“Baba General”

“Baba General”

Born: 24th May 1896
Died: 16th November 1915

Shri Kartar Singh Sarabha was born on 24th May 1896, in Sarabha village in a Grewal Jat family to Mangal Singh and Sahib Kaur. He was brought up by his grandfather as his father died when he was very young. Singh received his primary education in the village, later he took admission to the Malwa Khalsa high school, Ludhiana and studied there till 8th standard. Then he went to his uncle in Orissa and stayed there. After coming back, his family sent him to the U.S. for higher studies. In July 1912, he reached San Francisco and was supposed to get enrolled in the University of Berkeley. Some investigations mention that Kartar Singh was found working in a mill factory. Some said that the college didn’t find any record of his enrollment. His relation with Indian students of the Nalanda club at Berkeley raised his patriotic attitude as he felt upset about the behaviour of the British with immigrants of India, mainly manual workers. Kartar Singh got inspired by Sohan Singh Bhakta, the founder of the Ghadar Party and decided to revolt against the British for the sake of the Independence of his country. Singh was called “Baba General” by Sohan Singh Bhakta. Shooting a gun and making explosives were the two techniques he learned from Americans and took lessons for flying aeroplanes. IN 1914, Singh frequently spoke to other Indians who worked there either as indentured labourers or soldiers fighting to reinforce British rule and inspire by telling them about India, free from British rule. In mid-1913 the Ghadar party was founded by a Sikh peasant from Bhakna village (Amritsar), Sohan Singh. The Ghadar Party aimed to get rid of the slavery of the British utilizing an armed struggle and was supposed to unmask the atrocities being committed on Indians by the British government. On 1st November 1913, the Ghadar Party started printing their paper named Ghadar, which was published in several languages like Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati and Pushto, etc and Singh was deeply involved in the publishing of that paper. Within a short time, the Ghadar Party became extremely famous through The Ghadar newspaper.

Its purpose With the start of World War I in 1914, the British were thoroughly engaged in the war efforts. Taking advantage of it, the leaders of the Ghadar Party published the “Decision of Declaration of War” against the British in the issue of ‘The Ghadar’ dated 5 August 1914, and distributed thousands of copies among army cantonments, villages and cities. By that time, many leaders of the Ghadar Party were arrested by the government at the ports. Despite the arrests, a meeting was held by members of the Ghadar Party at which it was decided to commit robberies in the houses of the rich to meet the requirements of money for armed action. Kirpal Singh, a police informer in the series of the Ghadar Party, had arrested a large number of members on 19th February and informed the government of the revolt which they planned.

The government failed their revolt and after the failure Risaldar Ganda Singh had Kartar Singh, Harnam Singh Tundilat, and Jagat Singh arrested and hanged to death on 16th November 1915. An Indian Punjabi-language biographical film was made on the life of the revolution which was released in 1977. Shaheed Bhagat Singh was extremely inspired by him and always kept Kartar Singh’s photograph in his pocket.

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