the machinery of great power politics ground toward a seemingly inevitable collision, Germany had already been looking to the “Orient” as a field to draw on for opposition to its rival juggernaut, Britain. The referent for this vast and mysterious entity was, as convenient, either India or the so-called Islamic world—a significant elision adopted no less by Bolshevik Russia, or by Japanese, Indian, Egyptian, and Chinese Pan-Asianists themselves, than by German strategists. But strategy aside, Germany already had a venerable tradition of Orientalist scholarship and political interest, producing such distinguished figures as Baron Max von Oppenheim, who had a long history of archeological study and diplomatic service in Egypt and the Middle East, and Dr. Herbert Mueller, a Sinologist who had studied in China between 1912 and 1914. Mueller recalled that as early as 1904 at Berlin University he had “bec[o]me interested in the political emancipation movement in, what we called, “The Orient” at that time and I soon had many friends amongst nationalists and revolutionaries from Egypt, Turkey, Kurdistan, Persia, India, China and Korea.”1
These strategists had determined that supporting Indian and/or Pan-Islamist anti-British unrest (between which there was understood to be significant overlap, although the two were obviously far from identical) was an important part of conducting their war.was In Germany and the Next War, published in October 1911, General Friedrich von Bernhardi indicated the German hope that the Hindu population of Bengal, “in which a pronounced revolutionary and nationalist tendency had showed itself, might unite with the Muhammedans of India and that the cooperation of these elements might create a very grave danger capable of shaking the foundations of England’s high position in the world.”2 Plainly, despite the tendency to take the East as a single unit, German Orientalists at least were aware of the disparate religious, regional, and cultural affiliations within the Oriental world. Otherwise they could hardly have spoken of linking them up as a desirable new development, even if this goal was hindered by failure to fully understand the content and context of the differences among them, or their priorities. Nevertheless, the slippage or overlap of categories (along with the nature of the Indian national revolutionaries’ relationships to Egyptian and Japanese movements) opened a door through which leftist, national liberationist, and Pan-Islamist streams of anticolonial activity could flow in and out of each other in the 1920s.
By spring 1915 the German Foreign Office (Auswertiges Amt, or AA) had gathered most of the significant Indian radicals then active in Europe to form the Indian National Party or Berlin India Committee (BIC).3 Indeed, both the Yugantar group and Dacca Anusilan Samiti had already approached Germany by 1911 on behalf of the Bengali movement, while Virendranath Chattopadhyaya had arrived in Berlin from France in 1914 to represent the international revolutionaries.4 Other important participants from all quadrants of British India included Champakaraman Pillai,5 Bhupendranath Dutt,6 M. P. T. Acharya, Ajit Singh, and disenfranchised aristocrat Mahendra Pratap. Representing the North Americans were Muhammed Barakatullah, Taraknath Das, Bhagwan Singh, and Har Dayal.7 Har Dayal was still presumed to exercise significant influence over the transatlantic movement, and one of the main reasons the Foreign Office wanted him was that they were very keen to incorporate the American Ghadarites. The California group was identified as a particularly valuable addition to the team, since they already had a well-developed infrastructure, mobilized support base, extensive propaganda machinery, and other situational factors such as the presence of large German and Irish immigrant populations in the United States, the latter of whose contingent of anti-British militants Germany was similarly interested in supporting. An article in the Berliner Tageblatt published 6 March 1914 and entitled “England’s India Trouble” “depict[ed] a very gloomy situation in India,” due to which “secret societies flourished and spread and were helped from outside. In California especially, it was said there appeared to be an organized enterprise for the purpose of providing India with arms and explosives.”8 As usual this was not altogether wrong, if exaggerated and not altogether right either.
In addition to the Indian committee, Berlin hosted similar Persian and Turkish groups. Indian activist Jodh Singh explained: “The object of the first named is to free Persia from European influence in general and create ill feelings against the British, in particular, and to assist the Indians in obtaining a republic. The object of the Turkish Society is practically the same.”9 Members of both groups also attended BIC meetings. But the BIC at first had little direct contact with the AA itself, communicating mainly through Oppenheim and Mueller, although Chatto and Har Dayal had clearance to attend meetings of the Foreign Office where “Indian matters” were discussed.10 But while the German goal for India was to foment unrest that would destabilize Britain, integrating “all revolutionary organizations of America and Europe … under the control of the German authority,” the better to effectively coordinate and “deploy schemes through other centres of authority in distant countries,”11 the BIC’s own stated goal for itself was first and foremost “establishing a republican government in India by any means.”12 As self-appointed “Supreme General Staff of the Indian Revolution” the committee was supposed to be an independent body, with the Indians making their own decisions about what to do.13 Its members insisted that they must “represent India while negotiating with Germany on a footing of equality on the basis of mutual interest and not as a subordinate power begging for help,” observed an intelligence report, and “seem to have continuously guarded themselves against being used as tools in the hands of Germany for her imperialist motives.”14
In 1915 the AA established the Nachrichtenstalle für der Orient (News Agency for the Orient) to produce news and pamphlets in various languages for distribution to soldiers in Europe and the Middle East. The Germans hoped the members of the Berlin India Committee would serve as propagandists, translators, and compilers in this effort. By mid-1916, British intelligence had compiled a list of eighty-two papers and pamphlets “published by German agency or by societies subsidised by Germany” in languages including English, French, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Malay, Tartar, Chinese, and four or five Indian vernaculars.15 But “the production of anti-British literature” was only the first item in an agenda that the DCI compiled after the fact, in 1920.16 Also on the list were “attempts to commit assassinations in England and allied countries, especially Italy,” and “an attempt to endanger the lines of communication through the Suez Canal.”17 Meanwhile, some BIC members were tapped for additional training in explosives and sabotage, while others visited the captured troops in an attempt to “win Indian [POWs] from their allegiance,” a task to be directed by Barakatullah.18
After Berlin the second major headquarters was in Istanbul, headed first by Har Dayal and later by the BIC’s Dr. Mansur Ahmed. The Istanbul office was to be the hub for coordinating efforts in Egypt, Persia, and Mesopotamia. Plans for importing the revolt to India were deployed along the three major approaches to the subcontinent: over land from the northwest across Persia to the Afghan frontier, from the northeast across Siam to the Burmese frontier, and by sea from the Dutch East Indies.19 Each of these three strategic initiatives was delegated primarily to a different segment of the Indian revolutionaries abroad: the northwestern land route to the Pan-Islamists and Europe-based nationalists, the northeastern land route to the California Ghadarites, and the southeastern sea route to the domestic Bengalis.20 However, there were multiple connection points among the campaigns, and many individuals played a role in more than one area.
We will return later to the western approach, pausing here only to note one of the fruits of the German mission across Persia to Afghanistan: namely, the establishment of a self-designated Provisional Government of India in Kabul. Nirode Barooah calls this provisional government in exile Barakatullah’s “brainchild,” as it was his suggestion that claiming a piece of land and achieving diplomatic recognition—that is, a state-to-state affirmation of sovereignty—would facilitate fund-raising by making it easier to procure war loans from other governments who opposed England.21 From a strictly nationalist point of view, such recognition would be the very definition of freedom. Indeed, as Gobind Behari Lal put it, “The real significance” of the Berlin group was that “these Indian revolutionaries made great nations like Germany … recognize the concept of an Indian government in exile representing a free India.”22