Published By: Thinking Boxx Team
23 March 2022 || 19:34 || PM || IST
Bhagat singh was socialist and marxist-leninist in his political leanings, and these ideologies are usually bundled with atheism. And he wrote this in 1930- Why I am an Atheist.
The most significant part of Bhagat Singh's life is that spent in jail since his arrest on April 8, 1929 from the Central Assembly in Delhi, where he and B.K. Dutt offered themselves to be arrested after throwing harmless bombs in the Assembly to ‘make the deaf hear.' They faced two trials. The first was in the Delhi bomb case. It started on May 7, 1929 in Delhi and was committed to the Sessions Judge, on charges under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code and the Explosives Act. That trial started in June. Bhagat Singh and Dutt made a historic statement on June 6. Dutt was represented by the nationalist counsel Asaf Ali. Bhagat Singh fought his own case with the help of a legal adviser.
On June 12, in less than a week, both were convicted and transported for life. From the June 6 statement to his last letter to his comrades written on March 22, 1931, a day before his execution, Bhagat Singh read and wrote so much: one can only marvel at the explosion of talent at the age of 21 years-plus. He wrote letters to family members and friends, jail and court officials, and penned major articles including Why I am an Atheist, Letter to Young Political Workers, and Jail Notebook.
On June 14, after the conviction, Bhagat Singh was transferred to Mianwali and Dutt to the Lahore jail. That was the start of a chain of struggles throughout the period they were in jail. It began with a hunger strike from June 15 by both Bhagat Singh and Dutt, demanding the status of political prisoners. Bhagat Singh was also shifted to Lahore jail after some time. He and Dutt were kept away from the other accused in the Lahore conspiracy case, such as Sukhdev. The trial in that case, related to the murder of Saunders, began on July 10, 1929. Bhagat Singh, who was on hunger strike since June 15 along with Dutt, was brought to the court on a stretcher. The other accused in the case came to know about this hunger strike on that day, and almost all of them joined the strike.
This historic hunger strike by Bhagat Singh and his comrades resulted in the martyrdom of Jitender Das on September 13, 1929. Bhagat Singh and the other comrades ended their hunger strike on September 2 after receiving assurances from a Congress party team and British officials on the acceptance of their demands, but they resumed it on September 4 as the British officials went back on their word. It finally ended on October 4 after 112 days, though the status of “political prisoner” was still not given; some other demands were acceded to.
During the Lahore conspiracy case trial conducted by Special Magistrate Rai Sahib Pandit Kishan Chand, an incident occurred on October 21, 1929. Provoked by an approver named Jai Gopal, Prem Dutt, the youngest among the accused persons, threw a slipper at him. Despite the other accused dissociating themselves from the act, the magistrate ordered the handcuffing of all of them. Bhagat Singh, Shiv Verma, B.K. Dutt, Bejoy Kumar Sinha, Ajoy Ghosh, Prem Dutt and others were beaten after they refused to be handcuffed. They were treated brutally inside the jail and at the court gate in front of the magistrate. Ajoy Ghosh and Shiv Verma fell unconscious following the police brutality. Bhagat Singh was targeted by a British officer by name Roberts.
The details of the brutalities were recorded by Bejoy Kumar Sinha. In February 1930, Bhagat Singh resumed his hunger strike for 15 days, as the British officials did not fulfil the promises they had made earlier with respect to demands.
Meanwhile, the fame of revolutionaries, arising from their hunger strikes and court statements, soared, while the image of the British was at its lowest ebb. The case drew attention the world over. While dismissing appeals from Bhagat Singh and Dutt against the Delhi bomb case judgment, the Punjab High Court in Lahore acknowledged Bhagat Singh to be a ‘Sincere Revolutionary.'
The British colonial regime led by Viceroy Irwin took the unprecedented step of issuing the Lahore conspiracy case ordinance on May 1, 1930. Under this, the proceedings that were being conducted by a Special Magistrate in Lahore were transferred to a three-judge Special Tribunal established to complete them within a fixed period. The Tribunal's judgment was not to be challenged in the superior courts; only the Privy Council could hear any appeal. This ordinance was never approved by the Central Assembly or the British Parliament, and it lapsed later without any legal or constitutional sanctity. Its only purpose was to hang Bhagat Singh in the shortest possible time. That judgment sentencing Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru to the gallows was delivered on October 7, 1930.
The Tribunal began its proceedings on May 5, 1930. The accused in the Lahore conspiracy case refused to attend the proceedings after May 12. On that day they raised slogans and sung revolutionary songs. Brutalities were repeated on them, as in October 1929, in front of the Special Magistrate. This time Ajoy Ghosh, Kundan Lal and Prem Dutt fell unconscious. The accused remained absent during the whole proceedings and remained unrepresented by counsel. Advocates engaged to defend them were insulted by the Tribunal. Subsequently, the accused themselves directed them not to defend them in their absence. These details are in A.G. Noorani's book, The Trial of Bhagat Singh.
What remained out of view all these years were the many letters that Bhagat Singh wrote and the petitions he sent to either the jail authorities or to the Special Tribunal or to the Punjab High Court, during the period 1929-1930. In these letters and petitions, Bhagat Singh sought to expose the British colonial regime's determined efforts to get him hanged by denying the accused any defence during the trial. Even though the accused were choosing not to be present in the court, they were participating in the legal proceedings through counsel. The Tribunal refused the revolutionaries' counsel, Amolak Ram Kapoor, permission to cross-examine 457 prosecution witnesses and allowed the cross-examination of only five approvers. This was a farce.
The letters reveal another hunger strike by Bhagat Singh from July 28, 1930, on which he himself informed the High Court it was against the jail rules. He was joined in the hunger strike by Kundan Lal, Prem Dutt Verma, Sukhdev and Bejoy Kumar Sinha. This hunger strike continued till at least August 22. With this, the total period of hunger strikes observed during his nearly two-year incarceration becomes about five months. Probably this is more than the total period of Mahatma Gandhi's hunger strikes during his prolonged political career starting from South Africa.
When the court finally allowed interviews as sought by Bhagat Singh to prepare his defence, and when he asked for an adjournment of the case, the court closed the proceedings without giving any chance to defence counsel to cross-examine prosecution witnesses or present defence witnesses. Then it reserved judgment, which was delivered on October 7, 1930.
More such documents might emerge. The compilation of the complete proceedings of the Delhi Assembly bomb case and the Special Magistrate Court's proceedings could bring more facts to light. The Punjab Archives in Lahore has 135 files of the Bhagat Singh case. These are not accessible even to Pakistani scholars; Kuldip Nayar is now trying to get access to them. In 2006, at the time of the 75th anniversary of the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, the Acting Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court, Rana Bhagwan Dass, handed over to the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Chandigarh four volumes of exhibits of the Lahore conspiracy case. These included some new documents.
Some other dimension of life of Shaheed Bhagat Singh:
Must watch for trial :
To write something like this in a deeply religious country like India of the 1930's, which used religion in even its independence movement(let us not kid ourselves-most of our political leaders of that time were inspired by religious ideologies, with the notable exception of Mr Nehru) requires quite a bit of courage, even for someone as fearless as Mr. Bhagat Singh was supposed to be. It would seem to me that this courage could only come from actually identifying religion to be the trash it is. In my opinion, he nailed it when he said "religion is the outcome of human weakness or the limitation of human knowledge". It seems that he held the opinion that religion makes death easier. I couldn't agree more. To conclude, Mr. Singh was not just an atheist, but in all possibilities, a firebrand one.
If you are asking whether his mortal remains were consigned to the flames…yes he did die…but Do We really measure the end of a journey by its material end…I believe your question is more profound than that.
Bhagat Singh was hanged by British onsocietyy, re931.After five movies and many plays that portray the life of Bhagat Singh…I am pretty sure that he will continue to inspire actors, Writers, Directors, story tellers for generations to come.
Among freedom fighters read revolutionaries he was,he is an intellectual colossus who strides through the collective consciousness of Indians.There is something romantic about his death. An Indian like is inspired by him, ashamed as well we let down Bhagat Singh. He was an athiest still people call him Sardar Bhagat Singh, he could foresee the impending communal discord that engulfed India in 1940s and fanatical demagogues try to appropriate his legacy. He believed in casteless and classless society, remember he was only twenty three when he was sent to gallows and yet we are still living in a caste ridden society, Neo Liberalism that he could foresee is at our doorsteps.
After Jallianwala Bagh's incident at the age of 12, he bunked school and went to a tragic place. There he collected a bottle of mud, wet with the blood of Indians and worship it every day. In college, he was a great actor and played several roles in plays like ‘Rana Pratap’ and ‘Bharat-Durdasha’.
2. Bhagat Singh in his childhood always spoke about guns. He wanted to grow guns in the fields using which he can fight with the British. When he was 8 years old, instead of talking about toys or games he always speaks about driving out British from India.
3. When Bhagat Singh's parents wanted him to marry, he ran away to Kanpur. He told his parents that "if I will marry in colonial India, where British Raj is there, then my bride will be my death. Therefore, there is no rest or worldly desire that can lure me now’. Then, after this, he joined the "Hindustan Socialist Republican Association".
4. He was attracted to socialism and socialist revolutions led by Lenin at an early age and started reading about them. Bhagat Singh said ‘They may kill me, but not my ideas. They can crush my body, but will not be able to crush my spirit’.
5. Bhagat Singh had told the British that "instead of hanging they should shoot him" but the British did not consider it. He mentioned this in his last letter. Bhagat Singh wrote in this letter, "Since I was arrested during the war. Therefore, I cannot be punished for hanging. Let me be thrown into the mouth of a cannon. "This shows his braveness and the feeling for the nation.
6. Along with the associates, Bhagat Singh threw bombs in the Central Assembly, Delhi. They don’t want to injure anyone. The bombs were made of low-grade explosives.
Sorry, I went on a tangent…coming back to the topic…all is not lost… we can live his dream if we really admire him.
Bhagat Singh will never die because Inquilab never dies.
And just to point it out, he was willing to sacrifice himself for his people, as they say here in XLRI, for the greater good. He had no visions of heaven or any kind of unearthly reward. Well, that is extremely selfless and brave, to say the least.And I suppose that is why he still has a huge number of admirers among the youth.
But Recently, I was able to visit Newspaper liberary of “The Tribune” where Old Newspapers are fully digitalized. I was able to access Old Newspapers, where I found News articles and Editorials about Bhagat Singh during 1929 to 1931. It really helped me in finding why Bhagat Singh is So Popular .
Firstly, He didn't die in encounter. Most of the Freedom fighters met their fate in the form of encounters. Due to this, Armed revolutionaries were unable to communicate with Masses and were unable to propagate their ideas. They never ever able to justify, that why they had choosen “Armed revolution” over “Peaceful demonstrations” for Independence.
But, Bhagat singh was the guy who could have run away easily in the Chaos after Assembly attack (where they threw a bomb in an empty section of assembly, so that nobody gets hurt) but he chooses to Stay and Enchant “Inqilab Zindabad” and started throwing “Revolutionary literature” pages in the assembly, then , he peacefully surrendered. He was put on a Judicial trial. Media trial in Newspapers also started, which was a new phenomena then, from the next day of 9 April , 1929 to almost 2 years till he got executed, Indian media played the pivotal role in spreading his message.
He got the chance to propagate his vision and ideas about Independence during his trial and jail Satyagrahas. For 2 years in a row, from Peshawar to Itanagar and Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Newspapers on weekly basis gave information about his trial, what arguments he put in the court room for self defence. His famous Satyagraha also became big headlines where for weeks he fasted to protest against ill treatment of Political Prisioners.
Secondly, He was an intellectual, he had good schooling, it really helped him in communicating with the Masses and he knew what to say and how to say it, he really won propeganda war against Britishers by his argumentation. Media trial Revolutionalized the people of India, Bhagat singh become the talk of every town, his every revolutionary speach in trial room was published by Newspapers and people read the Newspapers among millions in common public places, which fill public with joy and anger on the same time. Mass protests and gatherings started for the support of the Bhagat singh and his revolutionary friends . Section 144 was imposed on many towns and cities for limiting Gatherings.
Thirdly, He was a revenge seeker and a underdog , who wouldn't love underdog. He was avenging the death of “Lala Lajpat Rai” who was killed in a lathi charge of the british on a Peaceful protest. This was also the Main reason why he had choosen Armed struggle than Peaceful protest as Peaceful protestors were brutely killed by britishers all over India. He was the brain of the revolutionary organization. He became crowd favorite because of his courage to Stand rather than Run away after assembly attack, even though he knew that ultimately he will be hanged.
Fourthly, Many people thought that he never got the fair chance in the trial, he was firstly accused of Act of Terrorism than they shifted it into Old Saunders Murder Case. He got the harsh punishment for the murder of the Saunders who was actually killed by the Shiv Ram Rajguru. But, he never left the side of his friends for escaping death. Without much evidence, he was hanged to death, secretly.
He is popular because he won propaganda war against britishers and able to communicate and encourage millions of youth to participate in Independence Movement during 2 year period of his trial.
He never ditched his friends to escape Death . Rajguru, Sukhdev and Bhagat Singh were true friends forever.
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