My project attempts to historically trace how socialist and revolutionary forms of politics arose in colonial Punjab from the period 1906-1926. The wave of migrant Punjabi laborers to the Pacific West Coast at the turn of the 20th century is crucial to analyzing the socioeconomic origins of diasporic nationalist politics. Agrarian unrest, collective labor coalitions, and Sikh values contributed to the poetic and martyr-centric ethos of the proto-socialist party Ghadar. The analysis of the formation and development of the Ghadar Party relies on historical work done at the Bancroft Library archives, specifically the South Asians in North America, 1899-1974 collection. As opposed to the prominent historiography situating the Ghadar party into the trend of anti-colonial cosmopolitanism, a more critical evaluation of the sources demonstrates how local conditions and mentalities shaped the production, reception, and distribution of Ghadar literature and activity. The radical methods utilized by the Ghadar Party to contest imperial barriers, citizenship, and the role of labor in society differentiated them from the contemporary pan-Indian political coalitions. These methods included socialist experimentation between intellectuals and workers and the militarization of organized action. A potential sphere for future research is the cultural integration and evolution of the Ghadar’s legacy in Punjab’s post-colonial political life.