Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna (Aged 98) born on January 22, 1870 in Khutrai Khurd, Amritsar, Punjab, India. He was the son of Ram Kaur, whose ancestral home it was. He became involved in the nationalist and agrarian movements that arose in Punjab in the early 1900s, and took part in the protests against the anti-Colonization Bill in 1906-07. In February 1909, he left home for the United States and arrived in Seattle after a two-month journey, where he found work as a labourer in a timber mill.
During this time, he became closely associated with the Indian Independence League, which was founded by Khankhoje in Portland, Oregon. In the summer of 1913, the Hindustani Workers of the Pacific Coast was established by representatives of Indians living in Canada and the United States. The Ghadar Party, led by Sohan Singh Bhakna, had the ultimate goal of overthrowing British colonial authority in India by means of an armed revolution. The Ghadar leaders, including Sohan Singh, Barkatullah and Taraknath Das, used the inflammatory passions surrounding the Komagata Maru incident as a rallying point and successfully recruited many disaffected Indians in North America to join the party.
Returning to India, Singh was arrested in Calcutta on October 13, 1914, and sent to Ludhiana for interrogation, and later to the Central Jail in Multan, where he was tried in the Lahore Conspiracy Case and sentenced to death, with forfeiture of property. The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment in the Andamans, where he arrived on December 10, 1915. While there, he undertook several hunger strikes in succession to secure better treatment for detainees. He passed away on December 21, 1968 in Amritsar, Punjab, India.
Sohan Singh Bhakna
(1870 – 1968) – (Punjab)
Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna (Aged 98) born on January 22, 1870 in Khutrai Khurd, Amritsar, Punjab, India. He was the son of Ram Kaur, whose ancestral home it was. He became involved in the nationalist and agrarian movements that arose in Punjab in the early 1900s, and took part in the protests against the anti-Colonization Bill in 1906-07. In February 1909, he left home for the United States and arrived in Seattle after a two-month journey, where he found work as a labourer in a timber mill.
During this time, he became closely associated with the Indian Independence League, which was founded by Khankhoje in Portland, Oregon. In the summer of 1913, the Hindustani Workers of the Pacific Coast was established by representatives of Indians living in Canada and the United States. The Ghadar Party, led by Sohan Singh Bhakna, had the ultimate goal of overthrowing British colonial authority in India by means of an armed revolution. The Ghadar leaders, including Sohan Singh, Barkatullah and Taraknath Das, used the inflammatory passions surrounding the Komagata Maru incident as a rallying point and successfully recruited many disaffected Indians in North America to join the party.
Returning to India, Singh was arrested in Calcutta on October 13, 1914, and sent to Ludhiana for interrogation, and later to the Central Jail in Multan, where he was tried in the Lahore Conspiracy Case and sentenced to death, with forfeiture of property. The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment in the Andamans, where he arrived on December 10, 1915. While there, he undertook several hunger strikes in succession to secure better treatment for detainees. He passed away on December 21, 1968 in Amritsar, Punjab, India.
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