Planning of Ghadr

Planning of Ghadr Although no document of formal planning of armed action is available in any source but there finds a reference to a suggested plan is available from a letter written by Dr Thakar Singh Ikolaha from Canton (China) to Giani Bhagwan Singh (then at Hong Kong) on the 17th of November 1914. This letter could not reach Bhagwan Singh as he had already left his place; and, it could not be delivered to him even after having been directed to his new addresses; it finally fell into the hands of censure at Hong Kong; which opened it and got it deciphered from Punjabi into English (as a result of this letter Dr Thakar Singh was arrested and deported to India, and imprisoned for four and a half years in different jails). According to this letter, Dr. Thakar Singh had suggested that on the birthday of Guru Gobind Singh, a joint action will be launched simultaneously in all the tehsils, police stations and districts; the revolutionary forces will murder the English officials and, in their place, patriot workers shall be appointed; the Indian soldiers should have already been prepared to join revolutionary action; hence the Punjab will soon be captured and freed; and, the English forces, being busy in war against Germany won’t be able to do much. All this action will be done on the same day throughout the Punjab. According to the letter Dr Thakar Singh had offered to take charge of Ludhiana district. This was the proposed plan of action to free the Punjab, which had been suggested and discussed by the Ghadr leaders and workers; but this was not acceptable to Lala Hardyal and other Hindu leaders who suggested that the action for expelling the English should be started from Kashmir and North West Frontier Province (N.W.F.P.); it was a strange suggestion because in these two zones there was not a single person who was interested in participating in an armed action; and on the other side more than 90% of the Ghadrites were Sikhs, but, it seems that Hardyal and his associates were not willing to hand over power to the Sikhs; it was one of the reasons that led to failure of Ghadr planning. (It is widely believed that either Hardyal had been planted by the English intelligence because first he tried to thwart the Punjab action; and when he could not stop it, he ‘retired’ from all the struggle for freedom; or having been once arrested in the USA, and moving to Switzerland after release on bail, he realized that struggle would also mean being in jail also, so he retired from all political activity; after his he .began living in Switzerland and adopted western way of life; later he was found dead in mysterious circumstances; it is possible that he might have been dubbed as a traitor and killed by some revolutionaries).