Vaishno Das Bagai: British Spy Within the Ghadar Movement

Vaishno Das Bagai came to San Francisco with his wife, Kala, and their three sons in 1915, bringing with them $25,000 in gold,¹ an unprecedented sum at the time. Prior to arriving in the Bay Area, Bagai had enlisted as a paid informant with the British government.

In his book Intelligence and Imperial Defence: British Intelligence and the Defence of the Indian Empire 1904-1924, Richard J. Popplewell detailed Vaishno Das Bagai’s infiltration of the Ghadar Party as an informant for the British Consulate in San Francisco.² A letter regarding Bagai’s services, sent on Jan 24, 1917 from Carnegie Ross, British Consul in San Francisco, to the Viceroy and Governor of India, reports that Bagai, a trusted confidant of Ghadar leader Ram Chandra during their time in India, was given the responsibility of managing the finances of the Ghadar Party.³

In San Francisco, Bagai worked closely with the British Consulate, spying on the activities of the Ghadar Movement in California under the guise of being a committed member of Ghadar Party. On July 8, 1917, the San Francisco Examiner reported, “Federal grand jury indicted 105 persons [Ghadar members as well as German operatives] for plotting here a rebellion in India.”⁴ During a police raid of the Ghadar headquarters in San Francisco, all staff members were arrested. However, Vaishno Das Bagai, a close friend of Ram Chandra and the finance manager of the Ghadar Party, was never charged or mentioned by the prosecution during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial, which took place from November 20, 1917 to April 24, 1918. Bagai escaped prosecution, having provided assistance to two prominent British intelligence officers—Norman Thwaites and Robert Nathan—who collaborated with Carnegie Ross and played instrumental roles in aiding the U.S. Bureau of Investigation (BOI) during the trial. Operating under the alias “Alleyne Ireland,” Thwaites passed along key intelligence from informant Bagai, exposing Ghadar Party internal activities and finance details. Nathan, using the alias “Hale” and drawing on his experience as a retired Indian Police officer, was seated beside U.S. Attorney John Preston throughout the trial, offering strategic insights and confidential reports (compiled by Thwaites).⁵ Vaishno Das Bagai played an instrumental role in helping the British crush the Ghadar Movement by identifying party finances, leadership roles, and various party activity details which were used in⁶ the trial that led to the conviction of 29 individuals. Among those found guilty were 14 Indian nationals who were sentenced to lengthy periods of incarceration.⁷ These convictions ultimately broke the back of the Ghadar Movement’s dream of freeing India from British rule, delaying the inevitable by forty years.

After Bagai had established intelligence operations between the British Consulate in San Francisco and the Ghadar Party for several years, Ram Chandra allegedly discovered Bagai’s ties to British intelligence and publicly called him out as an “English Spy.” Bagai defended himself by stating that he had been tasked by Ram Chandra himself to carry out this intelligence work.⁸ Records (see attached documentation) of written communications among British Imperial officials, preserved in the U.K. National Archives, reference Bagai as an esteemed spy working for the British Raj.

Claims passed down in the Bagai family

Despite the existence of well-documented evidence that Vaishno Das Bagai was a British spy, Kala Bagai, her son Ram Bagai, and granddaughter Rani Bagai maintained that Bagai was a “true patriot” of India’s freedom and a member of the revolutionary Ghadar Party in San Francisco. This is perhaps natural, as kin often harbor bias and a desire to present their ancestors in a favorable light—even if this is not historically correct. Unfortunately, the naming of Kala Bagai Way in Berkeley is not based on historic research or archival records, but on the Bagai descendants’ version of the story. In their campaign to rename the street after Kala Bagai, Berkeley activists used a recording made by Kala, in which she explains (at 0:38.22 min.) why people believed that Bagai was a British spy:

"Some people were... not only mean but jealous because we had the money and they said Mr. Bagai was a spy, English spy. He was getting the money from English people, but it was not so... " ⁹

In a biographical account of Vaishno Das Bagai, Kala’s son, Ram Bagai, also rejected the allegation made by Ram Chandra that Vaishno Das Bagai was a British spy, dismissing it as mere rumor. Ram goes on to say that his father was used as a “tool in the hands of his so-called friend Pt. Ram Chandra.”¹⁰ Rani Bagai has consistently portrayed her grandfather in online articles and videos as an Indian patriot who was deeply passionate about India’s fight for freedom. Again, it is entirely natural for kin to harbor such biases. One notable example is a video interview showcased on South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), in which she is heard stating:

RB 2:09 So when my grandparents arrived… You know, my grandfather's, I think, main wish in coming here was to work for India's independence and to join the Ghadar party to help fight for India's freedom. That was something my grandfather very strongly believed in and wanted, and he felt frustrated. As a young man he was, you know, pursued by the British and, you know, he was kind of a rabble rouser, kind of militant, and he didn't feel he could do anything from India where, you know, he's constantly being oppressed. There was no free speech at that time, or freedom. And he thought in the United States, “I can do that. I can do what I can't do in India.¹¹