Curious about the literal meaning of the word ‘Ghadar,’ though fully aware that exact translation in another tongue would be an impossibility, the closest I found for this Urdu word of Arabic origin is ‘revolt’ or ‘rebellion.’ The word got etched in the annals of colonial Indian history by the name of the Ghadar Party, founded offshore as an attempt at an armed rebellion against British rule in pre-independent India. The book The Ghadar Movement: A Forgotten Struggle by Rana Preet Gill (published by Penguin Random House in 2025) charts the texture and paints the grain of this movement.

The author, a veterinarian, an intrepid traveller, and a novelist, stakes no claim on being a historian; therefore, the book and the narrative voice, too, should be viewed as one from a history enthusiast’s quill. The journey of the book serendipitously stems from an innocuous social media post by the author about an upcoming travel that sparked going down a rabbit hole about one of the lesser-known freedom struggles of colonised India. Carefully researched, albeit written with a light touch of bite-sized chapters, it charts the course of the movement conceptualised in 1913 by Indian immigrants in the United States.

Starting from the face of the Ghadar-Lala Har Dayal, Gill, with remarkable cross-referencing, etches out the story of how the party was born. Kartar Singh Sarabha, Sohan Singh Bhakna, Harnam Singh Tundilat, and others—who, inspired by Indian nationalist figures such as Tilak, Savarkar, Madam Cama, and Shyamji Krishna Varma, launched a transnational revolt—are recorded in Gill’s painstaking research that brings forth the robust idea of the Ghadar Party to smuggle arms to India and incite mutiny among British Indian Army soldiers.

Tracing the arc of their attempt to spark armed rebellion against British rule from across the oceans, the book moves from the general to the specific; the cadence comes to a crescendo in the end when it assesses the movement’s wins and losses. Detailed and insightful, recounting days, dates, events, and incidents in this largely forgotten struggle, Gill paints a canvas with broad brush strokes—and then narrows the lens to the major and minor players.

In talking about key revolutionary acts—like Madan Lal Dhingra’s assassination of Curzon Wylie (London, 1909), the attempted bombing of Viceroy Hardinge (1912), and extending the scope of the book to the Ghadar Party’s multilingual newspaper, Ghadar, as vehicles of revolutionary ideology across the diaspora—the storyteller’s gaze in the writing is palpable, as individual histories form an integral part of the storytelling format, enlivening the characters for the reader.

She paints a vivid picture of the remains of the day after the Ghadarites come face to face with the might of the Empire in disparate events. The book also records how, despite their best intentions, their plans unravelled due to internal betrayals and crackdowns. Gill frames the Ghadar Movement not as a failed revolt, but as a testament to humanity’s unyielding spirit. She highlights how these revolutionaries, despite their exile and limited resources, bore a ray of hope for those bound in the shackles of domination by a foreign power.

In her characteristic narrative voice of a novelist, Gill etches the personal in the political and infuses the rebellious lives with the humane by giving the readers a glimpse into their personal trials and tribulations. Written largely in concise capsules of history on the go, the writer frequently dips into her primarily novelist style, especially when narrating the early immigrations of Indians as farmhands and as academics.

The book, in its 38 crisp chapters and annexures detailing individuals’ fates, women’s roles, and the movement’s legacy, has a worthy aim of resurrecting a forgotten page from India’s anti-colonial resistance. Especially evocative and informative are accounts of the players in the Ghadar movement. Written breezily, the book is successful in providing accessibility and emotional resonance, and for this reason shuns a bookish, dry academic tone, yet highlights central themes of exile, sacrifice, racial and colonial oppression, and the interconnectedness of global anti-colonial movements. In balancing the book for both new readers of Indian revolutionary history and seasoned enthusiasts, it strikes a balance between its research and readability. An unputdownable read with a remarkable cover showing Urdu and Gurmukhi editions of the Ghadar Movement—one that had no lack of zeal but of planning and pre-emptive action as well as logistics.

In knitting a trail of espionage, intrigue, and audacious attempts at overthrowing the British rule in India by zealous expatriates and the resulting crackdown following incomplete planning and betrayal, the author stitches the unknown parts of a familiar past and honours the faces behind a well-intentioned movement, if not well executed.

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Swati Rai is a Delhi-based English language and communication skills trainer.