GERMAN PLOTS IN INDIA.

Taihape Daily Times, 2 December 1918, Page 7

GERMAN PLOTS IN INDIA.

attempt at holy war. 1 I | U.SILK LETTERS'- CONSPIRACY A comprehensive report touching German plots in India was published recently by a Committee of Invcstiga--3 ,tion. One of the most striking incidents j described, relates to German attempts j j to work up a groat Moslem conspiracy. ( , In August, 1916, the conspiracy known - to the Government as the “Silk Let- ' tors” plot was discovered. The, aim t was to destroy British rule by means • of an attack on the north-west fronj tier, supplemented by an internal 0 | Mahommcdan rising. a ! A year earlier a converted Sikh, j El*. anlvi Obcidulla, crossed the frontier , j with three companions, and went to ■ Kabul, where he met the members of a Turco-Gcrman Mission. He had been f j trained as a maulvi in the Moslem rc--0 I ligious school at Dcoband, in the I nita i ecl Provinces, where he infected some ® | of the stiaff and students with liis own i militant and anti-British ideas. One » of these, Maulvi (Mahomed Mian An- * i sari, went to Arabia with the head of l> i duration of a "Holy War," received 1 from Ghalib Pasha, then Turkish Milii tary Governor .of the Hedjaz. Mali--1 ornod Mian distributed copies of this | document both in India and among I the frontier tribes. Obcidulla and his follow conspirators prepared a scheme for the provisional 5 government of India after the overthrow of British power. A . certain Mahondra Pratap, the son of an Oudh landowner, and described in enemy reports as a "raja," leaving India at the end bf 1911, went to Geneva, where ho met the notorious Hardayal (a j former Government of India scholar at •I Oxford), and was introduced to the German Consul. Proceeding to Berlin, he was dispatched thence with a number of Gormans in a special mission to the Middle East in connection with this conspiracy. It was arranged that he should bo the president of the provisional government,- that Obcidulla. should be "Minister of India" and Barkatulla, a friend of the notorious { revolutionary Krishnavarma, Prime 1 Minister. 1 The German of the Mission, failing to lachicve their object left Afghanistan early in 1916. The Indians remained. and the ‘Provisional Government’ addressed letters, both to the Gover- ; nor of Russian Turkestan and to the ■ then Tsar Nicholas 11.. signed by Mah--1 endra Pratap, inviting Russia to 2 abandon her alliance with Great Britain. and assist in the overthrow of J British rule in India. The letter to the F i Tsar was on a gold plate. ’j The "Provisional Government” also ' ) proposed to form an alliance with the ’ j Turkish Government, and the letters transmitted for this purpose were ncat- ? • ly and clearly written on yellow silk, j They discussed the formation of an "Army of God." which was to draw 1 recruits from India and to bring about an alliance among Islamic rulers. The headquarters were to be at Medina, while secondary headquarters under local generals were to bo established at Constantinople, Teheran, and Ivab- ! ul. > i I ' =