Everything about Bhagat Singh totally explained
Bhagat Singh (
Punjabi: ਭਗਤ ਸਿੰਘ (
Gurmukhi) بھگت سنگھ (
Shahmukhi), ) (
September 27,
1907 –
March 23,
1931) was an
Indian
freedom fighter, considered to be one of the most influential
revolutionaries of the
Indian independence movement. For this reason, he's often referred to as
Shaheed Bhagat Singh (the word
shaheed means "
martyr").
Born to a family which had earlier been involved in
revolutionary activities against the
British Raj in India, Singh, as a teenager, had studied European revolutionary movements and was attracted to
anarchism and
communism. He became involved in numerous revolutionary organizations. He quickly rose through the ranks of the
Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) and became one of its leaders, converting it to the
Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA). Singh gained support when he underwent a 63-day fast in jail, demanding equal rights for Indian and British political prisoners. He was hanged for shooting a police officer in response to the killing of veteran freedom fighter
Lala Lajpat Rai. His legacy prompted youth in India to begin fighting for Indian independence and also increased the rise of socialism in India.
Early life
Singh was born into a
Jatt Sandhu Singh's given name of Bhagat means "devotee". He came from a patriotic
Sikh family, some of whom had participated in movements supporting the independence of India and others who had served in
Maharaja Ranjit Singh's army. His grandfather, Sardar Kishan Singh, was a follower of
Swami Dayananda Saraswati's Hindu reformist movement,
Arya Samaj, which would carry a heavy influence on Singh. His uncles, Ajit Singh and Swaran Singh, as well as his father were members of the
Ghadar Party, led by
Kartar Singh Sarabha Grewal and
Har Dayal. Ajit Singh was forced to flee to
Persia because of pending cases against him while Swaran Singh was hanged on
December 19,
1927 for his involvement in the
Kakori train robbery of 1925.
Unlike many Sikhs his age, Singh didn't attend Khalsa High School in Lahore, because his grandfather didn't approve of the school officials' loyalism to the British authorities. Instead, his father enrolled him in
Dayanand Anglo Vedic High School, an Arya Samajist school. At age 13, Singh began to follow
Mahatma Gandhi's
Non-Cooperation Movement. At this point he'd openly defied the
British and had followed Gandhi's wishes by burning his government-school books and any British-imported clothing. Following Gandhi's withdrawal of the movement after the violent murders of policemen by villagers from
Chauri Chaura,
Uttar Pradesh, Singh, disgruntled with Gandhi's nonviolence action, joined the Young Revolutionary Movement and began advocating a violent movement against the British.
In 1923, Bhagat famously won an essay competition set by the Punjab Hindi Sahitya Sammelan. This grabbed the attention of members of the Punjab Hindi Sahitya Sammelan including its General Secretary Professor Bhim Sen Vidyalankar. At this age, he quoted famous Punjabi literature and discussed the
Problems of the Punjab. He read a lot of poetry and literature which was written by Punjabi writers and his favourite poet was
Allama Iqbal from
Sialkot.
In his teenage years, Bhagat Singh started studying at the National College in Lahore, but ran away from home to escape early marriage, and became a member of the organization
Naujawan Bharat Sabha ("Youth Society of India"). In September 1928, a meeting of various revolutionaries from across India was called at
Delhi under the banner of the
Kirti Kissan Party. Bhagat Singh was the secretary of the meet. His later
revolutionary activities were carried out as a leader of this association. The capture and hanging of the main HRA Leaders also allowed him to be quickly promoted to higher ranks in the party, along with his fellow revolutionary
Sukhdev Thapar.
Later revolutionary activities
Lala Lajpat Rai's death and the Saunders murder
The
British government created a
commission under
Sir John Simon to report on the current political situation in India in
1928. The Indian political parties boycotted the commission because it didn't include a single Indian as its member and it was met with protests all over the country. When the commission visited Lahore on
October 30,
1928,
Lala Lajpat Rai led the protest against Simon Commission in a silent non-violent march, but the police responded with violence. Lala Lajpat Rai was beaten with
lathis at the chest. This was followed by a shower of leaflets stating that it takes a loud voice to make the deaf hear. The bomb neither killed nor injured anyone; Singh and Dutt claimed that this was deliberate on their part, a claim substantiated both by British
forensics investigators who found that the bomb wasn't powerful enough to cause injury, and by the fact that the bomb was thrown
away from people. Singh and Dutt gave themselves up for arrest after the bomb. He and Dutt were sentenced to '
Transportation for Life' for the bombing on
June 12,
1929.
Trial and execution
Shortly after his arrest and
trial for the Assembly bombing, the British came to know of his involvement in the murder of J. P. Saunders. Bhagat Singh,
Rajguru, and
Sukhdev were charged with the
murder. Bhagat Singh decided to use the court as a tool to
publicize his cause for the independence of India. He admitted to the murder and made statements against the British rule during the trial. The case was ordered to be carried out without members of the HSRA present at the hearing. This created an uproar amongst Singh's supporters as he could no longer publicise his views.
While in jail, Bhagat Singh and other prisoners launched a hunger strike advocating for the rights of prisoners and those facing trial. The reason for the strike was that British murderers and thieves were treated better than Indian political prisoners, who, by law, were meant to be given better rights. The aims in their strike were to ensure a decent standard of food for political prisoners, the availability of books and a daily newspaper, as well as better clothing and the supply of toilet necessities and other hygienic necessities. He also demanded that political prisoners shouldn't be forced to do any labour or undignified work. During this hunger strike that lasted 63 days and ended with the British succumbing to his wishes, he gained much popularity among the common Indians. Before the strike his popularity was limited mainly to the
Punjab region.
Bhagat Singh also maintained the use of a diary, which he eventually made to fill 404 pages. In this diary he made numerous notes relating to the quotations and popular sayings of various people whose views he supported. Prominent in his diary were the views of
Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels. The comments in his diary led to an understanding of the philosophical thinking of Bhagat Singh. Before dying he also wrote a pamphlet entitled "Why I'm an atheist", as he was being accused of vanity by not accepting God in the face of death.
On
March 23,
1931, Bhagat Singh was
hanged in
Lahore with his fellow comrades Rajguru and Sukhdev. His supporters, who had been protesting against the hanging, immediately declared him as a
shaheed or martyr. According to the Superintendent of Police at the time, V.N. Smith, the hanging was advanced:
Normally execution took place at 8 am, but it was decided to act at once before the public could become aware of what had happened...At about 7 pm shouts of Inquilab Zindabad were heard from inside the jail. This was correctly, interpreted as a signal that the final curtain was about to drop.
Singh was cremated at
Hussainiwala on banks of
Sutlej river. Today, the
Bhagat Singh Memorial commemorates freedom fighters of India.
Ideals and opinions
Bhagat Singh was attracted to
anarchism and
communism. Bhagat Singh didn't believe in
Gandhian philosophy and viewed that Gandhian politics will replace one set of exploiters by another. Singh was an
atheist and promoted the concept of atheism by writing a pamphlet titled
Why I'm an Atheist.
Anarchism
From May to September, 1928, Bhagat Singh serially published several articles on anarchism in Punjabi periodical
Kirti. However, he began to question religious ideologies after witnessing the Hindu-Muslim riots that broke out after Gandhi disbanded the
Non-Cooperation Movement. He didn't understand how members of these two groups, initially united in fighting against the British, could be at each others' throats because of their religious differences. At this point, Singh dropped his religious beliefs, since he believed religion hindered the revolutionaries' struggle for independence, and began studying the works of
Bakunin,
Lenin,
Trotsky — all atheist revolutionaries. He also took an interest in Niralamba Swami's book
Common Sense, which advocated a form of "mystic atheism".
While in a condemned cell in 1931, he wrote a pamphlet entitled
Why I'm an Atheist in which he discusses and advocates the philosophy of
atheism. This pamphlet was a result of some criticism by fellow revolutionaries on his failure to acknowledge religion and God while in a condemned cell, the accusation of
vanity was also dealt with in this pamphlet. He supported his own beliefs and claimed that he used to be a firm believer in The Almighty, but couldn't bring himself to believe the myths and beliefs that others held close to their hearts. In this pamphlet, he acknowledged the fact that
religion made death easier, but also said that unproved
philosophy is a sign of human weakness.
Death
Bhagat Singh was known for his appreciation of
martyrdom. His mentor as a young boy was
Kartar Singh Sarabha. Singh is himself considered a
martyr for acting to avenge the death of
Lala Lajpat Rai, also considered a martyr. In the leaflet he threw in the Central Assembly on 9th April 1929, he stated that
It is easy to kill individuals but you can't kill the ideas. Great empires crumbled while the ideas survived. After engaging in studies on the Russian Revolution, he wanted to die so that his death would inspire the youth of India to unite and fight the British Empire.
While in prison, Bhagat Singh and two others had written a letter to the Viceroy asking him to treat them as prisoners of war and hence to execute them by
firing squad and not by
hanging. Prannath Mehta, Bhagat Singh's friend, visited him in the jail on March 20, four days before his execution, with a draft letter for clemency, but he declined to sign it. A variation on this theory is that Gandhi actively conspired with the British to have Singh executed. Both theories are highly controversial and hotly contested. Gandhi's supporters say that Gandhi didn't have enough influence with the British to stop the execution, much less arrange it. Furthermore, Gandhi's supporters assert that Singh's role in the independence movement was no threat to Gandhi's role as its leader, and so Gandhi would have no reason to want him dead.
Gandhi, during his lifetime, always maintained that he was a great admirer of Singh's
patriotism, but that he simply disapproved of his violent methods. He also said that he was opposed to Singh's execution (and, for that matter,
capital punishment in general) and proclaimed that he'd no power to stop it. On Singh's execution, Gandhi said, "The government certainly had the right to hang these men. However, there are some rights which do credit to those who possess them only if they're enjoyed in name only." Gandhi also once said, on capital punishment, "I can't in all conscience agree to anyone being sent to the gallows. God alone can take life because He alone gives it."
Gandhi had managed to have 90,000 political prisoners who were not members of his
Satyagraha movement released under the pretext of "relieving political tension," in the
Gandhi-Irwin Pact. According to a report in the Indian magazine
Frontline, he did plead several times for the commutation of the death sentence of Bhagat Singh,
Rajguru and
Sukhdev, including a personal visit on March 19, 1931, and in a letter to the Viceroy on the day of their execution, pleading fervently for commutation, not knowing that the letter would be too late.
Lord Irwin, the Viceroy, later 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 judgment to be influenced by purely political considerations. I couldn't imagine a case in which under the law, penalty had been more directly deserved.
Legacy
Indian independence movement
Bhagat Singh's death had the effect that he desired and he inspired thousands of youths to assist the remainder of the Indian independence movement. After his hanging, youths in regions around Northern India rioted in protest against the British Raj.
Modern day legacy
The Communist Party of India (Marxist), a political party in India, acknowledges Bhagat Singh's contribution to Indian society and, in particular, the future of socialism in India. To celebrate the centenary of his birth, a group of intellectuals have set up an institution to commemorate Singh and his ideals.
Several popular Bollywood films have been made capturing the life and times of Bhagat Singh. The oldest was Shaheed in 1965, starring Manoj Kumar as Singh. Two major films about Singh were released in 2002, The Legend of Bhagat Singh and . The Legend of Bhagat Singh is Rajkumar Santoshi's adaptation, in which Ajay Devgan played Singh and Amrita Rao was featured in a brief role. 23 March 1931: Shaheed was directed by Guddu Dhanoa and starred Bobby Deol as Singh, with Sunny Deol and Aishwarya Rai in supporting roles.
The 2006 film Rang De Basanti (starring Aamir Khan) is a film drawing parallels between revolutionaries of Bhagat Singh's era and modern Indian youth. It covers a lot of Bhagat Singh's role in the Indian freedom struggle. The movie revolves around a group of college students and how they each play the roles of Bhagat's friends and family.
The patriotic Urdu and Hindi songs, Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna (translated as "the desire to sacrifice") and Mera Rang De Basanti Chola ("my light-yellow-colored cloak"; Basanti referring to the light-yellow color of the Mustard flower grown in the Punjab and also one of the two main colors of the Sikh religion as per the Sikh rehat meryada(code of conduct of the Sikh Saint-Soldier) ), while created by Ram Prasad Bismil, are largely associated to Bhagat Singh's martyrdom and have been used in a number of Bhagat Singh-related films.
Criticism
Bhagat Singh was criticized both by his contemporaries and by people after his death because of his violent and revolutionary stance towards the British and his strong opposition to the pacifist stance taken by the Indian National Congress and particularly Mahatma Gandhi. The methods he used to make his point—shooting Saunders and throwing non-lethal bombs—were quite different from the non-violent non-cooperation used by Gandhi.
Further Information
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