In the 139th episode of Mann Ki Baat, broadcast on 25 October 2026, the Prime Minister paid tribute to Bhai Parmanand, whose 150th birth anniversary falls on 4 November 2026. He described a life that ran from Arya Samaj missionary work abroad to the Ghadar movement, a death sentence, the Cellular Jail and, later, the classroom where Bhagat Singh was among his students.
Bhai Parmanand is less familiar than many of his contemporaries, but his life passes through almost every major chapter of the revolutionary side of the freedom struggle — which makes him an efficient way to revise it.
His life in outline
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1876 | Born on 4 November at Karyala, in the Jhelum district of Punjab (now in Pakistan); his father was an Arya Samaj missionary |
| 1905 | Arrives in South Africa on 5 August as the first Arya Samaj missionary there; founds reform bodies among the Indian community in Durban |
| 1900s-1910s | Contact with Lala Har Dayal; the Prime Minister said it was Bhai Parmanand who persuaded Har Dayal to go to America |
| 1915 | Tried in the First Lahore Conspiracy Case; sentenced to death, commuted to transportation for life |
| to 1920 | Imprisoned in the Cellular Jail, Port Blair |
| 1920s | Teaches history at the National College, Lahore, where Bhagat Singh was among his students |
| Later years | A leading figure in the Hindu Mahasabha |
| 1947 | Dies at Jalandhar on 8 December |
The Arya Samaj connection
The Arya Samaj was founded by Swami Dayanand Saraswati in 1875 in Bombay. It combined religious reform — a return to the authority of the Vedas, opposition to idol worship and caste rigidity — with a strong emphasis on education, through the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic (DAV) schools and colleges, and on national self-respect. Many revolutionaries and nationalists in Punjab came through Arya Samaj institutions, and Bhai Parmanand's own family belonged to it.
His mission to South Africa in 1905 placed him among the Indian community there in the same years that Gandhi was building his campaigns in that country. The Prime Minister referred to his connection with Gandhi and his time in Guyana, another destination of Indian indentured labour.
The Ghadar movement
The Ghadar Party is the context for the most dramatic part of his life.
- Founded in 1913 among Indian immigrants — many of them Punjabi Sikh workers and farmers — on the Pacific coast of the United States and Canada.
- Leaders: Sohan Singh Bhakna was its first president; Lala Har Dayal was its leading intellectual and organiser.
- Headquarters: the Yugantar Ashram in San Francisco. Its newspaper, Ghadar ("revolt"), was published in several languages and circulated among Indians abroad and in the British Indian Army.
- Aim: the armed overthrow of British rule, an aim given urgency by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, which the party saw as Britain's moment of weakness.
The Komagata Maru incident of 1914, in which a ship carrying Indian passengers was refused entry to Canada and, on its return, met with police firing at Budge Budge near Calcutta, inflamed opinion among Indians abroad. Hundreds of Ghadarites returned to India to raise a rebellion, centred on Punjab and on Indian troops.
The planned uprising of February 1915 was betrayed and crushed before it began. The British response was the series of trials known as the Lahore Conspiracy Cases, conducted under the Defence of India Act, 1915.
The First Lahore Conspiracy Case
The first case, tried in 1915, was one of the largest political trials of the colonial period. Many accused were sentenced to death; Kartar Singh Sarabha, still in his teens, was among those executed in November 1915. Bhai Parmanand was sentenced to death for his links with Har Dayal and the Ghadar Party, and the sentence was commuted to transportation for life.
The Cellular Jail
Transportation for life meant the Cellular Jail at Port Blair in the Andaman Islands — "Kala Pani". Completed in 1906, it was built with solitary cells arranged in wings radiating from a central tower, so that political prisoners could be isolated from one another. Its inmates included the Savarkar brothers and many Ghadar revolutionaries. Bhai Parmanand was held there until 1920. The jail is today a national memorial.
The teacher of revolutionaries
After his release, Bhai Parmanand taught history at the National College, Lahore — one of the nationalist institutions founded during the Non-Cooperation Movement as an alternative to government-controlled education. Bhagat Singh studied there. The line that runs from the Ghadar revolutionaries of 1915 to the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association of the late 1920s passes, in part, through classrooms like his.
In his later years he was a leading figure in the Hindu Mahasabha, and his political views moved in a direction quite different from Bhagat Singh's socialism — a reminder that the revolutionary movement was not a single ideology. His life, from Arya Samaj missions to Ghadar and later politics, is a compressed history of the currents that fed into Indian nationalism. For the constitutional and mass-politics strand of the same struggle, see our explainers on Lokmanya Tilak and the Quit India Movement; for earlier armed resistance, the Kittur revolt of 1824.
🔑 Revision block
- The hook: tribute in the 139th Mann Ki Baat, 25 October 2026; 150th birth anniversary on 4 November 2026.
- Life: born 4 November 1876, Karyala, Jhelum district (now Pakistan); first Arya Samaj missionary in South Africa (arrived 5 August 1905); died 8 December 1947, Jalandhar.
- Arya Samaj: founded by Swami Dayanand Saraswati, 1875, Bombay; DAV institutions.
- Ghadar Party: 1913, Pacific coast of the USA and Canada; Sohan Singh Bhakna (president), Lala Har Dayal; HQ Yugantar Ashram, San Francisco; paper Ghadar.
- 1914-15: Komagata Maru (1914, Budge Budge firing); planned uprising of February 1915 crushed; First Lahore Conspiracy Case under the Defence of India Act, 1915; Kartar Singh Sarabha executed (Nov 1915).
- Bhai Parmanand's sentence: death, commuted to transportation for life; Cellular Jail until 1920.
- Cellular Jail: Port Blair, completed 1906, solitary cells in radiating wings; Savarkar brothers; now a national memorial.
- Later: taught at National College, Lahore — Bhagat Singh a student; leading figure in the Hindu Mahasabha.
🎯 Practice MCQs
Q1. Bhai Parmanand was born in 1876 in which district of Punjab? (a) Jhelum (b) Amritsar (c) Ludhiana (d) Lahore
→ (a) He was born at Karyala in Jhelum district, now in Pakistan.
Q2. The Ghadar Party was founded in 1913 by Indians living in: (a) South Africa and Kenya (b) the United States and Canada (c) Britain and France (d) Japan and Singapore
→ (b) It was organised among Indian immigrants on the Pacific coast of North America, with headquarters in San Francisco.
Q3. The first president of the Ghadar Party was: (a) Lala Har Dayal (b) Rash Behari Bose (c) Sohan Singh Bhakna (d) Kartar Singh Sarabha
→ (c) Har Dayal was its leading intellectual and organiser; Sohan Singh Bhakna was its president.
Q4. The headquarters of the Ghadar Party in San Francisco was known as: (a) India House (b) Swaraj Bhavan (c) Anand Bhavan (d) Yugantar Ashram
→ (d) India House was in London; Swaraj Bhavan and Anand Bhavan are in Allahabad.
Q5. The Lahore Conspiracy Cases of 1915 were tried under the: (a) Defence of India Act, 1915 (b) Rowlatt Act, 1919 (c) Vernacular Press Act, 1878 (d) Government of India Act, 1919
→ (a) The Defence of India Act was a wartime law that enabled special tribunals.
Q6. The Arya Samaj was founded by Swami Dayanand Saraswati in: (a) 1828 (b) 1875 (c) 1893 (d) 1905
→ (b) It was founded in Bombay in 1875; the Brahmo Samaj dates from 1828.
Q7. Bhai Parmanand's death sentence in the Lahore Conspiracy Case was commuted to: (a) ten years' rigorous imprisonment (b) deportation to Burma (c) transportation for life (d) house arrest in Punjab
→ (c) He was sent to the Cellular Jail in the Andamans, where he remained until 1920.
Q8. The Cellular Jail at Port Blair was completed in: (a) 1906 (b) 1919 (c) 1942 (d) 1947
→ (a) It was built with solitary cells so that political prisoners could be isolated.
Q9. The Komagata Maru incident of 1914 is associated with: (a) the partition of Bengal (b) a ship of Indian passengers refused entry into Canada (c) the first session of the Indian National Congress (d) the Jallianwala Bagh massacre
→ (b) On its return to India, police fired on the passengers at Budge Budge near Calcutta.
Q10. Which revolutionary studied at the National College, Lahore, where Bhai Parmanand taught history? (a) Chandrashekhar Azad (b) Ram Prasad Bismil (c) Udham Singh (d) Bhagat Singh
→ (d) Bhagat Singh was a student at the National College, founded during the Non-Cooperation Movement.
📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)
The revolutionary movement is a regular part of CDS Modern History, and questions on the Ghadar phase follow a narrow set of forms.
The first is the organisation-and-founder question: who led the Ghadar Party, where it was founded and where its headquarters was. Har Dayal and Sohan Singh Bhakna are the names; India House in London and the Anushilan Samiti in Bengal are the usual distractors.
The second is the chronology question: Komagata Maru (1914), the Ghadar uprising and the Lahore Conspiracy Case (1915), the Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh (1919). Arranging these in order is a classic item.
The third is the law question: which Act enabled the wartime conspiracy trials. The Defence of India Act, 1915, is the answer; the Rowlatt Act of 1919 extended its wartime powers into peacetime and provoked the satyagraha of that year.
A fourth, occasional, asks about reform organisations — the Arya Samaj, its founder, its year and its educational institutions — often paired with the Brahmo Samaj and the Prarthana Samaj.
For a written answer on the revolutionary movement, Bhai Parmanand is a useful thread: an Arya Samaj missionary turned Ghadar conspirator, a convict of Kala Pani, and a teacher of the next generation of revolutionaries. His life shows how reform, diaspora politics and armed resistance were connected rather than separate.
Preparing for CDS/OTA? In Modern History, learn each revolutionary organisation with its founders, its base and its trial — the questions are built from those pairings. Start with our CDS/OTA study material, follow the daily CDS current affairs, and prepare with our faculty in the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.
✍️ Written by Hitendra Deswal — Polity, history & culture faculty at The Cavalier. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk.