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

Rulia Singh Sarabha

Ludhiana, Punjab

August 08, 2022 to August 08, 2023

Rulia Singh was a fearless Ghadar Party revolutionary. He was from Sarabha village in the district of Ludhiana. His father’s name was Jagat Singh. He immigrated to the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. He found work in Astoria, Oregon, in the United States, where many Punjabis worked on farms. During the holidays, Kartar Singh, his village mate and one of the most important leaders of the Ghadar Party, who was then a student at the University of California, Berkeley, would come to meet Rulia Singh. He assisted Kartar Singh in obtaining part-time work in order to pay his university fee. Meetings with Kartar Singh, readings from the Ghadr, and speeches by leaders of the Indian revolutionary movement all had an impact on him. He also faced discrimination and humiliation from native Americans because he came from a slave country. Following the outbreak of World War I, Indians in America were exhorted to return to their homeland and join the Ghadar Party in an armed revolution against the British. Rulia Singh, now 36, was among those who responded to the call. On February 21, 1915, the Ghadar Party planned an uprising in India. The plan was discovered by British authorities, who arrested a large number of ghadarites. Rulia Singh was also arrested and tried in the first Lahore conspiracy case under sections 121, 121A, and 396 of the Indian Penal Code. He was sentenced to death, but his sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. Rulia Singh was transferred to the Andamans Cellular Jail, where he was subjected to violence, deprived of food, and forced to wear handcuffs and bar fetters. He contracted tuberculosis, which proved fatal, and this valiant son of the Indian motherland died at the altar of freedom

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