RAS question
The Gadar newspaper was published in which languages?
Correct answer: (C) Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi, English, and other Indian languages.
The Gadar newspaper was published in Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi, English and other Indian languages, including Gujarati.
Explanation
The Gadar newspaper was designed as a multilingual revolutionary paper, not as a paper for one linguistic group alone. Its first issue appeared on November 1, 1913, with Lala Hardayal as its initial editor, and it used Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi, English, Gujarati and other languages. Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, Ministry of Culture, Government of India, records that the Ghadr weekly began publication in November 1913 from the party headquarters at Yugantar Ashram, San Francisco, and was to be published in Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi and other Indian languages. That multilingual reach explains option C: the movement needed to address a dispersed Indian diaspora, so a single-language answer misses the purpose of the paper.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) Only Punjabi is too narrow because Urdu and Hindi were also publication languages, along with English, Gujarati and other languages.
- (B) Only Urdu is wrong because Urdu was one publication language among several, not the exclusive language of the Gadar newspaper.
- (D) Only English is wrong because the paper also appeared in Indian languages such as Urdu, Punjabi and Hindi.
Concept
This tests the revolutionary press and diaspora nationalism within modern Indian history. RAS often asks such facts because newspapers, editors and languages show how anti-colonial ideas travelled across communities.