Kartar Singh Sarabha, hanged at 19, lived on in Bhagat Singh's pocket

Hanged at just 19, Kartar Singh Sarabha's underground revolutionary work went on to inspire Bhagat Singh, who is said to have carried Sarabha's photograph in his pocket throughout his life.

In Short

• Punjab's colonial land policies and army recruitment deepened anger before Ghadar emerged
• Racial discrimination in North America pushed Indian migrants towards organised resistance
• Sarabha left Berkeley studies to print, write and distribute Ghadar

Who was the young revolutionary whose photograph Bhagat Singh carried in his pocket until the day he was hanged? Who was the teenager who abandoned comfort, education, and the possibility of a prosperous life abroad to ignite a revolution against the British Empire? This is the story of Kartar Singh Sarabha, who prepared the soil for future revolutionaries of India, like Bhagat Singh, and strengthened the HCRA.

He was hanged at the age of 19 and became one of the youngest revolutionaries to be hanged during the British Raj.

A handful of Indian youngsters of his age took the charge into their hands to uproot the British from Indian soil.

Young Saraba chose to contribute; he met Rash Behari Bose and other revolutionaries of the Gadar Party. He assembled weapons, made bombs, and wanted to raise a revolution like the 1857 First War of Independence in 1910s India.

The story begins in colonial Punjab. In 1906, the British government introduced the Punjab Colonisation Bill, which was widely perceived as an attack on traditional rights over land and inheritance.

The farmers of Punjab feared the usurpation of agricultural property. The agitation that followed gave rise to the famous slogan “Pagri Sambhal Jatta” (Save your turban, O peasant), led by nationalist figures such as Ajit Singh, the uncle of Bhagat Singh.

Punjab was simultaneously being transformed into a major recruiting ground for the British Indian Army. Thousands of Punjabi youths were encouraged to enlist and serve in distant British colonies.

The policy created a paradox: while Indians were denied political freedom at home, they were expected to defend the British Empire across the world.

A 16-YEAR-OLD WALKS INTO HISTORY

During one of Lala Har Dayal’s (another famous revolutionary) speeches in San Francisco, a teenage boy approached him after the meeting and expressed his desire to join the revolutionary movement. That boy was Kartar Singh Sarabha.

Kartar Singh Sarabha was born on May 24, 1896 in Sarabha village in colonial Punjab. Childhood days were difficult for Sarabha as he lost his father and was raised by a tough Punjabi Grandfather.

He studied first in the village school, then at Malwa Khalsa High School, Ludhiana, and later spent some time in Odisha for further education.

In 1912, at just 16, Sarabha sailed to San Francisco and enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley.

To support himself, Sarabha, like many other Indians, worked in fields and factories, an experience that exposed him to racial discrimination and began shaping his revolutionary outlook.

FROM STUDENT TO REVOLUTIONARY

Life in America transformed Kartar Singh. He witnessed how Indians were insulted, underpaid, and treated as inferiors because they belonged to a colonised nation.

This realisation drew him toward Lala Har Dayal and the Hindustan Association of the Pacific Coast. A young energetic revolutionary is what Dayal required.

To spread revolutionary ideas among Indians across the world, the association launched a newspaper called Ghadar (Revolt).

The first issue of Ghadar appeared in Urdu on November 1, 1913 in San Francisco. Soon editions were published in Gurmukhi, Gujarati, Bengali, Pashto, and other languages so that Indian communities across continents could read it.

Kartar Singh took charge of the Punjabi edition. He wrote articles, composed patriotic poetry, operated the printing press, helped with typesetting, and distributed copies among Indian workers and soldiers.

He left his studies behind.

The newspaper became immensely influential, and gradually the revolutionary network itself came to be known as the Ghadar Party.

“The time has come”

In August 1914, the First World War broke out. Britain was deeply involved in the conflict, and Ghadar leaders saw in the war a historic opportunity.

The strong belief that Britain’s military preoccupation in Europe could make a revolt in India possible led to many Indians returning home.

A dramatic appeal appeared in Ghadar: “Warriors, the moment you have been waiting for has arrived,” reads the document in Punjab archives.

The call went out to Indians living in America, Canada, East Asia, and other parts of the world: return to India and prepare for revolution.

Kartar Singh travelled extensively through California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, addressing meetings of Indian workers and urging them to sacrifice their earnings and even their lives for India’s freedom.

By late 1914, hundreds of Ghadar volunteers had begun their journey back to India aboard ships departing from North America and East Asia.

RETURNING TO INDIA TOP BUILD THE UNDERGROUND

Kartar Singh travelled to India via Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The British authorities had already become suspicious of the returning emigrants, and many Ghadar activists were arrested as soon as they landed.

Kartar managed to trick the British and reach Calcutta, where he came into contact with the veteran revolutionary Rash Behari Bose.

Here begins the second phase of Kartar Singh Sarabha’s revolutionary career, the phase that later inspired Bhagat Singh and influenced the revolutionary tradition that would eventually lead to organisations such as the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) and later the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA).

PLAN FOR MUTINY AND BETRAYAL

The revolutionaries fixed February 21 1915 as the date for a coordinated mutiny in several military cantonments, including Lahore, Ferozepur, Ambala, and Rawalpindi.

Indian soldiers sympathetic to the Ghadar cause were expected to seize arms, arrest British officers, and spark a chain reaction across northern India.

Kartar Singh, though not yet nineteen years old, became one of the most energetic organisers of the conspiracy.

A revolution built on secrecy is always vulnerable to betrayal. The British intelligence network succeeded in infiltrating the conspiracy. Informers such as Kirpal Singh revealed crucial details of the planned uprising.

When the revolutionaries learned that the British had discovered the date of the mutiny, they advanced it to February 19 1915. But the revised plan was also leaked.

Kartar Singh attempted to continue the struggle, but he was eventually arrested in Punjab along with many of his comrades.

THE LAHORE CONSPIRACY CASE

The arrested revolutionaries were tried in what became famous as the Lahore Conspiracy Case (1915). The British charged them with waging war against the King-Emperor, sedition, and involvement in revolutionary violence.

During the trial, the judge reportedly offered opportunities for leniency if the accused expressed remorse or cooperated with the authorities. Many were very young; Kartar Singh was still a teenager.

But he refused to compromise.

When asked about the possible punishment, he is said to have responded with remarkable fearlessness:

“What punishment will I get? Transportation for life or hanging? If I am sentenced to life imprisonment, I may not be able to serve my country again. If I am hanged, I shall be reborn and continue the struggle for India’s freedom.”

EXECUTION AT 19

On November 16, 1915, Kartar Singh Sarabha was hanged in Lahore Central Jail. He was only 19 years old.

British officials themselves were struck by his extraordinary composure. According to contemporary accounts, he went to the gallows with a smile, singing patriotic verses.

Bhagat Singh regarded Kartar Singh Sarabha as his political mentor and ideal. He kept Sarabha’s photograph with him and often referred to him as “my guru, my companion, my brother.”

And perhaps that is why Bhagat Singh carried his photograph until the very end: in the face of the gallows, he saw in Kartar Singh Sarabha the image of what a revolutionary could become, young in years, but immortal in resolve.

- Ends