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All 24 themes of modern India Now open: Revolutionary nationalism, first phase

Part A The British conquest 1707 to 1857

  1. 01Mughal decline and the regional powers
  2. 02The European trading companies
  3. 03The Carnatic Wars
  4. 04The conquest of Bengal
  5. 05The wars of expansion
  6. 06Instruments of expansion and the frontiers
  7. 07Resistance before 1857
  8. 08The Revolt of 1857

Part B Awakening and early nationalism 1857 to 1915

  1. 09Socio religious reform movements
  2. 10Rise of organised nationalism
  3. 11Partition of Bengal and Swadeshi
  4. 12Revolutionary nationalism, first phase

Part C The Gandhian era 1893 to 1947

  1. 13Gandhi in South Africa
  2. 14The First World War years
  3. 15Khilafat and Non Cooperation
  4. 16Civil Disobedience
  5. 17The Left in the national movement
  6. 18Caste movements and the depressed classes
  7. 19Peasant, worker, tribal and princely state movements
  8. 20Quit India and the INA
  9. 21Communal politics and the Muslim League
  10. 22Partition and independence
  11. 23Women, capitalists, foreigners and others

Part D After 1947 1947 to 1975

  1. 24Integration and reorganisation

Theme 12Part B · Awakening and early nationalism

Revolutionary nationalism, first phase

1897 to 1915 · secret societies at home and centres abroad

Alongside the Moderates and the Extremists ran a third current: armed revolution. This theme follows it in three places: in India, in Europe and North America, and on the voyage of the Komagata Maru. The second phase, after 1920, comes in Theme 15.

18951900190519101915Revolutionaries at homeChapekarsMuzaffarpurHardinge bombBalasoreAbroadIndia HouseDhingraGhadarKomagata Maru and GhadarKomagata Marurising fails

Event 11897 to 1915

Revolutionaries at home

When the swadeshi movement was crushed and the Extremists jailed, young men who had joined it turned to secret societies, bombs and pistols. They hoped individual acts of courage would shake British rule and rouse the people.

PuneRand killed 1897 NasikAbhinav Bharat; Jackson 1909 Bombay CalcuttaAnushilan, Jugantar DaccaAnushilan Muzaffarpur30 April 1908 MidnaporeKhudiram's home BalasoreBagha Jatin 1915 LahoreAjit Singh 1907 DelhiHardinge bomb 1912 ManiyachiAshe killed 1911

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The Chapekar brothers shoot Rand, the plague commissioner at Pune (June 1897). V. D. Savarkar founds the Mitra Mela (1899), which becomes Abhinav Bharat (1904). At Nasik Anant Kanhere kills the collector Jackson (1909).

Centre of revoltRevolutionaries

Event 21905 to 1915

Revolutionaries abroad

Abroad, Indians could print and plan beyond the reach of Indian police. A chain of centres grew from London and Paris to Berlin, San Francisco and Tokyo.

LondonIndia House 1905; Dhingra 1909 ParisCama, Indian Society Stuttgartflag, 1907 BerlinCommittee 1915 MarseillesSavarkar 1910

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India House, London (1905), founded by Shyamji Krishna Varma, who edited The Indian Sociologist. Madan Lal Dhingra shoots Curzon Wyllie in London (1909); Savarkar, arrested, makes a famous escape attempt at Marseilles (1910). Madam Bhikaji Cama unfurls an Indian flag at the Socialist Congress in Stuttgart (1907). The Berlin Committee (1915) of Virendranath Chattopadhyaya and others seeks German help.

Centre of revoltTown or cityRevolutionaries
Europesee the map above San FranciscoGhadar Party 1913 Vancouver KabulProvisional Govt 1915 Singaporemutiny 1915 TokyoRash Behari Bose

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Indian, mostly Punjabi, workers on the Pacific coast found the Ghadar Party at San Francisco (1913), with Lala Har Dayal and Sohan Singh Bhakna. Its paper Ghadar is printed in Urdu and Gurmukhi at the Yugantar Ashram.

Centre of revoltRevolutionaries

Event 31914 to 1915

Komagata Maru and the Ghadar rising

In 1914 two things came together: Canada shut its doors to Indians, and Britain went to war with Germany. The Ghadarites decided it was time to go home and rise.

Hong Kong to Vancouver turned back Hong Kong Vancouver Yokohama Singapore Budge Budge29 Sept 1914

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Gurdit Singh charters the Japanese ship Komagata Maru to carry 376 Indians, mostly Sikhs, from Hong Kong to Vancouver, to test Canada's rule that immigrants must come by a continuous journey from their country of birth.

Centre of revoltTown or cityRevolutionaries
  1. 1914 to 1915 Thousands of Ghadarites return to Punjab to raise the army.
  2. 21 Feb 1915 The rising fixed by Rash Behari Bose is betrayed by an informer; the date is brought forward to 19 February, but the government strikes first.
  3. 1915 Lahore conspiracy trials: Kartar Singh Sarabha, aged 19, among those hanged. Bhagat Singh would later call him his hero.
  4. 1915 The Defence of India Act gives the government sweeping war time powers.

Who's who14 people

People

Chapekar brothers

Pune

Damodar and Balkrishna; killed Rand (1897).

V. D. Savarkar

Abhinav Bharat

Wrote The Indian War of Independence, 1857 (1909); transported to the Andamans.

Barindra Kumar Ghosh

Jugantar

Aurobindo's brother; Alipore case.

Khudiram Bose

Muzaffarpur

Hanged at 18 (1908).

Bagha Jatin

Jugantar

Jatindranath Mukherjee; killed at Balasore (1915).

Rash Behari Bose

Delhi and Ghadar

Hardinge bomb; escaped to Japan.

Shyamji Krishna Varma

London

India House; The Indian Sociologist.

Madan Lal Dhingra

London

Shot Curzon Wyllie (1909).

Bhikaji Cama

Paris

Raised the flag at Stuttgart (1907).

Lala Har Dayal

Ghadar Party

Its founder in San Francisco.

Sohan Singh Bhakna

Ghadar Party

First president.

Kartar Singh Sarabha

Ghadar

Hanged in 1915 aged 19.

Gurdit Singh

Komagata Maru

Chartered the ship.

Raja Mahendra Pratap

Kabul

President of the Provisional Government (1915).

Key terms7

Terms

Anushilan Samiti
Bengal's main revolutionary society, from 1902.
Jugantar
Revolutionary group and newspaper of Barindra Ghosh.
Abhinav Bharat
Savarkar's secret society (1904).
India House
Hostel and centre for Indian students in London (1905).
Ghadar
Revolt: the party (1913) and its newspaper.
Continuous journey rule
Canada's 1908 rule that kept out Indian immigrants.
Defence of India Act
1915; war time emergency powers.

Maps are drawn on the Survey of India outline used across VidBodh; maps that leave the subcontinent use a world base with India shown as the Survey of India depicts it. Coloured glows show where a power held sway, a movement spread or tribute was collected; they are not borders.