Born in 1891, in the Hoshiarpur district of then Punjab, Pandit Jagat Ram Bharadwaj was often called ‘Jagat Ram Haryanvi’. While growing up, Jagat Ram was deeply influenced by freedom fighters. In 1911, Jagat Ram moved to America where he was gutted by systemic racism.
Along with men like Lala Har Dayal, Sohan Singh Bhakna and others, Pandit Ram began an extensive propaganda campaign, mostly addressing Punjabi immigrant labourers. The Yugantar Ashram in San Francisco became the hotbed of the revolutionaries, while Jagat Ram dedicated himself to nurture the feisty weekly paper, The Ghadar, which meant “The Revolt”.
An anti-British Raj paper, Ghadar literature soon reached Indian revolutionaries in India, Europe, Canada, Africa, Asia and South-East Asia. The idea was a violent overthrow of British Rule in India by arousing all Indians. This ed the British State. As the fateful Komagata Maru ship arrived at Calcutta in 1914, with the Ghadarites in it, several leaders were imprisoned and hanged. Escaping the police in Calcutta, Jagat Ram remained underground and carried on revolutionary activities for two years, until he was imprisoned for life in the Lahore Conspiracy Case.
After serving twenty-five years’ jail term, Bharadwaj met Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and joined the National Congress Party. He remained immersed in post-Independence politics and became a member of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha in 1952 from Hoshiarpur.
Source: Indian Culture Portal