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195-686: See also: Hindu–German Conspiracy The Hindu–German Conspiracy was a series of attempts between 1914 and 1917 by Indian nationalist groups to create a Pan-Indian rebellion against the British Empire during World War I . This rebellion was formulated between the Indian revolutionary underground and exiled or self-exiled nationalists in the United States. It also involved the Ghadar Party , and in Germany

390-552: A Jugantar Party member and at the time one of the leading revolutionary figures in Bengal. The office of the 25-member committee at No.38 Wielandstrasse was accorded full embassy status. German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg authorized German activity against British India as World War I broke out in September 1914. Germany decided to actively support the Ghadarite plans. Using

585-606: A subsidiary alliance . The Company subsequently seized control of regions ruled by the Maratha Empire , after defeating them in a series of wars. Much of Punjab was annexed in the year 1849, after the defeat of Sikh armies in the First (1845–46) and Second (1848–49) Anglo-Sikh Wars. Maveeran Alagumuthu Kone was an early revolutionary against the British presence in Tamil Nadu. He became

780-747: A 1908 attempt on board a ship called the SS Moraitis which sailed from New York for the Persian Gulf , before it was searched at Smyrna . 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 , Joseph McGarrity , Roger Casement , Éamon de Valera , Father Peter Yorke and Larry de Lacey. These pre-war contacts effectively set up

975-450: A German arms delivery. Police went on to find out the hiding places of Bagha Jatin and associates and after a gun-fight, the revolutionaries were either killed or arrested. The German plot thus failed. Following these major setbacks, and in the new circumstances of the colonial powers practising their divide and rule policy, there was an attempt to unify the revolutionary factions in Bengal. Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar were brought close by

1170-653: 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 was favorable for revolution. By October 1914, many Ghadarites had returned to India and were assigned tasks like contacting Indian revolutionaries and organizations, spreading propaganda and literature, and arranging to get arms into

1365-684: A century later, the Dutch and English established trading outposts on the Indian subcontinent, with the first English trading post set up at Surat in 1613. Over the next two centuries, the British defeated the Portuguese and Dutch but remained in conflict with the French. The decline of the Mughal Empire in the first half of the eighteenth century allowed the British to establish a foothold in Indian politics. During

1560-549: A combined religious school and bomb factory at a garden house in Maniktala suburb of Calcutta . However, the attempted murder of district Judge Kingsford of Muzaffarpur by Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki (30 April 1908) initiated a police investigation that led to the arrest of many of the revolutionaries. Bagha Jatin was one of the senior leaders in Jugantar. He was arrested, along with several other leaders, in connection with

1755-654: A common alliance against the British. After Rajguru's death, Bakshi Jagabandhu launched an armed revolution against the East India Company's rule in Odisha. This is now known as the Paik Rebellion , the first uprising against the British East India Company. The Indian war of independence of 1857 was a large uprising in northern and central India against the East India Company. The conditions of service in

1950-630: A common umbrella under the leadership of Rash Behari Bose in North India, V. G. Pingle in Maharashtra , and Sachindranath Sanyal in Benares . A plan was made for a unified general uprising, with the date set for 21 February 1915. In India, unaware of the delayed shipment and confident of being able to rally the Indian sepoy , the plot for the mutiny took its final shape. Under the plans, the 23rd Cavalry in Punjab

2145-556: A defecting Baltic-German agent under the alias " Oren ". 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 9 September 1915, he and a group of five revolutionaries armed with Mauser pistols made a last stand on the banks of

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2340-460: A good deal on the ensuing World War to organise an armed uprising with the Indian soldiers in various regiments. During World War I the Jugantar Party arranged importation of German arms and ammunitions (notably the 32 bore German automatic pistols) via Virendranath Chattopadhyay alias Chatto and other revolutionaries residing in Germany. They had contacted Indian revolutionaries active in

2535-559: A head when the 1912 Delhi–Lahore Conspiracy , led by erstwhile Jugantar member Rash Behari Bose , attempted to assassinate the then- Viceroy of India , Charles Hardinge . In the aftermath of this event, the British Indian police made concentrated 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

2730-531: A major platform for loyalists' demands for political liberalization and for increased autonomy. The nationalist movement grew with the founding of underground groups in the 1890s. It became particularly strong, radical and violent in Bengal and in Punjab , along with smaller but nonetheless notable movements in Maharashtra , Madras and other places of South India. In Bengal the revolutionaries more often than not recruited

2925-521: A military leader in the town of Ettayapuram and was defeated in battle against the British and Maruthanayagam's forces. He was executed in 1757. Puli Thevar opposed the Nawab of Arcot , who was supported by the British. Maruthanayagam Pillai was a commandant of the British East India Company's Madras Army . He was born in a Tamil Vellalar caste family in a village called Panaiyur in British India , what

3120-488: A million rifles . However, the deal fell through when they realized that the weapons offered were obsolete flintlocks 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

3315-525: A network which the German foreign office tapped into as war began in Europe. Large-scale Indian immigration to the Pacific coast of North America took place in the 20th-century, especially from Punjab, which faced an economic depression . The Canadian government met this influx with legislation aimed at limiting the entry of South Asians into Canada and at restricting the political rights of those already in

3510-581: A number of attacks of figureheads of the Raj, culminating in the attempt on the life of a British judge in Muzaffarpur. This precipitated the Alipore bomb case , whilst a number of revolutionaries were killed, or captured and put on trial. Revolutionaries like Khudiram Bose , Prafulla Chaki , Kanailal Dutt who were either killed or hanged became household names. The British newspaper, The Empire , wrote: Khudiram Bose

3705-447: A pan-Islamic insurrection beginning in the tribal belt of north-west India . 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

3900-626: A planter from Batavia , 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. By

4095-617: A previous stay in London, and his subsequent career in Japan put him at the heart of Indian political activities there. Myron Phelp, an acquaintance of Krishna Varma and an admirer of Swami Vivekananda , founded an "India House" in Manhattan , New York, in January 1908. Amidst a growing Indian student population, erstwhile members of the India House in London succeeded in extending the nationalist work across

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4290-480: 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. 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

4485-755: A substantial scale. In October 1914, German Vice Consul E.H von Schack in San Francisco approved the arrangements for the funds and armaments. The German military attaché Captain Franz von Papen acquired $ 200,000 worth of small arms and ammunition through Krupp agents, and arranged for its shipment to India through San Diego, Java, and Burma. The arsenal included 8,080 Springfield rifles of Spanish–American War vintage, 2,400 Springfield carbines , 410 Hotchkiss repeating rifles , 4,000,000 cartridges , 500 Colt revolvers with 100,000 cartridges, and 250 Mauser pistols along with ammunition. The schooner Annie Larsen and

4680-558: A successful rendezvous off Socorro Island with the Maverick . The plot had already been infiltrated by British intelligence through Indian and Irish agents linked closely with the conspiracy. Upon her return to Hoquiam, Washington after several failed attempts, the cargo of the Annie Larsen was seized by US customs. The cargo was sold at auction despite German Ambassador Count Johann von Bernstoff 's attempts to take possession, insisting it

4875-478: A two-month legal battle, 24 of the passengers were allowed to immigrate. On reaching Calcutta, the passengers were detained under the Defence of India Act at Budge Budge by the British Indian government, which tried to forcibly transport them to Punjab. This caused rioting at Budge Budge, resulting in fatalities on both sides. Ghadar leaders like Barkatullah and Tarak Nath Das used the inflammatory passions surrounding

5070-507: A widespread political impact. Acting as a stimulus for radical nationalist opinion in India and abroad, it became a focal issue for Indian revolutionaries. Revolutionary organizations like Jugantar and Anushilan Samiti emerged in the 20th century. Significant events took place, including assassinations and attempted assassinations of civil servants , prominent public figures and Indian informants, including an attempt in 1907 to kill Bengal Lieutenant-Governor Sir Andrew Fraser . Matters came to

5265-620: A working committee with M. Rahnasamy of Andhra University serving as president and B.L. Rallia Ram of Lahore serving as general secretary. In its meeting on 16 and 17 April 1947, the joint committee prepared a 13-point memorandum that was sent to the Constituent Assembly of India , which asked for religious freedom for both organisations and individuals; this came to be reflected in the Constitution of India . The temperance movement in India became aligned with Indian nationalism under

5460-453: Is a blend of Gullick's attempts to assassinate Virendranath and Mata Hari 's story. Winston Churchill reportedly advised Maugham to burn 14 other stories. The Czech revolutionary network in Europe also had a role in uncovering Bagha Jatin '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 ,

5655-779: Is now in Nainarkoil Taluk, Ramanathapuram District of Tamil Nadu , India. He converted to Islam and was named Muhammad Yusuf Khan. He was popularly known as Khan Sahib when he became a ruler of Madurai. He became a warrior in the Arcot troops, and later a commandant for the British East India Company troops. The British and the Arcot Nawab employed him to suppress the Polygar (a.k.a. Palayakkarar) uprising in South India . Later he

5850-541: The Hindustan Ghadar essentially espoused the philosophies of anarchism 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

6045-464: The 5th Light Infantry stationed at 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

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6240-553: The Battle of Plassey , the East India Company's Army defeated Siraj ud-Daulah , the Nawab of Bengal , and the company established itself as a major player in Indian affairs. After the Battle of Buxar of 1764, it gained administrative rights over Bengal , Bihar and the Midnapur part of Odisha . After the defeat of Tipu Sultan , most of southern India came either under the company's direct rule, or under its indirect political control in

6435-538: The British Indian Army and build networks with underground revolutionary groups. 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 directive, took over

6630-628: The Chuar Rebellions in these regions from 1771 to 1809. Syed Mir Nisar Ali Titumir was an Islamic preacher who led a peasant uprising against the Hindu Zamindars of Bengal and the British during the 19th century. Along with his followers, he built a bamboo fort ( Bansher Kella in Bengali) in Narkelberia Village, which gained a prominent place into Bengali folk legend. After the storming of

6825-730: The Congress -led mainstream movement for dominion status as modest and its constitutional methods as soft. Ghadar's foremost strategy was to entice Indian soldiers to revolt. To that end, in November 1913 Ghadar established the Yugantar Ashram press in San Francisco . The press produced the Hindustan Ghadar newspaper and other nationalist literature. Towards the end of 1913, the party established contact with prominent revolutionaries in India, including Rash Behari Bose . An Indian edition of

7020-504: The Crown Prince of Germany during the latter's visit to Calcutta in 1912, and received assurances that he would receive arms and ammunition At the same time, an increasingly strong pan-Islamic movement began to develop, mainly in the North and North-West regions of India. At the onset of the war in 1914, members of this movement formed an important element of the conspiracy. At the time of

7215-587: The Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan . On 26 January 1950, the Constitution of India established the Republic of India. Pakistan adopted its first constitution in 1956. In 1971, East Pakistan declared its own independence as Bangladesh . The first European to reach India via the Atlantic Ocean was the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama , who reached Calicut in 1498 in search of spice. Just over

7410-778: The East India Association in 1866 and Surendranath Banerjee founded the Indian National Association in 1876. Inspired by a suggestion made by A.O. Hume , a retired Scottish civil servant, seventy-two Indian delegates met in Bombay in 1885 and founded the Indian National Congress. They were mostly members of the upwardly mobile and successful western-educated provincial elites, engaged in professions such as law, teaching and journalism. At its inception, Congress had no well-defined ideology and commanded few of

7605-631: The Ghadar on the Pacific coast were noted by W. C. Hopkinson , 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 as early as 1910. Francis Cunliffe Owen,

7800-669: The Howrah-Sibpur Conspiracy case . They were tried for treason, the charge being that they had incited various regiments of the army against the ruler. Several leaders of the Jugantar party including Aurobindo Ghosh were arrested in connection with bomb-making activities in Kolkata . Several of the activists were deported to the Andaman Cellular Jail . The Delhi-Lahore Conspiracy , hatched in 1912, planned to assassinate

7995-440: The Indian Sociologist and the Gaelic American published by Taraknath Das — moved in 1908 from Vancouver and Seattle to New York. Das established 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 led to some of the early but failed efforts to smuggle arms into India, including

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8190-441: The Indian independence committee in the decade preceding the Great War. The conspiracy began at the start of the war, with extensive support from the German Foreign Office , the German consulate in San Francisco , and some support from Ottoman Turkey and the Irish republican movement . The most prominent plan attempted to foment unrest and trigger a Pan-Indian mutiny in the British Indian Army from Punjab to Singapore . It

8385-495: The Indian rebellion of 1857 . His defiance to his British superiors and later his execution ignited the fire for 1857 Indian Rebellion . On 10 May 1857, the sepoys at Meerut broke ranks and turned on their commanding officers, killing some of them. They reached Delhi on 11 May, set the company's toll house on fire, and marched into the Red Fort, where they asked the Mughal emperor , Bahadur Shah II , to become their leader and reclaim his throne. The emperor eventually agreed and

8580-431: The Indische Legion and the Indian National Army , and in Italy Mohammad Iqbal Shedai formed the Battaglione Azad Hindoustan . Nationalism had become more and more prominent in India throughout the last decades of the 19th century as a result of the social , economic and political changes instituted in the country through the greater part of the century. The Indian National Congress , founded in 1885, developed as

8775-429: 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 they were 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

8970-419: The Kingdom of Mysore on the one hand, and the British East India Company (represented chiefly by the Madras Presidency ), and Maratha Confederacy and the Nizam of Hyderabad on the other. Hyder Ali and his successor Tipu Sultan fought a war on four fronts with the British attacking from the west, south, and east, while the Marathas and the Nizam's forces attacked from the north. The fourth war resulted in

9165-451: 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 , meanwhile, contributed significantly to the Allied war effort in World War I. Consequently, a reduced force, an estimated 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

9360-694: The Mahout was killed. The investigations in the aftermath of the assassination attempt led to the Delhi Conspiracy trial. Basant Kumar Biswas was convicted of having thrown the bomb and executed, along with Amir Chand Bombwal and Avadh Behari for their roles in the conspiracy. Jugantar The Jugantar party was established in April 1906 by leaders like Aurobindo Ghosh , his brother Barin Ghosh , Hemchandra Kanungo , and Upen Banerjee. Along with 21 revolutionaries, they started to collect arms, explosives and manufactured bombs. The headquarters of Jugantar were located at 27 Kanai Dhar Lane then 41 Champatola 1st Lane in Kolkata . Some senior members of

9555-419: 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 refugees 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, and

9750-404: The Suez Canal . 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 . Nationalist work also extended at this time to recruiting Indian prisoners of war in Constantinople , Bushire , and Kut-al-Amara . M. P. T. Acharya's own works were directed at forming

9945-416: The Sunderbans and Balasore in Orissa . The plan was to organize a guerrilla force to start an uprising in the country, backed by a mutiny among the Indian Armed Force. The whole plot leaked out locally owing to a native traitor and, internationally, through Czech revolutionaries in the United States. As soon as the information reached the British authorities, they alerted the police, particularly in

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10140-452: The University of California at Berkeley including Dayal, Tarak Nath Das , Kartar Singh Sarabha and V.G. Pingle . The party quickly gained support from Indian expatriates, especially in the United States, Canada and Asia. Ghadar meetings were held in Los Angeles , Oxford , Vienna , Washington, D.C. , and Shanghai . Ghadar's ultimate goal was to overthrow British colonial authority in India by means of an armed revolution . It viewed

10335-541: The partition of Bengal , Shyamji Krishna Varma founded India House in London and received extensive support from notable expatriate Indians including Madam Bhikaji Cama , Lala Lajpat Rai , S. R. Rana , and Dadabhai Naoroji . The organization – ostensibly a residence for Indian students – in reality sought to promote nationalist opinion and pro-independence work. India House drew young radical activists like M. L. Dhingra , V. D. Savarkar , V. N. Chatterjee , M. P. T. Acharya and Lala Har Dayal . It developed links with

10530-423: The third Anglo-Afghan war began. Pratap may also have influenced the " Kalmyk Project ", a Soviet plan to invade India through Tibet and the Himalayan buffer states. Another arm of the conspiracy was directed at the Indian troops who were serving in Middle East. In the Middle Eastern theatre, members of the Berlin Committee, including Har Dayal and M. P. T. Acharya , were sent on missions to Baghdad and Syria in

10725-407: 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

10920-655: The 20th century saw a more radical approach towards self-rule. The stages of the independence struggle in the 1920s were characterised by the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and Congress's adoption of Gandhi's policy of non-violence and civil disobedience . Some of the leading followers of Gandhi's ideology were Jawaharlal Nehru , Vallabhbhai Patel , Abdul Ghaffar Khan , Maulana Azad , and others. Intellectuals such as Rabindranath Tagore , Subramania Bharati , and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay spread patriotic awareness. Female leaders like Sarojini Naidu , Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit , Pritilata Waddedar , and Kasturba Gandhi promoted

11115-409: The Atlantic. The Gaelic American reprinted articles from the Indian Sociologist , while liberal press-laws allowed free circulation of the Indian Sociologist . Supporters could ship such nationalist literature and pamphlets 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

11310-403: The Berlin committee was able to convince Har Dayal that organising a revolution in India was feasible. In May 1914, the Canadian government refused to allow the 400 Indian passengers of the ship Komagata Maru to disembark at Vancouver . The voyage had been planned by Gurdit Singh Sandhu as an attempt to circumvent Canadian exclusion laws that effectively prevented Indian immigration. Before

11505-420: The British Empire and the abandonment of all British goods. This movement gained traction and huge following of the masses in the western and eastern parts of India. The moderates , led by leaders like Dadabhai Naoroji and Gopal Krishna Gokhale , on the other hand, wanted reform within the framework of British rule. Tilak was backed by rising public leaders like Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai , who held

11700-408: The British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli proclaimed Queen Victoria the Empress of India . The British Liberals objected as the title was foreign to British traditions. The decades following the Rebellion were a period of growing political awareness, the manifestation of Indian public opinion and the emergence of Indian leadership at both national and provincial levels. Dadabhai Naoroji formed

11895-402: The British forces. Chinnamalai engaged in guerrilla warfare and defeated the British in battles at Cauvery in 1801, Odanilai in 1802 and Arachalur in 1804. In 1804 the King of Khordha , Kalinga was deprived of his traditional rights to the Jagannath Temple. In retaliation, a group of armed Paiks attacked the British at Pipili . Jayee Rajguru , the chief of Army of Kalinga requested

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12090-483: The British government to pressure the American State Department to suppress Indian revolutionary activities and Ghadarite literature, which emanated mostly from San Francisco. With the onset of World War I , an Indian revolutionary group called the Berlin Committee (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

12285-466: The British, they aggressively set out to search for Birsa Munda, even setting up a reward for him. They brutally attacked the Dombari Hills where Birsa had repaired a water tank and made his revolutionary headquarters between 7–9 January 1900, murdering a minimum of 400 of the Munda warriors who had congregated there, akin to the attacks on the people at Jallianwallah Bagh , however, receiving much less attention. The hills are known as "Topped Buru" today –

12480-407: 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

12675-415: The Congress's early gains were slight. "Despite its claim to represent all India, the Congress voiced the interests of urban elites; the number of participants from other social and economic backgrounds remained negligible. However, this period of history is still crucial because it represented the first political mobilisation of Indians, coming from all parts of the subcontinent and the first articulation of

12870-463: 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 —especially Basra , Bushehr , and from Kut al Amara —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 to

13065-548: 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

13260-447: The Empire. This trend was personified by Dadabhai Naoroji , who went as far as contesting, successfully, an election to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom , becoming its first Indian member. Dadabhai Naoroji was the first Indian nationalist to embrace Swaraj as the destiny of the nation. Bal Gangadhar Tilak deeply opposed a British education system that ignored and defamed India's culture, history, and values. He resented

13455-418: The German Finance minister Karl Helfferich — 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 by

13650-440: The Germans from crossing into Afghanistan, and to protect British supply caravans in Sarhad from 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 who led it between March and October 1916. In the United States, the conspiracy was successfully infiltrated by British intelligence through Irish and Indian channels. The activities of

13845-410: The Germans. The Aga Khan 's brother was killed while fighting the rebels. The rebels also successfully harassed British forces in Sistan in Afghanistan, confining them to Karamshir in Balochistan, 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

14040-549: The Ghadarite conspiracy. In April 1915, unaware of the failure of the Annie Larsen plan, Papen arranged, through Krupp 's American representative Hans Tauscher, a second shipment of arms, consisting of 7,300 Springfield rifles, 1,930.3 pistols, ten Gatling guns and nearly 3,000,000 cartridges. The arms were to be shipped in mid June to Surabaya in the East Indies on the Holland American steamship SS Djember . However,

14235-666: 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

14430-676: 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. British intelligence began to note and track outlines and nascent ideas of

14625-793: 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, 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

14820-450: The Ghadarites. But the war in Europe turned for the worse for Turkey and Baghdad 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 . Amba Prasad Sufi was killed in this battle, but the Ghadarites carried on guerrilla warfare along with Iranian partisans until 1919. By

15015-617: The Hindu-dominated Congress, as the voice of a "nation within a nation". The Ghadar Party was formed overseas in 1913 to fight for the Independence of India with members coming from the United States and Canada, as well as Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Members of the party aimed for Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim unity against the British. In colonial India, the All India Conference of Indian Christians (AICIC), which

15210-769: The India House including Abhinash Bhattacharya , Dr. Abdul Hafiz, Padmanabhan Pillai, A. R. Pillai , M. P. T. Acharya and Gopal Paranjape. Germany had earlier opened the Intelligence Bureau for the East headed by archaeologist and historian Max von Oppenheim . Oppenheim and Arthur Zimmermann , the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the German Empire, actively supported the Berlin committee, which had links with Jatin Mukherjee —

15405-605: 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 in Bushire amongst Indian troops. The efforts were, however, ultimately hampered by differences between the Berlin committee members who were predominantly Hindus, and Indian revolutionaries already in Turkey who were largely Muslims. Further,

15600-612: The Indian border via Yunnan 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 seeking refuge at Manila harbour. However, US customs stopped these attempts. In the meantime, with the help of the German Consul to Thailand Remy,

15795-554: The Indian coast. The plan was proposed by Vincent Kraft , a German planter in Batavia who had been wounded fighting in France. It was approved by the foreign office on 14 May 1915, after consultation with the Indian committee, and the raid was planned for Christmas Day 1915 by a force of nearly one hundred Germans. Knipping made plans for shipping arms to the Andaman islands. However, Vincent Kraft

15990-460: The Indian leaders in Europe. A British agent named Donald Gullick was dispatched to assassinate Virendranath Chattopadhyaya while the latter was on his way to Geneva to meet Mahendra Pratap to offer him 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 after himself and Chandra Lal after Virendranath. The short story "Giulia Lazzari"

16185-804: 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 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 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

16380-448: The Nawab feared Yusuf Khan would come back to life and so had his body dismembered and buried in different locations around Tamil Nadu. In Eastern India and across the country, Indigenous communities organised numerous uprising against the British and their fellow members, especially landlords and moneylenders. One of the earliest of these on record was led by Binsu Manki around 1771 over

16575-535: The Nizam's earlier handover of his estate to them on similar grounds. Narayan Deo II fought the British at Jelmur fort on 4 April 1768 and was defeated due to superior firepower of the British. He fled to the tribal hinterlands of his estate and continued his efforts against the British until his natural death on the Fifth of December 1771. Rani Velu Nachiyar (1730–1796), was a queen of Sivaganga from 1760 to 1790. Rani Nachiyar

16770-644: 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 led by Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi . 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 and Imperial Germany for

16965-589: 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 , which it was hoped would weigh on Habibullah's advisory council to aid India and force

17160-508: The Russian anarchist Nicholas Safranski. After returning to Kolkata, he joined the combined school of 'self-culture' ( anushilan ) and bomb factory run by Barin Ghosh at a garden house in Maniktala , a suburb of Calcutta. However, the attempted murder of Kingsford, the-then district Judge of Muzaffarpur by Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki (30 April 1908) initiated a police investigation that led to

17355-718: The Russian revolution, Pratap opened negotiations with the Soviet Union, visiting Trotsky in Red Petrograd in 1918, and Lenin in Moscow in 1919 and he visited the Kaiser in Berlin in 1918. 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

17550-677: The SS Siberia , Chinyo Maru , China , Manchuria , SS Tenyo Maru , SS Mongolia and SS Shinyō Maru . Although the Korea' s party was uncovered and arrested on their 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 on helping revolutionaries to get into India. The Ghadarites in India were able to establish contact with sympathisers in

17745-579: The Scots–Irish Sister Nivedita , spread the passion for rejuvenation and freedom. The rediscovery of India's indigenous history by several European and Indian scholars also fed into the rise of nationalism among Indians. The triumvirate also is known as Lal Bal Pal ( Bal Gangadhar Tilak , Bipin Chandra Pal , Lala Lajpat Rai ), along with V. O. Chidambaram Pillai , Sri Aurobindo , Surendranath Banerjee , and Rabindranath Tagore were some of

17940-543: The Swadeshi movement changed the entire texture of Indian social and domestic life. The songs composed by Rabindranath Tagore, Rajanikanta Sen and Syed Abu Mohd became the moving spirit for the nationalists. The movement soon spread to the rest of the country and the partition of Bengal had to be firmly inhaled on the first of April 1912. By 1900, although the Congress had emerged as an all-India political organisation, it did not have

18135-644: The United States and in Japan emulated the example of London's India House. Krishna Varma nurtured close interactions with Turkish and Egyptian nationalists and with Clan na Gael in the United States. The joint efforts of Mohammed Barkatullah , S. L. Joshi and George Freeman founded the Pan-Aryan Association — modelled after Krishna Varma's Indian Home Rule Society — in New York in 1906. Barkatullah himself had become closely associated with Krishna Varma during

18330-563: The United States that have been linked to the conspiracy is the Black Tom explosion when, on the night of 30 July 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

18525-474: The United States, an elaborate plan and arrangement was made to ship arms from the country and from the Far East through Shanghai, Batavia , Bangkok 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

18720-586: The United States, as well as Jugantar leaders in Kolkata. Jatindra Nath Mukherjee informed Rash Behari Bose to take charge of Upper India, aiming at an All-Indian Insurrection with the collaboration of native soldiers in different cantonments. History refers to it as the Hindu German Conspiracy. To raise fund, the Jugantar party organized a series of dacoities which came to be known as Taxicab dacoities and Boat dacoities , in order to procure funds to prepare

18915-777: The aftermath of the Annie Larsen affair in 1917. The conspiracy resulted in the Lahore conspiracy case trials in India as well as the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial — at the time the longest and most expensive trial ever held in the United States. This series of events was pivotal for the Indian independence movement , and became a major factor in reforming the Raj's Indian policy. Similar efforts were made during World War II in Germany and in Japanese-controlled Southeast Asia . Subhas Chandra Bose formed

19110-514: 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. 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

19305-483: The aim of attacking the British, whom she successfully challenged in 1780. When the inventories of the Britishers were discovered, she is said to have arranged a suicide attack by a faithful follower, Kuyili , dousing herself in oil and setting herself alight and walking into the storehouse. Rani formed a women's army named "Udaiyaal" in honour of her adopted daughter, who had died detonating a British arsenal. Rani Nachiyar

19500-505: 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 insurrection in Calcutta was a planned raid on the penal colony in the Andaman Islands 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

19695-516: The arrest of many of the revolutionaries. The prisoners were tried in the famous Alipore bomb conspiracy case in which several activists were deported for life to the Cellular Jail in Andaman. In 1908, as a next step, Jugantar chose to censure persons connected with the arrest and trial of revolutionaries involved in the Alipore Bomb Case. On 10 February 1909, Ashutosh Biswas, who conducted

19890-503: The boycott of British goods and the people of India pledged to use only swadeshi or Indian goods and to wear only Indian cloth. Imported garments were viewed with hate. At many places, public burnings of foreign cloth were organised. Shops selling foreign cloths were closed. The cotton textile industry is rightly described as the Swadeshi industry. The period witnessed the growth of swadeshi textile mills . Swadeshi factories came into existence everywhere. According to Surendranath Banerji,

20085-497: The censors, leading to the arrest of the cell members. Among other plans that were considered at this time were conspiracies in June 1915 to assassinate Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey and War Minister Lord Kitchener . In addition, they also intended to target French President Raymond Poincaré and Prime Minister René Viviani , King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and his prime minister Antonio Salandra . These plans were coordinated with

20280-531: The charge of Ram Chandra Bharadwaj , 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 and an intermediary by the name of Charles Lattendorf established links with Bharadwaj. Meanwhile, in Switzerland

20475-478: The community. Faced with increasingly difficult situations, the community began organizing 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 on the east coast of North America towards 1910, but activity gradually shifted west to San Francisco. The arrival at this time of Har Dayal from Europe bridged

20670-416: The company's army and cantonments had increasingly come into conflict with the religious beliefs and prejudices of the sepoys . The predominance of members from the upper castes in the army, perceived loss of caste due to overseas deployment, and rumours of secret designs of the government to convert them to Christianity led to growing discontent. The sepoys were also disillusioned by their low salaries and

20865-602: The conspiracy as early as 1911. Incidents like the Delhi-Lahore Conspiracy and the 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

21060-569: The conspiracy at the last moment through a sepoy named Kirpal Singh . 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 21 January were thwarted. Attempted revolts in the 26th Punjab, 7th Rajput, 130th Baluch, 24th Jat Artillery and other regiments were suppressed. Mutinies in Firozpur , Lahore , and Agra were also suppressed and many key leaders of

21255-800: 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 , and V. G. Pingle was apprehended in Meerut. Mass arrests followed as the Ghadarites were rounded up in Punjab and the Central Provinces . Rash Behari Bose escaped from Lahore and in May 1915 fled to Japan. Other leaders, including Giani Pritam Singh , Swami Satyananda Puri and others fled to Thailand . On 15 February,

21450-461: The country. The Punjabi community had hitherto been an important loyal force for the British Empire and the Commonwealth . The community had expected that its commitment would be honored with the same welcome and rights which the British and colonial governments extended to British and white immigrants. The restrictive legislation fed growing discontent, protests and anti-colonial sentiments within

21645-501: The country. The first group of 60 Ghadarites led by Jawala Singh left San Francisco for Canton 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

21840-407: 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

22035-403: The date for the mutiny approached, a desperate Rash Behari Bose brought forward the mutiny day to the evening of 19 February, 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 Hayat Khan of the change of plans. Ordered back to his station to signal when the revolutionaries had assembled, Singh was detained by

22230-586: The delta region of the Ganges , and sealed all the sea approaches on the eastern coast from Noakhali - Chittagong side to Orissa. Sramajibi Samabaya and Harry & Sons of Calcutta, the two business concerns run respectively by Amarendra Chatterjee and Harikumar Chakrabarti which were taking an active part in the Indo-German Conspiracy were searched. The police learned that Bagha Jatin was in Balasore awaiting

22425-471: The denial of freedom of expression for nationalists, and the lack of any voice or role for ordinary Indians in the affairs of their nation. For these reasons, he considered Swaraj as the natural and only solution. His popular sentence "Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it" became the source of inspiration for Indians. In 1907, Congress was split into two factions: The radicals , led by Tilak , advocated civil agitation and direct revolution to overthrow

22620-597: The direction of Mahatma Gandhi , who saw alcohol as a foreign importation to the culture of the subcontinent. In July 1905, Lord Curzon , the Viceroy and Governor-General (1899–1905), ordered the partition of the province of Bengal . The stated aim was to improve administration. However, this was seen as an attempt to quench nationalistic sentiment through divide and rule . The Bengali Hindu intelligentsia exerted considerable influence on local and national politics. The partition outraged Bengalis. Widespread agitation ensued in

22815-603: The eastern coast of India, through Hatia on the Chittagong coast, Raimangal in the Sundarbans and Balasore in Orissa , instead of Karachi as originally decided. From the coast of the Bay of Bengal , these would be collected by Jatin's group. The date of insurrection was fixed for Christmas Day 1915, earning the name "The Christmas Day Plot". Jatin estimated that he would be able to win over

23010-475: The educated youth of the urban middle-class Bhadralok community that epitomized the "classic" Indian revolutionary , while in Punjab the rural and military society sustained organized violence. Other related events include: Parts of the conspiracy also included efforts to subvert the British Indian Army in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I . The controversial 1905 partition of Bengal had

23205-578: The emancipation of Indian women and their participation in the freedom struggle. Few leaders followed a more violent approach, which became especially popular after the Rowlatt Act , which permitted indefinite detention . The Act sparked protests across India, especially in the Punjab Province , where they were violently suppressed in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre . The Indian independence movement

23400-401: 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

23595-473: The fort by British soldiers, Titumir died of his wounds on 19 November 1831. These rebellions lead to larger regional movements in Jharkhand and beyond such as the Kol Insurrection led by Singhray and Binray Manki, where the Kol ( Munda , Oraon , Bhumij and Ho communities) united to rebel against the "outsiders" from 1830 -1833. The Santhal Hul was a movement of over 60,000 Santhals that happened from 1855 to 1857 (but started as early as 1784) and

23790-493: 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,

23985-471: The gap between the intellectual agitators in New York and the predominantly Punjabi labor workers and migrants in the west coast, and laid the foundations of the Ghadar movement . The Ghadar Party, initially the 'Pacific Coast Hindustan Association', was formed in 1913 in the United States under the leadership of Har Dayal , with Sohan Singh Bhakna as its president. It drew members from Indian immigrants, largely from Punjab. Many of its members were also from

24180-440: The ground for working out the Indo-German Conspiracy . The first of the Taxicab dacoities took place at Garden Reach , Kolkata on 12 February 1915, by a group of armed revolutionaries under the leadership of Narendra Bhattacharya under the direct supervision of Jatindranath Mukherjee. Similar dacoities were organized on different occasions and in various parts of Calcutta. Dacoities were accompanied by political murders in which

24375-414: The grounds that American war preparation could actually be directed against Japan. Later in 1915, Abani Mukherji — 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 to Chinese Presidency in 1916 led to negotiations reopening through his former private secretary, who resided in the United States at

24570-412: The group were sent abroad. One of the first batches included Surendra Mohan Bose , Tarak Nath Das and Guran Ditt Kumar , who, since 1907, were extremely active among the Hindu and Sikh immigrants on the Western coast of North America. These units were to compose the future Ghadar Party . In Paris Hemchandra Kanungo alias Hem Das , along with Pandurang M. Bapat , obtained training in explosives from

24765-426: The guise of an officer of the British General Headquarters, proceeded to France where he operated from Paris, working with the French political police, the Sûreté . Among Wallinger's recruits in the network was Somerset Maugham , who was recruited in 1915 and used his cover as an author to visit Geneva without Swiss interference. Among other enterprises, the European intelligence network attempted to eliminate some of

24960-551: The idea of India as one nation, rather than a collection of independent princely states. Religious groups played a role in reforming Indian society. These were of several religions from Hindu groups such as the Arya Samaj , the Brahmo Samaj , to other religions, such as the Namdhari (or Kuka ) sect of Sikhism . The work of men like Swami Vivekananda , Ramakrishna , Sri Aurobindo , V. O. Chidambaram Pillai , Subramanya Bharathy , Bankim Chandra Chatterjee , Rabindranath Tagore and Dadabhai Naoroji , as well as women such as

25155-417: 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 was established in July 1915 in the Sistan province of Persia to prevent

25350-491: 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

25545-425: The leadership Bundu and Konta. The Ho Rebellion took place when the Ho community first came in contact with the British, from 1820 to 1821 near Chaibasa on the Roro River in West Singhbhum , but were defeated by the technologically enhanced colonial cavalry. A larger Bhumij Revolt occurred near Midnapur in Bengal, under the leadership of Ganga Narain Singh who had previously also been involved in co-leading

25740-499: The leadership of Birsa Munda . Birsa Munda belonged to the Munda community and lead thousands of people from Munda, Oraon , and Kharia communities in "Ulgulaan" (revolt) against British political expansion and those who advanced it, against forceful conversions of Indigenous peoples into Christianity (even creating a Birsaite movement), and against the displacement of Indigenous peoples from their lands. To subdue these rising tensions which were getting increasingly out of control of

25935-463: 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

26130-438: The legitimacy of British rule in India in publications such as Jugantar and Sandhya , and were charged with sedition. The Partition also precipitated increasing activity from the then still Nascent militant nationalist revolutionary movement , which was particularly gaining strength in Bengal and Maharashtra from the last decade of the 1800s. In Bengal, Anushilan Samiti , led by brothers Aurobindo and Barin Ghosh organised

26325-404: The links established between Indian and Irish residents in Germany (including Irish nationalist and poet Roger Casement ) and the German Foreign Office, Oppenheim tapped into the Indo-Irish network in the United States. Har Dayal helped organise the Ghadar party before his arrest in the United States in 1914. He jumped bail and made his way to Switzerland, leaving the party and its publications in

26520-509: The moniker "The most dangerous organization outside India" from Valentine Chirol . In 1909 in London M. L. Dhingra fatally shot Sir W. H. Curzon Wyllie , political aide-de-camp to the Secretary of State for India . In the aftermath of the assassination, the Metropolitan Police and the Home Office rapidly suppressed India House . Its leadership fled to Europe and to the United States. Some, like Chatterjee, moved to Germany; Har Dayal and many others moved to Paris . Organizations founded in

26715-406: The mound of the dead. Birsa was ultimately captured in the Jamkopai forest in Singhbhum , and assassinated by the British in jail in 1900, with a rushed cremation/burial conducted to ensure his movement was subdued. The toughest resistance the Company experienced was offered by Mysore. The Anglo-Mysore Wars were a series of wars fought in over the last three decades of the 18th century between

26910-463: The murder of Police inspector Samsul Alam on 24 January 1910 in Calcutta and other charges. Thus started the Howrah-Sibpur Conspiracy case that tried the prisoners for treason, waging war against the Crown and tampering with the loyalty of Indian soldiers, such as those belonging to the Jat Regiment posted in Fort William , and soldiers in Upper Indian Cantonments. Nixon's Report corroborates that Jugantar under Jatindra Nath Mukherjee counted

27105-503: The officer heading the Home Office agency in New York, had become thoroughly acquainted with George Freeman 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 was incidentally established after Irish Republicans, sensing infiltration, encouraged formation of an exclusively Indian society. Indian nationalist movement The Indian Independence Movement

27300-422: The overthrow of the house of Hyder Ali and Tipu (who was killed in the final war, in 1799), and the dismantlement of Mysore to the benefit of the East India Company, which won and took control of much of India. Pazhassi Raja was the prince regent of the princely state of Cotiote in North Malabar, near Kannur , India between 1774 and 1805. He fought a guerrilla war with tribal people from Wynad supporting him. He

27495-425: The people. A Muslim deputation met with the Viceroy, Minto (1905–10), seeking concessions from the impending constitutional reforms, including special considerations in government service and electorates. The British recognised some of the Muslim League 's petitions by increasing the number of elective offices reserved for Muslims in the Indian Councils Act 1909 . The Muslim League insisted on its separateness from

27690-418: The plot through an Indian secret agent who was revealed the details by the Austrian chargé d'affaires . Thailand, although officially neutral, was allied closely with Britain and British India. On 21 July, 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

27885-405: The police on suspicion, many remained at large and began establishing contacts with garrisons in major cities like Lahore , Ferozepur and Rawalpindi . Various plans had been made to attack the military arsenal at Mian Meer, near Lahore and initiate a general uprising on 15 November 1914. In another plan, a group of Sikh soldiers, the manjha jatha , planned to start a mutiny in the 23rd Cavalry at

28080-411: The prominent leaders of movements in the early 20th century. The Swadeshi movement was the most successful. The name of Lokmanya began spreading around and people started following him in all parts of the country. The Indian textile industry also played an important role in the freedom struggle of India. The merchandise of the textile industry pioneered the Industrial Revolution in India and soon England

28275-482: The prosecution of Kanai and Satyen for the murder of Naren Gosain (a revolutionary turned approver), was shot dead by Charu Basu in the Calcutta High Court premises. Samsul Alam, Deputy Superintendent of Police, who conducted the Alipore Case was shot and killed by Biren Dutta Gupta on the stairs of Calcutta High Court building on 24 January 1910. Charu Basu and Biren Dutta Gupta were later hanged. Several including Jatindra Nath Mukherjee were arrested in connection with

28470-411: The racial discrimination practised by British officers in matters of promotion and privileges. The indifference of the British towards native Indian rulers and the annexation of Oudh furthered dissent. The Marquess of Dalhousie 's policy of annexation, the doctrine of lapse and the projected removal of the Mughals from their ancestral palace at Red Fort also led to popular anger. The final spark

28665-417: The rebels, coupled with the military superiority of the British, brought an end to the rebellion. The British fought the main army of the rebels near Delhi, and after prolonged fighting and a siege, defeated them and reclaimed the city on 20 September 1857. Subsequently, revolts in other centres were also crushed. The last significant battle was fought in Gwalior on 17 June 1858, during which Rani Lakshmibai

28860-412: The resources essential to a political organisation. Instead, it functioned more as a debating society that met annually to express its loyalty to the British and passed numerous resolutions on less controversial issues such as civil rights or opportunities in government (especially in the civil service). These resolutions were submitted to the Indian government and occasionally to the British Parliament, but

29055-440: The rest were transported for life to East Africa, 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 , 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

29250-410: The revolutionary movement in India and nurtured it with arms, funds and propaganda. Authorities in India banned The Indian Sociologist and other literature published by the House as "seditious". Under V. D. Savarkar's leadership, the House rapidly developed into a centre for intellectual and political activism and a meeting-ground for radical revolutionaries among Indian students in Britain, earning it

29445-399: The rights of native princes. The British stopped the policy of seizing land from the princes, decreed religious tolerance and began to admit Indians into the civil service. However, they also increased the number of British soldiers in relation to native Indian ones, and allowed only British soldiers to handle artillery. Bahadur Shah II was exiled to Rangoon where he died in 1862. In 1876

29640-409: The river Burhablanga. Seriously wounded in a gun battle that lasted seventy five minutes, Jatin died the next day in 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

29835-428: The sailing ship SS Henry S were hired to ship the arms out of the United States and transfer it to the SS  Maverick . 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

30030-484: The same point of view. Under them, India's three great states – Maharashtra , Bengal and Punjab shaped the demand of the people and India's nationalism. Gokhale criticised Tilak for encouraging acts of violence and armed resistance. But the Congress of 1906 did not have public membership, and thus Tilak and his supporters were forced to leave the party. But with Tilak's arrest, all hopes for an Indian offensive were stalled. The Indian National Congress lost credibility with

30225-428: The ship reached Vancouver, German radio announced its approach, and British Columbian authorities prepared to prevent the passengers from entering Canada. The ship was escorted out of Vancouver by the protected cruiser HMCS  Rainbow and returned to India. 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

30420-412: The side of the Central Powers , 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

30615-458: The spring of 1915, an Indo-German expedition was sent to Afghanistan via the overland route through Persia. Led by the exiled Indian prince Raja Mahendra Pratap , 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

30810-714: The streets and in the press, and the Congress advocated boycotting British products under the banner of swadeshi , or indigenous industries. A growing movement emerged, focussing on indigenous Indian industries, finance, and education, which saw the founding of National Council of Education , the birth of Indian financial institutions and banks, as well as an interest in Indian culture and achievements in science and literature. Hindus showed unity by tying Rakhi on each other's wrists and observing Arandhan (not cooking any food). During this time, Bengali Hindu nationalists like Sri Aurobindo , Bhupendranath Datta , and Bipin Chandra Pal began writing virulent newspaper articles challenging

31005-555: The summer of 1915, tasked with infiltrating 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

31200-519: The support of most Indian Muslims. Attacks by Hindu reformers against religious conversion, cow slaughter, and the preservation of Urdu in Arabic script deepened their concerns of minority status and denial of rights if the Congress alone were to represent the people of India. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan launched a movement for Muslim regeneration that culminated in the founding in 1875 of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh , Uttar Pradesh (renamed Aligarh Muslim University in 1920). Its objective

31395-483: The then Viceroy of India , Lord Hardinge , on the occasion of transferring the capital of British India from Calcutta to New Delhi. Involving revolutionary underground in Bengal and headed by Rash Behari Bose along with Sachin Sanyal , the conspiracy culminated on the attempted assassination on 23 December 1912, when the ceremonial procession moved through the Chandni Chowk suburb of Delhi . The Viceroy escaped with his injuries, along with Lady Hardinge, although

31590-465: The time World War I began in 1914, the revolutionary movement had revived in Punjab and Bengal. In Bengal the movement, with a safe haven in the French base of Chandernagore , had sufficient strength to all but paralyze the state administration. The earliest mention of a conspiracy for armed revolution in India appears in Nixon's Report on Revolutionary Organization , which reported that Jatin Mukherjee (Bagha Jatin) and Naren Bhattacharya had met with

31785-411: The time the war broke out, the Indian Political Intelligence Office , headed by John Wallinger , 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

31980-466: The time. In exchange for allowing arms shipments to India through China, China was offered German military assistance and the rights to 10% of any material shipped to India via China. The negotiations were ultimately unsuccessful due to Sun Yat-sen 's opposition to an alliance with Germany. The Indian nationalists then in Paris had, with Egyptian revolutionaries, made plans to assassinate Lord Kitchener as early as 1911, but did not implement them. After

32175-479: The transfer of Jharkhand to the East India Company . The Rangpur Dhing took place from 1782 to 1783 in nearby Rangpur, Bengal . Following the Binsu Manki's revolt in Jharkhand, numerous uprising across the region took place including the Bhumij Revolt of Manbhum from 1798 to 1799; the Chero Uprising of Palamu in 1800 under the leadership of Bhukan Singh, and two uprising of the Munda community in Tamar region, during 1807 led by Dukan Mank, and 1819–20 under

32370-446: The victims were mostly zealous police officers investigating into the cases, or approvers who helped the police. On receiving instructions from Berlin, Jatindra Nath Mukherjee selected Naren Bhattacharya (alias M. N. Roy ) and Phani Chakravarti (alias Pyne) to meet the German legation at Batavia. The Berlin committee had decided that the German arms were to be delivered at two or three places like Hatia on Chittagong coast, Raimangal in

32565-690: 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 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 letters were however traced by

32760-435: The western border of India from Persia, through Balochistan , 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, Uzbekistan and the detention of the British consul there, and also successfully harassed Percy Sykes ' Persian campaign against the Baluchi and Persian tribal chiefs who were aided by

32955-401: 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" , was also important in infiltrating and preempting the plans for autumn rebellions in Bengal in 1915 and in as scuttling Bagha Jatin 's winter plans that year. Another source, the German double agent Vincent Kraft ,

33150-421: Was a Kongu Nadu chieftain and Palayakkarar from Tamil Nadu who fought against the East India Company. After Kattabomman and Tipu Sultan's deaths, Chinnamalai sought the help of Marathas and Maruthu Pandiyar to attack the British at Coimbatore in 1800. The British forces managed to stop the armies of the allies, forcing Chinnamalai to attack Coimbatore on his own. His army was defeated and he escaped from

33345-405: Was a double agent , 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 ", 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. Efforts were directed at drawing Afghanistan into the war on

33540-442: Was a counter-espionage network of nearly 80 members who, as Habsburg subjects, were presumed to support Germany, but were involved in spying on German and Austrian diplomats. Voska had begun working with Guy Gaunt , 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 who further passed on

33735-521: Was a series of historic events in South Asia with the ultimate aim of ending British colonial rule . It lasted until 1947, when the Indian Independence Act 1947 was passed. The first nationalistic movement for Indian independence emerged in the Province of Bengal . It later took root in the newly formed Indian National Congress with prominent moderate leaders seeking the right to appear for Indian Civil Service examinations in British India, as well as more economic rights for natives. The first half of

33930-413: Was captured by the British and his fort was razed to the ground. In 1766 the Nizam of Hyderabad transferred the Northern Circars to the British authority. The independent king Jagannatha Gajapati Narayan Deo II of Paralakhemundi estate situated in today's Odisha and in the northernmost region of the then political division was continuously revolting against the French occupants since 1753 as per

34125-477: Was composed mostly of Sikhs and Punjabi Muslims. Early in 1915, Atma Ram had also visited Calcutta and Punjab and linked up with the revolutionary underground there, including Jugantar . Herambalal Gupta and the German consul at Chicago arranged to have German operatives George Paul Boehm, Henry Schult, and Albert Wehde sent to Siam through Manila with the purpose of training the Indians. Santokh Singh returned to Shanghai tasked to send two expeditions, one to reach

34320-449: Was entrusted to administer the Madurai country when the Madurai Nayak rule ended. He later fought war against the British and the Arcot Nawab. A dispute arose with the British and Arcot Nawab, and three of Khan's associates were bribed to capture him. He was captured during his morning prayer (Thozhugai) and hanged on 15 October 1764 at Sammatipuram near Madurai. Local legends state that he survived two earlier attempts at hanging, and that

34515-499: Was executed this morning;... it is alleged that he mounted the scaffold with his body erect. He was cheerful and smiling. Jugantar was a paramilitary organisation. Led by Barindra Ghosh , with 21 revolutionaries, including Bagha Jatin , started to collect arms and explosives and manufactured bombs. Some senior members of the group were sent abroad for political and military training. One of them, Hemchandra Kanungo obtained his training in Paris. After returning to Kolkata he set up

34710-406: Was founded in 1914, played a role in the Indian independence movement, advocating for swaraj and opposing the partition of India . The AICIC also was opposed to separate electorates for Christians, believing that the faithful "should participate as common citizens in the one common, national political system". The All India Conference of Indian Christians and the All India Catholic Union formed

34905-440: Was imported to India and sold at very high prices. This was draining India's economy, causing the textile industry of India to suffer greatly. This led to great resentment among cotton cultivators and traders. After Lord Curzon announced the partition of Bengal in 1905, there was massive opposition from the people of Bengal. Initially, the partition plan was opposed through press campaign. The total follower of such techniques led to

35100-411: Was in constant ideological evolution. Essentially anti-colonial , it was supplemented by visions of independent, economic development with a secular, democratic, republican, and civil-libertarian political structure. After the 1930s, the movement took on a strong socialist orientation. It culminated in the Indian Independence Act 1947 , which ended Crown suzerainty and partitioned British India into

35295-421: Was killed. Sporadic fighting and guerrilla warfare , led by Tatya Tope , continued until spring 1859, but most of the rebels were eventually subdued. The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a turning point. While affirming the military and political power of the British, it led to a significant change in how India was to be controlled by them. Under the Government of India Act 1858 , the East India Company's territory

35490-492: Was meant for German East Africa . The 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. Franz von Papen attempted to sabotage rail lines in Canada and destroy the Welland Canal . He also attempted to supply rifles and dynamite to Sikhs in British Columbia for blasting railway bridges. These plots in Canada did not materialise. Among other events in

35685-442: Was one of the few rulers who regained her kingdom, and ruled it for a decade more. Veerapandiya Kattabomman was an eighteenth-century Polygar and chieftain from Panchalankurichi in Tamil Nadu , India who waged the Polygar war against the East India Company. He was captured by the British and hanged in 1799 CE. Kattabomman refused to accept the sovereignty of East India Company, and fought against them. Dheeran Chinnamalai

35880-399: Was particularly led by siblings – brothers Sidhu, Kanhu , Chand and Bhairav and their sisters Phulo and Jhano from the Murmu clan in its most fervent years that lead up to the Revolt of 1857 . More than 100 years of such escalating rebellions created grounds for a large, impactful, millenarian movement in Eastern India that again shook the foundations of British rule in the region, under

36075-524: Was proclaimed Shahenshah-e-Hindustan by the rebels. The rebels also murdered much of the European, Eurasian , and Christian population of the city, including natives who had converted to Christianity. Revolts broke out in other parts of Oudh and the North-Western Provinces as well, where civil rebellion followed the mutinies, leading to popular uprisings. The British were initially caught off-guard and were thus slow to react, but eventually responded with force. The lack of effective organisation among

36270-501: Was producing cotton cloth in such great quantities that the domestic market was saturated, and the products had to be sold in foreign markets. On the other hand, India was rich in cotton production and was in a position to supply British mills with the raw material they required. This was the time when India was under British rule and the East India Company had already established its roots in India. Raw materials were exported to England at very low rates while cotton cloth of refined quality

36465-414: Was protected at this time by Toyama Mitsuru , right-wing political leader and founder of the Genyosha nationalist secret society. The Indian Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore , a strong supporter of Pan-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

36660-402: Was provided by the rumoured use of tallow (from cows) and lard (pig fat) in the newly introduced Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle cartridges. Soldiers had to bite the cartridges with their teeth before loading them into their rifles, ingesting the fat. This was sacrilegious to both Hindus and Muslims. Mangal Pandey was sepoy who played a key part in the events immediately preceding the outbreak of

36855-413: 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. By then the conspiracy had been uncovered in India, and its major leaders had been arrested or gone into hiding. The shipment itself failed when disastrous co-ordination prevented

37050-420: Was the inspiration, political mentor and role model of Mahatma Gandhi and inspired several other freedom activists. Nationalistic sentiments among Congress members led to a push to be represented in the bodies of government, as well as to have a say in the legislation and administration of India. Congressmen saw themselves as loyalists, but wanted an active role in governing their own country, albeit as part of

37245-506: Was to be executed in February 1915, and overthrow British rule in the Indian subcontinent . The February mutiny was ultimately thwarted when British intelligence infiltrated the Ghadarite movement and arrested key figures. Mutinies in smaller units and garrisons within India were also crushed. The Indo-German alliance and conspiracy were the target of a worldwide British intelligence effort, which successfully prevented further attempts. American intelligence agencies arrested key figures in

37440-452: Was to educate students by emphasising the compatibility of Islam with modern western knowledge. The diversity among India's Muslims, however, made it impossible to bring about uniform cultural and intellectual regeneration. The Hindu faction of the Independence movement was led by Nationalist leader Lokmanya Tilak , who was regarded as the "father of Indian Unrest" by the British. Along with Tilak were leaders like Gopal Krishna Gokhale , who

37635-457: 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 the next day (which would have been cancelled if Punjab was seized) and was to strike immediately. However, Punjab CID successfully infiltrated

37830-479: Was trained in war match weapons usage, martial arts like Valari, Silambam (fighting using stick), horse riding and archery. She was a scholar in many languages and she had proficiency with languages like French, English, and Urdu. When her husband, Muthuvaduganathaperiya Udaiyathevar, was killed in battle with British soldiers and the forces of the Nawab of Arcot , she was drawn into battle. She formed an army and sought an alliance with Gopala Nayaker and Hyder Ali with

38025-482: Was transferred to the British government. At the apex of the new system was a Cabinet minister , the Secretary of State for India , who was to be formally advised by a statutory council ; the Governor-General of India (Viceroy) was made responsible to him, while he in turn was responsible to the government. In a royal proclamation made to the people of India, Queen Victoria promised equal opportunity of public service under British law, and also pledged to respect

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