Unsung Heroes | History Corner | Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, Ministry of Culture, Government of India

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Paying tribute to India’s freedom fighters

Baj Singh

Amritsar, Punjab

August 05, 2022

Baj Singh hailed from Amritsar district's Raiya suburb. His father, Chatar Singh, was a peasant of modest means. At the turn of the twentieth century, compelling social, economic, and political circumstances forced him to migrate to foreign countries. Punjab was subject to British rule. Baj Singh, like many other Punjabis, desired better employment opportunities and a higher standard of living. For that, he migrated to America; here he got political consciousness and became an active member of the Hindustani Association of the Pacific Coast, also known as the Ghadar Party. The Ghadar Movement arose from the colonial authorities' racist-cultural attitudes, discriminatory immigration policies, and distorted legal procedures that were used to restrict the entry of Indian citizens into their respective countries. The large number of immigrants who joined the movement reflected their newly acquired political consciousness and their dream of Indian independence while they were thousands of miles away from their birthplace. Baj Singh, a Ghadar Movement revolutionary, faced a lot of discrimination and humiliation in America and Canada, which bred contempt for the British government and united him to usher in a revolutionary outfit. His traumatic experiences and sufferings in a foreign country caused a radical shift in his assumptions and claims about the imperial government at home, and he invariably became a bitter opponent of British rule. In India, upon his arrival, he was arrested by the police. In the First Lahore Conspiracy Case, he was sentenced to two years' rigorous imprisonment under Section 122, Indian Penal Code, and forfeiture of property for collecting ammunition for Ghadar Party members. Judges had given the benefit of the doubt as regards the conspiracy. Following that, we have no idea about his whereabouts.

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