On the birth anniversary of one of India's most daring revolutionary minds, Union Power Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Wednesday, October 14 paid homage to Lala Hardayal — the freedom fighter who carried India's independence struggle to foreign shores. Posting in Hindi on X, Minister Khattar wrote: 'I offer countless salutations to the great freedom fighter, revered Lala Hardayal Ji, on his birth anniversary — the man who founded the Ghadar Party and gave a new direction to the freedom movement. His unparalleled sacrifice and dedication to freeing Mother India from the shackles of subjugation will always remain an example worthy of emulation for all of us.'

The man who took the revolution abroad

Born in 1884 in Delhi, Lala Hardayal was a scholar-turned-revolutionary whose restless intellect could not be contained within the bounds of colonial respectability. He turned down a prestigious Indian Civil Service scholarship — an almost unimaginable act of defiance at the time — and chose instead the dangerous road of anti-colonial agitation. His journey eventually took him to the United States, and it was there, in San Francisco in 1913, that he co-founded the Ghadar Party with a cohort of Indian migrant workers, students, and intellectuals.

The Ghadar Party: revolution organised from San Francisco

The Ghadar Party — ghadar meaning 'mutiny' or 'revolution' — was a remarkable experiment in diaspora-driven anti-colonialism. Operating primarily among the large Punjabi Sikh labour communities on the west coast of North America, it produced a bilingual newspaper that circulated across the world, calling on Indians everywhere to rise against British rule. The party's vision was direct: armed uprising to end the empire. It drew volunteers from Canada, the United States, and Southeast Asia, mobilising communities far beyond the reach of the mainstream movement back home. Hardayal himself was a prolific writer and orator who gave the party its ideological spine. The broader pattern of commemorative tributes from senior ministers on freedom fighters' birth anniversaries reflects an ongoing political culture of connecting the present republic to the revolutionary past — a lineage both governing and opposition parties actively claim. For a leader like Hardayal, who worked outside the conventional nationalist mainstream and imagined liberation through grassroots overseas mobilisation, the remembrance carries a particular resonance. His legacy sits at the intersection of diaspora identity, revolutionary sacrifice, and the plural character of India's independence struggle. That story deserves more than an annual footnote.