Pandurang Sadashiv Khankhoje

Who was Pandurang Sadashiv Khankhoje?

Pandurang Sadashiv Khankhoje was an Indian revolutionary, scholar, agricultural scientist and historian who was among the founding fathers of the Ghadar Party.

Khankhoje was born in November 1884 to a Marathi Brahmin family at Wardha, where his father worked as a petition-writer. Young Khankhoje spent his childhood in Wardha, where he completed his primary and middle school education before moving to Nagpur for higher education. He was at the time inspired by the nationalist work of Bal Gangadhar Tilak. At some time in the first decade of 1900s, Khankhoje left India on a voyage that ultimately saw him settle in the United States. Here he enrolled in the Oregon Agricultural College, graduating in 1911. His earliest nationalist work abroad dates back to the time around 1908 when he, along with Pandit Kanshi Ram founded the Indian Independence League in Portland, Oregon. His works also brought him close to other Indian nationalists in United States at the time, including Taraknath Das. In the years preceding World War I, Khankhoje was one of the founding members of the Pacific coast Hindustan association, and subsequently founded the Ghadar Party. He was at the time one of the most influential members of the party. He met Lala Har Dayal in 1911. He also enrolled at one point in a West Coast military academy.