A Transnational Revolutionary: Dr Savitri Sawhney on her father Pandurang Khankhoje

Indian independence from British colonial rule in 1947 was preceded by various grassroots movements, mutinies and failed armed struggles. The Ghadar Movement, started in the early twentieth-century by expatriate Indians, was one such organised struggle towards achieving Indian independence. Largely founded by Punjabi-origin Indian agricultural workers from the West Coast of the United States of America, the movement went on to become a uniquely international resistance towards British colonial occupation in India.

Pandurang Khankhoje, one of the founding members of the Ghadar party, travelled across many countries including Japan, China, United States of America, Mexico, Germany and the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics seeking out fellow supporters of the Swaraj movement, while escaping prosecution from colonial forces. In this conversation, his daughter, Savitri Sawhney recounts her father’s journeys through the charged political climate of the first and second World Wars, and his eventual return to Mexico. Here, he established the Escuelas Libres de Agricultura de Mexico (1924-28)—free agricultural schools where he worked to develop high yielding varieties of wheat, corn and other crops to combat widespread famines. 

Pandurang Khankhoje’s work at the agricultural school in Mexico is survived by many photographs taken by the celebrated photographer Tina Modotti. In this conversation, Sawhney talks about how the shared ideals of democracy and respect for the working class brought together the Italian photographer Tina Modotti, the Mexican painter Diego Rivera and the Indian revolutionary Pandurang Khankhoje. 

To know more about Pandurang Khankhoje, please search for "The Agrarian Revolution and Tina Modotti: In Conversation with Dr Savitri Sawhney."

(Featured Image: Pandurang Khankhoje in his laboratory. Photograph by Tina Modotti. Chapingo, Mexico, c.1928. Courtesy of Savitri Sawhney.)

Interview with Anisha Baid, 16 December 2020.