Saquib Salim

“My history is very long, but from Constantinople, I arranged with the Turkish Government that Gadar troops should be allowed to land at Besra. Afterward, Kanshiram, Bertakullah, and many other Gadar people came to India or to Europe….. Afterwards, Sufi Amba Prasad and many Gadar companions joined us. Bertakullah and Mahendra Pratap went to Afghanistan, but Afghans did not join the war with them. We went to Indian Beluchistan frontiers (Iran) and we had established a provisional Gadar Government in India, and we had many fights in warfare. Many of our companions died, I was wounded and we had 4 years long hard struggle for our Indian Independence movement. All this Gadar history is unknown.”

A Slice Of History

This is an excerpt from a letter by Pandurang Sadashiv Khankhoje to  Bhagwan Singh Gyanee in 1953.

Dr. Pandurang Sadashiv Khankhoje, who later played an important role in the Green Revolution as a botanist, is a forgotten man when it comes to the story of the Indian Freedom Struggle. One of the founders of the Ghadar Party in the USA and its military strategist, Khankhoje led an armed guerilla movement against the British forces in Iran during the First World War. He even formed a Government in Exile there.

The movement in Iran was part of a larger plan to overthrow the British Rule from India through an armed uprising. For this, Bengali Revolutionaries, Islamic Scholars, Marathi Revolutionaries and others had joined hands to cause a revolt among the Indian soldiers of the British Army. The plan met limited success but inspired the next generation where Subhas Chandra Bose led Azad Hind Fauj in the next Great War.

In 1906, a 20-year-old Khankhoje, on advice of Bal Gangadhar Tilak went to Japan to have military training and agriculture education. He met Dr. Sun Yat Sen and Count Okuma, worked with their followers, and learnt revolutionary tactics. In 1907, he moved to the USA. His daughter, Savitri Sawhney, writes, “There he met like-minded students like Tarakhnath Das, Khagen Das, and Suren Bose; soon they formed another branch of the India Independence League (IIL).

He also joined the Mount Tamalpais Military Academy in San Rafael, California, and obtained a military diploma….. he took charge of the secret military wing of the Ghadar, where he adopted many aliases. For him, secrecy was of paramount importance and this probably helped him survive. The Mexican Revolution, raging in 1910, gave him an insight into the horrors and attrition that an armed revolt can lead to. He was deter­mined to train a proper insurgent army, with the help of Sikh ex-service­men members of the party.”

Using a pseudonym, Pir Khan, Khankhoje established IIL at Portland in 1908 with Sohan Singh Bhakhna as its President and Pt. Kashiram as treasurer. He was a founder member of the Ghadar Party and headed its combat division. The responsibility of leading an armed revolt in India was entrusted to him. He left his PhD and left for India via Constantinople in September 1914. On this mission, he took the identity of Mohammad Khan. Sardar Hasham of Iran helped Khankhoje on this mission. The conditions did not permit him to reach India, rather he went to Iran.

From Constantinople, Khankhoje went to Bushehr in Iran with a small army consisting of Indian prisoners of war (recruited by Har Dayal), Indian soldiers recruited on the way, Ghadar revolutionaries, and willing tribesmen. The revolutionaries had a fight with the British forces and had to move to Shiraz. At Shiraz, another party of Indian revolutionaries under Sufi Amba Prasad was fighting. Khankhoje, along with Pramatha Nath Datta (alias Dawood Ali Khan), Agashe (alias Mohammed Ali), Khandhoo Bhai, Kumarji Naik (Gujrati), Kedar Nath, Amin Sarma, Basant Singh and Chait Singh (Punjabis), Mirza Abbas (Hyderabadi), Rishikesh Latta (Garwali), Kersasp (Parsi), etc., moved to Kerman and formed Persian Democratic Party with Hasan Khan under the guidance of Syed Hassan Taqezadeh to start an anti-British revolt in Kerman.

One of the important activities of this group was to distribute leaflets among Indian soldiers of the British Army to instigate revolt among them. Thousands of leaflets were distributed in Iran, Iraq, and adjoining areas.

Uma Mukherjee in her book, Two Great Indian Revolutionaries, wrote, “These leaflets included one in English, two in Urdu, one in Hindi, and one in Marathi. The English leaflet, titled ‘Awake and Arise; O Princes and Peoples of India’ and signed ‘Bande Mataram’ concluded with an impassioned appeal to the soldiers of India to kill English officers and men indiscriminately if they desired to establish themselves “among the free nations of the world.”

The Urdu leaflets included one which, signed by ten Ulama of the Society of Ulama and being a direct incitement to Jehad, had already been found in large numbers in the possession of returning pilgrims from the haj in November-December, 1914.”

Parmatha Nath was sent to the Baluchistan and Afghanistan border to assess the situation where he had been shot in his legs. An injured Parmath and Agashe stayed at Kerman while other fighters, Indian and Iranians, under the command of Khankhoje moved to Bam. Here, a local leader Jihan Khan joined Khankhoje’s fighters and the combined militia attacked the frontier provinces of British Controlled India. A Provisional Government with Jihan Khan as its representative was formed here.

Meanwhile, a local tribal leader changed his allegiance with the British and attacked the revolutionary militia. Khankhoje, with his fighters, moved towards Bam and later to Baft. He was captured by the British forces in wounded condition at Baft after a fiercely fought battle.

Manmath Nath Gupta, one of the Kakori Conspiracy revolutionaries, wrote, “Khankhoje returned to Bam where he got the news that Pramath Nath, Agase and some Germans after being defeated in a skirmish had gone to Baft. Khankhoje went with his men to that place. But they were all surrounded by the British soldiers. Khankhoje was arrested in a wounded condition. He learnt later that Pramath Nath and Agase had gone to Shiraz. Khankhoje escaped to Neyriz disguised as fakir.”

After escaping from captivity, Khankhoje again gathered his fighters and moved to Neyriz where Parmath Nath, Agashe, and several others had been imprisoned after a battle. The revolutionaries attacked the post at Neyriz and freed the captured Indian, German, and Iranian revolutionary fighters. This band then moved towards Shiraz and captured the town in 1916.

Once again, the British defeated Khankhoje’s men, and this time he fled to Isfahan. He started a military training school to train Iranian youth for guerilla war under the new identity of Haji Aga Khan. Meanwhile, he joined the Iranian army and fought against the British Forces till 1919 when Iran was completely defeated.

After the War, Khankhoje alongside Bhupendranath Dutta, Luhani, and Virendranath Chattopadhyaya engaged with Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik government in a bid to secure acknowledgment for India’s independence movement. However, after these discussions proved unsuccessful, they returned to Germany without any achievements. The highly efficient British Secret Service was pursuing Khankhoje, and out of concern for his safety, he sought refuge in Mexico. His name appeared on the prohibited list and had he returned to India, he would have faced either a death sentence or imprisonment in the Andamans.

In Mexico, he established himself as an agricultural expert, always aspiring to apply his knowledge. He initiated numerous free agricultural schools in Mexico for impoverished farmers, and his contributions are still acknowledged today. Following India’s independence, he received an invitation from the Central Provinces Government, which later became Madhya Pradesh, to lead the Agricultural Policy Committee; however, he chose to return to Mexico in 1951. Finally, he returned to India in 1956 and settled in Nagpur, where he passed away in 1967.