Stranger on the Home Front: A Story of Indian Immigrants and World War I
A Note on Vocabulary India at the time this story is set included modern-day India Pakistan and Bangladesh The entire area was ruled by the British Empire and sometimes referred to as Hindustan Punjab was a region within Hindustan now partly in India partly in Pakistan Most Indian immigrants to the United States at the turn of the century came from this region Punjabis could be of any religion with the three main religions of the region being Islam whose followers are called Muslims Sikhism and Hinduism Lahore in present day Pakistan is a major city in Punjab Sikhism is a religion that started in the 1400s in Punjab Most early Indian immigrants were Sikhs Many Sikhs use the last name Singh which means lion Many wear turbans to cover their long uncut hair The kirpan is a knife worn by many Sikhs as a symbol of their faith
A gurdwara is a Sikh house of worship The first gurdwara in the United States was in Stockton California Langar is the common meal prepared at the gurdwara for all worshippers and visitors Phulka is a flatbread com-mon in Indian food It is more often known as chapati The Golden Temple in the Punjabi city of Amritsar in modern-day India is the holiest site in Sikhism Guru Nanak Gurpurab is a Sikh holiday celebrating the birth of Guru Nanak who founded the religion The Guru Granth Sahib is the Sikh holy book Hindus are followers of the majority religion in India Though many early twentieth century immigrants to the United States were Sikhs or Muslims Americans called them all Hindus or East Indians to distinguish them from American Indians Native Americans The Ghadar Party was a revolutionary group founded by Indian immigrants Members planned to use violence to end British rule over India The word Ghadar means revolt or
mutiny and was sometimes spelled Gadar The Immigration Act of 1917 banned most imm-igration from Asia to the United States It was informally called the Barred Zone Act During World War I Germans and particularly German soldiers were called the Huns in the United States and other Allied countries The kaiser was the emperor of Germany U-boats were German submarines Prussia was the largest state in Germany and included the capital Berlin The Berlin-India Committee was an organization of Indian revolutionaries working with the German government during World War I
LAHORE PUNJAB November 16 1915 MUTINY FAILS ORGANIZERS EXECUTED After being sentenced to death in September nineteen year old Kartar Singh Sarabha was hanged along with six others in the city of Lahore in November Sarabha had been arrested in Punjab India for trying to incite mutiny among Indian soldiers and convince them to turn their weapons against Britain Sarabha had recently returned to India from the United States along with numerous other revolutionaries The revolutionaries were acting on behalf of the Ghadar Party a group based in California It is thought that the gurdwara in Stockton California may have provided them with financial support
