Revolutionary Nationalism, the Ghadar Movement, the First World War & the Home Rule Leagues (1907-1918)

Why Revolutionary Terrorism Arose

🎯 Exam priority: Important. Tier 2 — recurs regularly in Prelims and Mains; cover fully.

Why this topic matters for UPSC. The revolutionary phase, the Ghadar movement and the Home Rule Leagues bridge the Extremist and Gandhian eras — regularly probed for person-to-organisation matches and the impact of WWI.

• Ghadar Party (Lala Har Dayal, 1913), the Lucknow Pact (1916) and the Home Rule Leagues (Tilak and Besant) are tested.

• The impact of WWI on Indian nationalism and the role of Indian soldiers recur.

• Mains: analyse the contribution of the revolutionary nationalist movement to Indian independence.

The suppression of the Swadeshi and Boycott movement after 1905 blocked every avenue of peaceful protest. Out of that desperation a younger, angrier nationalism was born — the cult of the bomb.

Why Revolutionary Terrorism Arose

• The youth of Bengal, "angered by official arrogance and repression and filled with burning hatred for foreign rule," found "all avenues of peaceful protest and political action blocked." They no longer believed passive resistance could work and concluded that the British "must be physically expelled." As the Yugantar wrote after the Barisal Conference (1906): "Force must be stopped by force."

• They did not attempt a mass revolution; instead they copied the Irish terrorists and the Russian Nihilists — to assassinate unpopular officials. Several newspapers preached revolution: the Sandhya and Yugantar in Bengal and the Kal in Maharashtra.

The Beginnings: Bengal & Maharashtra

The deed came before Bengal — in the Deccan of the 1890s — but it was the partition of Bengal that turned scattered acts into an era.

The Beginnings: Bengal & Maharashtra

• In 1897 the Chapekar brothers assassinated two unpopular British officials at Poona (during the plague operations). In 1904, V.D. Savarkar organised the Abhinava Bharat, a secret society of revolutionaries.

• In April 1908, Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki threw a bomb at a carriage at Muzaffarpur, believing it carried Kingsford, the unpopular judge. Prafulla Chaki shot himself dead; Khudiram Bose was tried and hanged — "the era of revolutionary terrorism had begun."

• Many secret societies arose, the most famous being the Anushilan Samiti, whose Dacca section alone had 500 branches. The revolutionaries grew so bold that they threw a bomb at Viceroy Lord Hardinge as he rode an elephant in a state procession at Delhi (1912), wounding him.

Revolutionaries Abroad

Repression at home pushed the movement abroad, where exiles built propaganda and arms networks across three continents.

Revolutionaries Abroad

• In London the lead was taken by Shyamji Krishnavarma, V.D. Savarkar and Har Dayal (India House); in continental Europe Madame Cama and Ajit Singh were prominent. From India House, Madan Lal Dhingra assassinated the British official Sir Curzon Wyllie in London in 1909. Other leaders working outside India included Rash Behari Bose, Raja Mahendra Pratap, Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi, Champak Raman Pillai, Sardar Singh Rana and Barkatullah.

• One historian's verdict: terrorism "as a political weapon was bound to fail" — it could never expel the English — yet the revolutionaries made "a valuable contribution to the growth of nationalism." In a historian's words, "they gave us back the pride of our manhood."

The Ghadar Party (1913)

The largest revolutionary effort came not from Bengal but from Punjabi emigrants on the Pacific coast of North America.

The Ghadar Party (1913)

• Indian revolutionaries in the USA and Canada founded the Ghadar (Rebellion) Party in 1913, with its headquarters at San Francisco. Most members were Sikh peasants and soldiers, though the leaders were mostly educated Hindus and Muslims; it had branches in Mexico, Japan, China, the Philippines, Malaya, Singapore, Thailand, Indochina, and East and South Africa.

• The party was pledged to wage revolutionary war against the British in India. When the First World War broke out in 1914, thousands of Ghadarites sold their lands and savings and sailed home to start an uprising, contacting Indian regiments. 21 February 1915 was fixed as the date for an armed revolt in the Punjab — but the authorities learned of the plan, disbanded the regiments, and crushed it. In the trials, 42 were hanged, 114 transported for life, and 93 imprisoned.

• Prominent Ghadar leaders were Baba Gurmukh Singh, Kartar Singh Saraba, Sohan Singh Bhakna, Rahmat Ali Shah, Bhai Parmanand and Mohammad Barkatullah. Inspired by the Ghadar, 700 men of the 5th Light Infantry mutinied at Singapore under Jamadar Chisti Khan and Subedar Dundey Khan, and in 1915 Jatindranath Mukherjee ("Bagha Jatin") died fighting the police at Balasore.

• The Ghadar mood was inflamed by the Komagata Maru incident (1914): a Japanese ship chartered by Gurdit Singh carried 376 Punjabi (mostly Sikh) emigrants from Hong Kong to Vancouver, but Canada's immigration laws turned it back; on its return it reached Budge Budge near Calcutta in September 1914, where a clash with the police left some 19 passengers dead. The episode drove many emigrants into the revolutionary movement.

The Home Rule Leagues (1915-16)

Even as the revolutionaries fought and died, the constitutional mainstream found a fresh, mass-based outlet in the Home Rule Leagues.

The Home Rule Leagues (1915-16)

• The World War "destroyed the myth of the racial superiority of the western nations," while heavy taxation and soaring prices radicalised the poor. The Moderate-led Congress was "passive and inert," so two Home Rule Leagues were started in 1915-16 — one under Lokamanya Tilak (April 1916, confined to Maharashtra, Karnataka, the Central Provinces and Berar) and the other under Annie Besant and S. Subramania Iyer (September 1916, the rest of India).

• The Leagues carried intense propaganda for the grant of Home Rule (self-government) after the War. It was here that Tilak gave the immortal slogan: "Home Rule is my birthright, and I will have it." The cry of Home Rule "resounded throughout the length and breadth of India."

The Lucknow Session & the Lucknow Pact (1916)

The war years' new energy forced the warring wings of nationalism back together, and even drew the Muslim League towards the Congress.

The Lucknow Session & the Lucknow Pact (1916)

• At the Lucknow session of the Congress (1916) the two wings — Moderates and Extremists, split since the Surat session of 1907 — were reunited, the rising tide of nationalism bringing Tilak and the militants back into the Congress.

• At the same session the Congress and the Muslim League signed the Lucknow Pact: they put up common demands for self-government and the Congress accepted separate electorates for Muslims. Tilak played an important role in bringing the two together. One historian warns the Pact, by treating Hindus and Muslims as separate political entities, "left the way open for the resurgence of communalism."

• The new unity alarmed the government, which now turned from repression to appeasement: on 20 August 1917, Secretary of State Montagu declared the goal of "the progressive realisation of responsible government," and in July 1918 the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms were announced — paving the way to the Gandhian era.

Why This Matters for UPSC

Why This Matters for UPSC

• Prelims: Chapekar brothers (1897); Savarkar's Abhinava Bharat (1904); Khudiram Bose & Prafulla Chaki, Muzaffarpur (1908); Anushilan Samiti; the bomb on Lord Hardinge (1912); Ghadar Party (1913, San Francisco, Lala Har Dayal), the 21 Feb 1915 revolt, Kartar Singh Saraba, Sohan Singh Bhakna; Bagha Jatin (Balasore, 1915); Home Rule Leagues (Tilak April 1916, Besant Sept 1916); Lucknow Pact (1916); Montagu Declaration (1917); Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms (1918).

• Mains: assess the contribution of revolutionary terrorism to Indian nationalism; the significance of the Home Rule agitation and the Lucknow Pact in the transition to mass politics.

Test Yourself: Practice Questions & PYQs

Revolutionary nationalism, the Ghadar movement and the Home Rule–Lucknow Pact phase is a Prelims favourite (the PYQs below are real, CSE 2014 and 2013) and a Mains theme on the national movement before Gandhi.

Practice Questions

Q1. Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki are associated with the 1908 bomb attack at:

• (a) Lahore

• (b) Muzaffarpur

• (c) Alipore

• (d) Chittagong

Q2. The two Home Rule Leagues of 1915-16 were led, respectively, by:

• (a) Gokhale and Naoroji

• (b) Gandhi and Nehru

• (c) Lajpat Rai and one historian Pal

• (d) Tilak and Annie Besant

Q3. “Home Rule is my birthright, and I will have it” was the slogan of:

• (a) Annie Besant

• (b) Lala Lajpat Rai

• (c) one historian Pal

• (d) Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Q4. The Lucknow Pact (1916) was significant because it:

• (a) created the Muslim League

• (b) reunited the Congress's two wings and forged a Congress-League agreement accepting separate electorates

• (c) ended separate electorates

• (d) launched the Non-Cooperation Movement

Q5. The revolutionary who died fighting the police at Balasore in 1915 was:

• (a) Madan Lal Dhingra

• (b) Rash Behari Bose

• (c) Bagha Jatin (Jatindranath Mukherjee)

• (d) Kartar Singh Saraba

Q6. The Komagata Maru incident (1914) is associated with:

• (a) the Chauri Chaura violence

• (b) a shipload of Punjabi emigrants turned back from Canada and fired on at Budge Budge

• (c) a naval mutiny at Bombay

• (d) the Chittagong armoury raid

Q7. Madan Lal Dhingra (1909) is remembered for assassinating, in London, the British official:

• (a) Saunders

• (b) William Hutt Curzon Wyllie

• (c) Lord Hardinge

• (d) Michael O'Dwyer

UPSC Previous Year Questions (PYQs)

These are genuine UPSC Civil Services Prelims questions (CSE 2014, 2013) on the Ghadar Party and Annie Besant.

Q1. The Ghadr (Ghadar) was a: (UPSC CSE 2014)

• (a) militant organisation with headquarters at Berlin

• (b) communist movement for India's freedom with headquarters at Tashkent

• (c) nationalist organisation operating from Singapore

• (d) revolutionary association of Indians with headquarters at San Francisco

Q2. Annie Besant was: 1. responsible for starting the Home Rule Movement. 2. the founder of the Theosophical Society. 3. once the President of the Indian National Congress. Select the correct answer: (UPSC CSE 2013)

• (a) 2 and 3 only

• (b) 1, 2 and 3

• (c) 1 and 3 only

• (d) 1 only

Mains Practice Questions

Use these to frame full-length answers. You don't have to answer one exactly — they show the angles UPSC tests, so let them guide which points you cover.

• Why did revolutionary terrorism arise after 1905, and what were its methods and limits?

• Assess the organisation, aims and fate of the Ghadar Party.

• How did the Home Rule Leagues change the character of Indian nationalism during WWI?

• What was the significance — and the hidden cost — of the Lucknow Pact of 1916?