In October 1916, Rabindranath Tagore reached San Francisco as part of his three-month long tour of the United States. This was his second ...
In October 1916, Rabindranath Tagore reached San Francisco as part of his three-month long tour of the United States. This was his second visit to the country, his first since winning the Nobel for literature in 1913.
Tagore travelled as World War I raged in Europe, one the US would enter only in April 1917. He sailed from Japan, crossing the Pacific Ocean – as the Atlantic route was off bounds this time – to reach Portland, Oregon, on October 1, 1916. On October 4, he reached San Francisco, where, a few days later, as newspapers of the time report, there was an attempt on his life.
This little known story also relates to how Tagore was seen among the small South Asian community then in the US, as well as to two organisations: the Khalsa Diwan Society based in Stockton, and the Hindustan Ghadar party with its headquarters in San Francisco, born within months of each other.
The Khalsa Diwan Society, mainly a religious and socio-reform organisation, was set up in 1912, and established a permanent gurudwara, the first in the US, at Stockton in 1915. The Ghadar, meaning “revolution” in Urdu, founded in 1913, had political aims. It aimed to raise funds and volunteers...
