8th August 2020

 Musings.......

Freedom Fighters- Part 8 

Bhagat Singh 

Bhagat Singh was born into a Sikh family in 1907 in Lyallpur district of Punjab Province in present day Pakistan.  

In 1919, while only 12 years old Bhagat Singh visited the site of Jallianwala Bagh massacre hours after thousands of unarmed people gathered at a public meeting had been killed.  

In 1923, Bhagat Singh joined the National College in Lahore, where he founded the Indian socialist youth organisation Naujawan Bharat Sabha - in 1926 inspired by Young Italy movement of Giuseppe Mazzini. 

Bhagat Singh joined the Hindustan Republican Association ( HRA ) which had prominent leaders like Chandrasekhar Azad, Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqallah Khan. 

To avoid an arranged marriage he ran away from his hometown. In a letter he left behind he said - 

“ My life has been dedicated to the noblest cause, that of the freedom of the country. Therefore, there is no rest or worldly desire that can lure me now. “ 

In 1928 after Lala Lajpat Rai succumbed to injuries from lathicharge of British Police, for protesting against the Simon Commission,  Bhagat Singh and his Hindustan Socialist Republican Organisation (HSRA) vowed to avenge Lajpat Rai’s death.  

He along with his associates Shivram Rajguru, Sukhdev Thapar, and Chandrasekhar Azad planned your kill the SP James Scott who ordered the lathicharge. However, in a case of mistaken identity they shot and killed John P Saunders, an Assistant SP in 1928. 

Mahatma Gandhi condemned the violence but Jawaharlal Nehru wrote - 

“ Bhagat Singh did not become popular because of his act of terrorism but because he seemed to vindicate, for the moment, the honour of Lala Lajpat Rai, and through him of the nation. He became a symbol, the act was forgotten, the symbol remained, and within a few months each town and village of the Punjab, and to a lesser extent in the rest of northern India, resounded with his name. “ 

Further, Bhagat Singh wanted to inspire the revolt against the British.  The opportunity came in 1929. 

Bhagat Singh with Battukeshwar Dutt threw two bombs into the Central Legislative Assembly from its public gallery when it was in sesssion.  

They shouted the slogan ‘ Inquilab Zindabad’ and threw leaflets. They could have escaped jail but decided not to and were arrested.  

In the trial that followed, Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were charged with Saunders murder. 

Bhagat Singh started a hunger strike in jail citing discrimination between British and Indian prisoners. The hunger strike inspired public support for Singh and his colleagues. 

Jawaharlal Nehru met Bhagat Singh and others on hunger strike and later wrote- 

“ I was very much pained to see the distress of the heroes. They have staked their lives in this struggle. They want that political prisoners should be treated as political prisoners. I am quite hopeful that their sacrifice would be crowned with success.” 

The condition of one hunger striker Jatindra Nath Das deteriorated and died on the 63rd day of strike. The government earlier had rejected his unconditional release on medical grounds.  

Bhagat Singh finally heeded to a resolution of the Congress party and a request by his father, ending t he hunger strike after 116 days.  Bhagat Singh was by now a legend in North India.  

An appeal to the Privy council to free Bhagat Singh was dismissed by Lord Viscount Dundein. 

The then Congress President Madan Mohan Malviya filed a mercy appeal to Viceroy Lord Irwin in 1931 which was rejected.  Even Gandhiji intervened which was noted by the Viceroy who wrote- 

“While returning Gandhiji asked me if he could talk about the case of Bhagat Singh because newspapers had come out with the news of his slated hanging on March 24th. I explained to him that I had given a very careful thought to it but I did not find any basis to convince myself to commute the sentence.” 

Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were executed on 24th March 1931 by hanging. Bhagat Singh was 24 years old at the time of death.  

There was controversy over some suggesting that Gandhi could have stopped Bhagat Singh’s execution. Lord Irwin the Viceroy said - 

“ As I listened to Mr. Gandhi putting the case for commutation before me, I reflected first on what significance it surely was that the apostle of non-violence should so earnestly be pleading the cause of the devotees of a creed so fundamentally opposed to his own, but I should regard it as wholly wrong to allow my judgement to be influenced by purely political considerations. I could not imagine a case in which under the law, penalty had been more directly deserved”. 

This should itself put an end to the controversy.  

Bhagat Singh’s execution was met with nationwide anger and violence in Punjab.  

Bhagat Singh inspired millions while he was alive and more after his death.  He regarded Kartar Singh, founder of Ghadar Party as his hero. He was inspired by Bhai Parmanand. 

Historian KN Panikkar describes Bhagat Singh as one of the early Marxists in India. His hero was not Marx but Lenin and when asked his last wish, he replied that he wanted to finish reading on Lenin’s life. 

The courage of Bhagat Singh and his associates is a lesson for everyone in life. 

That he continues to inspire many even today is testimony to his following. 

The youth in India still draws tremendous inspiration from Bhagat Singh. He is a role model and someone to look upto in times of adversity. 

In the leaflet that be threw in the Central Assembly he stated -

“ It is easy to kill individuals but you cannot kill the ideas. Great empires crumbled, while the ideas survived”. 

Food for Thought.......

RC