Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

96 I Ramnath
British-born Mag6nist William Owen was another
project participant. A close collaborator of the Mag6n
brothers, from 191 () he was in charge of the Englishlanguage
page of the Los Angeles edition of their organ
Regeneracidn. 1X Described as an "American anarchist:'
Owen was mentioned addressing an enthusiastic crowd at
a Ghadar meeting in early 1914.
At the time, Har Dayal seems to have been indifferent
to invitations to lead the local Indian community in its
struggles with anti-immigrant legislation, explaining later
that he had been too "caught up in the labor movement and
the social revolution" to think much about Indian nationalist
politics.19 By this he presumably meant the particularity
of eliminating British colonial rule; but in a larger sense,
with hindsight, what could be more key to the u.s. labor
movement and social revolution than the condition of a
racialized, low-income workforce in the United States?
All this changed with the news of the Hardinge bomb.
Lal remembered Hal' Dayal as being "tremendously excited"
on hearing about it. '" Speaking vehemently about it at
an Indian students' meetinQ" Har Daval in si sted on the ri,Thr
u , a
to struggle for independence and equality by any means
possible. He dashed off a circular saluting the bomber, under
the title "Yugantar." Then the news arrived from India
that some of his "closest friends had been drawn into the
net of the 'bomb conspi racy:" and that according to the
Indian newspapers, British authorities believed that Har
Dayal was connected in some way to the attack on the viceroy.
At this point he "knew that he could never go back to
India. Now he must do everything from abroad."i l