ਪੰਨਾ:ਗ਼ਦਰ ਪਾਰਟੀ ਲਹਿਰ.pdf/13

ਵਿਕੀਸਰੋਤ ਤੋਂ
ਇਸ ਸਫ਼ੇ ਦੀ ਪਰੂਫ਼ਰੀਡਿੰਗ ਕੀਤੀ ਗਈ ਹੈ

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the members of all the communities including the Muslims participated with a deep devotion, but even after the failure of their movement the emigrant participants who escaped death have not been infected with communalism and careerism which have been the bane of so many movements in the country. As a matter of fact this movement has supplied a fine cadre of true nationalists and infinite inspiration in the Punjab.

The wtiter could not get access to some of the relevant material and yet to a very large extent he has succeeded in authenticating his facts. Wherever he has not been able to do so to his satisfaction he has indicated it clearly. History in his hands is not a mere narration of authenticated facts. It is an analytical attempt to understand the pattern of development and to make formulations making history meaningful.

Ghadar Party Lehar as history is excellently written. As a matter of fact it is a landmark in the writing of history in Punjabi. But besides being written as history the story of the movement is so soul stirring that it deserves to be depicted by a poet in the form of a great epic.

The Hindustan Times

7

The Ghaddar Party movement which forms an important part of the history of our struggle for freedom has remained, more or less, neglected uptil now. After the attainment of independence, although much valuable evidence about the history of this movement, has been made available, yet there has been no organised effort to interpret it coherently, much less comprehensively. It is encouruging io see that a Punjabi writer has tried not only to piece together all the significant data regarding this phase of history but has also treated them authoritatively and critically. He has studied the earlier phases of the Ghaddar Party Movement. In the introduction to the book, he distinguishes between the Ghaddar Party Movement and Ghaddar Party itself and points out that his aim is to deal with the Movement only which, according to him, found its culmination in 1919. In the early part of the twentieth century, Indians, especially Punjabis (a majority of whom were Sikhs) started going abroad in search of livelihood. In the beginning they moved to the Far East — Burma, Malaya, Singapore, China, Japan, the Phillippines but later went to countries like America, Canada, Mazico, In their own country they had not enjoyed any national status and political