Punjab's struggle for the freedom from the foreign rule began soon after the defeat of the Sikhs in the first Anglo-Sikh war. One of the first indication was the Cow Row affair. This incident took place in Lahore on the 24th April, 1846, when under protest the businessmen of Lahore closed their shops against the British guard stationed outside the Masti Gate of the City. When the Britishers sent some officers to explain their position to the people of the area and the people pelted stones on them, standing on the roof of their houses. As a result, one man was executed and two were jailed. The houses from which the stones were thrown were pull down to ground.

Some Strategic Freedom Movement in Punjab :

Kirti Kisan Sabha :

• A Sabha, of the Kirtis (workers) and Kishans (peasants) fostered and to some extent, funded by the Ghadar Party, was established on 12th April, 1928, with view to organising small agriculturists, industrial workers and other low paid urban labour for revolutionary activity. The Sabha owed its orgin to the Kirti Movement started by Bhai Santokh Singh, 1927, a Ghadar Leader, who had spent two years in Moscow studying Soviet methods of village propaganda.
• Initially, the sabha plans to prepare the masses for action, then started propaganda through the press and launched a monthly magazine in Punjabi. The Kirti, the first issue of Which was published from Amritsar in February, 1926.
• The 1929, Annual Session of the Sabha was held at Lahore during the Christmas week. Throughout this period, the Kirtis continued to disseminate communist thought and preach the creed of revolt against British imperialism, The Kirti Kisan Conference held on 4th March, 1931 at Anandpur Sahib on the occasion of Hola Mohalla festival called upon workers and peasants to set up units of the sabha in the villages.

Komagata Maru Incident :

• The Komagata Maru incident involved a Japanese steamship that sailed from Hong Kong to Shanghai, China, Yokohama, Japan and then to Vancouver. British Columbia and, Westernmost province of Canada in 1914 carrying 376 passengers from Punjab, India. Of them 20 were admitted to Canada, but the 356 other passengers were not allowed to land in Canada and the ship was forced to return India.
• This was one of several incidents in the history of early 20th century involving exclusion laws in both Canada and the United States designed to keep out immigrants of only Asian origin.
• The Komagata Maru incident was widely cited at the time by Indian groups to highlight discrepancies in Canadian immigration laws. Further, the inflamed passions in the wake of the incident were widely cultivated by the Indian Revolutionary Organisation, the Ghadar Party to rally support for its aims.

Jallianwala Bagh Massacre :

• The Jallianwala incident added fuel to the fire of National Movement. On 12th April, 1919, General Reginald Edward Harry Dyer, who had taken over the command of the troops in Puniab, the day before prohibited all public meetings or gatherings.
• On 13th April, 1919 a large number of men, women and children has assembled at Jallianwala Bagh on the occasion of Baisakhi and also to show their resentment against the Government Policy. Enraged General Dyer fired 1600 rounds of ammunition on the crowd resulting in a stampede and a bloody massacre of thousands of men, women and children.The brutality of the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy shocked the country. To show his solidarity with the Indian masses, Tagore rejected the Knighthood, earlier conferred upon him by the British Government.

Ghadar Party :

• The Ghadar Party was an organisation founded by Punjabi Indians in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule. The movement began with a group of immigrants known as the Hindustani Workers of the Pacific coast.
• The Ghadar Party, initially the Pacific Coast Hindustan Association, was formed in 1913 in the United States under the leadership of Har Dayal, with Sohan Singh Bhakna as its President.
• The members of the party were Indian immigrants, largely from Punjab, many of its members were students at University of California at Berkeley including Dayal, Tarak Nath Das, Maulavi Barkatullah, Kartar Singh Sarabha and VG Pingle. The party quickly gained support from Indian expatriates, especially in the United States. The Ghadar Party commanded a loyal following the province of Punjab. But many of its most prominent activities were forced into exile to Canada and United States. It ceased to play an active role in Indian politics after 1919.
• The party had active members in other countries such as Mexico, Japan, China, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Malaya, Indo-China and Eastern and Southern Africa. the Ghadar revolutionaries laid the foundation of the Communist movement in Punjab. The Bolshevik revolution inspired revolutionary movements worldwide. Many Ghadar Party members at different times were sent to Moscow for ideological educations.
• The party was built around the weekly paper The Ghadar, which carried the caption on the masthead, ‘An Enemy of the British Rule’. The first issue of the Ghadar, was published from San Francisco or 1st November, 1913.

Purna Swaraj-Lahore Session of the Congress, 1929 :

• In Calcutta Session of the Congress in December 1928, gave an ultimatum to the British Government that if dominion status was not granted by December 1929, a countrywide Civil Disobedience Movement would be launched. Lord Irwin, the Governor-General, reiterated that the Government would usher in some constitutional reforms, which would end in granting of dominion status to the Indians. Reacting to this statement Indian leaders, like Mahatma Gandhi, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya and Annie Besant urged the Governor-General to devise a more liberal formula so that the entire issue could be sorted out in a peaceful manner.
• Meanwhile within the Congress itself, young leaders like Subhash Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru demanded that their aim was not to fight for dominion status but for complete Independence. The Congress, at its historic Lahore Session held in December, 1929, under the presidentship of Jawaharlal Nehru, adopted a resolution to this effect.It authorized Congress working committee to launch a Civil Disobedience movement throughout the country. It was decided that 26th January should be observed all over India as the Purna Swaraj (complete Independence Day).

Gurdwara Reform Movement :

• The Gurdwara Reform Movement is the legislation passed by the Punjab Legislative Council, which marked the culmination of the struggle of the Sikh people from 1920-1925 to wrest control of their places of worship from the Mahants or Priests into whose hands they had passed during the 18th century, when the Khalsa were driven from their homes to seek safety in remote hills and deserts.
• After the advent of the British, Sikhs rebuilt their shrines endowing them with large Jagirs and Estates, began to consider the shrines and lands attached to them as their personal Properties and to appropriating the income accruing from them to their private use. Some of them alienated or sold Gurdwara properties at will. The British Government, who at first sided with the priests, eventually relented under popular pressure and passed, in the first instance, the Sikh Gurudwara and Shrines Act, 1922, which envisaged a Committee nominated by the Government to take control of the Gurdwaras.
• This however, was not acceptable to the Akali Leaders. The agitation continued and the government had another draft worked out. The bill was moved in the Punjab Legislative Council by Sardar Tara Singh from Moga on 7th May, 1925 and piloted by another Sikh member, Bhai Jodh Singh, eminent educationist and theologian.
• The bill was, in the first instance, referred to a select committee, which presented its report on 20th June. The council passed the bill on 7th July and it became operative on 1st November, 1925, as the Sikh Gurdwaras Act, 1925.
• The act, as its Preamble declares, aimed at providing for the better administration of certain Sikh Gurdwaras and for enquiries into matters and settlement of disputes connected there with. According to the act, a Central Gurdwara Board elected by the Sikhs was to be the custodian of all-important Sikh places of worship.
• Thus, the passing and acceptance of Gurdwara Act, 1925 was not an achievement of the great sacrifies made by the Sikhs during the previous five years. On the other hand, it was a direct frontal blow to the Sikh polity. The Government very cleverly ensured that they have abolished the institution of Akal Takht and now the Sikhs would not be able to come on a single platform.

Simon Commission :

• In 1928, the British Government further outraged people across India by appointing an All-European Simon Commission to deliberate on constitutional and political reforms for India. Huge Punjab crowd greated the Simon Commission with shouts of Simon Go Back and waving of Black Flags.Lala Lajpat Rai the Lion of Punjab, fell to the murderous Police lathi charge, ordered by Saunders. The dying leader prophesied that each lathi blow on my body would prove a nail driven into the coffin of the British empire in India.
• Bhagat Singh, alongwith Sukhdev and Rajguru, expressed their anger at Lala Lajpat Rai’s death by throwing bombs and leaflets in the Legislative Assembly on 8th April, 1929, that day India was also given the slogan Inqilab Zindabad. The two surrendered themselves exhibiting the noblest expression of heroism. On 23rd March, 1931, these heroes were hanged under cover of darkness on the banks of the river Sutiej, near Firozpur.

Naujawan Sabha :

• The Naujawan Sabha played a significant role in the political history of Punjab during 1926-29 by spreading Anti-British and revolutionary ideas among the Youth.In the first place, it showed interest in Anti-Government Movements launched by political parties and its members associated themselves with the boycott of Simon Commission and of the British goods. They agitated against the trade dispute bill and the public safety bill etc. Secondly, they took interest in the communist activities of the Kirti Group by organising a workers and peasants.

The sabha aims was :

• To establish a complete independent republic of the labourers and peasants of the whole of India.
• To infuse a spirit of patriotism into the heart of the youth of the country in order to establish a United Indian Nation.
• To express sympathy with, and to assist the economic, industrial and social movements.
• To organise the labourers and peasants.