Bhagat Singh:The revolutionary within

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

On 8th April 1929, at 12.30 pm, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt threw two bombs in the central assembly Chamber with leaflets flying reflecting their spirit and outlining their aims, and exposing the hypocrisy of the British establishment to cloak the Indian people with false promises. Ironically, Sir John Simon, who was the chairman of the infamous Simon Commission, was also present during the session. Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt, who had all the time in this universe to flee from the scene, instead offered themselves for arrest as they never intended to escape. While offering arrest, they shouted the Slogans ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ (Long live the revolution). 

Singh and Dutt eventually responded to the criticism by writing the Assembly Bomb Statement:

“We hold human life sacred beyond words. We are neither perpetrators of dastardly outrages ... nor are we 'lunatics' as the Tribune of Lahore and some others would have it believed ... Force when aggressively applied is 'violence' and is, therefore, morally unjustifiable, but when it is used in the furtherance of a legitimate cause, it has its moral justification.” 

On 23rd March, 1931 at 7:30 pm, six days before the Karachi session of the Congress, Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru and Sukhdev were hanged in Lahore central jail.

Bhagat Singh was a member of the clan (family) comprised Staunch, nationalists and revolutionaries. His grandfather, Sardar Arjun Singh was an active Arya Samaj Supporter and his father Sardar Kishan Singh was closely associated with Bhai Parmanand. It is said that both his father and his uncle had once stayed in Bhai Parmanand house in Lahore. His father Sardar Kishan Singh had a history of supporting the Revolutionary organizations both financially and by all other means and was booked for the same under the Defence of India Act in 1914-1915. Bhagat himself grew up in an atmosphere where nationalism attracted the young individuals like a black hole and the brutality of the Colonial masters reached new levels. He was deeply inspired by his uncle, Sardar Ajit singh, and during the later part of his life enquired about his uncle's whereabouts from Jawaharlal Nehru, who met him in jail. Ajit Singh was deported to Mandalay in 1907 with Lala Lajpat Rai by the British government under the 1818 regulations for his key role in the agrarian Disturbances. Ajit Singh and Lala Lajpat Rai toured Punjab and educated the peasantry and landowning classes regarding the vicious colonial bills and launched a campaign for their abolition. Ajit Singh who was initially exiled to Burma, it is claimed that he escaped to Iran and Turkey, and finally reached Brazil.

Bhagat Singh joined D.A.V High school Lahore, though his education remained incomplete. Since an early age, Bhagat Singh was inclined to revolutionary activities. He admired Madan Lal Dhingra, who belonged to an aristocratic Family of Punjab and assassinated Sir Curzon Wyllie in London 1909. Bhagat Singh published an essay in the ‘Kirti’, paying tribute to Dhingra, he wrote: 'What a brave man he was, it is great to remember him. Many salutations to the valuable jewel of the dead country.' If one read the writings of Bhagat Singh it is evident that he always kept a track about the activities of the Revolutionaries in Punjab who had sacrificed their lives for the national cause. He was impressed by the courage and patriotic fervour of Bhai Balmukund Chibber, who was a cousin of Bhai Parmanand. Bhai Balmukund Chibber was a co- accused in the Delhi-Conspiracy case (He allegedly thrown a bomb on the viceroy Lord Hardinage in Chandni Chowk, New Delhi on 23rd December, 1912). On 11th May, 1915, Balmukund was hanged and later his wife, Ram Rakhi, starved herself to death 

Bhagat Singh had a special affinity for the Ghadrites and regarded their model as the most suitable one for the liberation of the country. Bhagat Singh was immensely impressed by the secular and democratic character of the Ghadr Party, who never allowed politics and religion to be mixed. On 15th November, 1913, the Ghadr Party published a weekly paper, “Ghadar”, Har Dayal as the chief editor. The caption beneath the name of the paper read, “Enemy of the British.”  Bhagat Singh also wrote a biography of the firebrand young revolutionary Kartar Singh Sarabha, a youth of eighteen and a half years old, who frame was regarded as the epicenter of revolutionary activities in Punjab. On 15th March, 1926, Bhagat Singh published an article in, “Pratap” about the glorious sacrifices and heroism of the ‘Babbar Akalis.”

Bhagat Singh's tenure in the National College proved to be the most critical and essential phase of his life. The National College was founded by Lala Lajpat Rai at Lahore, during the non- cooperation movement. Bhai Parmanand was its vice-chancellor. The college never had a regular teaching staff and was not affiliated to the Punjab University. According to Jaichandra Vidyalankar, Parmanand's lectures upon European History propelled the imagination of his students. Virendra Sindhu in her book, “Yugdrashta Bhagat Singh aur uske Mritunjay Purkha” claims that it was Parmanand who had arranged for Bhagat Singh's admission to the National College by arranging a special examination instead of the matriculation examination. It is interesting to note that during college days Bhagat Singh was more inclined towards the Irish revolutionary movement than the Russian Revolution. Bhai Parmanand was a patriot, educationalist, and an extraordinary man. He was a Mohyal Brahmin from Karyala In the Jhelum district. Parmanand received his M.A. Degree from Punjab University in 1902. He was a life member of the D.A.V. College, Lahore. He was a lecturer in History and Political economy. The D.A.V. College management had sent him abroad to collect funds for the development of the college and also to spread the ideals of the Arya Samaj. Parmanand continued his further education while abroad. Initially, he joined Cambridge University, later he went over to King's college, London, where he studied M.A. in History. Parmanand couldn't pass his examination as his thesis was never accepted. Parmanand delivered his lectures on Vedic religion in South Africa and established three, or four branches of the Arya Samaj as well. Emily.C.Brown, the biographer of Har Dayal, states that during Bhai Parmanand's visit to London, Parmanand had met V.D.Savarkar, and Savarkar brought him into the revolutionary movement.

Bhagat Singh's collection of books reflects that his main interest lies in understanding the rise of Human civilization, Socialism, the progressive development of revolutionary movements, the character of States, religion, international human rights. He quoted from Socrates, Plato, John Bodin, Thomas Acquines, Edmund Burke, John Locke, Thomas Paine, J.S.Mill, Spinoza, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Marx, Friedrich Engels, Karl Kautsky, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Bukharin, Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Omar Khayyam and Bertrand Russell. On patriotism, he quotes from Byron's “Prisoner of Chillon” and Tennyson's “A Charge of the Light Brigade.” He read Dostoevsky's “Crime and Punishment” and Victor Hugo's “les Miserables.” The socialist Upton Sinclair's polemics Oil and Boston mesmerized him. Jitendra Nath Sanyal, co-accused in the Lahore Conspiracy, and someone who knew Bhgat Singh because of his association with him, wrote:- 

‘Bhagat Singh was an extremely well -read man and his special sphere of study was Socialism. The batch of young men that figured in the Lahore Conspiracy case was essentially an intellectual one, but even in this group, Bhagat Singh preordained for his intellectual ascendancy’.

Bhagat Singh can be claimed as the one whose knowledge of the history of the Russian revolutionary movement from its beginning in the early 19th Century to the October Revolution to be astounding. In Simple, words, and Socialism was his specialty. 

Bhagat Singh realized a new hope for political advancement in Gandhian Non-cooperation movement but Gandhi's abandoning the movement because of the Chauri-Chaura incident on 5th February, 1922 disgruntled him with the Gandhian brand of Politics of appeasement. He also witnessed the collapse of the Non-cooperation movement. There was a surge in the spirit of Communal violence vitiating the atmosphere in the country. Bhagat Singh was also disillusioned by the halfhearted appeal of self rule as advocated by Moderates like Sir Ten Bahadur Sapru and M. R. Jayakar. He found Marxism as the elixir for all the ills which India suffered. Bhagat Singh and his associates were well aware of the existing class bifurcation that existed at that point in time and also of the terrible backwardness and minimal political developments of the Population, living under the yoke of exploitation and oppression. Bhagat Singh joined the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) and was elected as the General Secretary of its Committee. His new passion was journalism and wrote several articles in the vernacular press, in Urdu and Punjabi. He also worked with ‘Pratap press’ and “Vir Arjun.” In March 1926, Bhagat Singh founded the Naujawan Bharat Sabha at Lahore to inculcate revolutionary ideals among the youth. Comrade Ram Chander was appointed the president of the Sabha, with Bhagat Singh as its Secretary, and Bhagwati Charan Vohra as its treasurer. Naujawan Bharat Sabha aimed to establish an independent Socialist Republic of peasants and workers by all means possible and to draw more peasants and workers for furtherance of the political activities. The manifesto and the Constitution of the HRA reflected that the ultimate aim was to establish a federation of India by seizing power through a well- planned armed revolution in Russia. Bhagat Singh was first arrested in connection with a Bomb incident during Dussehra, in 1926, and remained there till the 17th of December 1928. Bhagat Singh and Raj-Guru shot dead a twenty-two-year-old British officer, John Poyntz Saunders, the assistant superintendent. Saunder's munshi, Chaman Singh, died during the firing. The incident took place when Saunder was just getting on his red Motorcycle, when he was shot dead at 4 pm. This incident was a retaliation for the Assassination of Lala Lajpat Rai who died because of injuries inflicted upon him during the protest procession against the Simon Commission on 30th October, 1928 at 12:30 pm.

References:- 

Bhai Parmanand, Ap, Biti (Urdu) p. 53.

Gandhi and Bhagat Singh, V.N Datta, Pub: Rupa, 01/05/2008

Bhagat Singh, in The Fragrance of Freedom, K.C. Yadav and Babar Singh (eds.), p. 198, also in Kirti, March 1928.

Bhagat Singh: The Ideas on Freedom, Liberty and Resolution: Jails Notes of a Revolutionary, K.C. Yadav and Babar Singh (eds.), p. 295

Emily C. Brown, Har Dyal Hindu Revolutionary and Rationalist,