The Ghadar Movement in Thailand, 1914–1917: Overseas Indian ‘Rebels’ and Their Multinational Asian Assistants

Abstract

The Ghadar Movement was an effort by a group of overseas Indians from diverse diasporas around the Indo-Pacific region to set up an armed revolution to free India from the grip of British colonialism. This work mainly argues that Thailand was not merely functioning as a passage of the Ghadarites from abroad to return to India through its borders, but instead that different parts of the country were harboring their various clandestine and seditious missions. These activities were not only carried out by the overseas Indians travelling from abroad, but also by many “local Indians” in Thailand who turned themselves into active underground revolutionaries. By analyzing several cases of multinational Asian “allies” of the Ghadarites in Thailand, this study furthers the discussion initiated by previous scholars on the possible links between the Ghadar Movement and the tide of “Pan-Asianism” flourishing in different parts of Asia during the early twentieth century.