Lala Hardyal,
one of the greatest revolutionaries and a founder
of the Ghadar Party in the U. S. A., was born
in Delhi in 1884 in a lower middle-class Kayastha
family. His father, Gauri Dayal Mathur, a scholar
of Persian and Urdu, was employed as a Copy-Reader
in the District Court at Delhi. Gouri Dayal had
a large family of seven children, four sons and
three daughters, which he maintained with great
difficulty with his meagre income. His wife was
a pious woman, imbued with the traditional Hindu
culture. Under the influence of his devoted mother,
Hardyal in his boyhood visited and prayed at a
Delhi Temple dedicated to Lord Shiva.]
Hardyal was sent to a primary school at the age
of four. From his early school days he displayed
a prodigious memory and proved to be a precocious
from the Cambridge Mission School at the age of
twelve, and Matriculation at fourteen, always
standing first. Then he joined the Imtermediate
Class at the St. Stephen’s College, Delhi,
where he again stood first. At the St. Stephen’s
besides his text books, he began to study the
‘Gita’, ‘Manu Smriti’ and
‘Rig-Veda’. A firm theist, he began
to perform religious penances in quest of inner
happiness.
He did his B. A. from the Punjab University
at Lahore and won a scholarship. He joined the
Government College, Lahore, for his M. A. degree
in English Literature and stood first in 1903.
Next year he obtained the M. A. degree in History.
In recognition of his brilliant academic attainments
the Punjab University recommended and the Government
of India awarded him a scholarship of 200 per
annum for higher studies in England. In the
meantime Hardyal had been married to Sundar
Rani. He left his parents and wife and sailed
for England in 1905. Here he joined St. John’s
College, Oxford, for the Honours Course in Modren
History. He also did his Ph. D. from the London
University.
In London he came under the influence of Shyamaji
Krishna Verma, Editor of the Indian Sociologist
and a recognized leader of the Indian Revolutionary
Movement. He also came under the influence of
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and Madam Cama.
His close associates were Master Amir Chand,
Raja Mahendra Pratap, Rash Behari Bose, Barkatullah,
Birendra Nath Chattopadhyaya, Pandit Jagat Ram,
Pandit Kanshi Ram, Champak Raman Pillay, Vishnu
Ganesh Pingley, Khan Khoje, Sardar Kartar Singh
Sarabha, Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna, Baba Jwla
Singh, Sant Wasakha Singh, Baba Kesar Singh,
Baba Prithvi Singh Azad (Lalru) and others,
all of whom had dedicated themselves to the
cause of liberating their motherland from British
slavery.
Such was the charm of their company that Hardyal
threw away the scholarship, declaring that “No
Indian who really loves his country ought to
compromise his principle and barter his rectitude
for any favour whatever at the hands of alien
oppressive rulers of India.” Henceforward
the talents of his genius were entirely devoted
to revolutionary work. He returned to India
in 1908 to work among his people and arouse
their latent spirits.
India, he found, was steeped in superstitions
and wedded to practices which retarded all progress.
“Men were ignorant and women were in servitude.
Invidious caste distinctions divided man from
man. Hindus and Muslims did not regard themselves
as belonging to one nation. These evils shall
have to be eradicated to save moral energy in
India, so necessary for progress.” The
British system of education, he wrote, served
“to crush our national aspirations…The
British schools and colleges were founded to
wean the youth from the sudden and absolute
expulsion of the English…. The British
teach our boys what is really a caricature of
history….that we are an incapable race…Woe
to the nation that allows its children to read
such history.”
He advocated the study of Sanskrit, as: with
its decay will fall the whole edifice of Hindu
civilization.” He strongly supported the
establishment of national institutions. “National
institutions are the essential marks of national
life. There can be no nation without national
institutions.”
About education, he wrote, “The awakening
of patriotism through the
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teaching of national history is thus the first
requisite of a sound educational system…It
must awaken in boys a sense of their the national
type of character; it must accustom boys to
the national modes of life and thought which
are around them…Popular education will
lead to a demand for free political institution.
The despotism of the princes will be curbed;
so it has been in Europe, so it shall be in
India.” He went to Lahore in 1908, stayed
with Lala Lajpat Rai, met his associates and
suggested ‘passive resistance’ as
a weapon of struggle against the British. In
this he anticipated Mahatma Gandhi by ten years.
Not achieving much as a social reformer, he
left India again in 1908, travelled through
Europe and is said to have become a nonsectarian
friar. He again came to India in 1910 but returned
to Europe the same year. He was so impressed
with the intellectual advancement in France
and Germany that in July 1912 he wrote in the
Modern Review (Calcutta): “Young men of
India, look not for wisdom in the musty parchments
of your metaphysical treatises. There is an
endless round of verbal jugglery there. Read
Rousseau and Voltaire, Plato and Arstotle, Haeckel
and Spencer, Marx and Tolstoy, Ruskin and Comte…”
Instead of the Vedas he now stood for the study
of modern sciences and sociology. “Do not
try to follow in the footsteps of old Roshis
but set up new ideals of Rishihood for the future.
Teach the people that the old gods are dead…”
In 1913 thick war clouds hovered over Europe.
Hardyal went to America and threw himself heart
and soul into the struggle for Indian Independence.
Imbued with an intense Anglophobia he planned
to free his motherland from the British yoke.
Along with other Punjabi Sikh immigrants, he
started a journal named the Ghadar and published
it in the ‘Yugandtar Ashram’ in English,
Hindi, Gurmukhi, Urdu, Bengali and Marathi.
Its first issue came out on 1 November 1913.
Through the medium of this paper a violent anti-British
propaganda was launched.
Passions were excited to strike against the
British if and when a European war broke out.
Hardyal began to address meetings of Indians.
One such meeting was held on 30 December 1913
at Sacramento and another in Vancouver. Branches
of the Ghadar Party were established in America,
Europe and India. In March 1914 Hardyal was
arrested for undesirable activities, but he
jumped his bail and came to Switzerland where
he started another anti-British paper, the Bandemataram.
He also contributed articles to the Modern Review
of Calcutta. From Switzerland he went to Germany
and is also said to have established contact
with Anwar Pasha of Turkey.
In Germany he opened an Oriental Bureau for
the purpose of bringing about an armed revolution
in India. Here in the first year of the war
he found himself close to the Germans, and studied
their character, aims and objectives. He was
completely disillusioned and modified his earlier
views about them. To him, now British imperialism
was far better than German. In the later stage
of the war he desired that the British should
remain as trustees of the future of Asia and
urged upon his countrymen to work for Home Rule
and give up the idea of complete independence.
This was too much for the Germans, so he was
hounded out of Germany. He went away to Stockholm
in Sweden and stayed there till October 1927.
He was now a changed man. In 1920 he wrote that
a mixed European and Oriental administration
was the best for Egypt, India and Persia. After
a brief stay in London in 1927, Hardyal again
sailed for U. S. A. His views had now undergone
a complete change. He began to look down upon
everything Hindu and admired everything Western.
He advised the British to convert the Empire
into ‘the British-Oriental-African Commonwealth
of the future’.
In America he was appointed as a Professor of
Sanskrit and Philosophy at the Berkeley University
(California). Some time later his services were
lent to the Stanford University.
The last years of Lala Hardayal are wrapped
in mystery. In 1939 came the news that an Indian
‘Sannyasi’ had died in Philadelphia.
His old revolutionary friends suspected that
he was the victim of a foul play. Hardyal was
a genius, an ardent nationalist, a rare intellectual
and a prolific writer.
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