also honoured through India and the Indian American population.
A memorial plaque

Commemorative plaque

A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, typically attached to a wall, stone, or other vertical surface, and bearing text in memory of an important figure or event...

commemorating the Komagata Maru

Komagata Maru

was unveiled by Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru

at Budge Budge in Calcutta in 1954, while a second plaque was unveiled in 1984 at Gateway Pacific, Vancouver by the Canadian government. A heritage foundation to commemorate the passengers from the Komagata Maru excluded from Canada was established in 2005.
In Singapore, two memorial tablets at the entrance of the Victoria Memorial Hall and four plaques in St Andrew's Cathedral

St Andrew's Cathedral, Singapore

Saint Andrew's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Singapore, the country's largest cathedral. It is located near City Hall MRT Interchange in the Downtown Core, within the Central Area in Singapore's central business district. It is the Cathedral church of the Anglican Diocese of Singapore and...

commemorate the British soldiers and civilians killed during the Singapore Mutiny

1915 Singapore Mutiny

.
In Ireland, a memorial at the Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin commemorates the dead from the Jalandhar mutiny of the Connaught Rangers. The Southern Asian Institute of Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

today runs the Taraknath Das foundation to support work relating to India. Famous awardees include R K Narayan, Robert Goheen, Philip Talbot, Anita Desai

Anita Desai

Anita Mazumdar Desai is an Indian novelist and Emeritus John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...

and SAKHI and Joseph Elder.

Note on the name

The conspiracy

Conspiracy (political)

In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination....

is known under several different names, including the Hindu Conspiracy, the Indo-German Conspiracy, the Ghadar conspiracy (or Ghadr conspiracy), or the German plot. The term Hindu–German Conspiracy is closely associated with the uncovering of the Annie Larsen plot in the United States, and the ensuing trial of Indian nationalists and the staff of the German Consulate of San Francisco for violating American neutrality. The trial itself was called the Hindu-German Conspiracy trial, and the conspiracy was reported in the media (and later studied by several historians) as Hindu–German Conspiracy. However, the conspiracy involved not only Hindus and Germans, but also substantial numbers of Muslims and Punjabi Sikhs, and strong Irish support that pre-dated German and Turkish involvement. The term Hindu was used commonly in opprobrium in America to identify Indians

Demographics of India

The demographics of India are inclusive of the second most populous country in the world, with over 1.21 billion people , more than a sixth of the world's population. Already containing 17.5% of the world's population, India is projected to be the world's most populous country by 2025, surpassing...

regardless of religion. Likewise, conspiracy was also a negative term. The term Hindu Conspiracy was used by the government to actively discredit the Indian revolutionaries at a time the United States was about to join the war against Germany.

The term Ghadar Conspiracy

Ghadar Conspiracy

The Ghadar Conspiracy was a conspiracy for a pan-Indian mutiny in the British Indian Army in February 1915 formulated by the Ghadar Party...

may refer more specifically to the mutiny planned for February 1915 in India, while the term German plot or Christmas Day Plot

Christmas Day Plot

The Christmas Day plot was a conspiracy made by the Indian revolutionary movement to initiate an insurrection in Bengal in British India during World War I with German arms and support...

may refer more specifically to the plans for shipping arms to Jatin Mukherjee in Autumn 1915. The term Indo-German conspiracy is also commonly used to refer to later plans in Southeast Asia and to the mission to Kabul which remained the remnant of the conspiracy at the end of the war. All of these were parts of the larger conspiracy. Most scholars reviewing the American aspect use the name Hindu–German Conspiracy, the Hindu-Conspiracy or the Ghadar Conspiracy, while most reviewing the conspiracy over its entire span from Southeast Asia through Europe to the United States more often use the term Indo-German conspiracy.

External links

In the Spirit of Ghadar. The Tribune, Chandigarh
Kim, Hyung-Chan, Dictionary of Asian American History, New York: Greenwood Press,1986.From Sikhpioneers.org
India rising a Berlin plot. New York Times archives.
The Ghadr Rebellion by Khushwant Singh
Khushwant Singh
Khushwant Singh is a prominent Indian novelist and journalist. Singh's weekly column, "With Malice towards One and All", carried by several Indian newspapers, is among the most widely-read columns in the country....

, sourced from The Illustrated Weekly of India
The Illustrated Weekly of India
The Illustrated Weekly of India was an English language weekly newsmagazine publication in India. It started publication in 1880 and ceasing publication in 1993...

February 26, 1961, pp. 34–35; March 5, 1961, p. 45; and March 12, 1961, p. 41.
The Hindustan Ghadar Collection, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Background

Indian revolutionary underground

Indian and Irish networks

Ghadar Party

Germany and the Berlin Committee

Conspiracy

East Asia

Europe and United States

Pan-Indian mutiny

February 1915

Christmas Day Plot

Afghanistan and the Middle East

Culmination

Counter intelligence

In Asia

In Europe and the Middle East

In the United States

Trials

Impact

Political impact

International relations

Ghadar Party and IIC

World War II

Commemoration

Note on the name

See also

External links