(Supplementary Lahore Conspiracy Case 1915)
All these years I have been trying, in vain, to find out if there is any mention at all in the records of the various organizations associated with Ghadar Movement about my father Kapur Singh Kaonke's involvement.
One day, it so happened that my granddaughter Ravleen Kaur, who was then a student in Grade 12, was conducting research on the internet to uncover some clues about her great-grandfather Kapur Singh Kaonke. The word "Ghadar" caught her attention and aroused her curiosity. She kept following up relentlessly until she found an online listing of the Ghadar Directory, containing the names of 1149 people. She ran her finger down the list until she stumbled upon one name appearing at number 591 on the list and that was Kapur Singh Kaonke. (pictured right)
Wild with excitement, she came running all the way just to share with me what she found. This new discovery was really invigorating and inspired me to look right away for books that might throw some light on the participation of my father in the movement.
Sardar Kapur Singh Kaonke (later on, Jagjit Singh) was born to father Chanda Singh and mother Kishan Kaur in 1901 at village Kaonke, district Ludhiana. He was the second of five siblings - 3 brothers and 2 sisters.
In 1914, the Ghadar movement got a fresh lease of life and grew in strength when the news arrived that Kamagata Maru Ship, coming from America with 400 armed men on board, was on its way to India to wage war for the nation's liberation from the yokes of England.
In those days, poets and orators held conferences and seminars, using their every professional skill to inspire the people. The main object of these speeches was to instill a patriotic feeling in the young men, to raise their level of political consciousness, and finally, to prepare them for the ensuing revolution. They told the audience that Englishmen were not only interfering with their religion but also emptying the pockets of India's poor people to fill their own coffers in England. Britain's war was with Germany. But rather than sending their English regiments on the front, they were sending Sikh regiments while keeping their own in the rear. The speech-makers called on the public to rise, unite and take advantage of England's preoccupation by the war with Germany.
Their ultimate goal was to establish an independent Indian government after throwing the British rule out of the country. The whole atmosphere across the country, particularly in Punjab, was agog with excitement. The Indian public was confident that freedom was around the corner. Their confidence stemmed from their strong belief that under the pressure of war with Germany and agitations in India against British rule, England would be left with no option but to leave the country. Unfortunately, that proved to be only their wishful thinking.
The Ghadar movement failed because of infiltration of British intelligence agents therein. The round-the-clock vigil of the revolutionaries by these agents helped them successfully thwart the plans of revolutionaries and thus shatter their dream of freedom.
My father, who was a 14-year-old student of the 8th class, came in contact with Sardar Arjan Singh of Jagraon. Arjan Singh (who was later transported for life, place not known) gave a long sermon on the fruits of freedom and curses of slavery. The sermon, which my father listened to with rapt attention, had a profound impact on his tender mind. Sardar Arjan Singh exhorted my father to join the Ghadar movement. Without any loss of time, he nodded his approval - much against the wishes of his family. In their larger interest, the family counseled him to disassociate from the movement. The family was of the view that his involvement, apart from proving harbinger of the problems, could eventually bring a bad name to the family as well, resulting in their isolation from society. My father politely told them that he appreciated their grave concern and respected their advice, but he would follow the dictates of his own conscience. No amount of persuasion or pressure could weaken his resolve to do what he had to do. And he did as he said he would. He rolled up his sleeves, gird up his loins, and plunged in the movement headlong, never looking back.
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Gadar Movement is the saga of courage, valor and determination of overseas Indians who had come to Canada and the United States either for higher education or for economic opportunities. They imbibed the fire and zeal of revolutionaries and became the trail blazers of freedom struggle for their motherland, India. They may have lived ordinary lives but they left an extra-ordinary legacy. |
*The scheme of revolutionaries was to involve all levels of society: army-men, villagers and students. To the army-men, they taunted that it was a matter of utmost regret and shame that instead of fighting for their own country, holding their own tri-color flag, they were fighting for the whites, holding their flag, and that too against Germany whose people had the greatest sympathy and respect for India. To the villagers, they urged them to refuse paying revenue to Lambardars, to rob the latter when going to deposit revenue in the treasuries, and to utilize that loot for the movement. They particularly advocated preventing reservists and soldiers on leave from returning to their regiments. Finally, they targeted students. Some of the students were supposed to be sent to Germany and America to receive an education, and more importantly, to learn how to make bombs, dynamites, and guns. The rest of the boys in India were given the assignment of getting together material for bombs, printing seditious letters, carrying messages between the revolutionists, and spreading the news of rebellion across the country. My father was one of those boys.
The movement was divided into groups and each group was assigned its duty. The duty of my father's group was to obtain materials for making bombs. The Ghadarites, in the guise of earthen pot makers (Ghumiars), used donkeys for moving the ammunition from one place to another. They carried bags that contained three-fourths cow dung cakes and one-fourth ammunition hidden therein obviously to escape the attention of pursuers.
**On 2nd June 1915, the Ghadarites held a meeting in which the decision was taken to raid the government state treasuries at Kapurthala on 5 June 1915 for arms, ammunition, and money. Their aim was to utilize these materials for further attacking the central Lahore and Montgomery Jails, to secure the release of their men detained therein, and to kill English people. The assignment of my father and Arjun Singh of Jagraon was to get bomb materials for the attack and they were given money for that purpose.
On the 5th of June, contrary to expectations, only 18 or 19 people, a number of whom were armed, turned up. That meeting was also attended by one Kapurthala state forces sepoy who was to guide them to the treasury and get them the arms. Considering the insufficiency of the number for the task at hand, the attack was postponed until the 12th of June and asked those present there to bring with them as many people as they could collect.
After the meeting dispersed, it soon happened that two Bawarias, (who, in those days, and even after freedom was attained, were looked down upon as a criminal tribe by many people. In fact, a look at their early history would show that these people were very sensitive, had a sense of pride and self-honor, and were respectable members of the society) when looking for the whereabouts of partridges behind the military barracks, spotted the tracks of the revolutionaries until they came to where they had assembled. There were traces of chhavis (a spear-like weapon consisting of a long wooden shaft attached to a sharp pointed hooked metal head) on the sand, and some of the men had evidently burst through a thorn hedge. Their suspicions being confirmed, their follow-up of the tracks to and fro led them to origin of the tracks. Seven men had gone to Kartarpur, three to Cantonments and four to the village of Kala Sangian. One of these four was my father, Kapur Singh Kaonke. The tracks of all but these four were lost on Pucca road. Then, with the help of a constable at Kala Sangian and a lambardar at Chitti Village, they followed up the tracks which led them to the Gurdwara at Chitti Village.
At the Gurdwara, my father was helping Arjan Singh bathe by drawing the buckets of water from the well for him. My father was wearing both his own and Arjan Singh's revolver. The police, who had already got the wind of 5th June meeting, came disguised in plain clothes and engaged my father in friendly conversation. After gaining his trust, they suddenly grabbed him, and then seized Arjan Singh as well. They cordoned the Gurdwara and took the other two members of the mission into custody as well.
Something happened there which may be of some interest to the readers. When Lambardar, who accompanied the party tracking the revolutionaries, looked at my father, he suddenly came to an abrupt stop and fixed his gaze on him in astonishment. Police asked him as to what happened. Tears welled up in his eyes and he said in a choked voice, that this boy's resemblance with his own son, who was no more in this world, was very striking. So he begged the police to permit him to take the boy to his village and show to his family with the promise to bring him back the next morning. The policeman, who was visibly moved, readily agreed. Lambardar took my father to the village, and knocked the door of his house. His daughter, who opened the door, shrieked and called her mother just to tell that their Joginder had come back. Soon, the whole family gathered around him and talked to him affectionately. Lambardar told his family that he was not their Joginder and told the whole story about his involvement in the movement. He further added that, God forbid, if the plan of the group of this boy had worked, there could have been countless deaths. The next morning, when he was about to leave with my father back to the police, his daughter again begged him not to take him. Then, Lambardar told his daughter that he was bound by his promise to hand him over back to the police, and did so accordingly on June 6, 1915.
As scheduled, a small party of 8-9 persons assembled at Kapurthala on 12th June, where they learnt of the arrests made at Chitti village. Realizing that the state authorities had come to know of their gathering on 5th June, they abandoned the idea of pursuing their plan further and dispersed promptly.
Thereafter, my father had been in jail for seven or eight months. The authorities, with a view to elicit the information from him about the programs of the movement, adopted every conceivable means, like tempting offers of higher education, free of charge, and high jobs and privileges from the government, and threats of ruining his life by implicating him in false cases in the event of his non-cooperation. But my father, following in the footsteps of those patriots who stood the test of times by practicing what they preached or professed, matching their words with their deeds, remained steadfast. And to the utter disappointment of authorities, he did not oblige them as they wishfully thought that a 14 year old kid could break down under the sustained and systematic psychological pressure.
When the judgment in the supplementary Lahore conspiracy case, 1915 was passed, 5 accused were sentenced to death, my father and 5 others were discharged, and most of the rest were either transported for life or awarded various terms of imprisonment. In my father's case, the judge observed that the boy, being only 14, was not mature enough to take his decisions and was misguided and let him off with a warning not to participate in future movements and devote his time to studies. There was another version of his discharge, that for want of sufficient evidence, he was not charged.
In some cases, not only death sentences were awarded, but the properties of the accused were forfeited as well, as if the death sentences were not enough to quench the thirst of these British tyrants to their heart's content. One can assume, though not guarantee that the death sentence, in certain cases, may be justified, to meet the ends of the justice. But one may ask these tyrants, what did the properties of the accused do to deserve their forfeiture? They were totally devoid of a sense of humanity and threw all the established norms of decent behavior to the winds.
Contrary to the common belief that after the release, one leads a normal life without any problem, my father's suffering just started. When he went to his school he found - to his shock - that his name had been struck off the rolls of class with the remarks by the headmaster of the school that he was a rebel. He started moving from one school to another only to be turned back, let alone getting any admission. The common fear among the schools was that, if admitted, he would bring a bad name to their schools, ultimately resulting in their closures.
At last, some prominent person of the area took him to Malwa Khalsa High School at Ludhiana and introduced him to the headmaster. The headmaster, who listened to his story, was visibly moved at his plight and counseled him to take Amrit and change his name, which my father did from Kapur Singh to Jagjit Singh. Thereafter, he was allowed admission in the 8th class. He studied at that school for some time and finally moved to Khalsa College, Amritsar and passed his matriculation examination from there in 1919.
In 1920, my father married my mother Chattar Kaur, daughter of Ishar Singh and Ram Dei. After marriage, he moved to Lucknow where he obtained his diploma in civil engineering from Hewlett Engineering College. I was born in 1924. I was 10 months old when my father moved with his family to Burma. He stayed there for 6 years and returned to India in 1930. We were 8 siblings, 4 brothers, 4 sisters. I was the eldest. Two brothers and 2 sisters died before they reached the age of 5.
Because of his blacklisting, he could not get government jobs and kept doing private jobs. He did 16 jobs, ranging from 6 months to 2.5 years. He had a very hard time, struggling his entire life for his very survival to feed his family. He never had a sigh of relief. Except doing jobs, he had no other source of income. In those days, British government used to forfeit the properties of persons even on the slightest suspicion. Fearing that his property may also be forfeited one day, his father Chanda Singh, donated his 10-acre land to the Dera named as Ram Sharan Das Da Dera.
After his release, police had been visiting his village Kaonke almost every year to harass his parents by inquiring of his whereabouts, just to ensure that he was not back in the movement. The harassment continued until 1949. I studied in the village for 3 years. They even harassed me and used to shout and ask me if I also followed the path of my father by making bombs. On hearing the shouts of the police, the neighbor promptly showed up and helped us by telling the police, that this boy was only concerned with his studies and had nothing to do with the movement. On the assurance of the neighbors, they would leave.
No organization associated with Ghadr movement ever bothered to find out where Kapur Singh Kaonke was and what he was going through. Both in Punjab and New Delhi, many governments came and went. None of them bothered about freedom fighters, particularly of Ghadarites. At long last, after strong protests from various organizations and political sufferers, the Central government woke up from its slumber and announced the political sufferers' pension scheme. My father, when asked to apply for that pension, declined, saying that this government being a beggar itself, had nothing to give to him.
My father, who was a devout Sikh, spent the last three or four years of his life at Gurdwara Nanaksar of Sant Baba Nand Singh Ji Maharaj of Kaleran wale, participating in Akhand Paths, Seva (social service) and being a civil engineer giving his guidance as sought by the management of the construction work of the extension of Nanaksar. After prolonged illness left this world for his heavenly abode in 1976.
After his death, my mother, Chattar Kaur, on our repeated requests, applied for pension, but unfortunately she failed to get it because of her inability to meet the high demands of bribery by the officers. She also took part in the Punjabi Suba agitation and had been in jail for 6 months. After a brief illness she expired in 1989.
All parties, during their campaigns, always paint a rosy picture of the fruits of freedom, telling the audience that all citizens of the country, irrespective of their caste or creed, their social or economic status, were entitled to equal share of freedom to enjoy. Unfortunately, the fruits, rather than reach the poor, percolate to the leaders. History is witness. The leaders never suffered. Far from suffering, they enjoy life both before and after freedom. Before freedom, watching from their ivory towers, they send instructions to their rank and file as how to carry on the fight while basking in the shine of the applauses, admiring their leadership. After freedom is achieved, they reap all the benefits that flow from the seat of power they happen to occupy. The poor rank and file deny themselves all the comforts of life, and in all sincerity, fight for the freedom of their country. After freedom, they lead their lives brooding and struggling hard for their very survival to feed their families.
In some people's view, the conviction by the court is the only criterion by which the sacrifice of the person should be judged. And the ones who are discharged for want of sufficient proof, according to them do not qualify for recognition of their contribution as sacrifice. This is really a sad commentary on the fairness of our society. There are many unsung heroes like my father who, because of their discharge by the court, were totally ignored and with the passage of time they fell into oblivion. The brushing aside of their contributions during the period since they joined the movement and until their arrest was a great disservice to them.
There is no denying the fact that staying away from one's dearest and nearest ones for a long period, ranging from two years to fifteen years, because of imprisonment, is a great sacrifice. And there can be no two opinions about it. However, in fairness, the contributions of those who were discharged by the court for want of sufficient proof should not go unrecognized. And they rightly deserve their places in the history of the Ghadr movement and sacrifices of the Ghadrites as equal among equals and second to none.
In the end, I would like to say that all we desire is recognition of the sacrifices made by my father. At least he should be remembered as one, who, at his tender age of 14, fully conscious of the consequences of his involvement, plunged in the struggle headlong. Right since the day he joined the movement and until the day of his arrest, he had been present at almost all the meetings of the party and fully participated in its deliberations and crucial decision. In consequence, both his academic and professional careers suffered. Judging by any standards, this was, in no way, a small sacrifice.
References:
Courtesy: Ghadr Movement Original Documents Vol 1 - Lahore Conspiracy Cases I and II by Malwinderjit Singh Waraich and Harinder Singh
*[pages 190-193, 206]
**[pages 329-33, 247]
Ghadr Movement
Many Sikhs and Hindu Punjabis who tasted freeddom outside colonial India in USA started Ghadr movement to free India from British rule in early 1900's. These Sikhs and Punjabi Hindus were sent to Canada which was under British rule for labour work. They crossed the border over to USA and settled in Western Coast of USA in cities like Portland, San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles. These Punjabis created Gurdwaras and established societies. They were subject to draconian laws like "not allowed to marry to american woman" by many of these states at that time. The word Ghadr can be commonly translated as mutiny, was the name given to the newspaper edited and published for the Hindustani Association of the Pacific Coast which was founded at Portland, United States of America, in 1912. The movement this Association gave rise to for revolutionary activities in India also came to be known by the designation of Ghadr........more
Source
Additional reading:
http://www.bhagatsinghthind.com/gadar.html
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Arjit Singh
[The author is the son of Kapur Singh Kaonke, and after retiring from Central Secretariat Service New Delhi as a section officer is now settled in the USA.]
Permanent contact: 1-(503) 590-6748
Current contact: 1-408-779-8754