Pandurang Khankhoje at the Oregon Agricultural College

Subsequent to posting the review of Savitri Sawhney's book on her father Pandurang Khankhoje I visited Portland Oregon in early June 2013.While in Portland I visited the Oregon Historical Society and the Oregon State University (formerly the Oregon Agriculture College).There I searched the available historical records for details on the early days of Khankhoje in the U.S.Dr. Sawhney has chronicled how Khankhoje had struggled in those early days working in the lumber mills at Astoria(near Portland).This she dovetails with struggle to form the Ghadr party by organising the migrant Indian population(mostly from Punjab).Clearly this struggle of Khankhoje brought him closer to the struggling migrants and forged a bond with them.However there was another stark reality which these migrants faced.This was ethnic and racial discrimination they had come across in nearby Vancouver and elsewhere from where they had transited into Portland.This is well brought out in a recent article in the Oregon Historical Review.This article does suggest that Portland Oregon was relatively free from such discrimination.However it must be borne in mind that it was the struggle of these migrants and their well wishers that also contributed to a relatively discrimination free environment they built. It is here that Oregon records(not available to Dr. Sawhney) shed some light.The Oregonian in June 1911 carried a report on the graduation of the 1911 batch with the caption that 'The Oregon Agriculture College batch of 1911 is cosmopolitan'.This article mentions Pandurang Khankhoje right in the beginning and then details the break up of the composition of the class, showing how international students like Khankhoje formed a part of this cosmopolitanism and how the rest of the class comprised students from at least ten different states in the U.S. besides the students from Oregon.It is clear here that the Oregonian is giving a high premium to cosmopolitanism.Similarly the Weekly Gazette Times has a high opinion of the cosmopolitan character of the college.It is here that mention of Khankhoje becomes significant.The Oregon Agriculture College Barometer,a college newspaper carries a report in May 1910(vol.xvi) that Khankhoje along with B.D.Pandey of Allahbad and Mulk Raj Sui of Batala India with 15 other foreign nationals became the founding charter members of the Cosmopolitan Club of the College.The club's objective was to to promote international understanding and combat nationaland ethnic hatred by familiarising students with the diverse cultures, costumes, traditions of different nations. Another report in the Oregon Agriculture College Barometer(OAC Barometer)highlights that the club will become a chapter in the national association of cosmopolitan clubs in the U.S.Indeed by this time the Cosmopolitan Clubs movement had become very popular spanning 22 U.S. universities.Louis Lochner of the University of Wisconsin who pioneered the coordination of these clubs across U.S.was highly optimistic that these clubs would become an important movement to promote international peace and understanding at a time when war clouds were gathering in Europe.For this reason the Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs also fostered a link with Corda Fratres,an association of students of various European universities(comprising 30,000-40,000 students) whose objective again was to promote international peace and fraternity.It is here in this context that Khankhoje made various speeches reported in the local newspapers upholding U.S.democracy vis a vis British colonialism.The OAC Barometer and the local papers also reveal that the Cosmopolitan Club gatherings were also fun filled affair. On one occasion Khankhoje and his friend B.D. Pande had their audience in splits while performing Indian juggling act.Soon after this B.D. Pande read a serious paper on the exploitation of the British colonialism in India.Similarly the issue of famine in India was raised by Khankhoje in one of the meetings. In a recent personal communication, Mr.Allen Mikaelin of the American Historical Association has pointed on the basis of his researches that important Ghadr activists like Lala Hardayal and Tarakhnath Das too addressed Cosmopoltan Club meetings in Washington University.The research on these themes is still very much work in progress.We still need to know how these clubs progressed in later years.Did they continue with the peace agenda or did they succumb to sectarianism? However in the years Ghadr party was being organised, the early years of Khankhoje do show an active attempt to curb national hatred and promote internationalism. The importance of this movement of Cosmopolitan Clubs was very important for the Indian immigrants,(many of whom joined the Ghadr Party),since they had faced this hatred on the way to Oregon.This cosmopolitanism also acquired prestige in the elite American circles.Some of the important American university Presidents wrote favorably about it.Many of these articles were published in Clubs's journal 'The Coswmopolitan Student'. On the whole then the movement perhaps did provide a relief to the Indian and immigrants of other nations in this area, Following are some of the documents from Oregon Historical Society and Oregon State University record rooms which are cited above: