Sohan Singh Bhakna is a name that shaped the future of Bharat. Sohan Singh Bhakna, better known as Baba Soham Singh Bhakna, was an Indian revolutionary who spearheaded the Gadar movement, an international political movement built by overseas Indians during the early 20th century with the objective of overthrowing British Colonial rule in India.
Sohan Singh Bhakna was born into a Sikh family on January 22, 1870. Sohan spent his childhood in Bhakhna, a village located southwest of Amritsar where his father used to live with his family. Sohan Singh could not get much love from his father, as his father died when Sohan was only one year old. He received his childhood education in the village Gurudwara and from the Arya Samaj. At the age of ten, he got married to Bishan Kaur, the daughter of Kushal Singh, a zamindar near Lahore. Sohan Singh completed his schooling at the age of sixteen. He was proficient in both Urdu and Persian. While he was in India, he participated in the nationalist movement and the agrarian unrest that emerged in Punjab in the 1900s. He participated in the protests against the Anti-Colonisation Bill in 1906–07.
At the age of forty, Sohan Singh travelled to America in 1907 in search of work. Lala Lajpatrai and other patriots had already started the national movement before he left India. Baba Sohan Singh was also able to hear its whisper. After reaching America, he was hired by a mill there. There were already 200 Punjabis employed there. However, these people got very little salary, and foreigners looked at them with disdain. Baba Sohan Singh quickly realised that he was being disparaged because of the British empire’s practise of enslaving Indians. He then began creating his own organisation to promote national freedom.
Fortunately, Lala Hardayal, the great revolutionary, came to America about the same time. In August 1908, Har Dayal left India in order to avoid being arrested for advocating India’s independence. He eventually made it to France, where he maintained close contact with renowned revolutionaries Shyamji Krishna Varma and Bhikaji Cama as well as their associates, who had chosen Paris as their base in order to flee the long arm of British rule. He travelled to the USA and established San Francisco as his base after working with them for a while. Har Dayal’s entrance from Europe at this time served as a link between the intellectual agitators in New York and the Punjabi labourers and refugees on the west coast, and it helped lay the groundwork for the Ghadar movement.
In 1913, overseas Indians who resided in the United States and Canada founded an association called The Pacific Coast Hindustan Association’. Under the direction of Har Dayal, P.S. Khankhoje, and Sohan Singh Bhakna, the association was established in the US in 1913. Its President was Baba Sohan Singh, and its minister was Lala Hardayal. Many overseas Indians joined the Association. From the Pacific Coast Hindustan Association came the Ghadar Party. The ‘Ghadar’ was preserved in honour of the 1857 War, the first independent war. In November 1913, the party issued its own weekly newspaper under the name “Gadar Party” in Indian languages. Their editor was Lala Hardayal. In addition to “Gadar Party,” the organisation also published pamphlets including “Elaine Jung,” “Naya Zamana,” and “Balancesheet of British Rule.”
The Ghadar’s ultimate objective was to launch an armed uprising against British colonial rule in India. It considered the congressionally supported dominion status mainstream movement to be limited and its constitutional tactics to be lax. The main plan of Ghadar was to incite the Indian soldiers to revolt. Baba Sohan Singh played a key role in putting together the revolutionaries and carrying out the plan to gather weapons and transport them to India while working for the “Ghadar Party.” This series also included the ‘Komagata Maru’ ship incident. Sometime between 1914 and 1915, the Ghadar Party members planned to start a rebellion in India.
Following the Komagata Maru incident, Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna travelled to India in the SS Namsang at the start of World War One to organise and lead the uprising from India. But British intelligence was already closely monitoring the foreign revolutionaries. On October 13, 1914, Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna was instantly detained in Calcutta and transported to Ludhiana for questioning. He was then taken to the Central Jail in Multan, tried for the “Lahore Conspiracy Case,” and given a death sentence.
In the Andaman Islands, the death penalty was later changed to life in prison. The British government intended for him to rot in prison even after serving 16 years of his life. Baba Sohan Singh engaged in a number of hunger strikes while still incarcerated, which had an adverse effect on his health. Finally, the English government was compelled to release him as his health began to deteriorate. December 21st, 1968, was the black day when the brave son of Mother India left his body in Amritsar.