Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

104 I Ramnath
government of India. F. C. Isemonger and]. Slattery of the
Punjab police were at pains in their official report on the
Ghadar movement to determine, based on letters written
between 1905 and 1906, that these were long-standing
aims that remained unchanged when Har Dayal began his
activities in the United States. "Two quotations from these
bters;' they assured readers, "will make this clear": Har
Dayal wrote, "Our object is not to reform the Government
bur to rdorm it away, leaving, if necessary, only nominal
traces orits existence." And
The more I think the more I realise that half
measures are of no use . ... We must lay the axe at
the root of the tree. The people can never understand
the figment ofloyalty to the Sovereign and
hostility to his Viceroy. This is a European conception,
which cannot be assimilated by us . ...
"Constitutional Government;' "Colonial Self­
Government;' "Autonomy;' etc., arc terms borrowed
from the western political phraseology
which convey no meaning to our pf'()ple. Place a
clear issue before the people: "Such is your state;
this is the cause; remove the cause.");
Context is needed to assess such statements, and there
is no doubt Har Dayal was always a slippery talker. In this
case, his words could be taken either as self-consciously
anarchist or simply radically anti-British. He himself professed
the latter. This was the defense often used by earlier
expatriate revolutionaries, exonerating themselves of the