Life and Legacy of Maulana Barkatullah Bhopali

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The Executive Council of Bhopal's Barkatullah University recently passed a formal proposal to rename the institution Vagdevi Bhojpal University.

Maulana Barkatullah Bhopali lived from July 7, 1854 to September 1927 as a prominent anti-colonial revolutionary, scholar, and fierce journalist.
He served as the Prime Minister of India's first Government in Exile established in the year 1915.
He spent almost his entire adult life operating from foreign countries to build international networks against British rule and secure total freedom for India.

Born in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, he excelled in his studies as a brilliant student and mastered several languages before moving to Bombay and then London for higher education.
While teaching Arabic and Persian in Liverpool, England, he met Indian revolutionaries and wrote anti-British articles that made him a primary target of British intelligence, forcing him to flee to the United States in 1899.
He strongly believed in complete Hindu-Muslim solidarity and argued in letters to Maulana Hasrat Mohani that British-led famines harmed all communities equally, meaning India could only win freedom through united struggle against divide-and-rule tactics.

Barkatullah managed a vast, global network of alliances to fight against the colonial administration.

On 1 December 1915, he helped establish the Provisional Government of India in Kabul as the first external Indian administration seeking global backing for freedom.
Raja Mahendra Pratap acted as President, Maulana Barkatullah served as Prime Minister, and Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi took charge as Home Minister to represent a united nationalist front.

He became a major leader of the Ghadar Party founded in 1913, which favored armed revolution over peaceful constitutional methods.
The party planned to spark a massive mutiny within the British Indian Army to launch a countrywide uprising.

During World War I, he collaborated with Germany because he saw British adversaries as useful allies for India's liberation.
He visited Indian POW camps across Europe to persuade captured soldiers to join a revolutionary army against British imperialism.

In 1919, he traveled to Moscow and met Vladimir Lenin to ask for assistance in India's anti-colonial struggle.

Even with poor health and constant watch by British intelligence, he continued his revolutionary work overseas.
He passed away in September 1927 during a Ghadar Party meeting in San Francisco and found his final resting place in California.

As Prime Minister of the Kabul administration, he led diplomatic efforts to gain worldwide recognition for a free India.
He took India's freedom struggle global by spreading revolutionary activities across Asia, Europe, and North America.
His groundwork inspired future leaders like Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and helped pave the way for the Indian National Army.